“You don’t play fair,” she said. She reached out a delicate hand and grabbed the collar of his shirt as if she’d yank it off of him. “And you’re overdressed.”
“I can fix that,” he said.
He rolled off of her and sat on the edge of the bed. He could feel her gaze on him—man, that was hot—while he shucked off his pants, leaving his boxers on. His shirt came off next and then he was diving under the covers to get to her and her heat.
He pulled her up against him so they were lying on their sides facing each other. He ran his hand up and down her back and she arched into him, pushing her hips into his and making him momentarily see spots. Mercy! He had no idea how he was going to last long enough to get her where she needed to be first.
“Tell me if I do anything you don’t like,” he said.
Jessie nodded but given that she had been willing to fake an orgasm with him before, he wanted to be very clear that she needed to tell him exactly what she liked and what she didn’t.
“And if I do something you do like, be sure to let me know that, too.”
Again, she nodded.
He moved his hand to her breast and gently pinched her nipple. She gasped, bit her lip, and arched her back, but she didn’t say anything. Zach wanted to hear her, he wanted her to own her pleasure. He removed his hand. She frowned.
He looked at her, his gaze steady on hers, and said, “Tell me.”
Jessie huffed out a breath. She nodded again. She swallowed and then wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. Zach pushed his hips into the mattress to relieve some of the pressure. Man, he wanted to be inside her.
“That was good,” she said.
“Good?” he asked her.
He put his hand back on her breast, flicked the tip with his thumb, and watched her blue eyes go cloudy with desire.
“Just good?” He caressed her again and added a pinch.
“Really good.” She panted out the words.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said.
He gave her a lascivious grin and moved his mouth to her other nipple. He bit down and then caressed her with his tongue repeatedly, until she began to writhe beneath him. Jessie made several breathy groans that caused his blood to run thick but he pulled away, forcing himself to slow down.
“What’s that, my girl?” he asked. He ran one hand down her belly, letting his thumb circle her navel, before dipping lower, in between her legs.
A light sheen of sweat was coating Jessie’s skin. He nuzzled her neck, taking in her particular scent of lemon cake, knowing in that moment that the smell of her would haunt him for the rest of his days and probably cause him to have an immediate hard-on. There were worse problems, he supposed.
“I can’t . . . it’s too much . . .” Jessie was trying to speak but her body was distracting her, making it too hard to think. Excellent.
Zach wanted her to be focused on one thing and one thing only, the pleasure that was building up inside of her as he stroked her clit with the pad of his thumb. She arched her hips into Zach’s hand, and he would have done a fist pump, but his hands were full of her. One hand continued to torment her breasts while the other relentlessly stroked the cluster of nerves at her center.
She thrashed her head, she arched her back, she bucked against his hand. She was right there. He could feel it building in her like a rain cloud swelling with moisture before releasing it in a downpour. He wasn’t going to let her lose this. Not this time. Not with him.
“I’m close, so close,” she said.
She opened her eyes and gazed at him and in that second Zach saw every vulnerability she’d ever had—parents who ignored her and a husband who mistreated her, both convincing her that she wasn’t worthy—roar up inside of her as if trying to wrestle her from the pleasure she so richly deserved. Oh, hell, no!
Zach kissed her. It was a hot wet possession of his mouth claiming hers, his tongue mimicking what his body wanted to do to hers. And then he moved his lips down her body, with one direction in mind.
Jessie, as if sensing where he was going, withdrew. He didn’t let her. He pushed her thighs wide and settled in between her legs.
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable—” she began but Zach put his mouth on her and sucked hard.
She groaned, she arched, she pressed her flesh against his lips as he worked her over. She started to tremble and he knew she was close. He slid one finger into her and she gasped, then he made it two, while he sucked hard on her clit.
And just like that, Jessie came hard against his mouth, her muscles clenching around his fingers as if they’d keep him in there. Her entire body convulsed and she let out the softest, sexiest cries he had ever heard.
It was done. She was his and he was hers.
Chapter 22
Jessie felt as if everything she’d ever known to be true was a big fat lie. She’d convinced herself over the years that orgasms simply could not be that big of a deal. It had made going without much easier to accept if she believed it was much ado about nothing. Holy bananas, she had been wrong. So wrong!
Her heart was pounding hard in her chest, her breath was coming in little pants, and she was sweaty. It was glorious. She popped her eyes open and looked at Zach. He was leaning up on one elbow, looking incredibly pleased with himself. She tackled him.
“That was amazeballs!” she said. “There are no words.”
She kissed his lips, his chin, his nose, his eyes, his ears. His chest started to shake beneath hers as a laugh rumbled out of his mouth. She moved lower to kiss his chest.
She would have kept going, but he caught her, cupping her face and meeting her gaze with his laughing velvet brown eyes. Then he kissed her and it was sweet and tender and lovely and she melted onto him, thinking she would remember this night for the rest of her life and marvel at it, at him, Zachary Caine, the man she now considered her first real lover.
