Heaven Beside You (11 page)

“Do you want some help?” He came down off the porch.

“No.” She stepped backward. “I can get it.” Setting the chainsaw on one of the logs, she started hacking off smaller branches with an ax and tossing them onto the sled behind her without looking.

Jason looked around. She was slipping away. He couldn’t stand another night watching her dark window, wondering. He couldn’t even stand the rest of the morning wondering. But all he had to work with was snow. What could he do with snow?

He scooped up a handful, packed it, and threw the snowball at her back. It landed with a satisfying smack in the middle of her parka.

One eyebrow raised, she looked at him over her shoulder. Before he could see what she’d done, she’d scooped up some snow and thrown a snowball in one graceful motion. It landed in the middle of his chest. Then she lobbed a second one at his shoulder, laughing and diving for cover.

Howling outrage, he tossed another one, hit the tree she’d ducked behind. He pulled his coat closed, which made the snow stuck to his sweater melt faster. The cold water did nothing to cool him off. The sound of her laughter goaded him. Another snowball thudded on his chest as he ran for where she was hiding. He tackled her, but she swung their bodies around so when he landed, she sat astride him. Her left hand had fallen onto the middle of his chest while her right dug into the snow.

The laughter died on her lips, and her legs tightened around his hips. Jason bit back a groan. She licked her lips, leaving them slightly parted. Her damp lips hovered above him, just out of reach. He felt helpless, waiting for her to choose him. Then she traced his jaw, and her fingers should have been cold against his skin, but her touch made him warmer. He trembled.

She leaned down and touched her lips to his. A small moan escaped her. Her hand pressed his chest as though she wanted to push away, but couldn’t. As he searched with his fingers for the hem of her parka, he only felt her warm mouth on his. Her tongue brushed his lips.

He shuddered, plundering her soft mouth, invading her warmth, drinking it into himself, feasting in her sweetness. He couldn’t control himself. Better than the fantasy, so much better. Trying to touch her bare skin, he dug under her parka. He wanted to roll them over so he could press her into the snow and open her parka to feel her against him. She moaned again and the sound vibrated through him, flooding him with heat, and she slipped her hand from his chest to the back of his neck. Now she seemed to want to pull him closer. As he arched up to her, he drew her against him. He throbbed to move inside her. Her small body slid against him with a sweet friction. His mind spun desire into an elaborate cocoon. It didn’t matter that he lay in six inches of snow, he wanted to undress her and make love to her now.

She pushed away from him. Her eyes were dazed but rapidly focusing. More rapidly than he could follow. A distance built between them even though she still straddled him. She looked wildly at him then struggled to her feet.

“What?” he asked thickly.

She almost ran back to the downed tree. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have led you on.” She grabbed her chainsaw and hurried toward her garage.

“Come again?” Jason struggled to his feet. Snow melt soaked through his sweater and a crisp wind blew into his open coat. He hurried after her.

“I didn’t mean—”

“I did.” He followed her though the door. As she hung up the chainsaw, he got behind her, crowding her and cutting off her escape routes. She turned and took a step backward, pressed herself against a worktable.

“Listen, you can’t start something like that and then leave me out in the cold.”

“I have to.” Lips pursed in a prim line, she’d gone colder than the icy wetness soaking his chest. “I’ve been down this road before and I didn’t like where it ended.”

“What road? The next two weeks?” he demanded. “I’m not asking you to marry me or live with me or give up your life, I just want this.” He reached for her hand. Thwarted desire choked him. The need to beg her not to abandon him burned, but the words wouldn’t come out. “I want you.”

Softened, swollen from his kisses, her lips still tingled. Every inch of her skin seemed to be sparking with delicious sensation. She gripped the hem of her parka with both hands. For years she’d dreamed about making love with Jason Callisto. Ever since he’d appeared at her door, she’d been thrumming with a low throb of desire. He wanted her, and oh God, she ached for him.

Ever since he’d shown up, she’d also been seeing where sex with him could lead, and it resembled a road with a washed out bridge. A jagged strip of asphalt that dropped into a raging river on the other end of his stay.

