by Noelle Adams
“I’m not even going to ask if this is the way you want it.” His whisper sent a shudder rippling through her. His lips closed over her earlobe as one hand slid from her hip, around and down, his fingers delving between her legs.
He stroked her, his low rumble of satisfaction mingling with her whimpers of pleasure as he worked his fingers between her folds, circling the tight bud of her clit before sliding lower so he could feel exactly how wet and ready she was for him.
Jane shuddered and moaned as Deck stroked her.
“God you’re so wet, so ready for me.”
She gave a cry of protest when he removed his hand. It quickly morphed into a sigh of anticipation as she felt him slide his feet in between her own, urging her to widen her stance. His hair roughened thighs brushed against the backs of hers and she felt her pulse beat almost painfully between her legs as she felt first nudge of his cock against her opening.
She arched her back eagerly to receive him, her breath hissing out as she felt the thick slide and stretch as he pushed inside with no hesitation. Just like she wanted, just like she imagined, but a thousand times better. Nothing could ever compare to the reality of his hard hands—warrior’s hands—gripping her hips so tight he’d probably leave marks.
And feel of him, so hard and huge inside her, filling her to capacity and still making her crave more. She braced herself against the counter and rocked back in perfect rhythm with his thrusts, taking him deep and hard and still she felt like she’d never get enough.
“God Jane, you feel so good around me, so tight and hot, squeezing me like a fist. I’ve been dreaming of fucking you like this.”
She gave a little moan at his coarse, earthy language, felt her body clenching around him in response. He moved one hand around once again, found her clit with his fingers, circling firmly as he continued to take her in hard, pounding thrusts.
She could feel her orgasm building low in her belly, every muscle in her body tightening as he continued to stroke and thrust. She squeezed her eyes shut, and a keening sound she didn’t even recognize ripped from her chest.
Then she was coming hard, her whole body shuddering and shaking until the only thing holding her up was Deck’s hands on her hips as he held himself deep inside her, wringing every last ripple of pleasure from her until her vision went hazy and she thought she was going to pass out.
In a daze, she felt Deck withdraw, felt her sex clench him protest as he slipped free. Boneless, she let him carry her like a rag doll over to one of the teak loungers. He stretched out on it, settling her on top of him.
Through her post orgasmic haze she realized that Deck was still rock hard, his cock pulsing eagerly against her belly. She bit her lip, let out a little sigh when he pulled her knees on either sides of his hips until he was cradled against he slick mound of her sex. He cupped her ass in one hand and wrapped the other around his cock so he could position the thick head against her entrance. She moaned as he slid inside, crying out at the delicious friction against her swollen, sensitive tissues.
She loved the way his breath hitched as he worked himself inside her, the way his face went tight with need as he thrust his hips up under her to bury himself to the hilt. Like last time, she was shocked to feel her arousal building again already at the steady rocking of his hips beneath her. Though she was on top, there was no question as to who was doing the taking.
Deck’s hands closed over her ass cheeks, working her against him at a relentless pace. Jane braced her hands on either side of head, crying out as her clit slid against the base of his cock with every downstroke. “Deck,” she moaned. “Oh my god, I think I’m going to come again.”
His response was to flip her abruptly onto her back and splay his hands against the insides of her thighs, spreading her wide, opening her fully to take everything he was giving her.
She thought she knew what it was to be taken the first time she was with Deck. That was nothing like what she was experiencing now. Every muscle in his body stood out in stark relief, the driving power behind every thrust that sent him so deep she could feel him at the base of her spine.
She looked down, saw herself and him starkly revealed in the bright sunlight. His hands were dark and rough against he pale skin of her inner thighs. She was mesmerized by the sight of his cock, huge and thick and shiny with her juice, sliding in and out of her body at a pace that had her moaning and squirming and scraping her nails down his back. He gave a choked moan, and she looked up to see his dark head and broad shoulders silhouetted against the blazingly blue sky. His eyes were glowing amber slits barely visible through the thick brush of his lashes.
“Come on, Jane, come for me again,” he said gruffly. Her gaze slid down again and she watched him bury his thumb in the plump folds between her thighs. The first pulse of her orgasm hit her in a wild rush. He rode her through it, stroking her clit, keeping up his relentless thrusts until she was once again reduced to a boneless heap beneath him.
His cock seemed to swell even bigger inside of her as his strokes got faster, shallower. Then he stiffened against her, letting out a choked cry that sounded like it was ripped from the bottom of his soul before he collapsed, shuddering against her.
Jane didn’t know how long she lay there, savoring the delicious weight of him sprawled on top of her, before he roused her with nibbling kisses up her neck, across her cheek. He eventually landed on her lips, taking her mouth in a kiss that was so deep, so sweet, so contrary to the almost animalistic passion she’d just experienced she felt the sting of tears.
Finally he lifted his head, smiling down at her with a look so warm she felt like she was looking at the surface of the sun. “I think it goes without saying that I missed the hell out of you.”
Jane threaded her fingers through his hair and tried to keep the quiver out of her voice when she replied. “I missed you too.”