She leaned up on her elbows to study him beneath her and noticed that everything was fuzzy and little off-kilter. Her eyes went round and she looked at him in surprise.
“My ears are ringing, is that normal?”
“Really?” he asked. Then he laughed. “I made your ears ring? Well, that’s a first.”
Jessie bit her lip. She didn’t want to push it, but she had never wanted anyone as much as she wanted Zach right now. She nudged his rigid shaft with her hips.
“Want to see if I can make your ears ring?” she asked.
She didn’t mean to sound so sexual when she asked but her voice was gruff from her own passionate cries and it just came out that way.
“Hell yeah,” he said.
He rolled over, trapping her beneath him. It was as if he couldn’t touch her enough or taste her enough. His mouth and hands were everywhere but Jessie didn’t want to be denied. She’d not had a man in her life in a long time and she realized how much she’d missed the male form—well, a male form like Zach’s, which was ridiculously fit and firm. He was muscular, solidly built with a dusting of hair on his chest and a thicker thatch down between his legs.
To Zach’s credit, he let her explore to her heart’s content. When she wrapped her fist around his cock, and stroked him up and down in a firm grip, he looked like he might pass out.
She grinned and asked, “Are your ears ringing yet?”
“That’s it,” he said. He captured her hands and held them over her head. “I think I might literally die if I don’t fuck you right now.”
It was the hottest thing Jessie had ever heard. Unable to speak, she nodded and spread her legs wide, letting him know that she was ready.
Zach pulled a condom out of the pants he’d dropped to the floor. He slipped it on and came back to her. He looked her in the eye and asked, “Are you sure?”
“More than I’ve ever been of anything ever,” she said.
She enfolded h
im in her embrace as he slid into her. He stretched her wide, even as he moved slow, taking his time, easing their joining. Jessie wasn’t having it. She hooked her legs around his waist and the next time he went to ease in just a little bit, she used her legs to pull him in all the way.
Mine, she mouthed into his shoulder so that he couldn’t hear her. Mine.
Zach pulled out a little bit; Jessie hated it and tightened her legs and pulled him back into her. She clung to him and felt another shift in her chest. She realized it was her heart yielding to him. He had a claim on her now, one that she couldn’t pretend wasn’t there. For as long as this lasted between them, she belonged to him and he to her.
Her grip on him was tight, and he laughed as he reached behind him and unhooked her legs. Jessie resisted, not wanting to have any space between them. She wanted to remain connected, fused together, so she wouldn’t feel so alone anymore. She realized that it was needy on her part, still she couldn’t help it.
“I’m not leaving you,” Zach said.
He cupped her face and kissed her while he rocked against her. The friction made Jessie’s insides tighten and she dropped her feet to the mattress so she could push up against him, meeting each thrust with one of her own.
“That’s it, my girl,” he said. “Just like that.”
He moved his hand between them, stroking her again with his thumb, making her brain go fuzzy as she felt herself chasing that cataclysmic pulse of pleasure.
This time when the orgasm hit, she was stretched full of Zach and she clenched so tightly around him that it almost hurt, but then it burst into waves of pleasure that shocked her with their intensity, causing her to call his name as if it was a mantra.
“Zach, oh, Zach, oh, Zach,” she cried.
He removed his hand and began to pump into her with a ferocity that made her arch into him again as aftershocks coursed through her, and then he was wrapping his arms about her and pulling her to him as he lost himself inside of her.
“Jessie, damn it, my girl,” he growled in her ear. “I was hoping to last longer than this but, oh, what you do to me.”
She felt the shudders ripple through him and she pulled him in close and tight, his sweat-slicked skin pressed to hers as they both fought to catch their breath. She could feel his heart pounding in strong sure beats as he dragged in several deep breaths.
He leaned back from her and shook his shaggy blonde hair as if trying to get his wits back. He relaxed down on top of her, pushing her deep into the mattress as he groaned with satisfaction. The sound made Jessie smile.
“You’re right,” he said. He leaned up to kiss her. “That was amazeballs.”
Jessie laughed. He kissed her again. She reached up to caress the face that was becoming so incredibly dear to her.
She traced his lower lip with her thumb and he opened his mouth and gently bit down on the pad. Heat streaked through her and she gasped.
She gazed into his eyes, reveling in the warmth and affection she found there, then she winked at him and said, “Let’s do it again.”
Zach laughed and then rolled so that she was on top of him. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said.
And so they did.
• • •
They had kicked the covers to the floor. Jessie lay across Zach, feeling their sweat cool and their heart rates return to normal. She was exhausted and exhilarated at the same time, feeling as if she’d just been invited into some secret society she had never known existed. Nothing would ever be the same for her again and she was thrilled.
She wondered when she would feel sated. She glanced at the handsome man beside her and realized never; she was never ever going to get enough of this man or the way he made her feel. She shivered.
