I lick my lips. “Entirely?”
His smile manages to be both devious and sensual. “Tell me what you want, Sylvia. Exactly what you want.”
I meet his eyes. “Undress me,” I demand.
His mouth curves up, his eyes bright. “At your service,” he says as his fingers work down the buttons of my dress.
He makes a quick job of it, doing no more and no less than removing my dress, and since I had burst out of the hotel in nothing else, I am now completely naked.
But there had been nothing sensual about his movements. No seduction. No stolen caresses. And though I am frustrated at first, I soon realize what he is doing. Despite his promise, Jackson Steele is still playing games.
“Stroke me,” I say. “Draw your fingers over my belly and down to my sex. But not quite there. I want to be teased. I want you to take me to the edge.”
“Do you?” His brow arches up as he considers my words. “Well then, I think we can manage that.”
I smile, then lay my head back and close my eyes, losing myself to his touch as he gently trails his fingers over my flesh, the touch light and enticing and full of promise. He draws small circles on my abdomen, then trails down in spirals to my pubis. His fingers trace the triangle of trimmed hair, and I gasp from the sensual, almost ticklish touch of his fingertip along the juncture of groin and thigh.
He cheats a bit when he bends low and blows a thin stream of air directly on my clit, but the sensation is too incredible for me to complain about breaking rules, and I only arch up in a silent demand for more, which, thankfully, he understands.
The cool air on my hot clit is mind-blowing, and I spread my legs, wanting his mouth, his tongue.
“No,” he whispers. “I want to hear you say it.”
“Lick me,” I beg. “Go down on me. Please, Jackson, god, please.”
Thankfully, he doesn’t hesitate, and he takes my sex in his mouth, his tongue laving me, drawing me higher and higher with gentle flicks upon my clit. Thrusting his tongue into me with so much force, so much power, that I’m not sure I can stand it. But it’s not his tongue that I want, because all I desire in that moment is for him to fill me, wholly and completely.
“Jackson.” I close my fingers in his hair and tug his head up so that his eyes meet mine. “Kiss me,” I demand. “Fuck me.”
His slow smile sets my skin on fire, and he moves off the chaise to stand beside me. Slowly, he takes off his shirt, then peels off his slacks, his briefs. He stands there, naked and erect and with such longing on his face that I do not know how either of us will survive this night, because I am certain that when we come together the explosion will destroy us both.
“I don’t have a condom,” he says.
I reach for him. “I don’t care. I want you. And if you say it’s okay, then I believe you.”
“It’s okay,” he says, then moves on top of me. He starts low, his lips on my hip, then kisses his way up my body, stopping at my breast to lick and tug and tease so much that the sensation shoots through me, all the way to my clit, and I have to stop him for fear that I will come right then.
His cock is hard between my legs. I spread my thighs, wanting him to find my center, and when he does, I toss my head back and gasp. In that moment, he captures me with a kiss, then thrusts inside me.
My body captures him, draws him in, and as his tongue thrusts inside my mouth, his cock pounds into me, harder and harder as if every moment of the last five years is hidden in each thrust.
This isn’t like before. It’s not revenge sex. It’s not make-up sex.
It’s need and demand and lust and passion. It’s
us.
And it finally feels right.
His touch—our connection—sends me spiraling up faster than I wanted, and yet at the same time I have no desire to hold back. I want the explosion. I want him. I want everything that we have shared and will share.
I want the world, and with Jackson I do not think that is too much to ask.
And with that thought, I shatter, exploding like a billion pieces of colored glass as he slides against me, filling me, touching my core—and then, oh yes, finding his own release inside me.
He stays over me for a moment as the colors fall like stars around us. His arms tense as they support his weight above me. He watches me, his expression so tender that I wish once again I could cry, because it seems as if there is no other release for all the emotion I’m feeling.
“Sylvia.”
It’s all he says. Just my name. But it holds a world of meaning. And when he lowers himself and I curl close to him, I draw in a sigh and know that, right then at least, I am content.
