“Don’t you dare take those off.”
Chapter 17
He slides my tiny black thong down my legs while his eyes roam hungrily over me. “Damn, Allison. You’re so fucking beautiful I can’t think.”
“You don’t have to think.” I shove him and he sits on the sofa with a whump. I return to his lap, only now we’re both naked—an improvement—so when I settle over him, I experience the delicious slide of his hard-as-steel cock over my slippery folds.
It’s exquisite.
His lips pursed, he blows out a breath in a harsh whoosh that I hope means he’s as close to losing control as I am. I’d hate to experience that luxury alone.
“One sec.” Hand splayed over my back, he leans forward, bending me back until my hair brushes his legs. He snatches his jeans, pulls out a condom packet and holds it between his teeth while he settles us back onto the couch.
I pluck the packet from his absolutely addictive smile.
“Kiss me,” he instructs.
I have to obey. We make out some more, no clothes this time, which adds the satisfaction of his chest hair tickling my nipples. He lifts his hips during the torture session before I finally end the kiss so I can rip open the condom packet in my hand.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve done this.” I shakily reach for him.
“Putting on a condom or the sex?”
I pause over the slick head of his penis to give him a wide-eyed stare. “Both.”
I roll the latex down, down, down, covering his impressive length while he exhales long and slow like the wait is killing him.
“Let’s talk about that later,” he huffs as he grips my waist and lifts me.
Or never, I think, positioning my center over him and impaling myself as he tugs me down.
He enters me in one drugging, slow, amazing thrust. Seated deep, I witness his shoulders jerk with a shudder before he captures my lips with his and starts to move his hips.
Knees digging into the sofa cushion on either side of him, I assist by lifting and dropping, the slide of our bodies matching the rhythmic hums we can’t seem to keep from uttering.
He loops his hands around the high heels of my shoes, using them like rudders that guide me forward and then back. The friction, the pressure are incredible.
He returns his tongue to my breast and then—I’m gone. I shatter, clenching around him in the most fantastic hug ever. He responds by muttering a harsh swearword followed by, “Allison.”
My name. My real one. Xavier only ever called me Nina.
That lump of emotion returns to my throat. Jackson knows me. He knew me before I became someone who pretended for a living. It means so much, now that the world has turned on Nina, to hear my name in his reverent, treasuring tone.
“Jackson.” I cup his cheeks. “Look at me.”
Long, thick lashes raise and he focuses on me. Then his face contorts, his hands moving to my hips to rock me faster, harder against him.
“Say my name again?”
Blue eyes locked on mine, he mutters, “Allison.”
I smile but quickly lose it as the sensations of my body take over. The only reasonable place for me to be is here. With him.
Jax comes, slamming me down once, twice, and that’s when I lose his eyes. He squeezes them shut, his teeth bared as he shudders out an orgasm that brings forth another from me.
Then I’m saying his name on a whimper, that lump of emotion coming to a head as a tear slides down my cheek.
I’m spent, collapsing over him, sweat coating my body despite the A/C cooling the room.
He holds me there and I feel his mouth on my neck again. He kisses my skin in between catching his breath. Hands on my face, his thumbs brush the twin wet trails on my cheeks.
“Hey.” His voice is gentle as he holds me hostage, forcing my eyes to his. “You’re not supposed to cry.”
I let out sort of a laugh-sob and another tear tumbles from my lashes. “Sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.” He swipes at my cheeks again and I give him a watery smile. “There’s a lot going on.”
I don’t know if he means in my life in general or the fact that I just had sex with him again, but I figure either way it’s true, so I nod.
I sniffle and wipe my face with my palm. “It’s nothing bad, I swear. You’re…perfect.”
Yikes. That was too honest.
“So are you, Mini.” He kisses my nose. Sweetly. And then pulls out, gently setting me aside while he walks to the bathroom. I watch his butt move in the dim light and bite my lip as I take in the sheer beauty of Jackson naked. There’s nothing like that raw power and strength, especially once I learned that beneath the muscles and easy smile was a heart of pure gold. That causes another tear to fall and I reach for a tissue from the side table and angrily wipe it away.
He strolls back in, thankfully after I’ve collected myself, and I enjoy the approach as much as I enjoyed the rear view. I take in the bumps of his abs leading to a manscaped thatch of hair, his cock hanging to one side, still impressive even after that stellar performance.
“You keep looking at me like that and I’m going to spring back to life sooner than I planned.”
“Oh, darn,” I joke.
His smile is wide, and when I earn a low chuckle that bobs his Adam’s apple, it’s like winning a prize. Like an Academy Award, I think snidely.
Better, I answer back. Some things in life can’t be measured, and the joy of making him laugh is one of those things.
He sits with me and I shiver, my sex-warmed body having cooled in the minutes that passed.
Jax leans forward and retrieves his T-shirt, offering it to me. I thread my arms through the sleeves and take a generous inhalation of his scent trapped in the fabric as I pull it over my head. He helps free my hair from the neck of the shirt and then shoves his legs through his briefs and tugs them over his fantastic ass before offering my thong, which is dangling off his finger.
