by Ann, Jewel E
“Why me?” she whispered with raw honesty.
He tipped her chin up with his finger then brushed his thumb along her lower lip. “Because you matter.”
What did that mean? Had no one mattered before her? Impossible.
His hand dropped back to his side and he waited.
Her.
He wanted her to undress him. He wanted to be with her … inside her. Only in a dream. It had to be a dream. She wanted to close her eyes and not wake up.
He helped her remove his shirt. She took a moment to stare then her shaky hands unfastened his jeans. His erection strained against his briefs.
Ryn swallowed hard before easing down his pants. He toed off his shoes and stepped out of his jeans. Kneeling at his feet, she stole another breath of courage and reached up to remove his briefs. He threaded his fingers through her hair. It was a simple yet sensual gesture that sent a heavy pulsing sensation to settle between her legs.
Resting her palms on his hard quad muscles, she rose up on her knees. His grip on her hair tightened. It had been a long time since she’d trusted a man with every piece of her vulnerability.
“Open.” He let go of her hair with one hand while gently tugging her head back with the other.
She opened, but only from the shock that he said that to her. It wasn’t a question or even request. It was a demand. He looked down at her with dark, hooded eyes as he fisted the base of his cock, guiding it into her mouth. He teased it against her tongue until she took over. Bringing both hands back into her hair, he held it back to see her face as he made gentle thrusts.
“Touch yourself.”
It was official. She was in over her head and sinking deeper with every word that fell from his lips. Kneeling in front of him with his cock in her mouth, it was a little late to turn back. The most surprising part: she didn’t want to stop.
“Ryn.” It came out with an edge of warning, a side to Jackson she hadn’t seen. She liked it. A lot.
The uncontrolled moan she released while sliding two fingers over her clitoris, drew a painful “fuck” from him. With a groan, he pushed a little deeper toward her throat. The tightening grip on her hair revealed his teetering control. He grabbed her arms and pulled her up. The wild look in his eyes showed more than a slip of control.
He shoved her down onto the bed, plunging her heart into her throat. Who was this guy and why was she so turned on by his Jekyll and Hyde transformation?
“Spread your legs.”
Please didn’t seem to be in his vocabulary and no wasn’t in hers. After retrieving a condom from his pants, he rolled it on, his eyes giving her a challenging look that dared her to do anything but what he asked.
Pushing her knees back until they nearly touched her ears, he buried his face between her legs, eliciting a scream from someone. It couldn’t have been her. Ryn Middleton did not scream during sex … not ever.
Jackson became the ultimate sex toy, crawling up her body, sinking into her, and taking her to a whole new world. The woman beneath him, moaning, begging, and digging her nails into the flesh of his toned ass, was one lucky, lucky girl. After seeing stars, she sucked her lower lip into her mouth as he collapsed on top of her.
Breathing was overrated.
“Fuck forty.” He teased his teeth along her shoulder.
She chuckled between labored breaths. “I think you just did.”
*
Jude Day wasn’t used to fucking women in a bed. He wasn’t familiar with words beyond “goodnight” after zipping his fly and walking away from a random act of selfish pleasure. Taking Ryn against her refrigerator felt familiar to Jackson. It had a spontaneous feel to it, even though he stayed for dinner and he did see her again—very un-Jude. However, lying next to Ryn in her bed with the entire night ahead of them left Jackson in uncharted territory.
“I should go.” He kissed his way down her neck, palming her ass with one hand and squeezing her breast with his other.
“Okay,” she answered in a breathy voice.
An out. She gave him an easy out.
No begging. No pouting. No clinging.
The woman proved to be nothing short of a dream. The perfect mixture of maturity and vulnerability. She gave him the option to leave without a guilt trip, and the sultry way her eyes moved over his body felt like an open invitation to come back and do it again and again. The perfect situation. So why didn’t he want to leave? What the hell was wrong with him?
“Or … I could stay.” Sucking her nipple into his mouth, he tugged at it with his teeth until her back arched off the bed.
