by Tara Wylde
As much as I appreciate the gesture, I’m already teetering on the very edge of climax, and as good as his touch feels, I know that when I come, I want him inside me, matching me stroke for stroke.
Determined to speed things up, I run a hand down his chest and trail it across his flat, washer-board stomach, and still lower until it brushes his erection through his pants.
He shouts and reaches down, catching hold of my hand with bruising force.
He rises up, placing a light peck on my mouth, silently apologizing for his temporary roughness. “Easy,” he murmurs. “We’ve all the time in the world.”
Oh God, I’m already about to explode from the rising pressure his touch creates. If he takes any more time, the suspense will kill me.
Somehow, he must have picked up on my desperate need, because he unhooks my bra and buries his face between my breasts, inhaling deeply as his hands find my belt and undo the buckle.
My fingers clutch at his hair, holding him in place while his hands unfasten both my belt and my jeans. I brace my heels on the mattress and lift my ass, making it easy for him to slide my jeans and damp panties off my hips.
With exquisite, mind-blowing slowness, he pushes the denim down my legs, his hands caressing and massaging every single inch of skin as he goes. Each touch sends a shockwave of electric pleasure that’s so intense it borders on pain shooting through me. I squeeze my thighs together in a desperate attempt to hold off my inevitable orgasm.
If Jason doesn’t hurry, it’s going to be a solo journey.
I close my eyes and try to will my ardor to cool, just for a few moments.
Jason lifts his head. I sense him looking his fill, taking in every aspect of my appearance. I should be embarrassed, but I’m too far gone to care.
“Gorgeous,” he murmurs as he dips down for another kiss.
“Thank you.” I reach out and trail a hand down his back, loving how he shudders against my light caress.
Deciding that turnaround is fair play, I slide my hands along his waist and unfasten his pants, shoving them in the general vicinity of his ankles.
He rolls on top of me. Our legs tangle and I thrill at the sensation of skin rubbing against skin. I’d forgotten how good it feels.
With shaking hands, I drag his mouth down to mine and kiss him. It’s not a gentle kiss, but rather one that demands a response. Luckily, Jason is ready and willing to give as good as he gets and I realize that his slow, considerate style of lovemaking is impacting him as much as it is me.
“God, Ella,” he moans. He moves away from my mouth, kissing a trail over my chin, down my throat, until returning to my thrusting breasts. At the same time, his hand glides south, smoothing over my stomach until it reaches my very core. He cups my mound, and his touch feels like a hot brand as one finger strokes my lower lips, testing the moisture that’s been gathering there since before he placed me on his bed.
“Jason,” I cry out from between gritted teeth. I thrust my hips upwards, begging for more of his touch.
“Like that, huh?” he chuckles against my breasts before nipping at one nipple. The unexpectedness of his teeth against the darkened skin nearly brings me off the bed.
In response to my thrusting hips, he slides a finger inside of me while simultaneously continuing to lavish attention, first on one breast and then the other. In the background, I hear the crinkle of a condom wrapper.
“More,” I whisper.
In answer to my demand, a second finger joins the first, stretching me. A nail brushes my G-spot, causing my head to whip from side to side on the pillow while I buck so hard I nearly knock Jason off my body.
Sensing I can’t take any more of his slow, delicious torment, Jason nudges my thighs apart and settles between them, before guiding one leg up and over my right hip.
He pulls his fingers free, replacing them with the head of his eager cock, which presses against my hungry entrance.
I half-sob with desire, desperate for the release I know is coming.
Jason’s cock is way bigger than my vibrator, something that becomes increasingly clear as he enters me, one slow inch at a time. The pleasure is still there, but it dims in the face of the discomfort of being stretched more than I have been in a long time.
I bite my lip and force myself to relax.
“Easy,” Jason murmurs as he continues to press forward until his full length is encased within me. He stills and kisses me, hard, drawing my lower lip between his teeth as he gives my body time to adjust.
