“Going somewhere?” JJ’s deep voice rumbled through me like an aftershock of an earthquake.
“What are you doing here?” I asked even though I was pretty sure I knew the answer. He was here to reroute my train ride to self-preservation station—with a bow-chicka-bow-wow detour.
My gaze lifted past the contours of his chiseled, T-shirt-covered chest, over the tan skin of his delectable neck, across his perfect lips, and straight to his eyes. He was silently staring down at me. Which in and of itself would not have been disconcerting. The thing that sent me into red alert, however, was the intensity in his eyes.
Oh yeah, my check was going to be mated.
After he’d walked into my apartment like he owned the place, I retreated back. He shut the door, and when his gaze met mine again, he answered my question by simply stating, “You know why I’m here.”
“What happened to after the fireworks?”
Was I grabbing at straws? Yep. But straws were all I had at that point. Straws were my new best friends.
“We need to talk first. And I couldn’t wait till after the fireworks. I can’t stop thinking about you. Fantasizing about you. It’s driving me crazy. You’re driving me crazy.”
This new JJ, the one who talked about his feelings, was really hard to take. Knowing that I was way out of my league in this game of chess, I crossed my arms in a protective move. JJ’s nostrils flared, and his gaze grew more intense.
What the…
Looking down, I solved the mystery of his unprovoked reaction. I was spilling out of my shirt. So maybe provoked after all. As I dropped my arms to my sides, a flush ran up my cheeks. Shoot. I needed to get the upper hand, and I needed to do it fast.
Captain Pickles purred loudly, cutting into my mental escape planning. My man-hating tabby was affectionately rubbing up against JJ’s ankles. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Captain Pickles did not like people in general, but he despised the male of the species.
Traitor.
JJ bent down and rubbed Captain Pickles behind the ear, which notched up the purr volume to ten. “You have a one-eyed cat?” JJ’s big, whiskey-colored gaze lifted to mine.
I pushed down a pathetic sigh that tried to escape my lips. “Is that a question or were you just stating the obvious?”
Sarcasm—much better than swooning.
A playful smile pulled at JJ’s full lips as he turned his attention to Judas—otherwise known as Captain Pickles—and amped up his behind-the-ear petting to a full-body rub. I suddenly felt like the third wheel.
Which gave me an idea. Retreat while JJ was distracted.
“Well, there are fireworks with my name on them. I guess I’ll leave you two alone. Lock up on your way out,” I said in a rush as I made a mad dash for the door.
I hadn’t made it even one step before JJ’s tall frame was in front of me, blocking my path to freedom.
“You really want to go to the fireworks?” His tone was serious.
I could barely hear him over the pounding of my heart though. Also, I was a tad distracted by the fact that my fingers and my lips were tingling and I wasn’t sure I could feel my legs. I remembered Mr. Rogers saying that those were the exact same symptoms he’d had when he’d suffered a stroke earlier that year.
Was I having a stroke?
Was there such a thing as a lust-induced stroke?
“Yes,” I managed to whisper. Well, I thought I might need to stop by the emergency room first, but then fireworks it was.
He stared at me with so much heat that I was surprised my clothes didn’t melt right off my body.
“Okay.” He nodded.
At that one word, I let out a breath I hadn’t even known I’d been holding. At the same time a stab of disappointment hit me that he had given up so easily. Talk about split personalities.
As I started to leave, he put his arm around me.
“Let’s go.”
I stayed put. “We are not going together.”
“Yes. We are.”
There was no way I could handle that. Me and JJ watching the fireworks. The entire town seeing us together. He’d get to leave, but I’d get twenty questions from everyone asking if I’d heard from him, what was going on with us. Heck, I’d already gotten over thirty text messages and voicemails asking me about the fight at the festival.
This was ridiculous. It had to stop. I needed to stop all of this round and round and find out what this “New JJ” was all about.
“What do you want, JJ?”
“You,” he answered without skipping a beat.
“Since when?”
His eyes narrowed and I could see the wheels spinning as he was deciding what the best answer was going to be.
“No!” I put my foot down. Literally. I stomped my foot. “All the cards on the table. No more half-truths. No more games. Answer the question.”
“Since we played Spin the Bottle.”
What? That had happened, like, ten years ago. And we hadn’t even kissed with tongue. He hadn’t even technically been playing, either. He’d just happened to be sitting on the couch by us, and when my prayers had been answered and the neck of the bottle had landed on him, I’d expected him to make some joke about not being a part of our game. Not stand up, walk over, and kiss me lightly on the lips. He’d left for college after that. I’d barely seen him until he had come home right after he’d gotten called up from triple A and signed with the Waves—the weekend he’d taken me to prom.
This didn’t make any sense.
I shook my head. JJ was a lot of things, but a liar wasn’t one of them. Still, this could not possibly be true. So, why was he saying this?
JJ walked towards me, and I did the only rational thing a girl in my position would do: I backed up like the big chicken I was. When he saw that I was retreating, he stopped. His large frame loomed over me. I tilted my head up to maintain eye contact with him. My apartment had never seemed small to me before, but with JJ in my living room, it felt downright claustrophobic.