“Oh God …”
Ryn’s soft moan had him hard again. His bout of celibacy left him uncharacteristically needy for sex, or maybe it was her. No woman had ever made him feel so insatiable. Every inch of her tasted divine. He couldn’t stop sucking and lapping his tongue over her breasts as two of his fingers slid between her slick folds.
A distant voice from his past reprimanded him for being such a pussy as he fingered her to another orgasm, aiming only to pleasure her. She clawed at his back then tugged his hair, another foreign sensation. Jude sported a shaved head. He never knew a woman’s death grip on his hair could make his dick pulse. Jackson would keep his pain-in-the-ass hair because his dick rather liked the connection.
Ryn’s body writhed beneath his. “Jackson!”
After he removed his fingers, her eyes fluttered open and he released her nipple. She looked down at the teeth marks he left as a souvenir. “That’s a first.”
“Yeah?” He kissed the bite marks and grinned. “Well it won’t be the last.”
Ryn pulled the sheet up over her chest and bit her lips together. “So … I’ll see you Tuesday?”
That old voice told him to get his pathetic ass up and say something to ensure he’d leave with both balls intact.
“Tuesday.” He nodded then rolled out of bed and dressed without making eye contact. Tuesday, next week, next month … it should not have mattered. Yet, it did matter. It mattered like a sucker punch to his junk.
*
Ryn made it to her 6:00 a.m. barre class the next morning. The sexiest man alive groping her body—her soft parts that needed to be firmed up—served as the greatest incentive ever to feel the burn. Being with Jackson flooded her brain with a mind-fuck of emotions. Every time he touched her it brought on a war between unfathomable desire—the incredible feeling of being desired—and the insecurities that had been ingrained in her about her body, her age, her ability to please a man. Did he think she needed to lose weight, exercise more, get that boob job she’d thought about for years?
After class she went for coffee with her instructor, Val. She was a year older than Ryn, recently divorced. Val was the closest thing Ryn had to a female friend, who also qualified as a confidant.
“You seemed possessed during class today.” Val gave her a Cheshire cat grin over the rim of her coffee cup.
Ryn couldn’t hide her guilty smile. “I’ve been seeing a guy.”
“Go on.” Val rested her arms on the table and leaned in giving Ryn her full attention.
“He’s ten years younger than me.”
Val’s eyes bugged out. “Ryn! Oh my God. Do tell. Who? What? Where? When?”
“I work for him. I’m sure I should have some rule against that, huh? But I’m self-employed and it’s never been an issue or even a possibility before now. He’s kind, and funny, and he plays the piano … like he can seriously play the piano. But he’s also a god, Val. I’m talking celebrity-sports star-fitness model god. It’s not that I have some awful self-esteem, but if you saw this guy you’d understand. I have no idea why he’s interested in me … in that way. I feel like I’m having my own Shallow Hal moment. You know, like he’s looking at me but seeing what he wants to see and it’s just an illusion.”
“Ryn—”
“Don’t.” She shook her head. “I need you to be my forty-something friend. I don’t need you to give me a self-esteem boost. I’m not
saying I think I’m ugly or lacking in all sex appeal. I’m just being realistic. I love ice skating and I’m pretty good at it, but I’m never going to make the Olympic team. Do you get what I’m saying?”
Val squinted a bit. “This guy is the gold medal of guys?”
“Exactly.”
“Have you had …” Val wiggled her brows.
Ryn blushed. “Yes. Oh. My. God. Yes.”
“And?”
Ryn laughed. “Back to the Olympic scenario … if sex were an event. He’d take the gold.”
“I hate you.” Val shook her head.
“You should.” Ryn sighed. “I think there is a long line of women who hate me. Hell, I’m jealous of myself. I just know someone is going to shake me, and when I wake I’m going to be so pissed it was all just a dream.”
“So he’s a god. The sex is award-winning. Yet I get this vibe that something’s wrong.”
She chewed the corner of her lower lip and nodded. “It’s the age thing, but not like I’m going to break a hip during sex. Although his stamina is—”
“Yada yada … he’s a fucking stallion. I get it.” Val rolled her eyes.
