by Laura Drewry
With that taken care of, there wasn’t anything left to do except the laundry, so while her third cup of Darjeeling steeped, Maya picked up the clothes she’d dropped earlier and tossed them in the washing machine. The too-small washing machine that couldn’t hold a single blanket but was the perfect size for a person who lived alone.
In fact, her loads were so small there was still room in the machine, so Maya went on the hunt for her black hoodie, the one she usually wore when she went out with Jack to run Pete around the trails. She loved that dog, but holy jumpin’ did he shed. The hoodie wasn’t in her room, or the hamper, and it wasn’t…
She’d left it in her car.
With her keys in hand, she stuffed her feet into her bright-yellow gumboots and headed out in the rain to her car.
“Jack?!”
There he was, absolutely drenched, leaning against the bumper of his Jeep with his hands stuffed in his pockets.
“It’s the middle of the night—what are you doing here?” God, how long had he been out there? She’d heard him peel out just after she’d come inside, so he must’ve come back, but why? And when? “Come on, I’ll get some towels.”
Forgetting the hoodie, she grabbed his wrist and tugged as hard as she could until he finally stood up and stumbled after her through the door. He hadn’t made a sound, and the look on his face—such confusion—maybe he was hypothermic.
“Shit, Jack.”
Okay, what had Carter taught them all about hypothermia? Warm the body first, not the hands or feet. No! First she needed to get him inside and into some dry clothes, and then she’d warm him up. Right? Was that the right order? God she hoped so.
There wasn’t a hope she had dry clothes that’d fit him, but she had plenty of blankets, so those would have to do. Oh God, what if she couldn’t get him up the stairs? Her phone was up there and she didn’t care what time of the freakin’ night it was, first thing she was going to do was call Carter.
“Okay,” she said, trying to sound calmer than she actually was. “You stay right here, okay? I’ll be right back. Just stay here, okay?”
She flipped the lock behind Jack and started up the stairs, but she’d only made it up to the fifth one before she was grabbed from behind and spun around.
“Wha—?”
His kiss swallowed the rest of her gasp, his lips hungry and hell-bent on getting their fill, teasing and tasting as he climbed the first step. Maya staggered back a little, her leg hitting the back of the step, but Jack was right there, one hand pressed against her back, the other fisting in her hair, holding her close, even after his first kiss ended.
She barely had time to catch a breath before he kissed her again, slowly and not nearly as desperate.
“What’s going on?” She tried to wipe some of the rain from his face, but all she ended up doing was cradling his face in her palms and repeating her question, this time trying to stop her heart from shattering right there in the stairwell. “Oh, Jack, what are you doing?”
And then her heart did shatter, but in a much better way than she expected.
“If you have to ask,” he said, nudging his nose against hers. “I’m obviously doing it wrong. Let me try again.”
He didn’t even wait for her to answer, just leaned in and pressed a soft kiss against her cheek, just like he’d done so many times before, only this time…oh sweet Lord, this wasn’t like any of those other times.
Maya slid her fingers through his dripping wet hair as the warmth of his touch exploded through her. He nuzzled her cheek, his lips brushing over hers as he teased first one corner of her mouth then the other, before he finally kissed her again—and holy crap on a cracker, everything was so much better when he was the one doing the kissing.
With one hand holding her steady, he slid his free hand along her jaw until his big palm cupped the side of her face with a strength and tenderness she never imagined a guy his size could possess. He deepened the kiss slowly, his lips moving over hers as if they’d done it a million times before, as if he knew exactly how she wanted to be kissed, which was crazy, because up until the second he did it, she didn’t even know herself.
She didn’t know anything anymore. Didn’t know how to breathe normally, how to form a coherent thought, and she sure as hell didn’t know how to do anything but whimper when he stopped kissing her.
Even with his hand still on her back, she couldn’t find balance, not with her head spinning like that, and before she could do anything about it, she landed hard on the step behind her.
“But you…and…what about…?”
“Fuck ’em,” he growled as he bent over her to kiss her again.
“Jack.” She pressed her palms against his cheeks, holding him close so she could look right into his eyes. If there was even the slightest flicker of uncertainty…there wasn’t.
“You just gonna sit there?” he asked. “Or can we keep this moving?”
“No, I just—” Finally able to blink some of the fog from her brain, Maya crab-walked up the next couple of steps, grinning up at him the whole time. “Need a little motivation.”
“Is that right?” Still towering over her, his hands pressed flat against the walls, he leaned in and kissed her again, then again when she scooted up the next step. “Four years, Snip. I’ve waited four years.”
Up another step, she tucked her fingers around the neck of his T-shirt and tugged him down again.
“Then another four minutes isn’t going to kill you, is it? Besides, it’s not easy getting up the stairs this way, you know, especially dressed like this.”
It was only then that Jack actually stopped and looked down at what she was wearing, just as her gumboot caught the back edge of her nightshirt again.
“What the hell?” Horror, that’s what flashed across his face. Abject horror. “Jeezus, Snip, where do you shop?”
“Shut up!”
