He shakes his head, just a little. “No,” he admits. He brushes his fingers lightly over my cheek, his attention on my face, his eyes searching mine. At first, he looks lost, but that soon changes as heat and need build in his eyes. Both are directed at me, and neither are a question. There is no permission to be granted, no request to be made. He simply slides his hand around to cup the back of my neck and pulls me toward him, then captures my mouth with his.
I open to him without hesitation, not just my lips, but my whole body. I am his, wholly and completely, and however he needs me.
He deepens the kiss, his tongue teasing and tasting. His mouth hot and desperate against mine.
I expect more. The crush of his hands upon my breasts. An explosion of breath as he pushes me back on the mattress, then rises to slam the door shut and flip the latch. The shift of the mattress as he returns, and the sound of ripping cotton as he strips me of my panties.
I anticipate the feel of his body over mine. Of my wrists bound tight by his T-shirt that I wear in lieu of pajamas as he yanks it over my head and then uses it to bind me.
I imagine the tightness in my inner thighs as he roughly spreads my legs, and the quick burn of friction as he enters me hard in one thrust and then loses himself to this wild passion that he needs. That he craves.
I expect all this because I know him. Because his world has spun out of control, and Jackson is a man who not only needs control, but who takes it. He is not a man to be swept up in the tide, battered by the rise and fall of circumstance. He fights back. He wins. He takes.
I channelled control into sex.
He’d told me that once. And he’s shown me as much many, many times.
And yet he doesn’t come. He doesn’t take. He doesn’t claim.
Instead, he stands and crosses from the bed to the window, then drags his fingers through his hair. His back is to me, and the table is in front of him. My coffee and toast are still there, untouched. He pushes the tray aside and opens the curtains, letting in the morning light.
We are in Betty Wiseman’s house, Ronnie’s maternal great-grandmother. The family is well-to-do, but this New Mexico home is a small getaway, a “mere” five thousand square feet. Jackson and I are in one of the guest rooms that overlook the back of the property. The view I’d seen yesterday evening is magnificent—the rocky, rising terrain of the mountains, dressed up in their fall colors. The verdant grasses and evergreens. The browns and reds of stones and foliage. And, of course, the vivid blue sky, so wide and resplendent that it seems to slide into and fill your soul.
But from where I still sit, stiff and awkward on the bed, I see only a small section of our covered patio and a view of the side of the house. I’m not at the proper angle to see the beautiful panorama that Jackson is looking at right now. Instead, our perspectives are entirely different, and that small reality eats at me, making me feel distant from him. Disconnected.
I lick my lips, feeling impotent and lost. And, yes, a little bit angry, too. Because, dammit, I don’t want to see him in pain, not if I can soothe him.
But that’s the heart of it, isn’t it? That’s really my greatest fear.
Not that I’m unable to soothe Jackson, but that he would rather bear this burden alone.
No.
I toss the covers aside and walk to him, then slide my arms around his waist from behind so that I am pressed against him, my cheek against his back. I breathe in the scent of him, male and musk and just the tiniest bit of fabric softener. It’s clean, maybe even a little bit domestic. But on Jackson, it’s also very, very sexy.
My hands are at his waist, and it would be so easy to ease them down. To stroke him and make him hard. To tease and coax. To seduce and please.
To make him so hot and so hard that he wants nothing but me, can think of nothing but me. To tease and seduce until he picks me up and throws me onto the bed in a violent explosion that not only consumes us both but destroys the shadows that have crept in between us, banishing them with fire and heat and light.