Slowly, almost experimentally, he starts moving, slowly stroking in and out of me. My body kicks in, doing what nature meant for it to do and providing the lubrication needed to ease his passage while his own sweat-slick skin rubs against my aching breasts.
I press my thighs against his chest, urging him on as my heart hammers a rapid tattoo against my ribcage, beat for beat, matching the throb between my legs.
Over and over again, moving in the same slow, steady manner that has characterized his lovemaking, Jason’s hips thrust in the age-old mating ritual.
I clutch at his shoulders, my unmanicured nails biting into his flesh, encouraging him to move faster, to pump harder.
For the first time, he responds to my demands.
I cling to him as if my very life depends on it.
We’re both moving toward a mind-numbing orgasm. The question is whether or not we’ll reach it together.
Jason utters a guttural cry and thrusts into me with more force, his hips slamming into mine so hard he scoots me across the mattress until my head bumps against the headboard, but I don’t care.
An answering jolt shoots through me, causing every single nerve ending to spring to life until I’m afraid I’ll explode from the inside out, that the pleasure will cause my very essence to splinter into a million pieces.
I squeeze my eyes closed and ride the rippling waves of pleasure all the way to their completion.
Jason makes one last shuddering thrust before collapsing on top of me.
Even as the last aftershocks of my climax vibrate through my limbs, a warm sensation of tenderness fills me and I wrap my arms around him, stroking his back and murmuring meaningless, soothing words until we fall asleep.
12
Ella
I half open my eyes and find myself staring at a wall that’s painted a light gray. Equally unfamiliar is the elegant mahogany nightstand where a cheap plastic alarm clock announces in big red numbers that it’s 5:08.
I stare at the clock, the numbers burning themselves into my corneas as I try to remember exactly where I am and how I got here.
I roll onto my back and several muscles groan a protest, like I’ve been working out, which I tend to avoid, mostly because I simply don’t have the time or energy. Even more baffling is the soreness between my legs.
Rubbing my eyes, I push myself into a sitting position. The velvet bedspread tumbles off my shoulders and pools in my lap. I gape at my bare breasts. I haven’t slept naked in…forever. After all, any desire to do so had faded after Kelsey’s birth. Something about sleeping nude with a child in the apartment had always seemed… unseemly.
I know how old that sounds.
I lean sideways and spy clothing scattered on the floor beside the bed. The tangle of wrinkled cloth is all that’s needed for my synapses to fire. Memories of what happened in this very bed, of what Jason did to my body with his hands, and with his mouth, makes me blush.
I glance at the other side of the bed. The pillow bears the imprint of a head and the bedding is rumpled. I lean over and slip my hand beneath the covers, feeling the sheets. They’re cool to the touch, so Jason rolling out of bed wasn't what woke me. He’s clearly been gone for a while already.
I glance at the clock. My shift at the call center was scheduled to end at five. I’ve lost an entire day’s pay. I know that it’s just a matter of time before I start fretting about the havoc the loss that much cash will create on my budget. Especially given what I need the money for
…
Right now, I’m still glowing from my first bout of lovemaking in seven years. I’m not ready to let reality interfere on my good feeling just yet. There will be plenty of time to worry about finances later. There always is.
I do need to make a phone call and let Adele know that I’m running late.
I slide back down under the warm blankets and flip over to my stomach. Balancing on the edge of the mattress, I rummage through the pile of clothes, looking for my cell phone. It takes a minute to realize that the only clothes scattered on the floor are Jason’s. My clothes, along with the phone, are nowhere to be seen.
So where are they?
I grab Jason’s shirt and swing my legs off the bed. I sit on the side of the mattress and button myself into the dress shirt. It, like the sheets, went cold a long time ago, but the fabric still carries his scent. I bury my face in the collar, inhaling the spicy sweet scent of his aftershave, a scent I’ll forever associate with Jason.
