Chapter 17

Jax

Was there any other way I could make her mine, utterly? Probably not, short of giving her more of me than I was willing.

This was it.

I ran my fingers down her spine, over the smooth silken skin that’d been my fantasy since I’d met her, and pulled them across her ass cheeks, raked them around her thighs and up again, to her hips, over them. Every inch of her flesh responded to my touch.

She shivered. Goose bumps erupted on her tan skin. She leaned into me. Her nipples puckered and grazed my cotton shirt.

“Naked,” she said.

It wasn’t a question or a request, but a statement of what was. We were naked. Shit, in more ways than one. Ain’t that a kick in the teeth. Deep as all hell.

I released her and worked on the buttons of my shirt, popping them open one by one instead of ripping them right off this time. Tonight would be slow. It would be everything I’d never done with a woman before.

I removed my shirt and watched her body change. Her breasts lifted, her pupils dilated in those gorgeous hazel-flecked irises, and her skin pebbled all over again.

“You like that,” I said.

“Yes.”

“What about it? Talk to me, gorgeous. Tell me what you like, what you need.”

“I love your body,” she whispered and dragged her fingers down the defined abs I’d spent hours crafting in the gym. “And your tattoos.” Riley moved back up to the blank patch over my heart and pressed her palm flat against it, covering it up. “And how fast your heart beats for me.”

Love. My insides didn’t recoil. They should’ve. I should’ve put my shirt back on and walked the fuck out of the living room, gone to a hotel. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do anything but listen to her, watch her, the pulse beating in her throat.

I undid my belt buckle, took off the belt, pants went next, kicked off my shoes. Even with her heels on, I was still taller than Riley by a whole head. She looked up at my face then down at my cock, standing at attention for her, dripping all over again.

“Do you see what you do to me?”

Riley licked her lips and took my dick in her hand, traced the veins, teased the ridges and touched the droplet of precum waiting for her. She bent at the waist, lifted it to her lips and lapped it up. “I love that too,” she said.

I tugged her close, then looped one arm under her knees, the other beneath her back, and lifted her. She clung to me, kissing my neck and chest, leaving a scorching trail on my flesh.

I walked my woman down the hall past her bedroom and into mine, then laid her down on the bed, gently.

“Condom,” she murmured.

And for once, I fucking regretted it. I needed to feel her bare, no restrictions, but that couldn’t happen. Not yet, at least. She wants a baby? I’ll give her a baby. I’ll fill her with so much of my cum she’ll have ten babies. Ten little—

I drove the thoughts out and fetched a condom from my bedside table. No matter how much I wanted to fill her, I couldn’t until she was ready for it. She wasn’t yet. The fear in her eyes, the doubt from earlier, had told me as much.

Riley opened her arms to me, and I lay down on top of her, kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, and her lips again, parted them and tasted her, placed my hand on her throat, encircled it gently.

This woman was unbreakable.

I parted her legs by shifting my own, then I placed my dick at her entrance.

“I wish I could feel you,” she whispered, and blinked those big doe eyes at me. “You know, all of you. Bare. Hot and hard and—”

“Don’t tempt me,” I said and plunged into her before I changed my damn mind. Even with the layer between us, it was tight and warm, wet and fucking delicious. I didn’t pull her legs back or fold her in half and fuck her like my personal little puppet.

I scooped her up in my arms and held her, kissing slowly as I pumped her full of my cock, again and again.

“Oh my god, Jax. It’s so good. It’s so damn good.”

“Come for me,” I replied and changed the angle ever so slightly, so that the base of my dick rubbed against her clit.

She jerked and bit on my bottom lip, pulled it toward her, then let go. “Oh god,” she groaned, and clawed for me, desperate, gasping. “Oh my god. Oh god. I can’t.”

I dissolved her words with kisses, staked my claim in her mouth, tasted her tongue, massaged it, toyed with it. She was sweet as always, and her kisses were sloppy and loose, as if she couldn’t focus on anything other than the raw heat between her legs.

“Come,” I whispered. “Come and moan my name. Tell me you’re mine.”

“Oh god, Jax, I’m all yours,” she whispered back. “I’m all yours.”

My dick throbbed at that. “Say that again.” I kissed her lips, licked a line to her ear and bit down on her earlobe. “Say it again.”

“I’m yours,” she whimpered, her hips rising, legs kicking. “Yours. Jax, oh fuck.” She broke around me, keening, pulsing, aching and hot.

My balls tightened up, and I grunted against her lips. She licked them, and I was done. I scorched over the edge, right into nirvana. It was cloudy and soft, and it smelled of lavender and vanilla.

Of her.

I rammed my cock deep into that cunt, kept it there while I emptied, imagining there was nothing between us, and I’d creamed inside her instead of the rubber. I held her tight, shut my eyes and kissed her again, softly this time. Our sweat mingled on our foreheads, our lips.

Salt and sweet. Perfect.

“Wow,” she whispered, against my lips. “That was different.”

I kissed her one last time, then pulled out, gripping the base of the condom. The last time we’d done it, I’d fallen asleep inside her and woken with the condom drooping off my tip. I’d tossed it out in the middle of the night, half asleep.

