by Amy Andrews
He could feel himself harden as he ran his hands up her naked back then back down to cup two glorious cheeks. There was something exceedingly erotic about having a completely naked woman plastered against his fully clothed body.
‘The things you do to me,’ he whispered.
Jess, balanced on Adam’s lap, pulled back slightly and smiled, dropping a kiss against his temple. She felt his grip on her bottom intensify, holding her fast. ‘I think we can get rid of this,’ she said, loosening the knot of his tie and pulling it off him with a satisfying slither of fabric.
Then she kissed him. Deep and hard. ‘And this,’ she said, pulling away again as her hands grabbed at his shirt and pulled it free of his waistband. Then she kissed down his neck as her fingers went to work on the buttons.
When she’d undone the last one she pushed the shirt off his shoulders, exposing his chest and abdomen. He slammed his mouth against hers and she revelled in the harsh suck of his breath as he dragged air in and out of flared nostrils. She felt a hand slide to the small of her back and haul her closer.
Her hands trekked down his bare sides, feeling the dip of his ribs then the contraction of his flanks. When she reached his waistband she followed it around to the zipper and then down to the bulge in his trousers.
Her hips, almost of their own volition, ground down against it. The rough fabric of his trousers abraded in all the right places and she gasped out loud as the pads of his fingers dug into her back and his groan thundered through her ears.
She pulled back, her lungs desperately sucking in more air. ‘You like that?’
‘God, yes,’ Adam whispered against her mouth.
And when she did it again he plundered her mouth, pushing a hand up into her hair and forcing her mouth nearer, wider, deeper.
Jess fumbled for the zip, found it, yanked it down, felt his hardness straining to be free, reached for it, liberated it.
‘Ahh,’ Adam groaned as Jess’s hand enveloped him.
‘You’re so hard,’ she whispered, palming his wonderfully naked length—one stroke, two. But it wasn’t enough. She needed more. Needed to feel him against her. In her.
She released his girth and rocked her pelvis along all his meaty hardness. It was hot and slick down there and a delicious friction built, stoking an even greater ache.
Adam nostrils filled with the scent of them and he dug his fingers into the flesh of her bottom as his pelvis thrust against hers. ‘Now, Jess, now.’
Jess gasped as she felt him press urgently against her. She rose on her knees to accommodate him. His hands held her hips steady as she reached for him, guiding him to her entrance. She felt his girth nudge her and then she sank down on to him in one slick, sure movement.
‘Ahh,’ she cried out as she gripped his shoulder hard. He filled her so completely it was as if he was made for her.
‘Jess?’ Adam breathed hard, fighting the wild call of his body to pull out and plunge in again as all her sweet, wet heat gripped him in a tight velvet glove. ‘Are you okay?’
Jess nodded as a ferocious tingling infused her pelvis. It prickled and burned, spreading ripples of heat and pleasure to every cell in her body. A shockwave of lust.
‘I’m fine,’ she murmured against his temple as she flexed her hips and undulated internal muscles, feeling every inch of him rammed to the hilt inside her. ‘Perfect,’ she sighed as she lifted a little then sank down a little.
Adam sucked in a breath. ‘Yes, yes.’
Jess lifted a little higher and sank down a little further.
‘Oh, God, yes.’
Jess lifted all the way until she could feel him at her opening again then sank back down until he was snug to the hilt.
Adam stifled a groan, plundering her mouth. His hands slid up her back, his fingers hooking over her shoulders and anchoring there. Her body lifted again and their kiss broke. He shut his eyes as her internal muscles grabbed him hard and pulsed around him like a thousand massaging fingers.
His forehead fell against her chest as she set a rhythm that took him closer and closer to the edge. Her breasts bounced in his face and he nuzzled one, sucking a rosy nipple deep into his mouth.
When she cried out he sucked the other one.
Harder.