Zach must have thought she was cold, because he reached over her to pull the blanket up and over them. He tucked her into his chest with her face against his throat and his chin over her head. They were entwined like two vines and she wasn’t sure where she ended and he began or vice versa. Instead of feeling stifled, as she had in the past when Seth had clung to her in a drunken stupor, she felt worshipped and protected and adored; amazing what a difference shared pleasure could make.
He was so still she thought he might have drifted off. Her own eyes felt heavy but she didn’t want to drift off without saying something, letting him know how much this meant to her. She felt like her own personal curse had been broken. What could she say to him that would make him understand? She didn’t know, she just knew she had to say something.
“Thank you,” she said. She pressed a kiss against the base of his throat and felt him shift so that he could see her face.
“I’m not sure you should be thanking me,” he said. Although he did look pleased. “I think I should be thanking you.”
“Really?” she asked. “Was it your first orgasm, too?”
“Uh, no.” He laughed but then grew abruptly serious. “But I have to say I’ve never felt . . . that is . . . it’s not always like that.”
His tone was light as if he were trying to keep the conversation from becoming too emotional. Jessie understood that. She was feeling vulnerable in a way she never had before and given what they had just shared she suspected he must be feeling it, at least a little bit, too.
“Did you ever wonder about your parents’ sex life?” she asked.
“What?! No!” he said. “And why would you be thinking about that now?”
“Because what we just did was so very hot and my parents were so very cold,” she said. “They were both career-driven professionals and I never saw anything between them other than the barest acknowledgment of the other’s existence. Truthfully, I know I was an accident because they didn’t even share a bedroom—well, that and they told me.”
Zach was running a soothing hand up and down her spine. It stopped at her words and he leaned back again to look at her. “They told you you were an accident. Are you serious?”
“Well, they preferred the term ‘unplanned,’ not even the word ‘surprise’ because that might mean a happy event,” she said. “I felt like I spent my whole childhood trying not to be noticed to please them and then my teen years trying desperately to be noticed because I was so lonely. I think the strain made me socially defective.”
“In what way? You don’t seem defective to me.” His voice was a rich deep rumble that made her feel as if she were sleeping with a big bear. She liked it. She liked him.
“I didn’t trust anyone. I was angry, bitter, and resented anyone who seemed to navigate the world loving and being loved without question,” she said. “Honestly, I became what you’d expect, a horrible person raised by horrible people.”
“I don’t see that,” he protested.
“Not now, but then. I did a bad thing going after Mac’s fiancé. In my defense, Seth picked me up in a bar when I’d just gotten back to town after being away. He was a smooth talker in his youth, and he didn’t mention that he was engaged to Mac. When I found out I went a little crazy, thinking she was going to get the best guy and I would get nothing, again.”
“Oh, poor Jessie,” Zach said. “That jerk played you.”
“It was no better than I deserved for agreeing to pick him up outside the church at his own wedding,” she said. She looked grim. “I can’t believe I did that. What an awful person I was.”
“We all make mistakes when we’re young,” he said. “And I can testify that you’re not awful now. Besides, in the end you did Mac a huge favor, even she says so. What changed you?”
“Motherhood,” she said. “The day they put Gracie in my arms, everything changed. I loved her so much, I was in love with her, and Maddie, too, when she came along. I still am. I was determined that I would be warm and loving and they would never feel alone or as if they were an inconvenience, and they would never ever doubt my love for them.”
“You
are an incredible mom,” he said. He kissed her head. “Those girls know how much you love them and you’ve given them a family to belong to, not every kid gets that. It’s a rare and beautiful thing.”
Jessie met his gaze. There were shadows she hadn’t seen before in his eyes that looked like long forgotten pain and confusion.
“Tell me,” she said. He looked like he would refuse, so she snuggled close to him and in her softest voice, she said, “Please.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” he said. “Not really.”
She said nothing. She just waited.
“I know my parents love me,” he said. “But—”
Again, she waited.
“They divorced when I was six months old. They were a bad match. My mother is an attorney and my father an artist. How they ever got together to begin with, I can’t imagine. Well, that’s not true. They had a first date that ended with them eloping to Vegas. I think they were drunk.”
Jessie listened without interrupting, letting Zach share what he would without questions.
“Seven months into the marriage, my mother discovered she was pregnant. They tried to make a go of it for my sake but things were already starting to unravel. I was still a baby when they divorced and divided up custody. Over the next few years, they both remarried and started new families. The custody agreement was fifty-fifty, so I did one week with Mom and one with Dad, no trading, no swapping, no deviation.”
“That sounds very reasonable.”
“It was and it wasn’t,” he said. “I was like a part-time member of both families. Stuff happened when I wasn’t around with each family, so I was left out of a lot of the inside jokes in both families. If there was a drama with one of the sisters, I usually missed it. I spent my entire childhood feeling like an outsider looking in, never really belonging. No one meant for it to be like that but that’s what it became.”
He shrugged and Jessie could see the little boy he must have been, forever playing catch-up with both of his families. She knew what it was like to feel like an outsider, and the thought of Zach having to spend his life like that with two families broke her heart a little bit.
Every Dog Has His Day Page 20
