by Maisey Yates
He was the most... The most incredible, beautiful man she had ever seen. His muscles were honed from years of hard work, a bit of dark hair covering his chest and trailing down over his well-defined abs. His jeans were low, showing off that band of muscle that formed an arrow, pointing down toward that most masculine part of him that remained hidden from her sight.
Then his hands went to his belt buckle, and her throat went dry. “I figured I ought to get naked first,” he said.
“Of course you think that,” she said, her voice trembling. “You know there’s not a woman alive who could turn you away once you do that.”
She hadn’t exactly meant to say that out loud, but she had. He chuckled, continuing to work his belt through the loops, and snapping his jeans and drawing the zipper down slowly, shedding the denim and his underwear in one fluid movement, and leaving her staring, open-mouthed.
She shifted restlessly, that hot, hollow ache between her legs suddenly taking on a very clear and obvious purpose. But if she was going to fill it with a man that size she was going to need to be seriously wet. She squeezed her legs together. She might already be wet enough. Just from looking. Just from kissing.
Although, calling what had just happened between them just kissing seemed a little bit disingenuous. He looked at her with purpose, closing the distance between them and bending over, kissing her until she couldn’t think straight. Kissing her until she couldn’t breathe. Then he stretched them both out on the bed, her body draped half over his, still fully clothed. Her hand was planted against his bare chest, and she could feel his heart, raging hard against her palm. He was naked, and she was fully clothed.
It should feel—in some ways—like he was the vulnerable one. But she had no idea how a man like him could ever be vulnerable. He was so large that he made her feel tiny and delicate, which was unheard of at her height. But he was so broad and muscular and tall. Perfect.
Touching his bare skin made her shake. Feeling all that leashed strength beneath her hands... She had never experienced anything like it.
Those big hands moved down to her hips, pushed up beneath the hem of her top, the heat of his touch burning through the thin lace of her bra as he cupped both breasts and teased her nipples. Then, with very little fanfare, he wrenched her top up overhead, sending it flying across the small bedroom. He grinned as he turned his focus to her leggings, dragging them down her legs and leaving her before him in nothing but her black lace bra and underwear. She gave thanks for the fact that she kept it simple when it came to unmentionables, and it just so happened she had white and she had black, and that meant most of the time they matched.
Though she had a feeling he wouldn’t care either way.
He was looking at her like he wanted to eat her whole, and she didn’t think—no, she knew—that her husband had never looked at her that way. Not even once. And he was supposed to have loved her. Jackson didn’t love her. But he seemed captivated by her body. That did something to her. Ramped up the already intense sensitivity in her body.
He made a sound that was halfway between a groan and a growl, moving toward her and kissing the curve of her breast, just above her lacy bra cup. Then he reached behind her back and unclasped it, sending it sailing the same way as her T-shirt.
“Shit,” he breathed, the curse like a prayer as he stared at her. He touched her again, like he had done through her shirt, cupping her, teasing her. The effect of those calloused fingers, with nothing to blunt the sensation was... She arched and squirmed beneath him, that restless ache between her thighs growing wider, more insistent.
Then those wicked lips quirked into a grin as he pushed his other hand down beneath the waistband of her panties, sliding his finger through the center of her slick folds, his touch like lightning against her sensitized flesh.
She gasped in shock, trying to squeeze her knees together as he drew lazy circles around her clit, his fingers moving easily because of all the wetness that he’d created there. She was almost embarrassed. For him to realize how much she wanted this. To be revealed in this way. That thought sent a zip of panic through her. She couldn’t hide. Not like this. He knew exactly how desperate she was. How needy. Knew that he had created this effect in her body.
As if he could read her mind he removed his hand from her breast and drew it down to his cock, wrapping his fingers around his hardened length and slowly sliding his hand from base to tip and back down again, bringing her focus to his arousal. To how turned on he was. How much he wanted her.
Maybe she was wet and needy for him, but he was hard for her.
She licked her lips, desire drowning out that momentary panic as she watched him take himself in his hand, as she took in the full sight of him, thick and heavy and beautiful.
She could honestly say she had never thought of that part of a man’s anatomy as beautiful before. His was. He was.
He continued to tease her with his fingers, sliding one finger deep inside of her and continuing to move his thumb over her clit as he worked it in and out of her body.
She let her head fall back, arching her hips against his hand in time with his rhythm. She was lost in it, and only dimly aware when he pulled her panties down her legs, exposing her to him completely.
He leaned in, kissing her hipbone, the touch of his mouth on her skin a shock.
Then he shifted, moving downward, parting her legs, his focus right there on her center.
She squirmed, trying to close her legs like she had done earlier, but he held them open, his gaze never leaving her body. Then, he met her eyes, a question in them.
He wasn’t going to ask, though she knew exactly what he was wondering.
If anyone had ever done this for her. What he was about to do.