Seven
Deck felt a rush of warmth like nothing he’d ever experienced before flow through him at Jane’s reply. Combined with the slightly dazed, mostly wondrous expression in her eyes, Deck got the sensation that everything was exactly as it should be in his world. If he could only hold onto this moment, this feeling, this woman, everything would be right.
He told himself not to get ahead of himself, that just because she hadn’t kick him out on his ass and had eagerly responded to the undeniable chemistry raging between them didn’t mean she was even close to on the same page as he was.
Well then you better make damn sure you get her on the same page while you’re here, shouldn’t you?
He brushed a damp blond strand of hair off her forehead and pressed a kiss there, then to the tip of her nose, then again to her lips as he savored the feel of her, sun-warmed and naked against him. “I would have been here sooner, but I had a job to finish up before I could get away.”
“How long can you stay?”
“Malcolm wants me to train someone for some new comic book flick. I need to be on set in ten days. How about you? How long are you planning to hide out?”
“Forever?” Jane said with a rueful smile. She traced her fingers down the skin of his back, leaving a tingling wake. “Honestly, if Hal had his way I’d be on a plane tomorrow ready to hit all the major news outlets. After the Kimmel disaster-”
“I thought you were great. You were funny.” Of course at the time he hadn’t laughed much, feeling like a complete loser for being jealous of Jane fantasizing about her own husband. But knowing what he knew now he’d probably be rolling.
“Yeah, that crazed look in my eye was hilarious,” he could feel her stiffen against him. “And the way I collapsed and thought I was having a heart attack after was a total riot.”
Deck wrapped his arms around her and rolled to his side, cradling her against him. “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
She sighed and relaxed into his chest. “Yeah, me too. But you’d think I’d be able to handle it by now. I mean, what’s a
little more public humiliation after everything I’ve already dealt with?” She was silent for several moments, stroking her fingers down the front of his chest, tracing down the length of his bicep and forearm. “It was bad enough having everyone think that the stories were about Ryan. But at least I was married to him so it sort of made sense. I think I was afraid everyone would find out they were about someone else who didn’t want me either.”
Her dagger didn’t miss its mark. “It should be obvious now that that couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said, and tightened his arms around her. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way, but at the time I thought you regretted what happened. Seemed a lot simpler just to get the hell out of your life.” Not to mention, there was no way in hell he could go back to being just Deck the bodyguard, no more important than a piece of furniture. He wouldn’t have lasted a day without crossing the line.
As evidenced by his willingness to fly across the country and then some on the wild chance she might want to give them a shot at something real.
She nodded against his chest. “I know. I’m sorry I made you feel like I was just using you.”
“Oh, you can use me all you want,” Deck said with a low chuckle. “I just didn’t like the implication that I was going to go cash in by blabbing to the tabloids about it.”
“I should have trusted you,” she said with a wince and a shake of her head. “I do trust you,” she said, her green stare suddenly crystal clear and piercing.
He felt a twist of unease in his chest at the intensity of her stare. Was she trying to let him know that she trusted him not to tell this time around too? Was she still afraid “fucking the help” would irretrievably damage her image? He tried to shove the thought away, but there was a lingering bitter taste in his mouth. He curved his hand around the back of her head and held her still to meet his kiss, determined to chase it away. “So you didn’t answer my question,” he said when he came up for air, feeling a surge of satisfaction when he saw that her eyes had gone slightly blurry once again. “How long do we have?”
How long do I have to convince you that what we can have together trumps anything anyone else might have to say about us?
“The studio agreed to shoot everything they can without me, but I absolutely have to be on the set May first. I’ll need to go home a few days early to help Hailey pack me up.”
It was already April eighteenth. “So we have a week, give or take a few days.”
Jane nodded. “Then it’s back to brutal reality, whether I like it or not.” She tried to smile, but there was no hiding the downward curve to her mouth.
“I’ll just have to make the most of it,” Deck scooped her up in his arms and carried her over to the shower. He turned on the faucets and adjusted the temperature before he pulled her into the spray. One week, he thought, as he lathered his hands with soap and ran them over the plump curves of her breasts. One week to convince Jane that her reality would be a lot more bright and a lot less brutal if she let him be a part of it.
***
They spent the next several days swimming, sunning, and having the kind of sex Jane never imagined existed in real life. Deck took her through her personal catalog and then blazed his own path.
Now they lay naked on one of double loungers, Jane on her stomach, her head turned to face Deck. He was on his side, his head propped on one elbow while his other arm rested possessively on her hip.
“So what do you really want to do?” Deck prompted.
Over the past few days, when they weren’t having loads of amazing sex, Jane and Deck had spent hours talking. She was surprised to find that although he’d always come off as stoic and somewhat closed off, Deck was amazingly easy to talk to. Maybe, like her, he’d been careful all these years not to open up too much, afraid he’d reveal something he didn’t want her to see.
