“It’s just you and me here. But I want everything. Everything,” I demand, adding a third finger.
Does she feel me? Does she fucking feel me? Everywhere? I want to be her fucking everything. Goddammit just let me, Callie. Let me in.
I shift slightly and my cock angles, hitting even deeper inside her and she grinds against me and oh fuck—
“Jackson!” she screams, clutching me with every part of her body, her pussy contracting on my cock in a way that—
I pull out and shove to the hilt and cum harder than I ever have in my life.
Damn— Did I— I swear I just blacked out for a moment there.
When I come to, I find Callie blinking and looking at me in shock, panting, fingernails impaling my shoulder but I don’t care. I don’t fucking care. She’s my goddamned nirvana. She’s my everything. Jesus, maybe that’s all I proved just now. That she’s destroyed me.
I wrap my arms around her. Tight. I need to know she’s real. I need her to be mine and I have the worst feeling that if I don’t hold tight enough, she’ll disappear.
But she can’t. She can’t.
Me before Callie… fuck, I can’t even remember what that sad bastard’s life was like. Except I can. I know what it’s like to have Callie and then lose her. I’m not sure I could survive it twice.
I bury my face in her breasts. I just mean to hold her, but goddammit, her nipples are so gorgeous and tempting, soon I’m kissing and licking and teasing and laughing. The next second, I collapse backwards on the bed, taking Callie with me, of course. Always taking her with me.
She’s laughing too. I have no idea what we’re laughing at but this is the moment I want to remember when I’m on my deathbed. Laughing and holding the woman I know I’ll love into eternity.
We just lie like that for several minutes, laughing and holding one another. I keep my face buried in her breasts because this feeling, Jesus, it’s so big. If I even look at her I know I’ll want to blurt it out. How much I love her. How I want to marry her. Adopt Charlie. All of it. I want all of it with her.
It’s only after a few minutes that I realize, shit, I didn’t use a condom and she’s just got my cum dripping out of her and making a mess on the sheets and her thighs.
I roll her so that her back is on the bed and get up. “Be back in a sec.”
She throws an arm over her face and mutters something I can’t hear.
“Did you say something?”
“No,” she says too quickly.
She’s already putting her walls back up. My heart sinks but only a little. Maybe I didn’t demolish them completely today but I made inroads. And every single day I’ll keep hammering until finally they give way and crumble completely.
I hurry to the bathroom and soak a rag in hot water, then come back and start to clean her thighs.
She looks down and then her eyes widen and she jerks to a sitting position. “Oh fuck!” Her eyes shoot to mine like she’s just now realizing we didn’t use a condom, too. “I’m on the pill. And I’m clean.”
I just laugh. “I wasn’t worried.” I lean over and kiss her. “I’m clean, too. I would never endanger you if I wasn’t.”
“But you couldn’t have known I was on the pill.”
Well. I didn’t think about that. Which is surprising because that would have been my first worry if it had been any one else. But even now, thinking about it. Jesus. Looking down at Callie. I already know I want her to be my forever. It would be a little soon but I wouldn’t have minded if she weren’t on the pill.
She’s still sitting there looking really freaked out, though, so I don’t say that out loud.
“My job description is to worship you.” I hold up the warm towel and cock an eyebrow. “Can I get back to it now?”
She lies back on the bed again but doesn’t look any less freaked out.
“Stay here,” I say before jogging back to the bathroom to lay out the rag before returning. She’s still there but she looks like she’s not sure if this is the part where she should bolt or not. I’ll be putting a stop to that.
“Move over.”
Her brows furrow.
“Over,” I say, adding command to my voice. She scoots over and I let out a breath of relief. With as vulnerable as things just got between us, there’s always a chance she could react by trying to take two steps back.
I pull back the covers on the big bed and slide in beside her.
“Now here,” I swirl my finger to demonstrate that she should roll back against my side.
“We’re going to sleep here?” she lowers her voice, glancing around, “in the sex room?”
