September Rain Bk 2, Savor The Days Series (5 page)

I had never thought of myself as thin
or tiny and I was going to say so, but stopped when Jake gave his
lips back to me. I felt movement and then I was pinned between
Jakes chest and the wall.

The next time words were exchanged, we
were inside the bands old cargo van. It was a beater—big and
clunky—covered in graffiti and stickers, with no seats, only a huge
open area in the back. Jake spread a blanket over the worn carpet
of the van floor and we fell inside, never breaking our hold on one
another. He pinned me beneath him, pressed his hips into me, using
his knees to push mine apart. The sweet pressure of him did strange
things to me. A new kind of friction that made me greedy, made me
want every part of me to touch every part of him. My hands seemed
to know what to do. I didn’t even have to think about taking them
from his face to touch his shoulders or sliding them down his taut
arms and back.

“Angel.” Jake breathed into my mouth,
took my breath and gave me his own. “Angel. I want you so
bad.”

After this confession, before I had a
chance to respond, Max opened the backdoor. There was a pile of
equipment beside him. It was time to load up. Max looked at Jake,
rolled his eyes, and muttered something about getting a room. So,
our steamy moment was put on pause. I hid my embarrassment behind
my hair as we got out to help.

Once all the equipment and instruments
were loaded, all of us, including Avery, smashed inside the old
Dodge van, off to Analog Controllers’ motel.

The problem then became privacy. The
band was sharing one room with two queen size beds.

Andrew claimed one, Max claimed the
other. Avery laughed from a chair in the corner. But I could tell
she felt sorry for me.

“Take a walk?” Jake asked, nudging my
elbow.

We strolled the empty corridors of the
motel, passing up ice machines and payphones. An older couple
passed us. They were both dripping water, wrapped in towels, and
holding hands, talking with one another in a way that said they had
been together for a very long time.

“Sorry.” Jake murmured once they
passed.

“For what?” I stopped
walking.

“For not thinking ahead. For not being
able to finish what I started.” His eyes smoldered. “We could just
make out in the van?”

I was standing in front of a glass
door. The one the older couple had passed through. Just beyond it
was the motels’ enclosed pool. I looked through the smoked glass at
the empty lounge chairs, the sparkling water, and pressed on the
door. It was unlocked. We walked inside and Jake pushed the door
closed. His long fingers deftly turned the deadbolt, locking the
door from the inside.

He turned back to me, wide-eyed. “Is
this okay?”

I felt my body straighten, preening as
I nodded. “Definitely.”

He took my hand in his and pulled me
towards another doorway that was labeled ‘employees only.’ He took
a quick look through the room without stepping in and reached one
arm inside. The lights of the swimming area went out.

We kept walking. The poolside was now
solely lit by a hallway that led to showers. Jake grabbed a fluffy
lounge chair and set it in a dark corner in the back, out of
sight.

I stared down at the red and white
stripes of the cushion and felt his lips on my neck. All my muscles
went limp under his sweet pressure. His arms came around my waist
and those nerve endings flared again. A fire exploded within. My
hips instinctively pushed against him. I gasped as his fingers
knotted into my hair, his nails scraping my scalp as he turned me
to face him.

“I don’t know if I ever told you, but
I think you’re very beautiful.” His palm rested against my
face.

“So are you.”

His eyes seemed to search mine before
making a groping march down to my mouth. He tilted my head up to
his; set another hot palm over the place where my neck met my
shoulder. His thumb grazed my throat. I released a pleasured
sigh.

“If I moving too fast, you’ll tell me,
right?” His lips grazed mine as he whispered.

I nodded, aching for his kiss. But I
had to wait. He kept his eyes on mine as he laid me down on the red
and white striped chaise. Once again, his knees separated mine,
making room for his hips as he pressed his weight onto me, picking
up where he left off in the van. A glorious shiver ran through me
as Jake hovered above me, finally closing the distance between our
mouths. His kisses were hypnotic: demanding and sweet, breathing
into me, taking pleasure and giving it back. I was dazed.
Illuminated, by his glorious blaze, dancing in the fire he
kindled.