But now that he’d opened up—and gotten her to open up—she found herself able to talk about things she never discussed, even with her closest friends. Like the fact that even though her movie career was just beginning, she really wanted for this movie to be her last for a good long while—maybe even forever, so she could focus on other things. “I’d really like to move behind the cameras,” she replied. “I’ve spent ten years now basically playing the same person, and I want to do something that’s more interesting.”
“What about your role in The House on Mulberry Lane? That was something different,” Deck pointed out.
“That was the one movie out of the last four where I wasn’t playing the sweetly clueless chick from the sticks, another variation of Sarah Nelson,” she said, referring to her role on the long running sitcom Best Friends Forever that had made her a household name. “Don’t get me wrong,” she continued, “Sarah Nelson bought me my house and made my career, but I’m getting too old to play the innocent ingenue-”
“Ooh, thirty-two. You’re practically ancient-” Deck interjected.
Jane gave him a playful swat on the arm. “You know what I mean. And not only will the parts dry up, that’s not even close to who I am any more. I’m not some bright-eyed innocent who hasn’t experienced anything. I’ve got too many battle scars for that.”
“So why not quit the acting and do what you want?”
She shook her head. “I can’t. Not yet. Not until I have a couple of projects under my belt so people will actually take me seriously. If I announced right now I planned to quit acting to produce and direct, it would be like, ‘ha ha, there goes Jane, playing at directing to take her mind off her disaster of a personal life.’ Then my agent would fire me because he’d realize he couldn’t make any money off me and the next thing you know the only gig I can get is on some reality show.”
Deck was silent a few seconds. “Do you ever think about what might happen if you spent more time focusing on what would make you happy instead of what people think about you?”
Jane swallowed hard as Deck’s question struck a chord. What would really make her happy? She hadn’t thought about it in such a long time she didn’t even know.
Right here, right now, this makes you happy, a little voice whispered. But this isn’t real, another, more logical voice retorted. This is a fantasy, and no matter how happy it makes you, it can’t exist in the chaos that is your reality. “Where I am right now, I have to think about how everything looks to the rest of the world. What about you?” she asked, ready to turn the spotlight off herself. “Are you happy doing what you’re doing? Did you ever want to do anything else after you got out of the army?”
Deck’s full lips spread in a smile. “Growing up in Big Timber Montana, population sixteen hundred, did I think I’d have a career training celebrities to fight and guarding the body of the most beautiful woman in the world?”
Her face flushed as he squeezed her hip in emphasis.
“No, that didn’t ever enter my mind. To tell the truth, I didn’t have much of a clue what I wanted to do. The military was a given for me and my brothers—every man in my family has served since the civil war. When I got out, all I knew is I wasn’t ready to go back to Montana. Sam—you know him from Holley Cay—hooked me up with Malcolm’s company and it turned out to be a great opportunity. And it got me here,” he said, grinning as he leaned in to kiss her, “so I’ve got no complaints.”
Jane smiled and kissed him back. “I never even knew you had brothers,” she mused when he lifted his mouth from hers.
“You never asked.”
There was no rebuke in his tone, but she felt the sting of shame nonetheless. She’d known him for years and had never bothered to ask him anything about his life, his family before she knew him.
“I’ve got two, both younger” he continued, “Damon and Dylan—my parents were into the ‘d’ names. Damon runs the convenience store and filling station next to my dad’s garage, and David is still in the army.
“I wish I’d had a brother or sister,” Jane said softly. “My mom would have had someone else to distract her.” Instead of raising Jane to b
e her best friend and closest confidant, burdening her with adult situations and emotions a child had no business handling. But they weren’t talking about her family right now, she reminded herself sharply.
She looked up and met Deck’s gaze. “I suppose you think I’m pretty self-centered, never asking about you and your family.”
Deck shrugged and ran his hand idly down the curve of her waist. “I think in your situation, with everyone watching your every move, it would be impossible not to be.”
“I suppose, but that still doesn’t seem like such a great excuse.”
He reached out and smoothed a strand of hair back from her cheek, and she marveled at how just the mere brush of his thumb was enough to send a ripple of awareness through her. As he continued to regard her with his heavy-lidded amber gaze, Jane became acutely aware of the heat of his nakedness and her own. Of the heat of his sunbaked skin emanating off of him, surrounding her.
Her entire body went tight with awareness, her nipples beading against the cushion under her, her sex clenching between her thighs.
Deck felt it too. She could tell in the subtle sharpening of his features, the slight flare of his nostrils as he took a deep inhale.
She rolled to her side and reached between them, trailing her hand down the taut line of his abs to take him in her hand. He was huge and hard in her hand, pulsing eagerly in her palm as she stroked him from root to tip.
“You know,” she said, “I’m not always entirely self-centered.” She leaned in and gave his neck a teasing nip, felt the thrill of satisfaction as he shuddered and groaned.
He breathed her name and threaded his fingers through her hair, shifting to his back as he tried to pull her down over him.
She pressed her free hand against his chest. “Lay back.” Still stroking his cock, she settled between his legs and leaned over his chest. His lips parted on a sharp inhale as he realized what she intended, and his eyes closed on a groan as she pressed her hot, open mouth against his throat and started her descent.
