I wiggle out of my shirt and shrug it to the floor. An odd, tugging tension runs just beneath the surface of me and it leaves me reckless, nearly dangerous.
My punked-out leather skirt is held on with a series of complicated buttons and straps. I have to look down to get it off, so I don’t get to see Jacob’s reaction but I sense his eyes following along with every movement. When I reach behind me and pop the clasp on my bra, his breathing jumps. I look up and my eyes snag on his as the straps slip down over my shoulders. The bra falls, the lace whispering along my stomach as it drops to the ground.
His Adam’s apple bobs. When he flattens a hand on the bed to push himself a little more upright, his fingers are shaking.
I meant to strip all the way, but now I’m overcome with the totally insane urge to comfort him, and I sink onto the bed still wearing my panties. I move up his body and it’s all smooth, warm skin sliding against my breasts as I hug him.
His arms come around me and he holds on hard, his head ducked with his cheek against my hair, his heart pounding against my chest, and our skin heating more by the second.
My thigh settles over his, and the hard press of his erection nudges into the crease of my hip, his heartbeat throbbing there as well. All I’d have to do is shift a few inches to straddle him, pull my panties aside and push the thick stretch of him inside me. I’m so ready—worlds past where I’d be after a whole afternoon of fooling around with Andy.
I can already imagine the roll of Jacob’s abs beneath me as he begins to thrust... But then we’d hit that crucial moment when he’d be getting close and I still wasn’t there and I’d have to fake it. The squinched-up face, the sounds, trying not to be overdone and yet not so quiet that he would doubt it was really happening for me.
I love the honest vulnerability of his uneven breath against my hair right now, and I don’t want to lie to this man, not for anything.
“Jacob, I don’t want to have sex today,” I whisper into his neck.
His hips twitch at my words, the smooth head of his penis rubbing against my side. I shift restlessly, longingly, the hair on his legs rasping against my inner thighs in a way that’s very distracting.
One of his big hands cups the back of my head and he hugs me a little tighter. “I know,” he whispers back. “That’s okay. That’s good.” He kisses my hair. “Take a shower with me.”
For some reason this strikes me as funny. “You want to take a shower?” I pull back a little and flick a glance toward his lap. “Really?”
He reaches up to brush a strand of hair out of my face. “There are a lot of sensual things that aren’t sex. It’s okay to enjoy them, too.”
I raise my eyebrows. “That sounds like a ploy you use to get a dumb girl out of her panties.”
He grins. “Wear your panties, then. I don’t mind. They’re cute as hell.”
I squirm a little, glancing away, even though that was the reaction I was hoping for when I went shopping last week. Today’s set are low slung, slick black satin with a triangular dip of electric blue lace in both the front and back. It’s stupid to hold a grudge against pretty underwear for the rest of my life just because one guy was a jerk, and Jacob Tate would never steal my panties, for a trophy or any other cruel reason.
“Okay, then.” He smiles with a hint of a wince to it. “I’ll start the water. In a minute. When I can walk again.”
I bite my lip and glance down. His erection swells under my scrutiny. “Jacob, the deal we made...if you wanted an erm, exemption...” My hand rests on his abs and I let it wander a few inches lower. “I would understand.”
He shakes his head. “Nope. A deal is a deal.”
“Isn’t that going to be a little painful?” I peek up at him through my eyelashes.
In response, he strokes a hand over my hair and lazily down the whole length of my nude back. My breath stutters and I settle closer into his side without thinking. “Does that feel good?” he murmurs. I nod, a little confused.
He reaches down with his free hand and drifts his fingertips over himself. My eyes widen and when he touches his swollen tip, my vision blurs a little.
“That feels good, too.” Jacob kisses my forehead. “You worry too much, sweetheart. Do you want to turn on the water for us, or would you rather do something else?”
“No, a shower sounds...nice.” I climb off the bed, the air colder now that I’m away from his skin. I fight the urge to cross my arms over my chest. I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly modest person, but with Jacob, it feels like an entirely new kind of naked.
And yet when he smirks up at me, his eyes are happy and soft and I decide being any kind of naked with him is probably okay.