Part of her wanted to stop him. For the same reasons she had been horrified by her own signs of arousal earlier. Because what he was clearly getting ready to do was so intimate, so raw, that it terrified her. Just the idea of it.
And no, no one had ever done it to her.
But neither of them said anything, and he kissed her inner thigh, the scrape of his beard on that delicate skin sending an erotic shiver through her body.
She could tell him to stop. But as he kissed and licked a path to the most intimate part of her, she could only wait. Wait and anticipate.
She didn’t know what kind of magic he had worked on her body, only that it was very real. And that she was under his spell.
He pressed his hand against her intimate flesh, spreading her open and sliding his thumb over that sensitized bundle of nerves there a few more times, bringing her back to her body. Bringing her back to that state of need that superseded everything else. Then he leaned forward, replacing his thumb with his tongue, tracing shapes, drawing the most intense pleasure from her that she’d ever experienced.
It was so sharp it almost hurt, that slick glide of his tongue over her clit. She was bucking her hips in time with his mouth, unable to worry about embarrassment, unable to care what it said about her. What it betrayed about her desire for him.
She could only feel. His every lick, his every kiss, the welcome invasion when he pressed two fingers inside of her and worked them in and out of her body in time with the rhythm of his tongue.
He lifted his head, just for a moment, his eyes burning into hers. “Good girl,” he said, before lowering his head and sucking her clit into his mouth as he spread his fingers inside of her wide. She hadn’t felt it building. Not really. It had been an ache, something sharp and fiery. She hadn’t realized the explosion was coming.
It was hard and intense, lightning behind her eyes as her internal muscles clenched tightly around him, a wave pulsing through her body. It went on and on. She didn’t know if it would ever end, and she didn’t know if she could survive it. The pleasure felt like it might break her apart from the inside out. Deep inside, where she had never been touched before.
And he didn’t stop, his fingers drawing out deeper, harder responses while she shivered and cried out, her cheeks wet with tears. Then he moved away from her, leaning over and opening up a drawer by the bedside, taking out a small plastic packet and tearing it open quickly. He rolled the condom over his length and returned to her.
She was boneless. Spent, her mind reeling with what had just happened. Her body still trembling with the aftereffects. She couldn’t handle more. She couldn’t. But she couldn’t find the voice to say it, and much like right before he had placed his mouth on her, she wanted to push herself. Dare herself.
She didn’t want to allow herself to be the one that stopped what was happening.
He had said that she could trust him. So she was going to. He positioned himself between her thighs, that thick, blunt head teasing her entrance.
She was so wet, more than ready for him. She looked up at him, at that beautiful face, so acutely aware of the fact that it was Jackson slipping inside of her now. He felt different. Every inch of him. From that hard, muscular chest pressed to her breasts, to those big, rough workmen’s hands. To that thick, glorious cock that made her feel so full it took her breath away.
He flexed his hips forward, hard, and she gasped as his pelvis made contact with her clit again. She had never felt it like this when Darren was inside of her. Had never felt stimulation there before. It was something about the way Jackson moved, or the way he had so thoroughly aroused her before. The way he had already brought her to completion. She was sensitive. So sensitive. She could barely stand any more stimulation.
He kept moving, and each thrust deep inside of her found some glorious place deep in there, sparking need against those nerves.
She felt like she would die of it. Another orgasm built from somewhere deeper inside her this time.
And she recognized it. What that ache was. That need that verged on pain.
She didn’t fight it. She chased after it. Suddenly she was desperate. For more. For everything. She wrapped her legs around his waist, trying to take him deeper as he whispered filthy things in her ear. Working her hips in time with his as he claimed her, over and over again. As he seemed to lose his control, his movements becoming fractured and uneven, harder.
Harder.
She realized she was saying that out loud. Making demands of her own.
And he obliged.
He slammed his mouth against hers, his tongue going deep as he froze above her, his hardness pulsing inside of her as his muscles shook, trembled. It was his own release, and the realization that he was in the grips of an orgasm as powerful as the one she’d had earlier pushed her over the edge again.
Her internal muscles gripped him tight, pulled him deeper, drew out their pleasure longer. Impossibly so. She clung to him. Held on to him until her breathing slowed. Until her heart rate returned to normal.
And she realized she had made a huge mistake.
Sleeping with a man she was living with. A man she couldn’t get away from. A man whose baby she was taking care of. A man who paid her wages.
She also didn’t care. She couldn’t.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered.
He kissed her forehead, pulling her against his chest. “Now you do.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
JACKSON WASN’T SURE what woke him up. He had been sleeping better than he could remember sleeping in months, and suddenly he wasn’t. His bed felt empty, and for a moment he couldn’t figure out why that was notable. Not when it had been empty since Lily had come into his life. And then he remembered.
Savannah.
He had taken Savannah to bed last night.
Thoroughly.
And while part of him wanted to give himself a pat on the back for rocking her world the way that he had, because damn, she’d been shaking and crying in his arms, she’d come so hard, another part of him knew that he didn’t deserve to feel proud of what he’d done.
