AFTER I CHOKE down some food, Jack takes my hand and leads me down the hallway to my bedroom. I pad behind him, my legs nearly boneless, my thoughts somewhere in the vicinity of the clouds. I’d follow him pretty much anywhere at this point.
He closes the door behind us and brings me close enough for a quick kiss that steals all sense. When he strips my clothes off with startling efficiency, my first response is to cover my nakedness with an arm.
Jack tips my chin up to look at me and draws my arm away. “Don’t. There’s nothing about you I want you to hide.” He pulls me close with a hand on my cheek. “I like everything about you, Sofie. Even the parts you want to keep in the dark.”
“I thought I was just a friend,” I say, slightly teasing, but there’s a thread of hope in there, too.
“You’ve never been just an anything, Sof.”
I open my mouth to respond, but he cuts me off by taking my mouth with his. My hands come up to press against his chest and I make a sound of surprise that he laps up with his sinfully skilled tongue.
Over the years, I had run from every romantic entanglement, throwing myself into my work in an effort to replace the emptiness I felt when I left Jack. As a result, my experience, aside from him, is essentially nil. Even so, the moment he fits my body against his with one long press of his big hands against my back, I forget to worry about it. I forget to think, period.
He breaks the kiss with a groan. “Holy God, you taste so fucking good.” He takes my lips again, parting them to delve inside with a commanding sweep of his tongue. “The best,” he says. “I could kiss you forever.”
“Shut up,” I murmur against his lips.
“Tell me if I need to stop,” he says, helping me down to the bed. “I don’t want to go too far.”
I nod. “I will. Just kiss me.”
I expect him to go for it, to plunder and take, but he doesn’t. I should have known better. Instead, he brushes that damn kiss on my forehead, then nuzzles down the side of my cheek as he lays me down on the bed. I have to clutch his shoulders to keep steady when the soft press of his lips travel from the crest of my cheek back to my lips. By then, I’m squirming beneath him in an attempt to get closer. I wind up draped across him, his hands mapping my back and venturing down my thighs.
Unintentionally, my hips grind down against him, wrenching a pained groan from us both. He shifts, tracing one hand up my hip and over my ass. His fingers brush against a sensitive spot and I arch my neck against him. He fastens his lips there, flicking a path back to my lips. I focus my attention back on his mouth. I tense when his fingers dip under the material of my underwear, but he doesn’t do anything he just lays his hand there as he kisses me senseless.
After a few minutes, my hips are pressing against him of their own violation, searching for something that I don’t quite understand.
“Shh, baby,” he says against my lips as he turns me to lay on my back with his long, muscular body beside me. “I’ll take care of you.”
Finally, his hand moves to cover the most intimate part of me. His fingers slide against me until he finds the bundle of nerves that makes me gasp, still sensitive from the earlier stimulation. The sound makes him stiffen in response. Guided by my sounds, he slowly works that spot until I have to press my forehead to his throat. I find myself opening to him and wrapping a leg around his hip.
In the end, his fingers are fluttering a relentless pace against me. I’m pressed up against him as close as I can get without the two of us becoming one. We’re sharing an open mouth kiss that seemingly has no beginning or end. I can’t help the little keening sounds coming out of the back of my throat in time with each flick of his masterful fingers. My hips are working of their own accord and I can feel the thickness of him every time I thrust forward.
Any other time, my wayward thoughts would send me in the other direction, but because it’s Jack I feel safe. For the first time, I imagine what it would be like to make love to him without fear or shame. The thought clicks something inside of me and I forget the pretense of kissing as my body locks up against him.