Chapter Four
Ella decided she liked Jake with golden whiskers stubbling his chin, tousled hair and morning mouth. He was also grumpy until his third cup of black coffee. They were finishing breakfast on the back patio lounging on wooden chaises. She wore a sleeveless pink tank top with matching sleep shorts that Jake had tried to convince her were against commando rules. He was naked.
“I suppose my cover boy image is shot to hell this morning,” he said, yawning wide and scratching his golden-hair dusted chest.
“Not even close. You do look deliciously, normally human though. I’m considering jumping your bones as soon as I finish my poppy -seed muffin and at least one more cup of coffee.”
“Second fiddle to a muffin and a cup of coffee, I must be slipping,” he grumped with a smile on his face.
“You’ll have to work hard to restore your image but I can’t imagine what you have planned next.”
“Good, at least I have the element of surprise on my side.” He took a bite of his own muffin. “Did you pack the hiking boots?”
“Why do you think my knapsack was so heavy?”
“I was hoping you brought more toys.”
“I did, plus my favorite movie—as instructed. I assumed you’d be contributing also. Should I have made a request?”
“You could have. I’m a volunteering kind of guy, equal opportunity and all that,” he deadpanned.
“Are you going to volunteer why I needed hiking boots? I distinctly remember telling you my idea of roughing it was room service at a three star hotel.”
He narrowed his eyes so that only a bare slit of blue-gray showed. “You’ll be getting all the service you can stand. That’s my promise for today.”
She licked the last of the muffin’s sticky glaze off her fingers and felt her sleep shorts dampen with his growling insinuation. “Do me a favor and don’t shave. You’ve got that whole Viking marauder thing going for you this morning. Let’s play with that a while. Do you have any requests besides the hiking boots?”
“The lacy filmy blouse you were wearing when you showed up and the long red skirt I saw hanging in my closet.”
She thought it was an odd request until she followed him through the woods, easily keeping up with his long-legged stride. It felt funny to wear socks and boots with no underwear but the crinkle cotton of her blouse teased her nipples and the India print skirt sliding over her bare bottom felt as sexy as hell.
The view wasn’t bad either. She could see Jake’s muscles work beneath his tight worn jeans, knowing he was as bare as she was. Her fingers itched to caress all that firm muscle and taut skin.
He turned around once on the narrow path, eyeing her suspiciously. “You’re keeping up pretty well for someone who doesn’t jog or run.”
“Yes but you never asked me if I did Pilates.” She batted her eyelashes. He shook his head, chuckling.
“Sneaky wench,” he said and made it sound normal. “You’re not getting any blisters yet are you?”
“The nice young man who sold me my boots also sold me a couple of pairs of the most wonderful wool socks. He swore by them, said he was the only one in his group who didn’t end up with blisters when they backpacked through Europe.” He’d been about Jake’s age and she’d just described him as a nice young man, ugh! She needed to focus. Be brave.
He frowned. “You don’t need rescuing yet?”
She shook her head. “Nope,” she said, stretching her arms making the crinkly fabric of her blouse slide over her sensitized nipples. “But I could stand to be ravaged sometime soon.”
He closed the few steps that separated him, flipped her skirt up and slid one long finger inside her before he kissed her. “Not quite yet,” he rasped against her lips before withdrawing his finger and popping it inside his mouth.
She was still quivering when she asked, “Don’t I get a snack?”
“Don’t whine, it’s unbecoming,” he said around his finger before withdrawing it.
“I was promised a Viking marauder,” she said primly. “When’s he showing up?”
“You were promised service, wench—I just didn’t say when,” he said, leading them out of the woods into a small wildflower-strewn glade with a tree-shaded pond.
Ella was positively enchanted. It was like a tiny slice of paradise tucked into the pocket of the dense forest. “How did you find this place?”
“I came here summers when I was a kid,” he said, surveying the place as if he hadn’t visited in awhile.