“Well, come on…gumboots?” His eyes on hers, he grinned slowly as he reached down and yanked one boot off, then the other, tossing both to the bottom of the stairs. “Of all the things I imagined taking off you, gumboots were never—”
The second his fingers touched her foot, he stopped, his grin dropped, and he just stared back at her for a second.
“You’ve got to be shittin’ me.”
“Wool,” she said, wiggling her socked toes against his fingers. “These old buildings get cold, you know.”
“I don’t even…I just can’t…” He never did tell her what he “didn’t even” or “just couldn’t,” because he was too busy trying to wrestle her socks off while she was busy crab-walking up a couple more steps.
The hardwood was cold under her feet, but before she could complain, he wrapped his still cool hands around her feet and rubbed gently.
“Okay,” he breathed, choking over a short laugh. “If that’s what you wear on your feet, I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little scared to find out what else you’ve got on under that…that…jeezus, I don’t even know what that is—a muumuu?”
“It’s a nightshirt, thank you very much.” Maya lifted her brow and smirked as she shimmied up a couple more steps—good grief, how many more were there? “And I’m doing laundry, so besides these tights…”
He stepped up after her, head tipped to the side a little, waiting for her to finish. She’d give him another second or two before she…ah, there it was.
“Ohh.” It came out over a choke and by the time he’d caught his breath again, Maya was already standing at the top of the stairs. “Damn, Snip.”
He didn’t move from where he stood dripping three steps down, just blew out a slow breath as his gaze moved slowly up the length of her nightshirt, hem to neck, then back down again to where it hung halfway past her knees.
“Jack? You okay?”
“I…uh…what?” He seemed to be breathing awfully fast, and when he tried to move up to the next step, he had to grab the railing.
“Oh shit. I knew I should have called Carter.” Grabbing fistfuls o
f his jacket, she tugged him up the last few steps, muttering the whole time. “Dizzy, trouble speaking, rapid breathing, and you look a little confused. How’s the heart rate? Jack?”
“Feels like it’s about to explode inside my chest.”
“Okay, come on, stay with me.” She pulled him inside the apartment, tugging down the zipper of his jacket and muttering the treatment steps to herself. “Remove wet clothes. Gently. No unnecessary movements—shit—sorry about that, Jack. Warm dry blankets, no rubbing.”
“Uh, Snip?”
“Yeah?” His jacket clung to his shoulders, making it that much harder to tug down his arms.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Shh.” There, jacket off. “Carter taught us how to treat hypothermia, I got this.”
“Hypo…what?” He grabbed her hands and held them still about a fraction of a breath away from his fly. “I’m not hypothermic.”
She stopped trying to tug her hands away and finally looked up at him.
“But you’re soaking wet and you had symptoms—the increased heart rate…the dizziness on the stairs…the…the…”
The more she said, the more he grinned until she trailed off and grinned back at him.
“Four years,” he said. “Can you blame me?”
“You idiot! I was all ready to call Carter and have him come down here in the middle of the freakin’ night!”
“There’s only one person who can help me out here, and it sure as hell ain’t Carter.” His laugh, warm and slow, made her blush. “Besides, shared body heat is far more effective than blankets. Just sayin’.” Maya pulled her hands away and set them on her hips. “Are you done?”
“Uh…” His smart-ass grin faltered a little. “Yeah.”
“Good. Then if you’re not actually dying on me, and if it’s not too much trouble, because I’d hate to put you out or anything, would it be possible for you to stop standing there and maybe…oh, I don’t know…kiss me again before I forget what it feels like?”
With about as much speed as an arctic glacier, he curled his fingers around her hips and finally lifted her up just like he’d done before, grinning down at her with one of those slow Jack grins that shot straight from his mouth to girlie parts she’d almost forgotten she had.
“We need to get you some stilts.”
“And we need to get you some dry clothes,” she said, linking her ankles and arms around him.
“Body warmth, remember?”
He kissed her again, so excruciatingly slowly she thought she’d melt right down his chest, which, she had to admit, wouldn’t be such a bad way to go. His hands moved with featherlight glances, igniting her skin everywhere they landed; her cheeks, her neck, her hair, even burning through her nightshirt and tights.
Wait—if his hands were there…and there…
“I’m going to fall,” she gasped.
“No you won’t. Just hang on.”
His lips pressed against hers, gentle and demanding, soft and firm, his tongue dancing with hers before dipping to taste her bottom lip.
She squeezed her legs tighter around his waist, smiling against his mouth when he groaned, then wrapped one hand around his neck while trailing the other down his chest until she could grab a handful of his shirt—the only dry thing on him—and tug it up. Not the easiest thing to do when she was still wrapped around him the way she was, but she kept on tugging until it finally pulled free.
“Did you have it duct-taped down or something?” With a lot of wiggling between kisses, she managed to wrangle his arms out of the sleeves one at a time and then finally up and over his head. “This is more of a workout than I’ve had in months.”
She’d seen him mostly naked before, so she thought she knew what to expect, but holy crap it was a thousand times better in person than it was over video chat.