It wasn’t a good practice to choke my dick in latex all night long, so I forced myself up, walked over to the trash can, and disposed of it.

I turned back to her, and a grin split my lips.

Riley lay on the bed, spread-eagled, her arms above her head, her legs wide open, her pussy swollen and red from me, and she glowed from the inside out. She shuffled into a sitting position, her hair half out of the updo she’d worn tonight. “What?” she asked. “Do I have something on my face?”

“You wish.” I winked.

“Hey!”

I laughed and walked back to the bed then held out my arm. “Come on, gorgeous. Let’s go get something to eat.”

“Naked?”

“Sure,” I replied. “What’s your favorite breakfast?”

“It’s eleven p.m.,” she said.

“And so? You never had brinner?”

“What the hell is a brinner?”

“Breakfast for dinner. Brinner,” I said and guided her toward the hall. We walked down it together, her arm through mine—we’d have been welcome at any fancy-dress party, if not for, uh, the naked thing. “It’s the best thing you’ll ever eat. So, what do you say? Eggs? Bacon? Pancakes?”

“Ooh, I love pancakes.”

“Pancakes it is.” I brought her through to the kitchen, sat her bare, adorable ass down on one of the stools in front of the kitchen island, then set to work.

“You don’t need my help?”

“I don’t like people fucking around with my shit,” I replied. “In almost every sense. We could plan to cook together some day, but on a whim? Hell no.”

“So, you need to be in control of everything all the time?”

I met her gaze, which had sharpened up. Had that hit a nerve with her? I wasn’t good with backing down or giving leeway. “That’s about the shape of it,” I said.

“I can relate to that,” she muttered. “I—like being in control too.”

“I told you,” I replied. “We’re the same. You’re the hard place, and, fuck it, I’m the rock.”

“What, like the wrestler?”

“He’s an actor now,” I replied and fetched a carton of milk from the refrigerator. I placed it next to the bowl and flour I’d already brought out, then bent and rooted around in the cupboards for the baking soda. “I bet I could take him.”

Riley giggled and balanced her chin in her hand, watching me as I whisked, fried, and flipped. The conversation spun from the Rock, to movies, to her favorite color, to mine. To everything we’d never talked about before this moment.

She loved France. Fuck it, she loved anywhere that wasn’t where she’d already spent the past thirty years of her life, and she adored chocolate syrup on pancakes.

Once we’d whipped them up, we carried our plates through to the living room, where we’d left the graveyard of our clothes.

“I’m surprised you didn’t burn yourself,” Riley said and sat down in on the sofa.

I sat beside her, balanced the plate on the arm of the couch. “Are you kidding? I’m a fucking pro at that shit. You know how many nights I’ve taken a shower and been too damn lazy to throw on any clothes before I whipped up something to eat? Cereal’s only so filling.”

Riley chewed on a piece of pancake. She was cute when she ate, neat too. She broke off and dabbed her lips with a napkin from the stack I’d set down on the coffee table.

I finished off my cakes and placed the plate down beside the pile, then brushed off my hands and set them on my thighs. “So,” I said.

“So?” she asked, around a mouthful of pancake.

We’d efficiently avoided the topic of journals or Veronica, or any of the other stuff that had worried her and pissed me off, but there was one thing I couldn’t hold back on, and I had to get it off my chest before it burst out of me like one of those alien creatures from a movie.

“What?” Riley asked, and set aside her pancakes. “What is it? You look like—I dunno, like you’re about to spew.”

“You need to think about the insemination thing seriously, Riley,” I said.

She jerked back against the sofa, and her tits bounced. “Excuse me?”

“You need to think it through. It costs money. And shit, I gotta admit I can’t stand the thought of another man’s spunk inside you,” I said.

Riley’s jaw dropped.

“I’m serious. If you want a baby, you should do it the old-fashioned way.”

“You’re suggesting I find the donor and screw him instead?” she asked.

“No,” I grunted.

Riley scrambled off the sofa and stood on the puddle that was her dress. She didn’t notice, fisted her hips and glared at me, instead. “Are you kidding? You think you get to tell me what I should or should not do?”

“I’m not telling you shit, other than you need to think about it. This isn’t the right time for you to—”

Riley lifted her palm and pressed it toward me, physically shoving the idea back. “I don’t need your advice. I don’t need your judgment. I need you to back the hell off, right now. Everything was fine, Jax. I don’t get it. Why can’t you just—?”

“What? Shut up and take it? Sorry, hon, that’s not who I am. When I see a shitstorm coming, I sound the alarm, and this little plan of yours is one of those. Not because you want to raise a baby on your own, Riley, but because you are too stubborn to accept my help.”

“I don’t need your help,” she replied. “I don’t need anything from you.” She paused, a muscle in her jaw twitching. “No, that’s a lie. I need one thing from you. Space.” She walked out of the living room and back down the hall. The guest room door clicked shut a second later.

I couldn’t regret bringing it up.

She might think it was none of my business, but she was wrong.