I laugh and drag her against me. Jesus she’s adorable. And damn but I’m exhausted. The second she snuggles up warm beside me, my eyes drop shut like lead weights are attached to them.
“No windows,” I murmur. “Best place in the house to sleep after I’ve pulled an all-nighter.”
She pulls the silken sheet over us, one of her small hands coming up to cup my cheek that has a lot more than a five-o-clock shadows worth of stubble on it.
“Sleep,” she whispers, and this time, I’m happy to obey her command.
Chapter Seventeen
CALLIE
Hot kisses at the back of my neck wake me. It’s dark. Completely dark. My whole body tenses, ready to scream and fight. Just as I make a fist and jerk my elbow forward so I can deliver a punishing gut-blow to whatever fucker got me in this vulnerable position, I smell it. Woods. Pine.
Jackson.
Memories of last night fled back in. I’m with Jackson. I’m safe.
“Babe?” he questions, his kisses pausing. He must’ve felt the tension tighten my body.
I turn my head and meet his mouth with mine. For about point two seconds I think about morning breath, but all thought is quickly swallowed up by sensation. The fear-followed-by-arousal is also disturbingly erotic.
I try to turn in Jackson’s hold, but with one firm arm around my waist, he holds me still. “I want you like this, beautiful,” he whispers. His hips move into me from behind and his long, thick erection nudges the backs of my thighs.
He slips one hand underneath my body and massages my breast. The other caresses slowly down my torso, dipping into my belly button before dropping lower, lower—
I moan and squirm beneath his ministrations as wetness seeps between my legs.
“Jackson…”
“Let me worship you,” he whispers, going back to kissing and nipping the back of my neck.
It continues like that for several minutes with me growing wetter and wetter. The way he’s holding me, I can barely grab him.
He’s holding onto his power position from last night and I’m not sure how I like it. But oh— I melt against him as he begins rubbing in earnest at that spot.
I do so like what he’s doing. It’s— Oh God, right there, yes.
It’s good but not enough.
“I need you in me,” I rasp. “Get that cock in me. I need it hard. I need you in me so hard.”
I try one more time to turn and loop a leg around his hip, but he just growls and grips the back of my right leg to part me for him.
I’m about to tell him not like that, but then he’s filling me and the protest dies on my tongue. He spoons me as he thrusts deep up inside me, the position forcing a tight grip on his cock. He groans in appreciation and my head dips back on his shoulder.
Again, I breathe him in. Just like last night, I ground myself in his scent. When he first began probing my ass last night, I lost it for a few moments. I was back in that horrible room, men at my front and back, violating—
But then no. I inhaled. Just like I do now. Woods and pine and everything Jackson.
And it keeps me totally present. Here, with him, held so tight, one of his hands on my breast and the other moving back to tease at my clit.
No space for ghosts. Just him and me.
He makes my body new.
“Christ, your pussy’s clut
ching me like a vise. Fuck. Never felt anything like it.” He sucks on the back of my neck. Hard.
He’s marking me. I’ll have to wear my hair down to cover it. I love it. I want to claw and bite him to mark him as mine in return. Even the thought makes me wild.
I grasp what parts of him I can, reaching up a hand behind me and burying it in his hair, yanking him forward while twisting to kiss him. With my other hand, I cover his fingers rubbing at my cunt and we work it together.
His thrusts from behind turn almost violent. Both our bodies jolt with every stroke in, but he’s holding me so tight, we stay glued together. I bite his lip and then suck it into my mouth to soothe it afterward. Our kisses grow even more ferocious.
“God. Fucking. Damn,” he swears between each punishing thrust, sweat pouring from his brow.
Each time he hits that much deeper inside and God. The light and the high, it’s so close, I’m half riding it already. But I want more, I’m a greedy bitch and I want more, I want it all, I want to ride and ride it—
“More. Please, Jackson. Harder.”