But he was giving her a warning sign. A nice orange and yellow sawhorse with flashing red lights and a big reflective sign saying
Jason Will Be Leaving in Two Weeks
. This time if she knew, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, she didn’t have to believe it would be ’til death do us part only to find out boredom was an equally good separator.

Cass forced her left hand to relax its hold on her hem then turned it and curled her fingers around his. She was warmed by his breath on her face. Her heart still wanted to leap out of her chest, but the reason had changed. She didn’t fear a relationship with him would lead to abandonment. It would. In two weeks, he would leave and she couldn’t change that. She just needed to learn to live with it. Now she only had to worry she couldn’t live up to what he wanted. She hadn’t been good enough in the past. “I don’t know. I’m just—”

Jason put his finger over her lips. “Hush.” He pulled her close and kissed her.

All her fears evaporated with that kiss, as he slipped his hands expertly under her coat, ran them up her sides, driving her higher. She clung to him, helpless as he devoured her. Pent up need she hadn’t known she’d had shivered through her.

“Do you want me?” he whispered against her cheek.

“Yes.” She couldn’t imagine any other answer.

“Why don’t we go inside?”

Her hand shook as she opened the door. He seemed taller in the hall. That or, in the tradition of Wonderland, the hallway was shrinking. He pulled the door closed behind them. Before she could come to any kind of decision about the size of the hall, he’d unzipped her parka and pushed it off her shoulders. He shrugged out of his coat, leaving it on the hall floor with hers.

What should she do next? She felt like a virgin. It had been so long, this might as well have been the first time.

Jason wrapped his arms around her waist and carried her into the bedroom. She hadn’t made the bed this morning, leaving the covers thrown open, and kissing her, he laid her down on it. If she’d thought his kiss was intoxicating before, she hadn’t understood the word. Her body flooded with heat and she heard herself moaning. As he shoved her sweatshirt up, he moved down to kiss her stomach. When his hot mouth touched her skin, she shivered with delight. He pulled the sweatshirt off and threw it across the room. It caught on the window crank. Kissing her scorched flesh, making her moan louder, he kissed up her body.

He fell on her mouth again, ravenous, and she reveled in the heat of his lips on hers. So soft, and yet so hard. Driving her to clutch him, digging her fingers into his shirt. His fingers laced through her hair were stopped by her hair elastic. He tugged at the elastic for a minute then lifted away from her. “Your hair. Take it down for me. Please,” he asked huskily.

With trembling fingers, she tried to pull the elastic out, but it tangled in her curls. Jason sat back on his heels, watching her with dark eyes as he pulled off his shirt. His lean chest was scattered with wiry black hair and his nipples were dark and rigid with anticipation. Whimpering, she tugged at the elastic until it slipped free without taking too much of her hair with it. A hand buried in her hair, he kissed, pressed her into the bed. She skimmed her hands along his back. Iron beneath smooth skin, his muscles tensed at her touch. A groan escaped him. He slid his hand behind her back and unhooked her bra, yanked the material away. The air in the house felt cool against her skin, but everywhere he touched her was hot.

“So lovely,” he murmured, stroking along the side of her breast.

“Please...” She couldn’t have articulated what she wanted if he’d asked, she only wanted more. Suddenly, her loose jeans were too tight and binding.

“Oh, I plan to,
bella
,” he told her, the low purr of his voice making her belly clench. He leaned down and captured one taut and aching nipple between his lips.

The throbbing now became a steady pounding beat. She arched her head against the pillow, mouth open, trying to draw enough breath. As he tugged, his tongue rasped across the tip. One of his hands rested on her waist, and curling it around to her back, he slipped one finger under the waistband of her jeans. She put her hand on his shoulder, wondered what she should be doing to please him, but she couldn’t seem to get a message out. A hurricane raged around her, and she could only feel and react.

Jason pressed his face between her breasts, inhaling her scent. His hot breath fanned her. She stroked through his long hair, cradling his head. He shivered. Then he took her other nipple in his lips. She arched up to meet him. It wasn’t enough. She wanted more. She reached for her jeans, but he caught her hand.

“No,
bella
, let me.” He shifted onto his side and reached down, unbuttoned her jeans.

Cass took the opportunity to press her hand against his chest, sought and found his tight nipples, making him gasp. “You like that?” she asked.