More than okay.
I duck through the door into the master bathroom and reach for the faucets.
The mattress creaks as Jacob calls after me, “Oh man, tell me you don’t have one of those teensy little shower stalls!” He pauses, and when he speaks again, it’s from the doorway behind me. “Or actually, tell me you do...”
I adjust the water temperature and turn around, hugging my arms around myself because I’m a little cold. “How about a tub and shower curtain combo, with a side of dancing Grateful Dead bears?”
He tosses an admiring look at my colorful shower curtain. “Perfect.” He takes a step forward, and he’s still blatantly erect. “C’mere, you look like you’re freezing.”
I hesitate and he tilts his head in question, so I take a breath and go to him, settling against his chest as he rubs his hands up and down my back to smooth the heat back into my skin.
“I have to admit, it’s been a while since I’ve held a conversation with somebody openly sporting a hard-on.”
“You see why I didn’t want to let this bad boy loose in the figure drawing class?” Jacob clucks his tongue. “He’s such an attention whore.”
I choke on my laughter, shaking my head at him as I pull away.
The curtain rattles as I step into the tub, trying not to be self-conscious as I tip my head back into the water. He follows me in, his gaze running down my entire, slick body.
I reach for the shampoo just to have something to do with my hands, and he nabs it from me with a quick, neat movement. “No fair stealing my job.”
He twirls a finger in the air for me to turn around and I do, feeling silly for still wearing my soaking wet panties. I mean, it’s not like they’re hiding much, but I don’t want to just strip them off now, because I’m not sure what signal that would send.
Are my panties now the flying flag of the platonic shower? Can this be a platonic shower when every drop of water on his pectoral muscles is already tattooed on my memory like my new favorite kind of Braille?
Better question: why would I even want a platonic shower with pectorals like those?
His blunt fingers slide into my hair and start to massage my scalp, and I forget about flags and showers and even pectoral muscles, sighing my pleasure into the warm water raining against my chest.
He washes my hair like a pro, not a drop of conditioner getting anywhere near my eyes, and leaving me tingling with pleasure like I just spent the day at a spa. I let out a small breath as he strokes soap up my legs and down my arms, in wide circles over my back and gentle, playful ones over my belly. He eases the rigidity out of my body until it feels like all the tension in me has pooled into the few places he’s not touching, the ones clamoring louder and louder for even an accidental brush of a wrist against sensitive flesh, the momentary bump of a finger over soaked satin.
I turn to face him, trying not to let the frustrated longing show on my face. This is the best shower that’s ever been taken, nationally, internationally, or otherwise, and I’m not going to let my screaming libido end it early.
“My turn?” I hold my hand out for the soap.
He pauses, his wet hair spiky and almost black, eyes seeming darker against the backdrop of white tile. With the hint of a smile, he hands over my bottle of body wash. “Okay, but
fair warning, I may ask you to stop.”
I arch an eyebrow at him. “Did you just give me the ‘no means no’ speech?”
He licks his lips and laughs a little breathlessly. “It might sound more like a begging for mercy speech when it happens, but yes.”
“Fair enough.” I start with his arms: dessert first in case he stops me early.
His skin feels divine with the soap sliding underneath my palms, but his muscles are a little tight so I stop and knead them for a moment.
“Would you judge me if I said my crush on you started with your biceps?” My words drift on the hint of a laugh as water whispers down onto the porcelain of the tub.
Jacob’s eyes open, gleaming with amusement. “Seriously?”
I nod, and bite my lip against a grin. “Oh, it was bad. When you knelt down to check my feet for glass, I was having full-on Cinderella fantasies.”
He shakes his head. “No way. With me wearing that old ripped-up shirt and sweating like a hog and having just broken your living room window?”
I just smile, my hands savoring every last centimeter of his chest. I make it down two ripples of abs before I start to get lightheaded and have to make an emergency retreat around his ribs to his back. This turns out to be a mistake because his cock slips smoothly against my stomach, and I press closer without thinking, the hard swell of him trapped between us.