But then, he didn’t feel proud of much. He wasn’t sure why suddenly that was a requirement. She hadn’t stayed in bed, and that did concern him. It made him wonder if maybe she was feeling...regretful or something.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t had his share of sexual encounters that had some regrets in the end. Tipsy hookups ended that way a lot. On both sides, frankly. But...he cared. Because hookups that ended in regret weren’t something Savannah normally did. And he didn’t want her to feel any regret over what they’d done. Mostly because he wanted her to be able to enjoy the fact that it had felt good.
Is that why?
What other reason could there be?
He got out of bed and put his jeans on with nothing underneath, zipping them and walking out into the main part of the house. It was quiet, and then he noticed that there was a small shaft of light coming from under Lily’s bedroom door. He walked that way and pushed it open.
Savannah was there, dressed in a simple pair of gray thermal pajamas, cradling Lily to her chest, rocking in the chair and rubbing his daughter’s back as she hummed.
Her voice was sweet sounding, soothing.
It reached down inside of him and made him feel like she had grabbed hold of his heart. Like she was cupping it in her palm, and could decide whether or not she was going to squeeze it, twist it or destroy it completely. On her whim.
At the same time, she was holding his daughter in her arms, an extension of that feeling. That she had his heart in her hands. But she was gentle, the look on her face serene.
“Hi,” he said, his voice rough.
She looked up, her green eyes wide. “Did she wake you?”
“No,” he said. “The fact that you weren’t in bed did.”
“Lily started crying, and I realized we forgot to bring the monitor in. I could hear her through the walls.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t hear her at all.”
“I wasn’t... I wasn’t sleeping,” she admitted.
“Are you all right?”
Her smile turned dreamy. “I’m fine.”
It was hard to breathe all of a sudden. “I was worried that you were upset,” he said heavily.
“No,” she said. “I was just... It’s silly.”
He walked farther into the room and stood in front of her, leaning back against Lily’s crib. “I’m here for silly.”
“Are you?”
“It would be a pretty dick move if I was here for sex and nudity but wasn’t here for silly.”
Savannah looked down at Lily, her expression concerned. “I...”
“She doesn’t understand,” Jackson said.
“I don’t know,” Savannah replied. “This could be an early repressed childhood memory situation.”
He chuckled. “I’d make a joke about how she needs something to tell her therapist, but sadly, I have a feeling she’s actually going to have a lot of things to tell a therapist.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” Savannah said softly.
“Why weren’t you sleeping?”
“I didn’t want to sleep because I was afraid that it was a dream. I spent so long feeling like there was something wrong with me. And I just had to let go of the idea that I was a woman who didn’t enjoy sex. Sometimes it was okay, and sometimes it wasn’t. But most especially when it caused problems in my marriage... I just felt like a failure. This clarified a lot for me. An orgasm, of all things.”
“Two,” he said.
She laughed softly. “Two. But...what happened to me with Darren was a lot more him than I realized. I think I came into our marriage with more baggage and more fears than I thought. And I think that he exploited that, used the places where I was naive and afraid to create a life where he never had to be the bad guy.”
She shifted, adjusting the blanket over Lily. “He managed to have an affair and still make it my fault. I accepted it to a degree be
cause of how I felt about myself at that point. And now...I just don’t. I’m mad at him. And he deserves it. But I’m also relieved. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me, Jackson,” she said, meeting his gaze, the words making his chest feel too tight. “And I can honestly say it’s been years since I thought that. Since I thought I wasn’t broken.”
“Definitely not broken,” he said roughly.
“Do you know why I was such an easy target for Darren?”
“Why?” he asked.
“This goes back to why I think Lily might not be as messed up as you think.”
“Okay,” he said cautiously.
“I didn’t have parents in my life who built me up. If it weren’t for my teachers I wouldn’t have had any affirmation. My parents were too busy screaming at each other. Too busy fighting and reveling in their own unhappiness to care much about me. That isn’t true with you, Jackson. I know that Lily’s mother abandoned her. But you changed your entire life to give her a home. To be her father.”
“I don’t deserve any kind of medal for that,” he said. “It’s just what a man should do.”
“But my point is men don’t. And women don’t. People can’t get past themselves to give to others. Not my parents. Not my ex-husband. But you are doing it. For her. And tonight you gave me something, too.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t like you thinking of it that way.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not a vibrator and it wasn’t a charity orgasm. I didn’t have sex with you just to make you feel good.”
She looked down at Lily and kissed the top of her head, and the simple action tilted his world over on its head. Then she slowly put Lily down in the crib. Silently, she walked over to him and took his hand. He grabbed hold of her and pulled her up against him, her other hand splayed over his bare chest. “I really, really liked fucking you,” he said, making sure her eyes stayed trained on his. “And I want to do it again as soon as I possibly can.”
She shivered in his arms. “I think...now is as good a time as any,” she said, looking up at him, her expression hopeful.