With a roar, he does. He pinches my nipple and goes at me like a battering ram from behind and then it hits so bright, so goddamn beautiful.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!” I scream as my body spasms and keeps spasming.
Over my shoulder I see Jackson’s face contort in agonized pleasure. His eyes lock with mine and the high ramps up to another level because we’re sharing this transcendent experience. We made it together. Him and me. Just him and me. Locked here forever.
Another spasm hits my body and I clutch his hand so tight I’m sure I’ll leave those marks I wanted.
Jackson slackens first, his whole body slumping into me from behind. He wraps his arms around me so tight I almost can’t breathe. One last aftershock rockets through me outward to the tips of my body. This time, when I try to turn around, Jackson doesn’t fight me.
He pulls me just as close though, my breasts crushed to his chest, his head notched over mine, one of his legs swung over my hip. It’s as if he’s wrapping his entire body around me to cage me in like he’s afraid I’ll run or disappear at any moment.
Maybe that’s what does it. Maybe it’s the intensity of what we just experienced or the fact that I’m still left facing Gentry after all this.
Either way, stupid-ass tears start running down my cheeks. I bury my face in Jackson’s neck. Pine. It’s a smell that I’ll associate with safety and pleasure for the rest of my life. He’s helped me truly feel safe, even in the most vulnerable of situations. I smile through my tears.
One by one, he’s helping me take back the positions Gentry and those animals stole from me. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to enjoy that sexual position again—from behind.
Jackson’s looking down at me. There are questions in his eyes that he doesn’t ask. Damn him. He’s too good. Too wonderful.
“You really should have some more flaws,” I say through my teary smile.
His eyebrows quirk in confusion and he tilts his head sideways.
I just laugh at him and grab one of his hands. I kiss his fingers, then up to his knuckles, his palm, then to his thumb, which I pop in my mouth and suck. His sharp intake of breath gratifies me and my smile grows. I kiss up his forearm and as I do, I lift it to the corner of the bed. Once in position, it’s a small matter to secure the padded cuff around his wrist.
This gets me another surprised breath from him. I grin at him like a cat with a bowl full of cream.
“You said it yourself. All work and no play…” I kiss and lick my way down the arm I’ve shackled over to his other arm, which I also secure.
I continue down to both his legs. There’s no centimeter of Jackson Vale’s body I won’t have explored by the time I’m through with him. It’s time he knows what it’s like to feel worshiped.
And well, a little playful torture along the way won’t go amiss either.
Chapter Eighteen
CALLIE
The following week, it feels strange to be back in the real world. At least at first.
By Friday, I’d swear last weekend with Jackson was a bubble out of time, a wine-soaked dream I had after yet another lonely day chipping away at my never-ending fight to survive. Jackson’s had to work so much on the new prototype, we’ve barely seen each other except in passing at the office. And anyway, surely nothing as perfect as last weekend could have actually existed?
No. I’m here dealing in cold, hard realities. I stare at the small one-and-a-half-inch cube of stacked mini computer chips with wires sticking out on two sides like spider legs.
“So,” I ask, “the control-cube multi-rotor stack doesn’t actually need to be altered with the new programming?”
Emmett Chen shakes his head. Emmett’s been showing me around the machine shop whenever I’ve visited this past week. “Nope. The hardware will stay the same.”
“Of course.” I nod to myself. “It was the hardware that was holding Jackson back the whole time.” Then I realize how intimately I just said Jackson’s name. “Mr. Vale, I mean. Holding Mr. Vale back.”
Emmett nods, apparently not picking up on anything. “This is the best we’ve got for now. Eventually the state-of-the-art will catch up to Mr. Vale’s initial vision, but in the meantime, we’ll get a working competitive copter now that the algorithms are adjusted to the hardware limitations.”
This time it’s me who nods. Yup.
Thanks to yours truly opening her big fat mouth. Vale would have made it to the same conclusion eventually, or the hardware would have caught up to his initial vision. But probably not in the two-week time frame Gentry gave me. My heart sinks.