He sucks in a quick breath and braces his hands on the tiles behind me, letting me decide how close I want us to be. I move, barely an inch, just to feel him. I want him lower, want him to dip his hips and press inside, soothing the clench of empty space inside me.
I reach for more soap, and then tilt my head back to look at him. He’s fully panting now, eyes closed and shoulders tensed.
“Can I touch you?” I whisper.
His eyes fly open, and they’re hazy and unfocused as he swallows a word that looks like something he normally doesn’t say in front of me. “For a second,” he says raggedly. “Just a little.”
I lay my hand on his leg and as it starts to climb, his eyes fall closed again. He shifts his feet wider apart for me, his cock punching up and pulsing with every heartbeat as it waits for me to get there. My palm is slick as I encircle the base of him with my fingers, and I can’t breathe. I can’t blink.
I slide my hand up and his hips buck, driving his arousal harder into my grip. My eyelids droop a little. I love the feel of him, but I haven’t even explored his entire length before he gasps out, “Stop. You have to stop right now.”
I keep traveling up another half an inch before I can make myself unwind my fingers and let him go. I bite my lip until it hurts, so it’s as swollen and petulantly throbbing as the rest of me.
“Whoa.” Jacob drops his forehead to mine as he works to catch his breath. “Okay. Yes. Well. Sometimes experiments get a little...out of control. Give me just one second.” He steps back, blinking. “Maybe one more second.”
From here, it looks like he’s going to need a few hours’ worth of seconds, but I don’t argue. He casts a reluctant look back toward the door and I say, “I don’t want to get out yet.”
Which is true. Incredibly poor judgment, but true.
“Right. Maybe safer territory, then.” He takes my shoulders and backs me into the fall of water from the showerhead. “Like...hands.”
Jacob picks up one of mine and starts to massage my palm. Disappointment flashes through me, but it feels surprisingly great for him to touch my hand. He dips his head, and kisses my knuckles, his tongue flicking out to taste a droplet of water. Porcelain is smooth under my feet as I take a small step forward. He nips one of my fingertips, wringing a gasp from me before he takes my finger into his mouth, soothing it.
Everything is warm and velvety and he’s toying with me as if his tongue is on...places that are definitely not my finger. Actually, he might be Jedi-mind-tricking me right now because I can feel everything he’s doing in places that are not my finger.
He moves on, scraping dull teeth across the heel of my hand, and I moan, the sound just another layer of steam rising between us.
“Jacob, I want you to touch me.” The words come out like begging, a groan of agony and pleasure all twisted together as I shift against his chest.
He nibbles down the curve of my neck and I stifle a cry in my throat. “Are you sure?” he asks.
I’m entirely too far gone for speech. Or fairness, or any kind of thinking ahead. I turn away from him so I’m facing the shower, taking his hand from my arm and flattening it on my belly. His dick presses against my lower back, eager and swollen, and I arch my spine to get a little closer.
“Jera, are you sure this is okay?”
“This is what I want.” I cover his hand with mine and drag them all the way down until they slip underneath the front of my panties. He sucks in a breath and his fingers twitch.
I abandon his hand and reach to brace myself on the tile, the spray of water too hot on my skin.
He recovers quickly, rubbing in slow circles over my bare flesh, his knuckles straining against the wisp of wet black satin covering them. I whimper and he slows down even more, both of us barely breathing.
He ducks his head and rests his lips against my shoulder, pressing soothing kisses to my skin as his fingers nuzzle closer to the part of me that’s so needy, I’m afraid I’ll scream when he finally gets there.
The water streams down my breasts as Jacob’s left hand sweeps down and hooks beneath my thigh. I lean back against his chest, trusting him to steady me when he lifts my foot up to rest on the edge of the tub. Sensation shouts as this opens me more to him and his fingers dip lower, his breath uneven against my shoulder when he finds how slick I am.
He toys with me, sliding up until I’m whimpering and back down again. By the time one finger starts to press inside, I’m ready to burst into tears from pure, sweet overload.
