I glared at him. “Say what you want, but I bet you take all your dates to scary movies for that exact reason.”
“I’m not gonna lie,” he lifted the armrest so there was no barrier between us, “it does keep them occupied, and me…entertained.” His mouth slid up into a coy smile.
I lifted my head and gave him an I-told-you-so look. He grinned.
The trailers started; more horror movies. Probably meant to be just as scary and primitive as the movie we were about to see. I knew about their wizardry, though, and I would not be tricked.
At least, that’s what I told myself for the first twenty minutes until a giant horned demon with bright red eyes and fire breathing from his mouth jumped out from the darkness with the single-minded intention to take the soul of everyone on the screen and in the theater.
I jumped, grabbing for Jax instinctively—and totally against my will. When a demon is coming for you, any bicep will do, though his were extremely well-defined. The demon on the screen was terrifying, and getting closer. It was about to breathe a fire-filled death on its next victim. I felt hot air on my neck. I was the next victim!
I screamed.
Jax laughed.
I slugged him in the shoulder. He laughed some more.
Totally annoyed, I folded my arms across my chest and moved to the right—as far away as possible. He reached his arm behind my shoulder, pulling me back into him. A shiver ran through me—which upset me because I was positive the shiver had nothing to do with demons, and everything to do with Jax’s arm around me, holding me, protecting me.
Another scary part had me grabbing Jax’s leg because his bicep was currently occupied with my shoulder.
“Your hand makes an excellent tourniquet,” he whispered after a few minutes.
I hadn’t realized I was gripping him so tight. I released his leg immediately. “Sorry.”
He reached over with his other hand and grabbed mine. “I didn’t say I wanted you to move your hand. I like it there.”
Halfway through the movie, he shifted, his leg falling down, opening wider. His whole body angled in toward me. Electricity pulsed between us and my heart was thumping out of my chest. His eyes latched to mine as he reached down and started pulling my hand…up.
I forgot to breathe as I watched my fingers drag over the inner seam of his jeans. I only remembered to gasp in air when I was almost ready to pass out. As my hand moved, I hazarded a glance at his face. His sapphire eyes were dark and fiery with need and anticipation.
And he kept moving my hand. Slowly.
When we reached the crease at the top of his thigh, he guided my fingers to the large mound at the left. Still holding my eyes, he started to stroke the mass, back and forth, up and down. Light at first, and then a little harder. I broke my glance away and watched him move my hand over him. I was so turned on watching him touch himself—teaching me how to touch him—that I almost forgot we were in the middle of a theater. I’d forgotten the movie, and demons, and other movie goers long ago. He spread my fingers out, splaying them over him. I could feel the mound getting bigger, harder, and wondered what he looked like out of his boxers. He let go of my hand. I kept rubbing. He held my eyes as he moved his fingers. I felt the button on his pants come undone, then heard the zipper.
My heart raced as he took my hand and slipped it under the waistband of his boxers. Our fingers slid down, down, down, until I—we—hit something hard—and big. I gasped at the feel of him, thick, smooth, and huge. He wrapped my hand around him. And then, he started to stroke. Up and down, guiding me. My breasts were heavy and my core was burning. I’d never been this wet, or felt so wild. I wanted him to take me, right there in the middle of the theater. I didn’t care. I needed to have sex with Jackson West, and I needed it to happen immediately!
It was that single thought that shook me out of my lust induced haze, and made me realize I was losing myself. I was stroking his dick where anyone could see. Would we get thrown out? Arrested for indecent exposure? What would this do to my potential law career? Would the girl in the movie get away, or would the demons win? My mind was racing and I couldn’t stop it.
Abruptly, I pulled my hand away. I got up, whispering a hasty excuse that I needed to use the bathroom. I had to get out of there. I was burning up. I pushed through the bathroom doors into a stall and quickly locked the door. I leaned against the cold metal of the stall door, staring at the beige tiled bathroom wall, and tried to catch my breath. My breasts were swollen and I ached—everywhere. When I finally felt composed enough, I opened the stall and gasped.