I slip it on and wait for him to tell me why he’s watching me with narrow-eyed curiosity. I don’t have to wait long.
“What did you mean by ‘it’s been a long time’?”
I tuck my legs beneath me and wrap my arms protectively around my waist. “You want to talk about my sex life now?”
He winces but says, “I want to know why you said that. I guess if that includes details…” Eyes closed, he adds, “You know what, try telling me without details.”
He scoots closer to hold me, heat billowing off him like a furnace. I remember him always being warm. I stuff my feet under his legs to warm my toes and he lets me, holding my hand while I gather my courage.
“I…haven’t dated that much,” I finally manage.
He nods.
“It’s hard because you never know who really likes you for you or if they like you for what you can get them. That’s why Xavier was a safe choice for me.” Jackson’s upper lip curls in distaste. “He’s more famous than me, has more connections than me. If anything, I was the one with something to gain from that relationship. And then I let him talk me into taking the blame for stealing the Oscar.”
“What?” The word is a clap of thunder.
“Don’t freak out. It was strategic. I agreed to take the blame when he drunkenly robbed his friend as a practical joke, and he agreed to help me land a role in his next feature film.”
Jackson’s face is one for the history books. He looks simultaneously pissed off and sick to his stomach. Hearing myself say it aloud makes me sick to mine, too.
“It’s a different world, Hollywood,” I offer as a lame excuse.
“Shit, I guess,” he comments with another head shake.
“So. I reneged. Here I am. I didn’t see it through.”
He’s a pillar of stone right now. I pull in a breath and
gather my bravery before I speak.
“And…I guess I thought I owed him that and more. Since we never slept together.”
The “pissed off” part of Jackson’s expression fades and disbelief replaces it. “You never…?”
“Nope. We took things really slow at first, and then whenever we were together, I’d politely decline. It was pretty easy considering he was busy with work. I mostly helped him with his lines and we watched a lot of movies. I fell asleep over there, but when I woke up—”
“Okay.” Jax holds up a palm. “That’s enough.”
I like the jealousy, as much as I shouldn’t.
“Before Xavier,” I continue with a teasing smile, “I think it’d been a year since I was with anyone. I go long, long bouts without sex. I thought it was because I didn’t need it and then I come here and see you again and…”
I feel my face heat.
“You need it?” His voice is low and soothing.
“Don’t you?”
“Like oxygen.” He tugs his T-shirt that I’m wearing. “You look cute in this.”
“I like it. It smells like you.”
“Keep it. I have more.”
“What will you do, drive home half naked?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“In the morning, obviously.” I busy my hands by arranging his mussed hair.
“Is that obvious?” His poker face gives no clue as to how he feels about my invitation for him to spend the night with me.
I shrug, having no idea what to say to that.
Jackson looks away, uncomfortable.
“Sorry. I don’t know how to do this.” I twist the end of his shirt around my fingers, unable to look into his eyes.
“Yes you do.” He thumbs my chin. After a silent standoff, he says, “Ask.”
“I did ask.”
“You didn’t. You said ‘In the morning, obviously,’ and I’m not an English major but I don’t think there was a question mark at the end of that sentence.”
My heart hammers out a nervous beat. “Do you want to stay the night?”
He watches me for a beat, then two, before swallowing and seeming to admit, “Yeah. I do.”
Chapter 18
I surface from sleep slowly. The sun pokes its head out and pushes against the windowpane of my bedroom. When I roll over and bump a very big, very warm body, a smile curls my lips before I can stop it.
Sure I’m dreaming, I take inventory of the person lying next to me. Jackson is naked, sleeping on his stomach as per his usual style. My pale pink sheets are wrapped around one of his legs and half his bare butt is exposed. I take in the sturdy cheeks before admiring the strong line of his back and broad spread of his shoulders. He’s facing me, eyes shut, lashes casting shadows on his cheeks.
He’s so damn handsome it hurts. Hollywood could trot out their top ten sexiest actors and line them up next to Jax and I’d gravitate toward my ex-boyfriend every day of the week and twice on Sunday. He has something Xavier never had—several somethings. Jax has confidence and presence, but the difference is it’s deserved. Jax is who he is because he says so. Most celebrities I come in contact with are the people others say they are. When you’re placing your identity and worth in the hands of the very fickle public, it’s a recipe for disaster. Trust me. I know.
I prop my head on my hand and watch Jax sleep, remembering the last time we were like this together—not on a bed but on the couch in my crappy shared apartment in L.A. I was so excited to see him I could hardly stand it. We made love the night he arrived, not caring who heard us. We missed each other so, so much. The distance was killing us. I knew it, he had to know it. When I asked him to move there with me, I was met with a resistance I expected. But when he dug his heels in before he left, I was surprised. I would’ve thought I meant more to him than that.
We tried to talk after. A few gruff, short, painful phone calls where we tiptoed on eggshells. I was the one who swung the axe and delivered the felling blow when it was obvious what we had was dying a slow death. I didn’t think he could do it—and he wouldn’t have. But what shocked me down to my bone marrow was that when I said, “I don’t think this is working,” Jackson agreed.