He’d barely moved while she’d tugged his shirt over his head, but when she pressed her palms flat against his chest, he sucked in a breath and held it until she leaned in and kissed him. With his arms folded under her butt, she relaxed her grip on him a little, took his beautiful face between her hands and started with his mouth, teasing a low growl out of him as she moved her lips lower, across his jaw and down the side of his neck, where his pulse was beating so hard.
With every kiss, his hands spread wider on her back, sliding upward, slowly, slowly, pulling her nightshirt with them. She slipped her arms out, one at a time, then wrapped both hands around his neck as he freed her from the shirt and tossed it on top of his. If the look on his face wasn’t enough to send her over the edge, the feel of his hands against her bare skin almost did her in right there.
“Ho-ly shit, Snip.”
“Jack.” Hands pressed so very lightly against his chest, she closed her eyes and breathed out his name a second time. “I gotta tell you, I’ve imagined this happening about six ways from Sunday, but I never once imagined it happening here behind my couch.”
There it was—that Jack smile—setting fire to all sorts of new parts inside her as he carried her through the bedroom door.
“Behind the couch, on the couch, bed, table, floor, desk, wall, elevator, car, beach, shower, theater…” He paused long enough to lean in and kiss her throat, her collarbone, and then…Maya sighed…along the top of her breast. “Your imagination needs some work, Snip.”
He set her on the bed, then scrambled to get out of his runners and soaked jeans. He had one leg out before he stopped and hopped around to get his balance.
“Shit. Do you have any—?”
“Medicine cabinet in the bathroom.” It flashed through her mind to tell him not to bother, but there was no time for that conversation right then, so instead she watched him trip his way out of his other pant leg as he stumbled out of the room.
Sounded like he might have fallen against the wall a few times but he made it back in one piece, minus the jeans, and stood just inside the bedroom door in nothing but his bulging Captain America undies and a grin, waving the condom like a champ.
“Not sure why you keep them in the bathroom, but you have no idea how happy I was to see the box hadn’t been opened,” he said. “I mean, too bad for you, but…yes!”
“Nice,” she smirked. “Thanks for the sympathy. Now please tell me you brought more than one.”
It took him about two seconds to run there and back again, returning this time with the whole box clutched in his hand.
“Easy there, Captain America, I’m just one girl, remember?”
Laughing, he tossed the box on the bedside table and followed Maya to the middle of the bed, where he made short work of her tights and his boxers, then took his sweet time kissing his way up her body.
He started at the top of her foot, his big hands smoothing over her bared skin first, leading his lips up her calf, warming her, making her tremble, then laughing against the side of her knee when she fisted her hands in the sheets and hissed out a curse.
She thought she’d die when his hands eased up her thighs so close to her core, but no matter how much she squirmed or begged him to help her out, to put those hands to good use, he just breathed a kiss against her and kept moving.
“Four years, Maya.” He unwrapped her fists from the sheets and laced his fingers through hers, pressing them back against the bed as he kissed his way across her abdomen and around her belly button. “This first time…we’re going to get there…together…but not until I’m buried good and deep inside you.”
“Jeezus Jack,” she whispered. “Say that again and there won’t be time for you to…oh!”
He hovered over her, giving her time to adjust, before grinning down at her. “You were saying?”
“Shut up.” She wrenched her fingers free and dug them into his hips first, then his ribs, not to control him, but because she just needed to touch him, to feel more of him as he moved inside her with long deep strokes.
The only thing missing was his hands on her; she needed to feel that, too.
�
�Jack.”
“Yeah, hang on.” Laughing softly, he rolled onto his back, pulling her on top so she straddled him, taking him deeper yet. “Jeezus, Maya.”
Setting her hands high on his chest, she raked her fingers down to his belly as she lifted herself almost all the way off him before lowering herself again, so slow, so deep.
Every inch of her screamed for release while still begging for more—more Jack.
Leaning in to kiss him, she started at his grinning mouth, nipping his lip, then gasping when his hands wrapped around her hips and lifted her higher and higher until she could just feel the tip of him, then lowering her again, slowly, excruciatingly, dragging all sorts of desperate pleas and curses from her throat.
“Please.”
“Please what?” He chuckled. “Please more or please stop?”
“Those,” she gasped. “Both.”
She arched her back a little, pushing herself down on him, trying to ride the crest of insanity before she exploded. She almost made it, too, but then his tongue flicked over her breast and she just about came undone right there.
“Oh—”
Her cry had hardly formed when he pressed his fingers over hers and guided her down to where they joined, where their combined heat made them both suck in a breath.
“—my—”
That was all she got out before he wrapped his other hand around her hip and held her down as he pushed up one last time. They exploded together, cursing and laughing as she collapsed onto his chest, her name still fresh on his lips when he pulled her in for a long slow kiss.
It was so more than just a kiss, though. It was the feel of her own body pressed against his, their hearts thudding against each other; it was his fingers, so strong, so gentle, dancing up her spine with such tenderness; and it was him pulling the blanket over them like a cocoon.