Jax was leaning against the sink, palms on the counter, showcasing his bulging biceps. A piece of his tattoo peeked out from under his shirt. His bright blue eyes were sparkling with a wicked gleam. I attempted to move, but it didn’t go well. I stumbled. He gave me a wolf-smile as he caught me. “Slippery, eh?”
Yeah. And that’s not all that was wet.
I blew out a breath, immediately thinking of discarding our clothes. I spent the next full minute trying to get the thought of his hard abs and my naked breasts pressed against them out of my mind. “If we’re both in here, neither one of us will know what’s happening in the movie.”
He tilted his head to the side. “I’m sure neither one of us cares.”
I tried to take some of the edge off with a joke. “Did you make a wrong turn and not see the girl wearing a dress on the door?”
“The girl I want to see out of her dress is in here.”
I sucked in a breath as he pushed me up against the wall. Every part of me wanted to be claimed by him, taken. His lips pressed into mine, the kiss as frustrated as I felt. His length was long and hard against my thigh, tempting me to unzip his pants again and pull him out. I wanted to see him in the light—all of him—and find out what I’d been missing. My hands raked down his hard abs, and stayed there as his tongue slipped over my lips and into my mouth, licking, caressing, tangling with my own.
Several of the buttons on my black shirt were now undone, my lacy black and white bra peeking out beneath my top. One hand ran over my breast, stroking the hard tips of my nipples through the lace, while the other pushed my skirt up, running light strokes over my thigh. I sighed and he broke away, moving down my body to take my nipple in his mouth. The combination of his tongue and teeth on the fabric scratched over me in a torturous way. My hands went to his jeans and I popped the button, slowly sliding the zipper down. My hand was poised over the waistband of his boxers when the door creaked open. I scrambled away from Jax like he had a disease. A teenage girl walked in the bathroom, surprise written on her face when she noticed Jax’s presence.
Jax flashed her his winning smile, putting her at ease. He was excellent at that. I wished I had the same talent, or that his comforting smile would work on me at the moment. Noting her confusion, Jax said, “My date was sick. I came in in to check on her.”
I glanced at him, suspicious. He sure had that excuse handy. I wondered how many times he’d used it before.
The girl gave me a once over, taking in my unbuttoned, disheveled clothes, smeared lipstick, and snarled hair. Then she did the same to Jax, stopping on his half untucked shirt, unbuttoned pants, and kiss swollen lips. She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right,” she said. “You know, they have stalls for that.” Then she stepped into a stall of her own and locked the door.
Jax bit his lip and held back a laugh. I put my hand over my mouth to try to hold in mine. We both quickly rearranged our clothes and hair. Then Jax came over and took my hand. He held the door for me as we walked out of the bathroom together.
No longer interested in the movie, Jax and I started toward his truck. On the way, I realized that had just been mine and Jax’s first real kiss. “Thanks for making out with me in the light this time,” I said, my tone teasing.
His lips slid into a slow smile. “I thought about killing your date that night, but decided I’d much rather kiss you.”
I lifted a brow. “It was an incredib
le kiss. You should have claimed it. Drew got credit as the ninja kisser for a while.”
Jax snorted. “He wouldn’t have been able to find the broad side of barn in that dark hallway, let alone your mouth.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “And Syd, if we hadn’t been interrupted in the bathroom just now, I would have found a lot more than your lips.”
A thrill ran through me as I thought about what Jax had been doing, and what he had planned for the rest of the night. Being with him let me lose myself…even if only temporarily. And I couldn’t wait to do it again.
“So, how did things go with Jax last night?” Brynn asked as she grabbed her detox lemon water from the fridge. “What did you do?”
