Needing her kiss like he needed to breathe, Jax descended and laid claim to her mouth. He moved his lips over hers, pushing her onto the rock until the water cascaded around her body, a fluid outline of the soft curves that tempted his baser self. Her arms hooked under his, her hands gripped the backs of his shoulders, and she pulled him in so not even air could pass between them.
Shifting the lower half of his body, he positioned one of his legs between hers, grabbed her ass in both hands, and hauled her onto his thigh. Without further instruction, she rolled her hips to slowly grind her sex over his solid muscle. His tongue danced with hers to the music of the rushing falls surrounding them. She tasted of mint, coffee…and her.
No one tasted like her. No one felt like her. No one touched him—physically or emotionally—like her.
“Make love to me, Jackson.”
Fuck, yes. Wait… Gathering every shred of willpower he had, he said, “Not here.”
She retaliated with a, “Yes, here,” and bit his bottom lip before her tongue swept in and scattered his resolve to the four winds.
The woman was dangerous. She had the power to make him lose control, something he’d never experienced before with anyone else. He could easily lose himself in her emerald eyes, from the scent of her skin or the power of her kiss. And he wasn’t sure he’d care if he never found his way back.
Jax shifted his weight and felt his foot slip a little on one of the rocks, reminding him of exactly why he’d said no to begin with. He wrenched his mouth from hers, but before he could reiterate his earlier statement and tack on the safety explanation, one of her hands snaked down to run the length of his stiff cock before lightly squeezing his balls.
He took a sharp intake of breath through clenched teeth and let it out on a groan as he pushed himself into her palm. She looked up at him with an impish smile, clearly proud of herself for eliciting such a reaction from him.
“You think it’s funny when you get me to lose my shit, don’t you?” he asked. She nodded, a glimmer of mischief in eyes framed by wet, spiky lashes. Her lips, swollen and red from his kisses, held the barest hint of a smirk, as though she knew enjoying the moment too much would get her into worse trouble than she already was. Smart woman.
Willful woman.
“Let’s see how funny you think it is when the roles are reversed, princess.”
…
Vanessa became weightless as he picked her up and cradled her in his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck and looked up to find him staring down at her.
She could almost see the flurry of thoughts in his mind; he looked that intense. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t begin to guess what they were. Did they have to do with what just happened? Or something about her? Were they good or bad? Shit, when did she become so neurotic?
“Everything okay?” she asked.
He blinked, then gave her the smile that made her insides melt. “Better than okay. You hungry?”
“Famished.”
“Good. I brought some things I think you’ll like.”
He carried her over the rocks as easily as if they’d been flat, dry, and she weighed little more than a feather. Such grace in a man so large not only defied basic physics but spat in its face. It also turned her on something fierce.
Once they reached their blankets, Jax set her down and started to rummage around in the small cooler. The sun bounced off his tan skin and the dark images in his tattoo. The waves almost looked as though they rippled from the way his bicep moved with the simplest of motions. She loved his arms. So strong and sure, Vanessa couldn’t remember ever feeling so safe and protected as when Jackson wrapped his arms around her.
Lowering herself to the blanket next to him, she said, “I’m suddenly hungry for something other than food.”
His mouth quirked up in the corner as he turned to look at her. “That’s the dessert menu you’re talking about, babe. That typically comes after the main course.”
She bit her lip for a second and then remembered that one of her coworkers told her that she has special days with her kids where they have dessert for dinner and then watch movies. “But it’s a special day, right? So on special days we should be able to have dessert first.”
“I don’t know,” he hedged. “That sounds an awful lot liking breaking the rules.”
Her jaw dropped a second before he started to laugh. She retaliated by smacking him on the arm and pushing him away when he tackled her for a makeup kiss. She lasted all of two seconds before releasing a fit of giggles from her chest and giving in to the magic of his mouth.
A minute later he set them both to rights again and said they could indeed skip to dessert. So she was confused when he went back to the cooler instead of building on the amazing lip-lock they had going on.
He held up a bottle and two plastic flutes. “Thirsty?”
“Ooh, champagne. Absolutely.”