The shirt is way too big on me. The sleeves cover my entire hand and fall several inches past my fingertips. The shirttail brushes the back of my knees, each brush of the fabric against my skin reminding me of Jason’s warm, slow caresses.
Goosebumps erupt on my skin.
As I roll up the sleeves, I pad, barefoot, out of the room and start searching for Jason.
It doesn’t take more than a few minutes for the full impact of Jason’s wealth to hit me. I mean, I knew from that article I read in Forbes that he was fantastically wealthy – a billionaire, even – and how he’d earned all that dough. Still, the truth of it didn’t hit me until right now as I look at his house.
Not only does it have a private beach and a first-class view of Lake Michigan, but it’s also one of those houses that positively reeks of wealth. High cathedral ceilings, floors constructed out of real hardwood instead of the laminate normal people use. The entire section of the house that faces the lake is constructed out of tinted glass, presumably so occupants can see out, while not having to worry about people enjoying the water spying on them.
I love the building, but I wouldn’t call it a home, not really. It’s beautifully decorated with leather and chrome furniture and gorgeous paintings hang on the walls, but it all feels like something picked out and organized according to a decorator’s taste. Nothing feels like Jason.
Well, maybe not everything, I think as I spy the dog-eared paperback lying on an end table near a massive black leather couch.
I pick it up and flip it over. A Millard Fillmore biography. Funny, until this moment, I’d completely forgotten that the first time I spotted Jason in that beach side bar, he’d also been reading a book.
Another presidential biography.
I scrunch up my nose and try to remember who’d been the subject of that book. Not one of the really famous ones, that’s for sure, but one whose name I’d recognized. Madison, that was it. He’d been reading a book about James Madison at the time. Asking him about the book, whether it was good or not, had been how I’d broken the ice. He’d told me it was and confessed to being a bit obsessed with presidential history and how one day he hoped to write a book, a short history of all the men who’d led the country.
I wonder if he’s gotten around to that particular goal yet?
A loud thump sounds directly below my feet, startling me. I scoot to the side, worried that maybe there’s something structurally wrong with the house and the floor is about to cave in. The floor holds, even though there’s another loud thud.
I strain my ears and realize that if I really listen, I can hear the faint strains of some driving rock song. The music is also coming from below my feet.
I scan the room, but see no sign of a door that leads to a staircase that leads downward.
I backtrack, moving out of the elegant living room and back into a wide hallway with an arched ceiling. This time, I decide to be nosy and open each door as I pass. I poke my head through the doorways, making a quick perusal of the room behind the door before moving on.
In this particular case, the third time really is the charm. I open the door to find a narrow, steep staircase that leads down into the bowels of the building. The driving rock music, Styx I think, drifts up the staircase.
Jackpot!
Without any hesitation, I hurry down the stairs, my bare feet slapping against the cool hardwood.
I hit the landing and find myself standing in the middle of an elaborate home gym. The place contains a massive treadmill that’s set at a steep incline that has my thighs burning just from looking at it, three, that’s right, three stationary bikes, and an assortment of different weight lifting apparatuses that bear a creepy resemblance to the Spanish Inquisition's torture machines. One corner of the enormous basement has even been roped off and turned into a mini fight arena.
Looking at it, I decide that I won’t ask any questions. If Jason plays host to his very own fight club here in his basement, that’s his business. I don’t want to know anything about it.
The sight of posters featuring Star Trek, Avatar, Star Wars, Firefly, Doctor Who, and an assortment of somewhat lesser known sci-fi shows and movies adorn the concrete block walls, a jarring contrast to Jason’s stark fitness nirvana.
I cast my eyes over them and think about my daughter’s own obsession with anything connected to science fiction, particularly Firefly. I’d always wondered how she’d gotten into that stuff since it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. Now I know.
She’d inherited her love of space ships and zany aliens.
This is the first section of the house that feels like Jason.