I shrugged, a smile playing at the corner of my lips. Brynn hadn’t come home until I’d been on my way out the door that morning. We’d made plans to catch up later in the day. I’d attempted to study, but had a really hard time concentrating when all I could think about was my hand in Jax’s pants. So, I’d sat on the couch and spent some quality time with the HGTV channel until Brynn got home instead.
Brynn watched me for a few minutes, then her eyes went wild as she bounced on the couch. “Shut up! What did you do? And I hope the answer is Blue Eyes!” Again, the combination of her psych classes and being my best friend was making it impossible for me to keep secrets.
“We went to a movie.”
“And?”
“And it was scary.”
“And?”
“And I jumped and grabbed his arm and leg.”
Her voice was getting higher now, her impatience showing. “AND?”
“And I kind of gave him a hand job in the theater.”
She shoved me into the throw pillows. “Shut. Up!” She was breathing so fast I thought she might hyperventilate. “Oh. My. Shit!!! I’m so excited for you! You hit third base with Jax! How does it feel? Wait!” she said, moving to the edge of the couch and waving her hands. “More importantly: how did he feel…you know, for my research.”
I giggled at the excuse. “Pretty amazing,” I admitted.
“What did it look like?”
I shook my head. “Not sure. It was really dark in the theater and I couldn’t see it. But he felt pretty damn big in my hand.” I’d thought Jax was just being arrogant when he made all the comments about being better than a werewolf, but now, I wasn’t so sure.
She blew out a breath. “I bet! He looks like he’d have a lot going on down there since he is a mountain man with a big ass ax.”
I snickered and rolled my eyes. She’d never let the mountain man thing go. “It was a little scary, actually. I know I’ve only been with a couple of guys, but none of them were that big. I nicknamed it the Beast.” Because it seemed about as big as a werewolf’s. “I’m a little scared for actual sex.”
She grinned, and took a sip of lemon water. “You just need a guy who knows how to get you there. I have a feeling Jax won’t have any problems in that department.”
I frowned, thinking of all the experience he surely had. “Thanks for reminding me.”
She shook her head. “No, you should be happy about that. Seriously. You want a man who knows what he’s doing.”
I didn’t want to think about his past experience at all, regardless of whether it would make sex better for me. “I’ll try to remember that when I’m a raging ball of jealousy.”
She waved me off like it wasn’t a big deal. And to her, it wasn’t. I was positive she’d slept with more people than Jax. “Tell me more! I want details!”
I gave her a step-by-step summary, cataloging everything from my hand sliding into his pants, to me running away to the bathroom, Jax finding me, and both of us getting caught—in various states of undress—making out, by a teenager. Brynn thought that part was very funny.
“What happened after you left the theater?”
“We were both pretty worked up. He brought me back to the house and we kissed a lot more in his truck. My shirt got unbuttoned again before we broke apart and I said I needed to go.”
She slapped me across the leg. “Why didn’t you invite him in?”
I shook my head and breathed out a sigh. “I need to take this in steps, Brynn. I haven’t been with a guy for a long time. I need to get back in the headspace that says it’s okay to be in a relationship with someone again without it distracting from my goals. And I need Jax to be in a place where he’s willing to be vulnerable and intimate with me, not just have a booty call buddy. This all started because he said he wanted to try to make a relationship work, and he somehow got me to agree to it. Having sex too soon could screw that up. Foreplay is good for building that intimacy before we go all the way.”
Brynn leaned back against the arm of the couch. “Okay, I see your points, but part of me thinks you were just freaked out because losing yourself in a moment—and a man—is something you haven’t let yourself experience before. You won’t freak out next time, and when it comes to the actual main event with Jax, I think you’ll be kicking yourself for waiting so long.”
I thought about what she’d said. I was freaked out, but I knew this—Jax—was what I wanted. We both just needed to be patient with each other while we worked through our personal demons. “I hope so. It was scary losing control like that. It felt like my whole world was revolving around him, and the potential to have him inside me. For that brief moment, I was lost. I would have done anything to have him. I didn’t care about the consequences, or about anything else. I was want, need, and nothing more. It scared me. It’s never been like that before. With other guys, sex was the next logical step. It wasn’t…this.”
