Jack’s hands, fingers splayed out, sweep up my back and meet under my hair at the nape of my neck. He has fistfuls of it, pulling my head back, slowly, and I’m waiting for the kiss.
Waiting for it, but I don’t get it.
His fingers trace my collarbone, then down, spiraling around my breasts, and by the time they make it to my nipples, spiraling upward, I’m begging for it. Not literally begging.
Back arched.
Mouth waiting.
Okay, begging.
“Jack!”
Big mistake. Maybe. He holds my hands over my head while he’s kissing my face. Eyes, ears, cheeks. Barely my lips. Then finally in for my whole mouth, lips, tongue, and teeth a little.
This might be what A-plus in sex looks like.
I try to raise my head to kiss him back, but he’s two inches too far above me. His hair brushes my cheek.
He pulls farther away from me, looking down from above me, and swoops back in, leading with the lips again, but more intense.
He says, “Do you like that?”
“Get your mouth back there!”
“Or here?”
Yes, here. The side of my neck. The hollow at the base of my neck. Collarbone. Breasts.
I strain to kiss him, but I still can’t get there with my hands pinned. I say, “If you let go of me, there might be something in it for you.”
Jack cracks up and releases me. I take hold of him. His shoulders and down his back. Pull him toward me. Reach down toward his butt.
Jack says, “Slow it down, Xena.”
I feel kind of criticized, but I want it so bad, I halfway don’t care.
He says, “Baby?”
“Don’t tease me.”
“Sorry. Soon you’ll be so happy, you’ll forgive me.”
“You are so master-of-the-universe!”
“Aren’t you supposed to be panting or something?”
“Make me.”
Which he kind of does.
Shows me what I was slowing down for. His hands between my thighs, first gentle, then not, and then the unexpected kisses.
“Jack! Oh God! Now!”
“Who’s bossy now?”
“Now!”
He’s got me in his arms. I’m going, “Do. Not. Stop.”
“Who’s stopping?”
You know how people say they didn’t know which way was up, and you think, Sure you didn’t? Well, I didn’t.
I completely didn’t.
A hand cradling my head. An arm across my back, fingers with just enough pressure curled over my shoulder that I know he means it.
It feels like forever.
In a good way.
As if I get a forever, and this is it.
Jack going, “Do you like this?” Every breath of me going yes.
But every cell of my brain is going, Open your eyes.
Open up and see the problematic aspects of this.
Go back to the part before you were so turned on you didn’t care. How you made sure you could reach the iron lamp. Just in case this was another spectacular failure of judgment and impulse control.
Like last time.
I try to just be there in the perfect moment.
I try not to think, but I can’t help it.
I force myself up, out of the cocoon of sheets and arms and toes.
I get all flowery disentangling myself from him. Legs entwined like morning glory. Musky like morning in the woods near Green Lake, when the mist is burning off and you can hear your footsteps in the fallen leaves.
Seriously?
This is a motel room in Nebraska. It smells like insecticide.
This is sex, not Romeo and Juliet. Who ended up dead.
Get up.
Up into the air-conditioned chill. Cover myself up on the next bed over. For perspective. The literal kind, where our legs aren’t entwined like anything, and his hand isn’t warm against my cheek.
I just want him.
Every cell of my head is going, You idiot. Don’t go sex-brained. It was kind of perfect, but he has an arsenal in his duffel bag.
Every cell of the rest of me—heart, nerve endings, the pit of my stomach—is going, More, more, more. Forever. Jack, Jack, Jack.
Brain: Get dressed.
Heart: Look at that smile. That’s the way a girl is supposed to be smiled at. This is it. Accept it. Take it. Cave.
Seriously, cave.
But how can I?
When all I know for sure is that I have to get home and fix this or there’s no forever.
For me.
Or for him.
Or for us.
72
Jack
This girl is not a virgin.
“Oh my God, Nicolette.”