“Very much.”

She pinched his nipple lightly as he worked her zipper down. “If you lay back I can do more.”

He smiled at her with hazy desire. “I’ll bet you could. But first I’d like to remove your jeans.” He knelt at the end of the bed and pulled off her jeans. Her panties went with them, leaving her naked. Laying a hand on her bare calf, he said, “You are an incredibly beautiful woman, Cassandra,
bella
. Do you know that?”

Cass had no idea how to answer him.

Jason leaned down and kissed the inside of her knee, then forward and kissed her inner thigh. She closed her eyes as his fingers slipped into her most sensitive spot, couldn’t move, couldn’t think. A rush of pleasure coursed through her. Her skin tingled maddeningly. He kissed the inside of her thigh again, higher this time. Cass shuddered. “It’s so good.”

“It gets better.”

Then his lips closed around her, and as a surge of greater pleasure tore through her, she wailed. She reached down to touch his head. His hair brushed against her legs, making her nerve endings crackle. His tongue tasted her expertly, bringing her tighter and tighter until she could stand no more. Her body clenched and released in a flood of pleasure.

She fell back against the bed, ashamed. Groupies could probably hold out longer. They knew well enough to serve him first. “I’m sorry, I—”

Jason sat back, licking his lips. “For what?” His voice dropped lower. “I’m just getting started,
cherie
.”

Still charged with his touch, hungrier instead of sated, she trembled.

Eyes on hers, he reached into his pocket. Then he frowned, digging deeper into the pocket. “Shit,” he said, on his knees and looking in both front pockets. “Hold that thought,” he told her, climbing off the end of the bed.

Cass watched him walk out to the hall and pick up his coat. He must be looking for a condom. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to go all the way to his cabin for one because she didn’t own any. She’d opened her mouth to tell him to forget it, they could do without this once, when he dropped the coat and returned to the bed. He was tearing a condom’s foil packaging open with his teeth.

“Did you hold that thought?” he asked as he opened his jeans. Then he shoved them down his legs. Everything about him was long and lean and powerful. Gorgeous, naked. Feral and beautiful. His skin had a tawny cast everywhere. Smiling at her gaze, he kicked away his jeans.

“I did my best.”

He crawled onto the end of the bed. “I’m getting the impression that you didn’t manage to hold on too tightly, but I’m willing to start over if I have to.”

“Sounds good to me.” Her breath caught. Then his body stretched along hers and any dissipation of her passion vanished. Before he’d even touched her, her skin tingled. One hand sunk into her hair, he urged her lips to his. She could taste herself on him.

“Am I starting over?” he murmured against her mouth.

“What?” Her voice sounded thick, as if she were drunk. Yeah, she was. On him. Because wherever his body touched, hers burned with acute pleasure. Even his hand in her hair was a thrilling agony.

“Good. I don’t think I could hold out.” Jason shifted between her legs.

Her breath stopped in her throat and mouth went dry with anticipation. He seemed to hang above her forever, looking down at her face. The room grew impossibly hot. The fire crackled. She touched her fingertips to his chest, watched his flesh pebble under her fingers. With a groan, he thrust inside her.

She cried out as her body contracted around him. He pulled back and thrust again. Digging her nails into his back, she dragged him down on top of her. Face pressed into the curve of her neck, he moved harder and faster, making her gasp. Her legs were wrapped around him, but she spread herself as wide as she could to bring him further and further in, even as her ankles locked behind him to keep him there. The moments drew out into eternities. Clutching him to her, she rode each thrust, hardly aware of the passionate moans she made. Like thunder on the mountain, rolling and pounding, vibrating everything, the climax took her with it. With a shout, he collapsed on her.

For a few moments, all she could do was lie still, getting her breath back. Jason didn’t move either. Reaching over, she pulled the blankets around them. Sex had never felt this amazing before. Hopefully it had been as good for him. She put her arms around his shoulders, wishing she knew the words to tell him how wonderful he’d made her feel.

But what if he was disappointed? He’d worked hard to get her. What if she wasn’t enough? He seemed quite spent. Did that mean she was good enough for West Virginia? She didn’t want to disappoint him.