She nodded, smiling like she was remembering some happy moments of her own. “It’s like being drunk, but without the hangover.”
I frowned. “The aftereffects might be even worse.”
“You’re just scared. Stop talking yourself out of this before it’s even happened. Blue Eyes is going to be an excellent sex partner.”
“I’m sure he is, but I’m not worried about the sex. I’m worried about what comes after. I’m afraid I’ll get even more emotionally invested because of it, and he won’t.”
She reached over and put a hand on my thigh in a comforting way. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. I’m pretty sure he was invested long before you.”
I spent a lot of time the next week thinking about Jax and what had happened between us. Part of me felt like things were progressing too fast. We were moving forward, but the physical aspect of our relationship was moving a lot faster than the emotional one. I considered telling him we needed to stop everything, but I knew that was a cop-out. Brynn was right. I was scared. Scared to let go, scared to trust someone else to be my partner, scared of the distraction of a relationship—and, to be honest, I was nervous about my lack of sexual experience compared to Jax’s. But sex was how Jax communicated, so meeting him halfway wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Slowing down might not be a bad idea either, though. And that’s what I’d decided to tell him. Then he’d called me and asked if we could hang out tonight.
I had an idea of what his version of “hang out” meant, and it wasn’t going to happen, at least, not yet. Foreplay. We were going with foreplay from now on—for a while, at least.
When I heard him knock, my breath immediately quickened. I took one last look at myself in the mirror, checking my warm, blonde hair, neutral makeup, and rosy cheeks and lips. I took a deep breath, willing myself to calm down and not look like a girl who suddenly felt like a virgin. I was even more nervous now than I had been when Jax and I first started spending time together. Maybe because we’d done something intimate—that countless other girls had also done with him. I groaned. That reminder helped my nerves quite a bit, and I opened the door.
So much for my commitment to foreplay.
He was wearing a black leather jacket over a red and black striped shirt. His jeans hung off his hips, tight around his thighs. He looked mouthwatering. His
gaze went over me like a physical touch, holding on my hips, and then my chest, before coming to rest on my face. His eyes were dark with unspoken promises.
I couldn’t hide my desire, and a knowing look flashed in his eyes. “Hey, sweetheart. Hungry?”
Hungry? That didn’t even cover what I was for this man. Obsessed, rapturous, lustful. I mean, hungry fit in there somewhere, too, but what I felt required so much more than one word. And a lot of actions. Actions I’d like to try right now, and might end up initiating on the porch if he didn’t get in the house soon. I bit my bottom lip, pulling it back with my teeth. “You could call it that.”
He grinned. “Good.” He pushed past me into the house. It wasn’t until that moment I noticed he was holding bags. “Because I have dinner.”
“Dinner?” I asked, totally dumbfounded as I followed him into the kitchen. “Like, food?” I’d really thought he was about to be my main course and dessert.
He put the bags on the counter. “Food is usually required for dinner.” He shrugged out of his coat, hanging it over the back of one of the kitchen table chairs, and then started taking things out of the grocery bags. “We’re having pasta and chicken. I hope that’s okay.”
“Are you kidding? I’ve been cramming for tests and living off of crackers and candy for the last few days. Anything that doesn’t involve energy drinks sounds good to me.”
His lips lifted as he preheated the oven, and then started preparing the food. “Good.”
“Can I help with anything?”
“Yeah.” He handed me a bowl. “Can you make the breading mix for the chicken?”
I stood next to him at the counter. “What do I need to do?”
He put water on the stove to boil for the pasta. “Crack the eggs in the bowl, then lightly spank them.”
I burst out laughing. “There’s no way your recipe says to ‘spank’ the eggs.”
“Lightly spank. Lightly beat. Same thing.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You have a thing for spanking?”
Tempting Sydney Page 14