Agreed.
That black spot on my soul is visible from outer space.
I tried to take it back. I asked him again to move out to California with me and he refused. I retracted my test-breakup but he said, “C’mon Mini, the distance isn’t working.”
He was right, of course.
Then we agreed, rather civilly as I recall it, to take a break and give each other time to settle in and become used to being single again. We also agreed not to see anyone else for three months in case we came to our senses and wanted to get back together.
I thought one or both of us would be begging the other to come back, but for whatever reason, we didn’t call each other. Maybe it was stubbornness or maybe it was easier not to. To cut our losses and believe that those bright lights of Hollywood, and Jackson’s future with his father and the eventual business of his own he didn’t know about at the time, would heal those wounds.
They did on the surface. I didn’t walk around heartbroken over Jackson for long. I was eventually whole, or so I thought.
After last night, I have my doubts. Right now, waking to him next to me, I’m hyperaware of the emptiness residing in the center of my chest.
Hell if I know what to do about it.
I smooth a stray lock of dark hair from Jax’s forehead, noticing it’s not as dark as it used to be. Sun kissed from working outside, I’ll bet.
He grunts, his lashes fluttering. When his bright eyes land on me, he smiles, half his face smashed into my pillow. I like how masculine he looks against the pink sheets and quilted duvet. I like how I got to keep him last night—that feels particularly decadent, since I can predict the future.
I’ll go back to California.
He’ll stay here.
There’s nothing else to talk about—nothing more to say. The trick is to keep the boundaries between my heart and my person crystal clear. My heart’s been known to muddy the waters.
Jackson and I are close now, but later we won’t be. It’s simple in theory. A bitch in practice.
“Morning.” His voice is craggy and sleep-heavy.
“Sorry to wake you.”
“S’okay,” he says around a stretch. “Nothing a vat of coffee won’t fix.”
“You have to work today?”
“Yeah. Here.” He blinks like cinder blocks are weighing down his eyelids. “I have work clothes in the truck.”
“Just in case?” I accuse.
“Just in case.”
He pulls an arm out from under the pillow and wraps it around my waist, yanking me close as I yip in surprise. I cuddle with him and breathe in the faint remnants of cologne left on his T-shirt that I’m still wearing and what’s clinging to his skin.
“Last night.” That’s all he says before grunting an approving, “Mm.”
After round one, we indulged in another. First, we refilled my wine and Jax opened another beer. We chatted about the time he failed his final and had to beg Mr. Tennison to let him make it up. About me writing the worst last-minute paper ever for Mrs. Kingsley because I spent the weekend camping with Jax, Beth, and Barrett. He talked about the ins and outs of starting his own business and I reminisced about the television show I starred in coming to an end, which left me feeling orphaned. We started kissing again on the couch and made love on it again, too, thanks to Jax having stashed no fewer than three condoms into his jeans pockets before he stepped into this house.
Which means there’s one more in there.
“What about this morning?” I ask, my voice a teasing lilt.
He takes my hand and thrusts it under the covers, where I encounter what might
be a steel rod but what I’m certain is several hard inches of Jackson Burke. I grip his erection and stroke gently. He pushes into my hand, his lips going to mine without hesitation.
“Why, when you touch me,” he groans as I stroke him again, “does it make every other sexual encounter rote by comparison?”
“Every other?” I complain.
He grips my fist with his own and now we’re both holding his cock as he’s guiding me with another sensual stroke.
“Not that many. Don’t freak out.”
“I’m not.” I don’t like to think about Jax with other women, but I know that as I moved on, he would’ve had to, too.
“Good.” He takes his hand off mine and slides his fingers into my panties instead. “What’s this remind you of? This room. Lying here. Turning each other on and daring each other not to stop.”
“In spite of the party going on downstairs,” I manage with a gasp as he continues his slick assault. “But we couldn’t stop.”
“Fuck no we couldn’t.” He slips a finger deep inside me and I moan. A second joins it and I loosen my hold and move my fist faster than before. He mutters something nonsensical, a nonword, before rolling on top of me. Our mouths mate and our hands continue being busy, and neither of us is interested in stopping what we’re doing now, either.
“Finish me,” he requests, “but you first.”
“I don’t know. You sound like you may come first.” I continue stroking and he must realize I have a point. His fingers exit my body and he pulls my hand from his cock. Then he kisses my stomach before lowering his face and granting me one long lick. He unerringly locates my clit, and my hips arch toward his mouth.
My fingers nest in his hair as I thrust toward him. So, so, so good. Damn, I forgot how good this felt. The idea of it faded until I was sure oral sex this good was a mythical beast. Or that maybe I’d imagined it was better than it was. Sadly, no. I had that wrong this whole time because it’s hot and slick and wet and mind-blowing.
“Worth the wait.” I barely eke out the words. Jax surfaces and I raise my head off the pillow to protest. “Don’t stop, please.”
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