The walls were closing in, but even with that happening, all I could think was there was no way what JJ was saying could even be in the ballpark of accurate.
“It’s the truth, Destiny.”
Oh crap. Maybe he can read my mind. Wait. Did he just hear that?
“I’d always thought you were the cutest thing on two legs, but that night when I came down to the basement and saw you playing Spin the Bottle with my brothers and their friends, something happened. I knew that, if anyone else kissed you, I would want to put their heads through a plate-glass window.”
Whoa! I’d only been, like, twelve.
“But I was a kid.”
“Exactly.” JJ ran his hands through his thick, brown hair, and for the first time ever, he seemed less than confident. He looked frustrated and unsure. Lost. “I was about to be eighteen and I felt like the biggest pervert in the world.”
The room felt like it was spinning. Something still didn’t add up. “But, at prom, I was eighteen.”
He shot me a look like the lights were on but no one was home. “Barely. Your birthday was two days before I took you to prom. And I was twenty-four. That’s like, in two years, you hooking up with a senior in high school.”
Dang. When he put it like that, I saw his point.
“Plus, I’d just gotten called up. Everything in my life was changing. I knew there was no way anything could happen between us.”
“But something did happen between us.” I raised my voice. I seemed to be doing that a lot since JJ had shown up again.
“I know.” He sounded tortured as he looked at his hands while opening and closing them. “But it shouldn’t have. I’m so sorry. I just couldn’t stop myself… You were just so damn beautiful.”
When his brandy-colored eyes looked back up at me, my heart broke a little and started beating so fast that I felt like it had been stabbed with a syringe filled with adrenaline. Sure, I’d always felt something between us, but I’d never really let my
self believe that there actually was something between us.
“You mean so much to me, Destiny. I know you don’t know that, but you do. And I shouldn’t have left things like they were. I’m so sorry, so fucking sorry. These past four years have been torture, but I felt so guilty about that night and I didn’t know how to… what to…” JJ scrubbed his hands over his face and blew out a breath. “My life is just so crazy.”
I tried to process this new information. He’d said he was sorry, really sorry, and that I meant something to him. But did that change anything? He was only going to be around until tomorrow, and then what? I knew what ballplayers’ lives were like on the road. Harmony had told me stories. I couldn’t sit back when dozens of gorgeous girls would be waiting at his hotel, willing and eager to do anything and everything they could just to be close to him for an hour.
There was no way I could compete with that.
“Destiny,” JJ took a step towards me, but I put my hand up. He stopped on a dime.
“I need a minute. To think.”
My mind was spinning. Team Go For It and Team Play It Safe were having a field day throwing in their two cents. I heard them out, and then, after trying to process this situation, I came up with a few facts.
Long term, this couldn’t work out. But JJ was there. In my apartment. I could make all—or at least a few—of the fantasies I’d been having since puberty come true. How many people got that opportunity?
JJ wasn’t the jerk I’d thought he was. He had tried to do the right thing, and he did care about me. I didn’t have long to make this decision. JJ would be gone tomorrow, who knew when he would be back? Sure, I would love time to process all of this, gather my thoughts, perhaps make a pros-and-cons spreadsheet, but I didn’t have that luxury at the moment. So I needed to boil this down to the nitty gritty.
Was I going to be hurt after JJ left? Yes. But that was inevitable whether or not anything physical happened with us that night. I would go through that pain with either the memory of an amazing night with JJ or not.
Team Go For It for the win!
JJ looked like he was about to come out of his skin while he waited to see what the verdict was going to be. He might not come out of his skin, but he was definitely coming out of those clothes. During the last two ‘encounters’ we’d had, he had been the one calling the shots.
My plan was to take control so that the third time was the charm.
Chapter 12
JJ
“Don’t let the tail wag the dog.”
~ Grandma Dixie
I wasn’t sure if anyone had actually had a heart attack from pent-up sexual frustration, but if not, I thought I might be the first victim.
“Take your clothes off,” Destiny instructed firmly.
“What?” Okay. Not the smoothest answer when the girl of your dreams tells you to strip, but those were not the words I’d expected to hear.
“Fine.” She shook her head and stepped towards me. “I’ll do it.”
I watched¸ stunned, as her shaky fingers slipped beneath my T-shirt. I still wasn’t clear what had caused the sudden about face, but I did know that she was a lot more affected than she was trying to let on.
Following her lead, I reached for her shirt, but she slapped my hands away.
“No. No touching.”
I lifted my hands in mock surrender, and Destiny used my new position to strip me of my shirt. Since she was a good foot shorter than I was, I had to help once it got past my shoulders. After it had cleared my head, I threw it on the floor. When I looked back down, Destiny was staring at my chest. Using every ounce of restraint I had, I lowered my hands to my sides. Since she obviously wanted to be in charge, I could let her take the reins…
She licked her lips as her eyes hungrily roamed my chest.
…even if it killed me.
Reaching up, she tenderly placed her hand on my abs. My pulse raced like it was trying to come in first at the Indy 500. I fisted my hands at my sides as she ran her fingers along the ridges and lines of my torso, her eyes following that trail. Observing her as she watched her own hand while it explored me was almost too much for me to take.