Jess’s head lolled back as the pleasure intensity spiked to a new high. Her nipples pebbled tight and the sensation arrowed straight to her core. She clutched his head to her chest, keening her pleasure as he lavished her breasts with attention.
When his teeth grazed a sensitive tip her orgasm hit warp speed, rushing forward, hurtling from her centre, twisting and swirling, burning and tingling, destroying everything in its path.
‘Adam,’ she cried out, clenching down hard as every muscle tightened to an unbearable tension. ‘Oh, I… It’s…’
Adam clamped her against him hard, gripping her shoulders tight, bucking his pelvis, taking over the rhythm from her, feeling his own climax begin to spiral out from his loins as she milked his length with her tight velvet walls.
He whispered, ‘Yes, yes,’ against a breast as his climax trembled through him, shaking him like a leaf, shaking him right down to his core.
He threw back his head in a primal roar as everything imploded and a mighty orgasm engulfed him. It fanned the dying embers of hers and he held her as she cried out again.
Held her like he never wanted to let her go.
Adam collapsed back on the bed a minute later, dragging her down with him. Their breathing was loud, laboured in the silence, and neither spoke as they struggled for control of their breath.
Adam’s hand sat firmly in the middle of her back as he heaved air in and out of his lungs. Her skin was covered in a fine sheen of sweat and she was warm against his chest.
He grimaced. They must look a sight. She, stark naked sprawled over his chest. He, clothes askew, partially undressed. Just barely on the bed, his feet on the floor. Puffing and panting like they’d just run a marathon.
Another minute later, his pulse and breathing near normal, Adam said, ‘Can we talk now you’ve finished ravaging me?’
Jess smiled as his voice rumbled up through his rib cage, connecting with the ear she had pressed to his chest. Even knowing what he was about to say, she was too spent to stop him. Or her brain cells were still too post-coital to give a damn.
At least she’d had her one last time.
She eased off him, her insides giving a delicious shudder, rolling onto her back, her legs also hanging over the edge of the bed although not quite reaching the floor. She followed Adam’s example and stared at the ceiling. ‘I can’t promise I’m too coherent,’ she said.
Adam chuckled. With his own brain currently oozing out his ears, he could relate. He sobered again, fixing his clothing. Somehow it didn’t seem right to have this conversation with his trousers half pushed down, his underwear askew.
Even if she was stark naked.
‘Ruby knows.’
Jess lifted her head off the bed and stared at him. ‘What?’
‘She was in the kitchen this morning, moaning about the coffee not being ready and speculating what was keeping you in bed past your usual early hour. And…I told her.’
Jess fell back against the mattress. ‘How did you tell her?’
‘I said you’d spent the night with me.’
Jess blew out a breath, disturbing a strip of fringe that had half fallen across her eye. ‘It might have been better coming from me.’
Adam rolled his head to face her. ‘She’d have still been angry with me. I promised her I’d stay away from you.’
Jess rolled her head to face him. ‘You did?’
He nodded. ‘And I had every intention of doing just that.’
Jess grinned. ‘That didn’t really work out, did it?’
Adam smiled back. It faded quickly though as he scanned her lovely face. He hadn’t expected to be so totally blind-sided by someone he’d known for three years and had never thought of as anything other than his
little sister’s friend.
‘How was I supposed to know your chocolate-cake kisses were so hard to resist?’
There was humour in his voice but his blue, blue gaze was serious. The last thing Jess had wanted was to become a bone of contention between two people she loved. ‘I’ll talk to her.’
Adam shook his head. He didn’t need a champion. But he did need to establish some boundaries. For the first time in a very long time he wanted more than a quick roll in the hay with a woman. But it couldn’t last.
His lifestyle just wasn’t conducive to relationships. And he didn’t let anything distract him for his work.
‘She thinks you don’t know that I’m only in town for a matter of weeks and that whatever we have going on has a very short shelf life.’
And there it was. The crux of the matter. Jess kept her face completely neutral, masking the hammer blow to her stomach as all the delicious post-coital glow fizzed.