“Lucky kid. When you told me you’d find the place, I thought you’d looked this up on the internet or something. You know—Hideaways Are Us?”
“No, I inherited the place from my Uncle Noah.”
“Let me guess, he was a reclusive artist also and you were the only person he liked?”
“Not exactly,” he snorted. “But he did understand my passion for art. He was a lot of fun, a great teacher and mentor. He also taught me a lot about women.”
“Well, now I’m intrigued. What was he like?”
Jake was staring over at the pond, his smile almost sad, definitely wistful. “Quiet, wicked sense of humor. He never married. I always thought it was because he was so obsessed by his work he couldn’t share himself. Then I found his journals when I was clearing out the house.” He turned, his smile still wistful. “He shared a passionate twenty-year relationship with a married woman.”
“And he didn’t tell anyone. No one in the family guessed?” Her aunts would have ferreted out the information in a heartbeat.
“They never even met her as far as I can tell. I think I did though. There was an old black and white photograph in one of his journals of a very striking young woman standing by a man in a wheelchair. She was smiling at the camera but he was looking off into the distance, gripping her hand like it was a lifeline.”
“When did you meet her?”
“In town the summer I was fifteen, Noah was teaching me about photography and she was walking a dog that was the size of a miniature horse. She let me take their picture. I didn’t get the lighting right but Noah said it didn’t matter. With a subject like her you just couldn’t do anything wrong enough to screw it up.” He shook himself and she got the idea that it wasn’t a memory he shared with everyone.
And just that quickly she saw the Viking marauder you’re mine glint in his eye and he was stalking toward her, his dark blond hair loose around his shoulders, sunlight glinting off his red-gold whiskers.
She backed against a handy tree and scraped against the rough bark when he stripped off his shirt and unzipped his jeans. Desire zinged through her like a thousand tiny white lights as she watched him roll a condom over his erection. Her mouth went dry. There was so much need—graphic, tender, overwhelming—in the few seconds it took to reach her, lift her hips and slide inside her, groaning. He kissed her then, making love to her mouth as he thrust inside her while a frantic glimmer took the place of his you’re mine glint. He broke the kiss suddenly.
“I don’t want to spend twenty years with borrowed moments of your life, Ella,” he rasped and poised on the edge, she moved against him, desperate to give him something but all she could force past her lips was, “I wouldn’t ask you to.”
He clenched his jaw and she knew it wasn’t what he wanted to hear but it was all she could give him. He clutched her when he came, silent and shuddering, as if he were afraid that more unwelcome words would slip past his lips.
It was the first time she could remember him being cautious and she hated that she was the reason. He slipped out of her and shed his clothes without speaking. She followed his lead. When he reached for her hand she gave it, before they waded into the cool pond. He floated on his back with her on top, kissed her with the easy languor of a longtime lover. But something had changed and they both knew it.
When they were waist deep, Jake stood behind her, scooping water up with both hands and sluicing it over her, molding her curves with his palms, and nuzzling her neck while he cup
ped her breasts. He teased her nipples with calloused fingers and she arched, rubbing her ass against his erection. She was almost purring.
“Do you have another condom?”
“In my pants,” he sighed.
She laughed, shakily. “My skirt has pockets. I brought two.”
They only needed one.
Naked and wet they made love on a bed of lush grass. She reached for him, rubbing his cock against her bare slit until he slipped inside. Ella fought the urge to rush and settled into the flow, the slow glide and piercing thrust of Jakes’s pace, Jake’s pleasure. She sighed, wrapping her legs around his hips while he cradled her head in his hands and thrust into her, slowly and easy as if they had all the time in the world. And she didn’t know who he was trying to convince, himself or her.
The sun was a fiery ball of red-orange disappearing on the horizon by the time they started back to the house. The first chill of mid-September fluttered briefly on the breeze sending a shiver through Ella. Jake’s arm was around her before it ended and she settled into the crook of his arm.