Ryn chuckled. “Anyway, he lived a cavalier life before he moved to Omaha, but now he’s looking for something different.”
“A mature woman?”
With a twist of her lips, she shook her head. “A wife—a child-bearing wife.”
Val’s eyes grew wide as she mouthed Oh.
“Yeah. This is so messed up. When we’re together I can’t stop wondering if he’s attracted to me or my maturity and child-bearing hips.”
“I thought you had a C-section with Maddie.”
“You know what I mean.”
Val laughed for a moment then it fizzled when she looked at the true concern on Ryn’s face. “Is it really about believing he could be genuinely attracted to you, or are you not wanting the same thing? I have two teenagers and I can’t imagine starting that all over again—nursing, diapers, sleep deprivation.”
Ryn rested her chin in her fist and nodded slowly. “It’s everything. My hormones are all over the place. I don’t even know if I could get pregnant. And if I did, can you imagine what a monster I’d be with even more hormones coursing through my veins? And you’re right, there’s the new-mom thing. At one point I dreamed of more children with a man who loved me, but I think over the past few years that dream disappeared, and now I don’t know if it still exists.” She laughed. “But really … it’s all so insane because I’ve known him for less than two months. He’s mysterious, unpredictable, and I’m so far out of my comfort zone I can’t think straight when we’re together.”
Val shrugged. “You’re in your sexual prime. Go for it.”
“In less than ten years he’ll leave me because my female parts will be all dry and shriveled up. And the crazy part is I wouldn’t blame him because the guy was made to …”
Val perked a single brow. “Made to … fuck?”
Ryn smiled. “I think so. I’m not even sure he’s wired for monogamy. It would be like Secretariat being a circus pony—all that wasted potential.”
They both laughed.
“I’m scared, Val.”
She grabbed Ryn’s hand. “He’s not Preston and you’re no longer that woman.”
“I know, but he’s still alive and in my life because of Maddie. Even after all these years I swear he’s still messing with my mind. I second-guess everything, including what I want. I’m forty, for God’s sake. I should know what I want by now, but I don’t because somewhere along the way I lost a piece of myself. And because of Maddie I feel this incredible guilt like regretting Preston means I regret Maddie.”
“Ryn?”
She took a cleansing breath, ashamed those words even came out of her mouth. “What?”
“If being somebody’s wife again or having another baby is even a one percent chance in your mind, then get the guy. Suck him—pun totally intended—for all he’s willing to give you and then…” Val winked “…give him to me.”
Chapter Twenty
Day
Jones looked at Luke. Luke looked at Jones. Neither would concede that the other deserved to be in the dog house. As Luke’s gaze drifted to the fourth empty Heineken bottle hanging from his loose grip, he felt fairly certain the mutt would be sleeping in his spot that night.
Francesca needed a heart transplant or she would die. He remembered the days when he would have given her the heart from his own chest. Those days were gone and his heart left a few hours earlier to go for a bike ride. Even four beers in before one o’clock on a Saturday, Luke knew with every bit of his existence that Jessica Day was meant to be with him.
Somewhere along the way he unintentionally convinced her she needed him. Every day he wondered what would happen to them if she realized he needed her more. Beneath all the pain, the regret, the blood, the deaths … Jessica Day was a survivor. It’s not what she did, it’s who she was, and nobody could touch that part of her: not Four, not Matthew Green, and not Dr. Jones.
He closed his eyes and an hour later, which felt like two seconds, the door opened. The sweat-soaked body of the woman who carried his heart like a torch walked to the kitchen and filled a large glass with icy water from the refrigerator door. She didn’t acknowledge him. He couldn’t blame her. Some strange and completely irrational part of his mind wanted her to be pissed at him. Jessica could never be ordinary and he accepted that—a sick part of him even loved that about her—but just for one moment he wanted the Jessica that showed she had a jealous side.
“I don’t want you to be a martyr.”
She turned with narrowed eyes, wiping her mouth along the back of her hand. “You assume I’m suffering somehow?”