He kisses my neck, his tongue teasing me as he adds another finger. The stretch of him feels like I’ve been waiting years just for that. He lays the pad of his thumb on my clit and my hips strain forward when his fingers shifts, stroking deeper.
I should take off my panties to make more room for him, but I love the sight of lace stretched across his big wrist, his fingers disappearing beneath fragile black satin. Every time he moves, my eyes go a little blurry.
God, is this it? Is it finally going to work? He feels so good and he’s not pressing too hard or too soft, just resting his thumb exactly where I want it and leaving it there for me to rock my hips against.
Except then he takes his thumb away, pressing farther into me and curling his fingers. I whimper, wanting more, and he adjusts again, going quiet as he listens to my breathing.
“That’s not good for you, is it?” he finally murmurs.
“Yes,” I gasp, then shake my head, my hips rising against his hand. “No. I mean, I like it but not quite enough.”
He kisses my shoulder and slowly starts to retreat, drawing his slick fingers up higher to pet me until I start to shiver and quake. He draws lazy patterns on me, and I moan and bite my lip, my lungs clawing for air.
His arm circles my waist, which is good because I’m paying no attention at all to staying upright. I arch against his hand, everything tight, tight, so screamingly, painfully tight and I just...can’t get there.
Everything is so sensitive even his lightest touch is starting to hurt and I want to howl and claw at my skin, but instead I drop my foot down off the edge of the tub and catch his wrist, stilling it while I gulp air like I’m drowning.
Jacob brings his hand back up, water pattering over both of us as he strokes comforting circles over my belly, brushing a kiss to my wet hair.
“You okay?”
“Guh.” I growl. “No. Possibly dying. I’m sorry. I warned you.”
“That was our deal, right? You’re doing a much better job of not breaking it than I almost did.” He tickles his fingers down my arm. “Relax, sweetheart.”
“Relax? Don’
t you feel like you’re just going to...freak out or something? Possibly combust into three-foot-high flames?”
He turns me so my back is to the shower, and squeezes my shoulders in his hands until they feel steadier. “Yeah, a little bit.” He chuckles deep in his chest. “But I also feel like I’m here, with you, and any way I get to touch you makes me feel so damned good.” He drops his voice. “I feel like you want me. I like that.”
I let my head fall forward against his collarbone, and his fingers slide in between mine, down at our sides. He’s not angry with me, not frustrated, and the relief of his non-reaction washes through me, sneaking a smile onto my lips.
“I like it, too.” Even though I still feel like it might kill me.
But Christ, what a way to die.
Chapter 21: Making My List
The last sunlight of Sunday afternoon falls warmly on my backyard as I come through the patio door with two beers in hand. Danny is already outside in front of the freshly lit fire, sitting cross-legged on the ground amidst a full set of lawn furniture. I roll my eyes fondly but don’t comment because he’s his own special kind of irrational and I would expect nothing else.
I’m looking forward to hanging with my friends, even though I admit to a tiny twinge of sadness that I won’t get to see Jacob tonight. The last three weeks have been incredible: the shine of stolen hours fooling around on my couch and goodnight calls that stretch into the wee hours, all mixed together with the giddy rush of being courted by Amp Records. I just wish I could shake the feeling that everything is too good to be true.
Amp has been saying all the right things, but I’m not missing how vague their phrasing gets about everything that’s actually important to me. Rob calls nearly every day, and he even sent concert tickets up for Dad and Mom to go see the Pixies next month. Mom hates punk rock, so Dad will probably take me instead, but it was still a nice gesture.
I’d trade all the concert tickets in the world for a straight answer, though. I’m worried about us getting pushed out of rock and toward EDM, and Jax is worried about getting shunted into backup vocals. That’s probably why he’s been acting weird around me, especially during last night’s gig. It probably didn’t help anything that I bailed on one of our rehearsals to hang out with Jacob. As much as I want to spend all my time with him, I’ve made that mistake in the past. I like my friends, and I don’t want to start ditching them for a relationship. Tonight’s band-only bonfire at my house is my attempt at an apology to Jax—because nothing soothes male egos like fire and beer, right?
A Cruel Kind of Beautiful Page 17