I spot Jason lying flat on his back on a weight bench, hefting an impressive-looking barbell. His head is turned to one side, his eyes locked on me.
I twist my fingers into fabric of the shirt I’m wearing and struggle to ignore the burst of shyness that’s blossoming in my chest. “Hi.”
Jason settles the barbell on the holder above his head and sits up. He uses the bottom of his black wife-beater shirt to wipe the sweat from his face, the move providing me with a mouthwatering glimpse of his rock-hard abs.
“Hey.” He licks his lips. “How are you?” His words come out in a nervous rush.
Oddly, the idea that he’s nervous does wonders to calm my own.
“I feel good,” I tell him. “Great actually. I just… It’s late. I missed my entire shift and never bothered to call Jerry and tell him where I was. He’s going to have a cow, if he hasn’t already.”
Jason shakes his head. “I called Jerry and let him know that you and I were still discussing how the call center operates and that since things were taking a long time, that you wouldn’t be in today.”
Some of the tension eases out of my shoulders. While I seriously doubt that Jerry is going to believe that Jason and I spent the whole day chatting about the call center, he won’t be able to reprimand me, or to dock my wages.
“Still, you shouldn’t have let me sleep so long.”
“I thought about waking you up, but you looked so peaceful and were sleeping so deeply I didn’t have the heart to do it.” He studies my face. “And don’t take this the wrong way, but you look better, a little less… tired than you did at the office.”
Now that I’m not worried about whether I’ve lost a day’s pay, or worse, my job, I have to admit to myself that I feel better than I have in…for longer than I can remember. I suspect it’s a combination of the sex and sleep. Both were things I think my body and mind desperately craved, though I didn’t realize how much until I woke up in Jason’s bed.
I fiddle with his shirt. “I borrowed this from you. I hope you don’t mind. I would have put my things back on, but they seem to be missing.”
“You fill it out better than I do.” Jason’s eyes glow with unsuppressed appreciation as they sweep over my body. “I tossed your stuff in the washing machine.”
“Oh.” For some reason, the simple act charms me. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know I didn
’t have to. I wanted to.”
“Thank you,” I tell him. “Um, when you did that, did you happen to notice my cell phone? It was in the back pocke—"
“Of your jeans.” Jason finishes my sentence. “Yeah, I found it. I put it on the top of the washing machine.”
“Thanks.” I walk around the room, conscious of Jason’s eyes following me as I casually trail my fingers over one piece of workout equipment after another.
“So, this is how you stay in such great shape,” I say. I slant him a look from under my lashes. “When did you become such a fitness geek?”
“About five years ago. I was in the middle of developing a couple of different software programs and needed a way to unwind while also blowing off some steam. A buddy of mine got me started on sparring and that kind of worked its way into lifting. It turns out that in addition to being a great way to work out the kinks after a long day in front of a computer, it also keeps me from getting too skinny.”
“Whatever you’re doing, it looks good on you.”
“Thanks.” Jason’s teeth flash in an appreciative grin. “What about you? Do you work out at all?”
I stop beside the weight bench he’s sitting on and shake my head. “No. In fact, I think this is the closest I’ve been to a real gym in my entire life. Working out…” I wrinkle my nose. “It just seems like an awful lot of extra work for results that take so long to appear.”
“It can be.” Jason stands and stares down at me. “It all depends on what you want to get out of it. I started doing it to help me unwind. The results were pretty much instantaneous. Why don’t you give it a try?”
“What? This?” I flap my hands at the bench press bench and take a step backwards. “Oh, no. I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m such a wimp. I never lift anything heavier than a grocery bag.”
Chuckling, Jason unhooks the heavy weights from the barbell until only the bar itself remains. “Oh, come on. Give it a try. You might find that you like it.”
He grabs a set of thin discs and hooks them to the bar. “There. The bar itself only weighs thirteen pounds, and I’ve added another twenty pounds. So you’ll only have to press thirty-three pounds. Anyone can do that.”