Desire whipped through me as I focused on Destiny’s chest rising and falling in rapid breaths. The perfect outline of her hardened nipples beneath her thin, cotton T-shirt made my mouth water. I’d waited so long to taste her there. I may have given Destiny more than one orgasm, but I’d still never seen her bare breasts. Now, I ached with need at the thought of having them in my hands, in my mouth.
All the blood in my body had migrated south, so my thoughts were not that coherent. But one thing I knew was that, even though Destiny was fully clothed and I still had my pants on, this was the most erotic experience of my life. Nothing had even come close in comparison.
Looking up at me with those intoxicating baby blues, Destiny gently touched her soft lips to my chest. Now, I was really in danger of going into cardiac arrest. My heart was pounding so hard that I was sure she would be able to feel it. Tremor after powerful tremor ran through me from head to toe as Destiny continued her unhurried oral exploration of my body. My dick pulsed heavily with hunger behind its denim barrier. As badly as I wanted to speed this along, I also wanted to savor every second of this sensual experience.
Taking the lead was kind of my MO. I knew how to please women, and once they were taken care of, I knew what I liked and how I liked it. And I wasn’t shy about asking for it. Most—meaning all—women I had been with liked that I took charge. They grew wetter and wetter with each of my commands.
But this night was different. This wasn’t about getting each other off. This was about something more. This was about discovering each other. Experiencing each other. Making love to each other.
Just when I was wrapping my head around what all of this meant, Destiny lowered to her knees and started unbuttoning my jeans. I almost passed out.
Covering her hands with mine, I rasped, “You don’t have to do that.”
Her head rose, and the flush of her skin and the unadulterated desire in her eyes had my balls tightening as my shaft twitched.
“I know,” she stated confidently. “I want to. You’re not the only one who has fantasies.”
Oh fuck. A primal moan ripped from my chest. This girl really was going to kill me. But damn, I would die with a smile on my face.
I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move as she unbuttoned and unzipped my pants. Hooking her fingers under the waistband of my boxers, she pushed both my jeans and my underwear down. Then I kicked my shoes off as I removed my pants.
Once my clothes and shoes had been discarded in a pile next to her couch, Destiny sat back on her heels and stared at me. One area in particular was holding her attention—my erection, which was jutting straight up and throbbing intensely under her intimate scrutiny.
“Wow,” she breathed. “You’re…big.”
Normally, I took pride in hearing a woman say that. But Destiny looked terrified. I was trying to figure out how to reassure her that I would make her feel so damn good, that I would make sure her body was ready for me. I didn’t get a chance to put her mind at ease because, before I was able to say anything, she wrapped her slender fingers around me and pressed her lips to the head of my dick.
My knees locked and the muscles in my thighs flexed as pleasure spiraled through me. Her full lips enveloped my shaft as she sucked me deep into her hot, wet mouth.
“Oh fuck,” I whispered reverently as my thick length disappeared into her sweet mouth.
Talk about a fantasy coming true.
I’d jacked off to this image more times than I could count. Destiny on her knees before me, taking me like this, and I had always had a very clear, very vivid imagination. But nothing—nothing—had prepared me for what the real thing would be like, look like, feel like.
Not only was watching the way her tongue slid along the base of my dick as her lips and her mouth continuously suckled me the sexiest damn t
hing I’d ever seen, but it also sent my body into a fevered rush of urgency. Add to that the fact that she’d instructed me not to touch her and this was like the sweetest sensual torment in the world.
“Hmmm,” she hummed as her hand cradled my sensitive balls.
My body jerked in pleasure. Shit. If I didn’t stop this, I was going to explode in her mouth. I’d tried to take the back seat on this sexual adventure, but it was time to take control and grab the wheel.
Leaning down, I grasped under her arms and lifted her in one swift move, picking her up off the ground. Her arms flew around my neck as her legs wrapped around my waist. My bare dick was settled right between her legs, and I could feel the heat of her core through her jeans.
“Hey,” she protested as I stalked back to where I assumed the bedroom was. “I said no touching.” There was laughter in her voice, so I knew she wasn’t really pissed.
“Don’t push it, woman,” I said as I playfully swatted her on her cute little ass.
She giggled as I made my way to the room at the end of the hall. After flipping the light switch, I stopped on a dime. It looked like a twister had hit her closet. Clothes were everywhere. I never would have pegged her for a slob.
Once she’d glanced over her shoulder, she whipped her head back to me and shrugged as an even brighter shade of pink than what had already been there from her arousal spread across her cheeks.
Her eyes didn’t meet mine, and her voice cracked as she explained, “I couldn’t decide what to wear.”
Destiny Rose Porter was not a good liar. This mess was because of me. She hadn’t been able to decide what to wear because of me. A huge smile lifted on my face.
Her eyes narrowed. “It had nothing to do with you. I always do this.”
“Honey, I would say lying does not become you, but you’re so damn cute that I can’t.” I crushed my mouth to hers before she could try to deny that she had lied.
Teasing Destiny (Wishing Well, Texas #1) Page 7