I look around the room filled with parts. What Emmett’s just told me makes my job of corporate espionage that much easier.
If I go through with it. Which I won’t.
But if I did…
There’s plenty of hardware lying in easy access all around me. There are more than enough prototypes of the ‘failed version’ of the drone. I’d just need to have the new version of the program and know how to upload it to the control-cube.
I stare at the block of stacked chips and the wires that lead to various kinds of inputs. I turn back to Emmett. “So where do you hook these up to input the actual code to the—?”
“There you are.”
I swing around, slack-jawed when I see Jackson striding through the doors straight toward me. I immediately jerk my hand holding the control-cube behind my back.
Because that’s not suspicious. Stupid, Callie. I wince internally and drop the control-cube on the table behind me, hoping I’m being unobtrusive about it. Then I bring my hands back to my side, aiming for casual.
“What’s up?” I try for breezy but I’m pretty sure I fail.
“I’ve been looking for you.” He pauses then looks around. “Emmett had mentioned you were spending some time down here.”
Shit shit shit shit shit.
“It’s the way you did it, right?” I smile, careful not to make it too bright. Jackson picks up on too many nuances. Casual. Be fucking casual. “You wanted to learn your products from the bottom up. The other coders in the lab said you encourage everyone to come spend time down here so they can understand the product from every dimension.”
His eyes soften. And I feel like the bitch that I am for lying straight to his face. I’m a horrible, horrible person and I will burn in hell.
No. Goddammit. No I won’t because I will find a way around giving the prototype to Gentry. I stiffen my back, more determined than ever.
The softness leaves Jackson’s face and my heart drops to my stomach. Shit. Shit, he’s seeing right through me. He knows. I open my mouth to say something, I have no idea what, but he beats me to the chase.
“Your lawyer’s been trying to get a hold of you.”
“What?” My hand immediately reaches for my phone in my pocket. Which is flat. No phone there. I must have left it in my purse which is back up at my office.
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“I forgot it in my purse.” I look up at Jackson. “What do they want to talk to me about?”
“Alberto wouldn’t tell me. But he said it’s urgent.”
Urgent? Urgent can’t be good. What if Gentry decided I was out of time and released the video early? But no, that doesn’t make sense. Then he wouldn’t have any leverage over me. Then again, who the fuck knows what goes through that sociopath’s mind?
I all but sprint from the room, down the short hallway and to the elevator. When it doesn’t come right away, I’m about to go for the stairs, but then it pings.
I jolt inside and Jackson is on my heels. I frantically push at the Close Door button.
“Calm down, Callie. I’m sure everything’s fine.”
My eyes search his. “You said it was urgent. It was Alberto you talked to?” He’s the main lawyer I’ve been working with on my case. “How’d he sound on the phone? Like it was I’m-gonna-lose-my-son urgent? Or, there’s-been-a-delay-in-the-paperwork urgent?”
Jackson lifts his shoulders and looks helpless. “Yes, it was Alberto, but I don’t know how he sounded. He just said for you to call him back as soon as you could.”
“Give me your phone.” Why didn’t I think of this as soon as he found me? Stupid! I don’t have to wait for the elevator.
As soon as he brings his phone out of his suitcoat pocket, I’m dialing the lawyer’s number. He’s probably got it saved somewhere, but I have it memorized. All I hear on the other end, though, is a beep beep beep noise.
“What the fuck?”
Jackson looks at the phone. “No reception in the elevator.”
“Goddammit!” I slap at the wall and my foot starts tapping a frantic pace. It feels like all the stress I’ve managed to keep bottled the last week is finally escaping like a boiling tea kettle. And I feel like making that same high-pitched screaming noise the kettles do with every second it takes to get off this fucking elevator.
Finally, the interminable elevator ride ends and we’re at the floor where my station is. I step off and head toward the wall of windows, pressing the call button again.
Break So Soft: Break So Soft Duet Page 27