I do not know how long we lay there, naked on the chaise. I haven’t slept. Instead, I’ve simply felt Jackson’s touch as I look out at the moon reflecting on the Pacific’s waves in the distance, with the deep gray of the sky reaching down to touch the water. “I want a house,” I say, though I don’t know what made me think of it. “I want a rooftop patio and I want it in the hills. Somewhere with a lot of land, but a view of the ocean.”
“Already tired of your new place, and you haven’t even unpacked?”
I reach for the blanket and pull it up to ward off the nighttime chill. It is almost not necessary, though. Jackson is like a furnace, and his heat warms me as I curl against him, my cheek to his chest, so that I hear both his heartbeat and the reverberation of his voice when he speaks.
“I love this place,” I say. “But I want to see the stars. I want a velvet black sky. And I want to be able to hear the sound of the ocean’s waves breaking.” I start to mention that I hold Damien and Nikki’s Malibu house up as the gold standard, but decide that perhaps this isn’t the moment to bring my boss into the conversation.
“You have a star,” he says, dragging his foot up so that he can rub his toes along my ankle and the small tattoo that has been there since high school. “And a lovely crescent moon.”
“Starlight Girls’ Academy,” I say.
“I’ve heard of it. Beverly Hills, right?”
“I managed to get a scholarship,” I say. “I went there for my sophomore, junior, and senior years.”
“Boarding school,” he says, and I hear the understanding in his voice.
Starlight Girls’ Academy is one of the most prestigious prep schools in Southern California, and the moment I learned that it offered full scholarships—with room and board—I’d killed myself to ace the entrance exams. My high school counselor had been astounded when I’d done well enough to be offered an interview—I’d nailed middle school, but I’d checked out my freshman year, doing only enough to get by and not making any close friends. But I’d been highly motivated, and I’d been bright and perky and social and witty during the interview.
I’d been accepted, and I’d kicked academic ass in order to maintain my GPA and stay in the program.
“I couldn’t stay in my parents’ house any longer,” I admit, after I’ve told him the story. “So the tattoo was like a celebration. Me marking the transition. But the truth is I didn’t fit in at Starlight, either.” We wore uniforms during school hours, but had a great deal of freedom on weekends and holidays. Fashion and boys were the thing, and I wasn’t interested in either. Instead, I hid behind boring clothes, never dated, and used to lie about having a skin condition so that I wouldn’t have to wear makeup.
“And your parents? They didn’t realize what was going on?”
“They had their hands full with my brother,” I said. “I think they were a little relieved I wasn’t in the house anymore. He was finally recovering and they didn’t have to feel guilty about focusing all their parental attention on him.” Not exactly the truth, but close enough.
“And the rape? That was over? Or did it end when you went away to school?” I hear the tight control in his voice, so taut it is like a rubber band stretched almost to the breaking point.
“Summer before my freshman year,” I say. “It stopped then.” I don’t say why, and he doesn’t ask. But I do pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders, then glance at his face only to find him looking back at me with a fierce intensity.
“What?”
“You’re cold.”
“I’m fine.”
He shifts to a sitting position, then stands. I raise a brow. “More wine?”
“No.” He bends, then slides an arm under my legs and puts the other behind my back. I gasp as he lifts me, then cradles me against his chest.
“Jackson, I’m fine. I like it out here.”
“I’ll find you a castle with your starlight view,” he says. “Right now you’re cold.”
“I’m not,” I say. “I have a blanket. I have you. I—” I stop, because I have tilted my head back and I see his face, and an odd mixture of ferocity and helplessness that makes my heart twist almost painfully. “Jackson?”
“Please,” he says. “Let me take care of you.”
I think of all that I have lived with—all that I have survived. I’ve had a lifetime to get used to it, and yet it still knocks me sideways. I just dumped it on him, and not even all of it. On a man who, despite everything, cares about me. And, despite my assurance to the contrary, fears that he somehow made it worse for me.
“Yes,” I say as I close my eyes and lean my cheek against his chest. “I am a little cold.”
He takes me back into the condo and through to the bedroom. Then very gently, he places me on the bed. “Under,” he says, lifting the covers.
I look over at him. Naked. Semi-erect. And in that moment I can think only that he is perfection come to life.
I shake my head. “Nope. You wanted me warm, I think it’s only fair that you warm me up, not pawn the job off on some blanket.”