I heard myself whine with guilt and
delight as he lifted my shirt. Guilt, that I had snuck off and left
Avery, and delight, because Jake felt so good, and more guilt
because I was acting like such a groupie, but I didn’t care. I
couldn’t stop. I could only be thankful that I borrowed Avery’s
black lacy bra. It was a little too snug, but made my boobs look
great. I yanked Jakes shirt off in turn and tossed it aside as his
fingers moved to my jeans.

Jake was the one who stopped, but only
to investigate the small set of lines over my hip bone. His thumb
grazed my side. His brows knit together as he tugged the top of my
jeans a little lower to better see the marks I had given myself as
an experiment. As I was trying to remember which underwear I was
wearing, he backed up onto his knees and I realized what was
happening.

Chagrin gathered in my cheeks and I
confessed before he asked. “I’m not a cutter. I just tried it a few
times.”

“
What do you mean by
tried
?”

“Well . . . uh, my friend, she does
it. She says it helps her feel better and I wanted to know what she
meant, so I did it with her.” I kept Avery’s name out of it,
knowing she’d want me to.

“Create a hurt that she could feel.
And take away. To make it heal.” Jakes eyes drifted as he spoke
rhythmically, as if he were reciting a poem or lyrics. Then his
gaze came back to mine with renewed ferocity. “I get it. But you
shouldn’t do it anymore.”

I nodded my agreement, setting my
hands on his beautifully bare stomach. He was lean, with subtle but
powerful cuts around each muscle group. The thin line of hair below
his belly button felt silky under my fingers as Jake leaned into my
touch.

“Turn over.” He commanded, with dark
eyes.

I hesitated a moment, confused. Then,
did as he said. Jake grabbed my hips and lifted me up onto my
knees. The denim slid slowly down my legs and I fell forward as he
pulled. I felt him touch the exposed skin on the backs of my thighs
as he peeled the denim away.

I’d never felt so vulnerable as when
his lips touched low on my bare back. I liked the way it felt, but
it was so unexpected, so alien. I froze like a thief caught in a
spotlight; glad he couldn’t see my face.

The heat of his breath disappeared.
The cushion beneath me shifted. “Angel?” I turned to face his
raised eyebrows. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want
to.”

“I want to.” I was glad the lights
were low. I didn’t want him to see how tense I was.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.” I nodded.

Two thumps and Jakes shoes hit the
concrete floor behind him. Quickly standing, Jake removed
everything from his lower half in one motion. Before I could
appreciate the sight of him, he swooped back down, forcing my body
onto the chaise until he was, once more, completely on top of me.
His magical kisses relaxed me. His gifted hands held me
tight.

A languorous moan rumbled through my
chest as he moved his mouth down my neck. “Oh, I like that.” Jake
whispered as he nibbled my ear. “Are you noisy? Should I make you
scream?”

I gasped and froze; too shocked to
remember what I was doing just a moment ago.

Jake pulled back just enough to look
me in the eye. “I’m making you uncomfortable.” It wasn’t a
question.

My hands suddenly tingled. My flushed
cheeks ran cold.

Jake sighed and sat up. “It’s okay,
Angel. I’m not trying to take advantage of you.”

I sat up, too. “I want this. I do.
It’s just—I’ve never . . . you know. And I don’t want to disappoint
you.”

His shoulders dropped while the gaze
he’d kept trained on me shifted to the wall beyond. He offered a
small smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “This is wrong.” He shook
his head. “We should wait.”

My heart seemed to crack at those last
three words and I couldn’t hide my regret for telling him. I
couldn’t explain how I felt. I hadn’t snuck away that morning,
planning on throwing myself at Jake. I was just going to watch him
sing and pretend he was doing it for me. But he asked me for this
and I was more than willing to give him my all. I just didn’t know
how.