She swallowed. ‘I know that.’
‘Do you?’ he asked, repeating Ruby’s question. ‘Because this is my life, Jess. I’m a gypsy. I travel around the world. I go where I’m needed.’
Jess felt an absurd urge to cry. What if she needed him to be here? She quelled it. She didn’t do teary and emotional—that wasn’t her style. But neither was she going to meekly accept his narrow life parameters.
Keeping her voice non-confrontational, she said, ‘So you’re going to do that for ever?’
Adam opened his mouth to confirm it but suddenly for ever stretched out bleakly in front of him and he recoiled from it. Thinking about how jet-lagged he’d been this time around, the prospect of putting his body through that at sixty was very unappealing.
He shrugged. ‘It’s who I am.’
Jess lifted a hand to his face and traced her fingers along his mouth. ‘No, Adam, it’s what you do.’
She wanted to say so much more. That he was living only half a life if he defined himself only in relation to his occupation. That family and friends and the hobbies you indulged in and the sports that you played, the books that you read, the movies you saw and the place you called home were the things that defined you.
But she’d spent less than twenty-four hours in his bed and just because she loved him it didn’t qualify her to dish out home truths. She certainly didn’t want to annoy him with her opinions. That was relationship territory and she didn’t want to scare him away.
Adam considered her statement. As far as he was concerned his job was his life—one didn’t exist without the other. But it was novel to realise that for some people it was just part of who they were. One component.
How could he want her so badly when she was practically his polar opposite? His lips tingled where her fingers had trailed moments before.
‘Is this about her?’ Jess asked into the growing silence. ‘The woman who broke your heart?’
Adam frowned. ‘Caroline?’
Caroline. The woman who had ruined him for all others.
‘This is nothing to do with Caroline.’
‘Except she’s the only woman you’ve ever committed to and since she broke your engagement you haven’t had a significant relationship with anyone.’
Adam shook his head. Ruby was too damn chatty. ‘I loved her, yes, and I’ll admit that her leaving did screw with me for a while.’ He’d been mad as hell at his father for three years. ‘But, Jess, that was a decade ago. I’m totally over her.’
‘So you’re not still in love with her?’
‘No,’ he denied. God, no. He hadn’t thought about Caroline in years even if their break-up had subconsciously coloured every relationship since. He’d heard that she’d got married a few years back and he’d felt nothing other than happy for her.
‘Definitely not.’ He looked up at the ceiling. ‘I’m not still pining for her deep, deep down, Jess. Trust me, my reasons for not forming significant relationships with women have nothing to do with a long-forgotten fiancée. I just don’t have the time for relationships. My work is totally consuming. That would just be selfish of me.’
Jess looked at the ceiling too as relief coursed through her body. His voice was full of conviction and she believed him. ‘Okay.’ It was good to know she wasn’t competing with a ghost. That her love just might stand a chance.
But.
How could she hope to reach a man whose one true emotional connection was with something as functional as his job?
Adam turned his head back to face her. ‘You and I are very different. We want different things.’
Jess nodded. They most definitely were. But that didn’t have to be bad. Opposites were supposed to attract, were they not? He was looking at her like she was a puzzle he could figure out if he just looked at her long enough. But there was no puzzle with her—she knew what she wanted.
He was the one hiding from life.
‘What do you want, Adam. Right here, right now, what do you want?’
Adam blinked. He hadn’t known what her comeback would be but it wasn’t this. It had been many years since he’d had a proper conversation like this with a woman in his bed. He doubted any of his bed partners since Caroline had cared about what he wanted unless it had a sexual connotation.
It was so startling he didn’t even think about ducking the question
‘I want to keep doing this, you and me. Until I head overseas again.’
Jess could see sincerity blazing from the golden flecks in his eyes and hear it in the steady timbre of his voice. It never occurred to her to deny him. ‘Well, all right, then.’