He chuckles. “Do you? Well, I’m all about fairness.” With his eyes never leaving mine, he crawls onto the bed, straddling me, then he kisses me long and hard and deep.
“I think I like warming you up,” he says as he sits up, kneeling over my waist so that his cock rests enticingly on my belly.
I glance down, then lift my brow in question. “Do you want?”
“Do I want what?”
He knows what I’m offering, I’m certain of it. He just wants to hear me say it.
“Do you want me to suck your cock?”
His brow lifts, as if in surprise at my boldness. “Desperately,” he says, as he reaches down to stroke my skin in a lazy pattern. “But right now, I just want to bury myself in you.”
“Oh,” I say as he sweetly—so deliciously sweetly—eases inside me. I gasp in welcome and surprise, then move with him. Our movements are slow and sensual, but there is nothing gentle about my reaction. I’m rising up, buoyed by a web of dancing sparks and wild colors. He’s taking me to the edge, bringing me to the pinnacle. And as my body clenches tight around him, drawing him in deeper, silently begging him to take me further, I once again find release in the arms of this man I have always wanted, and so desperately missed.
When I feel as if I can move again, I roll sideways and glance at the clock. It is almost five. “We’ve stayed up the entire night.”
“Complaining?” He brushes a kiss over my lips, then sits up and stretches.
“Nope.” I move as well, but I don’t sit up. Instead I raise my arms above my head and stretch luxuriously all the way from my fingers to my toes.
“Hold that thought,” he says as he trails a fingertip lightly up my leg. “I barely got started.”
“Started?”
He traces a finger over the ribbon tattoo, then along the edge of the lock. And then, with the muscles of my belly tightening as he finger-walks up my torso, he bends to gently kiss the new flame that lights my breast. “I can’t help but think I’m following a path. These. The moon on your ankle. All the rest.”
He’s right, of course. And yet I say nothing.
“Is this what you do?” he asks. “Your own kind of therapy?”
“What?”
“That’s what you said,” he reminds me. “I said you needed help. You said you had your own kind of therapy. Am I looking at it?”
I lick my lips. He knows—obviously he understands—so why am I still so hesitant to admit it to him? “Why do you think that?” I swing my legs off the bed, then stand. My robe is still on the floor from the last time I wore it, and I bend to pick it up. I shove my arms through the sleeves and tie the sash tight around my waist.
“I understand the concept of self-medicating,” he says.
I turn as he gets off the bed and walks to me, completely naked and not the least bit self-conscious. “How?” I ask, then realize I already know the answer. I brush my fingertip lightly over his knuckles as he reaches for the sash on my robe.
“Jackson …”
“Yes,” he says, but whether he’s referring to my unspoken question or the unfastening of my robe, I do not know. He lifts his hands, then eases the robe off my shoulders so it falls to the floor and I am standing naked before him.
Slowly, almost reverently, he looks over my front. His fingertip grazes the two tattoos on the swell of my right breast. The new flame and a much older female symbol twined with a rose. Then he moves lower, gently running his fingertip along the red ribbon design that has been there since before Atlanta.
“You told me this was just a random design,” Jackson says. “Now tell me the truth.”
The truth.
The thought makes me shiver, and I know that I am not ready to go there yet. Not completely. And yet I don’t want to run from the question or the man. On the contrary, I want to move in closer. I want to feel his arms around me, and I want to get lost, safe in the warmth that is Jackson.
And so I tell him. The core of it, at least. “They’re triumphs,” I say. “Reminders, anyway.”
“I see.” He steps closer, then slides his hand around my waist until his palm is pressed flat over the intertwined J and S that are inked on my lower back. “And this? Does this mark a triumph, too?”
“No.” The word is raw, pushed out past a wall of emotion. “No,” I say, “that one is a memory.” I draw in a breath for courage and then meet his eyes. “It’s the only part of you I could take with me, and I didn’t want to ever be without it.”
For a moment, he just looks at me. Then he pulls me close and kisses me hard. He scoops me up and carries me back to the bed, then gathers me close. “I found you curled up in the bathroom, and you wouldn’t let me help you.”