The hot pricks of tears swelled behind
my eyes, as did the shame of my inexperience. I wanted to disappear
and drew my knees up to my chest. The thought of stopping, of not
having him, made me wilt.

“Hey.” He reached out, taking hold of
my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

I took a pleading breath. “I’ve been
waiting my whole life.”

After thinking for a long moment, he
spoke. “You can be so sweet,” Jake grinned. “Are you
sure?”

I nodded.

“To be honest, Angel, the second I
said ‘wait’, I wished to take it back.”

“You did? You want to?”

He placed the backs of his
fingers against my cheek. “Are you serious? I can’t be the first
guy to try. I mean, you’re so damn beautiful. I wanna . . .” He
moved his hands erratically in the air between us.
“
Do
things
to you. You make me feel like a
caveman.”

My mind filled with a cartoony image
of Cro-Magnon-Jake. It stretched my face into a grin. “You wanna
club me and drag me away by my hair?”

He gave a slight smile, running his
fingers down my side, to my hip. His eyes held no humor when he
said, “There’ll be no clubbing, Baby Seal.” He put a hand across my
throat. I watched, mesmerized as he ran his tongue across his
bottom lip. “I might go for some hair pulling, though.”

My whole body seemed to go up in
smoke, singed by those erotic words. My heart fluttered, feeling
his fingers around the sides of my neck, his thumb grazing my
throat. The touch relaxed every muscle in my body. “That’s the
sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Jake moved closer, resting his other
hand by my hip. “No, being the one you choose as your first is
sexy.”

With a kiss, he tipped me back,
pressed his full weight onto me, letting me feel his long body as
his lips sank to my chin, my collar bone, then my shoulder. My
entire body shuddered at the intensity of this new touch that
somehow felt right and familiar. Like coming home to a place I’d
never been. My insides throbbed. I needed more than his lips. Then,
his hands explored me: creating new planes over my body. New
sensations that made my breath catch. When I started breathing
again, I was suddenly desperate, possessed, and wanting things I
never knew I could. As he whispered my name, those talented fingers
that had sexily strummed his guitar, slithered over me. I bit my
lip and squirmed at the deep, dark ache left in the
wake.

Glorious shivers washed through me
when Jake said my name, connecting our bodies in the most intimate
way. There was no pain, only my souls’ recognition of its mate: my
Jake and his breath, this song his body was singing to me. The
rhythm of his heartbeat and my breath conjoined in kisses. Our
hearts crashed like waves, mingling in a passionate sea as the
chaise lounge began to creak. It was a beautifully violent
march—harsh and slow, building into a grating that scraped over the
concrete of the pool area.

My feelings, the sounds made me
smile.

Jake’s fingers knotted in my hair,
drawing my attention to his off-centered gaze. His gaze burned so
bright through the dark, that I could see the multihued hazel in
them, but only half of his pupils. His hair fell
forward—disheveled, the roots tinged with sweat—and the volcanic
heat that poured from those fiery orbs commanded me to take what he
gave, while the way he moved promised I would love it. The way his
bottom lip curved up under his teeth as his eyes pleasurably rolled
back made me want to beg him to never stop. Whatever he was
feeling, I never wanted it to end. I wanted to watch him like that
forever.

His passion shocked to my core. A
sudden ripple shot through me, from the very center of my being,
out to my fingertips: it was a liquefying cadence, beating from the
heart of every cell in my body. It made me want to scream and cry
his name, but my breath was gone.

I melted into him, took on his shape
as he held me closer, curling my head into his chest as he relaxed
against me; his heart beating loud against my ear. When he fell
beside me, I still felt his pulse racing, heard his labored
breathing. Jake laid an arm under my head and wrapped another
around my waist, pulling me against him.

“Happy Birthday, baby.” He whispered,
landing a trail of kisses from my forehead to my mouth.