“I should have packed a lunch but I didn’t think we’d be gone this long,” he murmured against the top of her head.
“Do you hear me complaining?”
“I hear your stomach rumbling.”
“That’s just me humming in contentment but what’s the fastest meal you’ve got on hand?” she said, happy to be back on familiar footing.
“Scrambled eggs, bacon and toast—hash browns if you can wait.”
“Ordinarily I’m the soul of patience but I don’t think I can wait.”
“Ella my love, you are a lot of things but the soul of patience isn’t one of them,” he said, swatting her bottom.
She really wasn’t but no one had ever called her on that before and the shiver that went up her spine had nothing to do with the cold. She’d never been careful with Jake and she didn’t think he’d been with her. If she was in a bad mood she just let herself be cranky, no pretense. It had been so easy in emails and phone calls with someone she’d told herself she’d never see again.
While Jake made dinner she went upstairs to shower and change. She changed clothes a couple of times and everything she tried on emphasized the slope of her breasts so she opted for jeans with a rust colored tee shirt. She didn’t bother using the mirror again, just ran a quick brush through her unruly curls, angry with herself for being such a coward.
Jake was right, she wasn’t patient. Patience required trust and Ella didn’t trust herself. All her talk about bravery was just lip service. She was scared to death. She needed some perspective, focus. This was their week of unbridled-no-holds-barred-anything-goes sex, nothing else.
A year was a long time between sexual liaisons. Hell they hadn’t even had phone sex, which in retrospect was—odd.
“Why didn’t we ever have phone sex?”
Jake almost dropped the skillet full of scrambled eggs. He turned around and found Ella, her face flushed, brow furrowed as if she’d just asked him the most important question of her life.
“I wanted to be looking into your eyes the next time we had sex.” Oh crap, he almost sounded girly but he didn’t want to come out and admit he was afraid she’d run again once they’d had some form of sex. There was a point at which women became irritated with sensitive men and he was afraid Ella was going to reach it sooner rather than later. What would a Viking marauder do—with his hands encased in oven mitts?
She frowned, shaking her head. “You’re just not going to be shallow are you?”
He breathed easier. “Stop looking for reasons to find something wrong with me. They’ll show up as soon as you’re tired of having sex every three or four hours. And all it will mean is that we need to take a break.”
Her brow was still furrowed. “You could be making big bucks. Women would line up to tell you their problems.”
He set the skillet back on the stove with a little more force than he intended and she jumped. “Both my parents are shrinks. Relationships were normal dinnertime conversations. I figured out early that most women bored me because I knew what was going to come out of their mouths before they said it, knew what they were going to do before they did it. I made a game of it just to make it interesting then figured out I was being a mean bastard and stopped it.” He stripped off the oven mitts and dropped them on the table.
“I never know what’s going to come out of your mouth, Ella. I can’t pinpoint what you’re thinking and you fascinate the hell out of me. You have since that first night. And if you want to have phone sex could we please eat first because I’m pretty sure I’m going to want to fuck you until you scream after we get off the phone.”
She pulled out her chair, still staring at him after his rant. “You do realize that you can make egg salad out of cold scrambled eggs. Don’t you?” Then she sat down and smiled up at him. “Just trying to live up to my reputation,” she said, spearing a forkful of eggs and putting them in her mouth but her fork was shaking and she didn’t look as sure of herself as she sounded.
He ate faster than she did, threw both of their plates into the sink and shook when he told her to find her phone.
His battery had died so they decided to use the intercom system between his studio and the house. He stretched out on the towel-covered chaise in front of his easel and unzipped his pants, sliding them off his hips while he listened to her settle into the bed.
“Why didn’t you ever suggest this before?” he asked, because he’d already told her why he hadn’t initiated it. He wanted to know why she hadn’t. She hesitated for a moment.