Moving his empty bottle like a pendulum, he clenched his teeth but the words still came out. “My ex-fiancée is dying and you tell me to go see her.”
Jessica set her empty glass on the counter. “She’s not necessarily dying.”
“It doesn’t matter. That’s not the point.”
“O-kay … so tell me what is the point?”
Luke slammed the bottle onto the coffee table then tugged at his hair. “The point is you should be concerned that my going to see Fran could stir up emotions from my past. That … that seeing her in such a helpless state could cause me to leave you to be by her side because I might think she needs me more than you do.”
“Whoa … how many beers have you had?”
He didn’t answer, choosing instead to stare at the floor, breathless with anger. Anger about what? He wasn’t sure.
“Jesus, Luke. I was jealous of slutty Lickey, and then your lunch date in Tahoe before I knew it was with your sister. But that was when I didn’t know how you felt about me. That was before you promised that someday you’d beg me to marry you. That was before you asked me and Jones to move in with you. If something has changed, then now would be a good time to confess. Otherwise, I’m not going to be jealous of your ex-fiancée, who may or may not be dying, unless you keep saying shit about seeing her and it stirring up emotions that would make you leave me.”
“I’m not leaving you.” It was the truth, but he still couldn’t look at her. Jessica’s sharp perception would’ve seeped through his vulnerability until everything came crashing down.
“Go see her, Luke.”
*
After sobering up, Luke apologized to Jessica for his reaction to the morning’s events. It came as no surprise that she forgave him. In spite of her past, which included killing someone with a knife, Luke knew she was the better person. If she were him, she would have already packed her bags and been on a plane to Scottsdale.
Instead, after a week of an awkward existence as roommates, the kind that didn’t have sex and gave each other polite smiles in passing, they packed up the essentials and Jones, then drove to Tahoe to spend the weekend with Luke’s family. It may have been a cowardly move, but he decided they needed a change in scenery to bring Jessica out of her w
ithdrawn state. Of course he didn’t let her drive, but she didn’t ask either. However, the death-look, that he’d come to know all too well, stuck to her face the entire way there. At one point when they stopped to let Jones do his thing, he almost handed her the keys. Almost.
“Tell me why you’re mad.”
Jessica coughed a throaty chuckle. “We’re twenty minutes from your parents’ place and you want to have a conversation based on your assumption that I’m mad?”
“Are you not?”
“No. I’m not mad.”
An interesting thing about medical school and specializing in psychiatry was the lack of information about the intricate workings of the female mind. Unfortunately, he proved to be his biggest obstacle. The change in their relationship stemmed from the Fran revelation. It made no sense why she would really want him to go visit Fran, but with each passing day filled with her withdrawn attitude and kissing Jones more than him, it became quite clear that’s exactly what she expected him to do.
“Then why haven’t we …” Sex. He wanted to know why they hadn’t had sex. No amount of education, plaques on the wall, or professional accolades could completely hide the man behind the doctor.
“Why haven’t we …?”
“Exercised.”
Dr. Jones went MIA whenever Luke tried to have a conversation that involved their relationship.
“Exercised? Well, I don’t know why we haven’t exercised, but I’ve been doing it every day while you’ve been stuck at your office ‘catching up on dictation’ until after dinner most nights. Jude’s been quite happy that I’ve been available to spar almost every night.”
Luke had been at his office with legitimate work to do, but nothing that he couldn’t have done at home. Dr. Jones would have made the brilliant assessment that Luke had been avoiding not only Jessica but Fran and his past too. The woman beside him possessed too much intelligence to dismiss the reaction he had to the news of Fran.
Since she and Jones moved in with him, Jessica had adopted Luke’s healthy way of sleeping in the nude. He’d been living with live porn. There wasn’t a guy in the world that would not have envied the sight that greeted him every night when he walked out of the bathroom: sexy naked woman on the bed, knees bent, legs spread wide, one hand rolling a nipple between two fingers, the other hand circling her glistening clitoris. Jessica needed sex before she could settle into a good sleep. Luke always obliged her. During the five days of her menstrual cycle, she’d join him in the shower, but never did they go without it.