Adam shut his eyes briefly. ‘No, Jess, it’s not all right. You told me on the beach that morning that you’d want everything. But I can’t offer you that. I’m going to be gone for a couple of months. I’m always going to be gone somewhere for a couple of months. All I can offer you is these next few weeks.’
Yes, she had said that. Yes, she did want everything. She loved him. She wanted his ring and his name and his children. She wanted to grow old with him.
She wanted the fairy-tale.
And he didn’t.
But something told her he might. If she just persevered. If she showed him what he was missing. If she gave without expectation, if she loved him in silence.
And even if he never did want the things she wanted she knew in her bones she was willing to sacrifice the fairy-tale, what she wanted, to be with him here and now.
Until this moment she never would have believed it.
But she knew with utter certainty that she’d take whatever he was willing to give for as long as he would have her.
Because she loved him.
‘I can’t make you give me everything, Adam. But I can make the most of what you’re willing to offer.’
Yes, she was going to get her heart broken but her grandmother had always said it took courage to love. ‘I’ll take these next few weeks and cherish them for the rest of my life.’
Adam rolled on his side, supporting his head on his palm. She was gloriously naked stretched out before him.
He already wanted her again.
He looked down into her face, inspecting it for signs of artifice. Her answer had quickened his pulse. He wanted so much to believe it but it was a big ask to go from everything to just a few weeks. ‘Why?’
Because I love you.
Because I want to love you so thoroughly you’ll want the fairy-tale as well.
‘Because you only live once. Because I’m twenty-four and when I’m old and grey I want to be able to scandalise my grand-kids with stories about the surfing surgeon I had a wild, passionate fling with.’
He gave a throaty chuckle and her heart swelled with its resonance. ‘And because you asked me.’
Their gazes locked and neither of them said anything for a moment or two.
‘Don’t go falling in love,’ Adam said.
He wasn’t entirely sure whether he was talking to her or himself.
Jess nodded. ‘Roger.’
If only it wasn
’t too late.
CHAPTER NINE
The next week was one of the happiest of Jess’s life. Long nights spent in bed with Adam. Early morning surfing lessons. Hanging out at the Stat Bar like a real couple with the gang. Not feeling like a fifth wheel for a change.
Being able to reach out and touch him, hold his hand, cook for him, smile at him with come-hither eyes, see lust and frank sexual appreciation reflected in the golden flecks of his hey-baby gaze.
Jess revelled in the envious looks from women everywhere. On the beach, at work—where rumours about their liaison had circulated like wildfire—at the Stat Bar.
Unless she pulled off a miracle she had a very short amount of time to bask in their against-all-odds relationship.
So bask she did.
And everyone had been supportive. Even Ruby. After her initial keep hold of your heart warning she’d been true to her word and not said another thing. Tilly and Ellie had also been fabulous, although she could see her friends were concerned about her.
About what happened after Adam left.
But for now Jess refused to think about that. She was living in the moment. In a bubble.
A wonderful, joyous, love-filled bubble.
The bubble burst a few days later when Adam announced, in bed that morning just prior to getting up for another surfing lesson, that he and Ruby and Cort were going to a dinner party at his parents’ house that night and not to wait up.
The blow was surprising in its intensity.
For the first time since the party, Jess actually felt…temporary.
It had been easy these last amazing days to think of them as a couple but this was a resounding slap in the face. They were not a couple.
They were a fleeting hook-up for a few weeks that involved sex and fun and laughter.
It definitely did not involve meeting the parents.
‘Okay,’ she said, trying not to betray in her voice the blinding disappointment she felt in every cell of her body.
Adam heard the catch in her voice and rolled onto his side, dropping a kiss on her bare shoulder. ‘It’s going to be stuffy and unbearable and my father will be his usual egotistical self, regaling everyone with stories about him, him, him. We’re only going for Mum’s sake. Trust me, I’m saving you from being bored to death.’