“I think I was afraid it would change the way we talked. I liked being to be able to just tell you about my day, good or bad. I like that you called me, drunk, from your best friend’s bachelor party to tell me you were bored and wanted to leave but couldn’t, even though it was two in the morning.”
“I apologized for that,” he chuckled. “Every time I closed my eyes that night I could see you naked in my hotel room. I almost came when you answered the phone.”
“Is this how it starts?” she asked and the husky timbre of her voice snaked through him.
“Are you telling me you’re a phone-sex virgin?”
“Yes, are you analyzing?”
“I’m analyzing the sound of your voice, your shallow breathing… What’s that buzzing?”
“My vibrator, I was testing the batteries,” she said and he groaned.
“What kind do you have?”
“Well, this one is kind of big,” she said breathily, “like you, flesh-colored, lots of big old ropy veins.” She made a sucking noise and he closed his eyes.
“What—are—you—doing?”
“I can’t find my lube—”
“Bedsidetableinthedrawer.”
He heard the squeak of the drawer before she flipped the cap open. “Ohhh,” she sighed. “This is nice and slippery.” He closed his eyes and settled into the chaise.
“What are you wearing, Ella?”
“An old-fashioned corset with hooks and eyes. It has pale pink roses embroidered on it. I’ve pulled the muslin cups down. My breasts are bare. Everything the corset doesn’t cover is bare.”
He’d bet money she was making it up but he closed his eyes, trying to envision the image she’d painted with her breathy words. “Touch your nipples,” he breathed, squeezing lube over the crown of his cock, sliding his hand down. “Are they stiff yet?”
“Give them a reason. Tell me what you’re doing. Are you naked?”
“My jeans are down around my knees, I’ve got a two-fisted grip on my cock and I’m working it slowly. Can you hear the slurping sound the lube is making? It sounds like when you had me in your mouth,” he rasped and was rewarded with her groan.
“Can’t move your legs too wide—ummmm—I knew you liked being restrained.”
“I didn’t realize it until you tied me up that night. How did you know that about me?”
“You were so controlled, eve
n when you were being playful but then there was that delicious, deliberate barbarian just below the surface and I wanted to see if I could push a button that might surprise you. Everyone wants to be tested, even if they’re only testing themselves.”
“Was agreeing to spend the week with me a test, Ella?”
“I don’t want to be analyzed right now, Jake,” she said and he heard the soft whir again.
“What do you want, Ella? What button do you want to push?” Do you want to know what it will take to push me away? He took a deep breath and checked his anger. He knew she’d reach this point. He closed his eyes and imagined her teasing herself, letting him watch.
She hesitated and he heard her sharp intake of breath. “Put some more lube in your hand.”
Ella did the same, slicking a generous dollop down the vibrator. She’d bought it a week after she’d left him in his hotel room.
“What are you doing?” he asked, suspended inside the void that reached into his studio.
“Do you trust me?” she asked, passing a hand over her breasts, squeezing her nipples, imagining his mouth on them. She was so wet she probably didn’t need any lube but the effect of him listening, of imagining juicing up her toy would just add to the experience.
“Right this minute? Yes.”
“Lift your hips,” she asked, flicking on the vibrator, holding it close to the intercom. “Do you hear that? I’m going to run this over every bare inch, every quivering nerve. Are your nerves quivering, Jake?”
“Even my eyelids are quivering. What do you want me to do?”
“Take all that lovely lube and work it into your balls, let it drip down over you. She waited a moment before she asked, “Is it dripping yet?”
“Yes,” he hissed. She could imagine his hips up in the air, straining at the knees, the lube coating his flesh, running cold into the crack of his wonderfully firm ass. Another hiss completed the picture for her.
“Can you put some more lube in your hand? It needs to be nice and slick.”
“Not until you put the tip of your vibrator inside you.” She revved the tiny motor once and fluttered it against her opening, biting her lip against the sharp pleasure.
No Holds Barred Page 4
