Present Day
Jace Bennett
THERE WAS NO denying how hungry I was.
Just as there was no denying how edible she looked, especially when she reached up and wrapped her arms around my neck. It took a few seconds, but then she brought her mouth even closer to mine, which by the way, was still hovering inches from hers.
On neutral ground was how I chose to look at it. It was both of us making a move at the same time, but then she licked her lips. That’s when my animalistic nature was triggered.
The first thing I did was rest my hands on her hips. And then I leaned down and pushed her back on the tabletop until both of our bodies were pressing firmly against each other.
Friction.
I felt it immediately.
It felt so fucking good.
Just like that, our mouths crashed together. Seconds later our tongues tangled and clashed, twisting and rolling over a span of countless minutes until we were both breathless and panting.
I hadn’t felt this turned on in years, and I couldn’t sort out right from wrong. It was as though I was completely incapable of doing so.
Trying to drive away the muddled confusion swirling around in my mind, I tore my mouth from hers and glanced around the room. While I knew I wasn’t sure I should be doing what I was about to do, or if I should be doing it with the person I was about to do it with, I also knew I was completely incapable of stopping myself.
Chaos flickered all around me as my gaze bounced and skated over everything in the kitchen, but then my eyes landed on my wallet sitting on the counter. All of a sudden it became a beacon, and the condom sitting inside it was calling to me. Normally, there wouldn’t have been one in there, but the day after I had lunch with Amanda, I stopped by the drug store and picked up a box.
Fuck, it seemed like a decade since I’d done anything like that.
Hannah slid her hands up my neck and her fingers sunk into my hair. The groan I released was something I couldn’t prevent. I shifted my gaze back to her, and our eyes locked. Like that, with our bodies touching and the heat around us blazing off the charts, I forgot where I was. I forgot who I was.
This time when I found her mouth, I kissed her even harder. A carnal need ripping through me so fiercely that I gripped the back of her neck with one hand to hold her in place, and held her close with the other. That wasn’t enough though and I slid my hand down her stomach, over her hip, until I had her thigh in my hand. Once I tugged it up, I moved closer between her legs. Close enough she could feel the evidence of my arousal.
Releasing my hold on her neck, I trailed my fingertips down the silk of her top and felt her shiver under my touch. When I lightly thumbed over her breast, she gasped.
With the sounds of our mingled breaths the only noise in the room, I lowered her leg and gazed into her eyes. “Fuck, I want you.”
Her lashes were low-lidded with lust as she held my heated gaze. “I want you, too,” she whispered.
My whole body was taut with need, and I was ready for this. Sure, I should have told her I hadn’t been with anyone in more than three years. But then again, I should have told her a lot. Instead what I told her was, “Take your clothes off.”
With her arms at her sides, she stared back at me, eyes wide as she processed my command.
“Please,” I smirked.
Turned out old habits died hard because she lifted her hands to the hem of her top and slowly pulled it over her head.
Raw hunger ignited as soon as I saw her flawless skin.
“Your turn,” she said huskily.
I lifted a brow, considered this, and then just did it. I unbuttoned my shirt as fast as I could and shrugged out of it, letting it fall to the floor beside hers. “Bra,” I murmured.
She raised her hands again, gathering her hair and pushing it over one shoulder so she could reach the clasp. Then she unhooked it and pulled it from her body.
“Fuck.” My voice was a low growl of appreciation.
The old Hannah would have felt vulnerable standing naked in front of me. The grown up Hannah might have felt vulnerable, but she was also bold. After staring at me with parted lips, she kicked her sandals off and then got to work on her jeans.
While she unbuttoned and unzipped, I did the same. Taking down my boxers with my slacks, I was naked before she was. Using the time wisely, I strode over to my wallet as she stepped out of her jeans, and I grabbed the condom.
When I returned to where I had been, she was hooking her thumbs into the lacy, thin waistband of her panties. Sliding them down, they fell to the ground, and when she stepped out of them, I nearly fell on my ass.
The sight of her pink flesh nearly knocked the breath right out of me.
I wanted to touch every inch of her. I wanted to feel her body against mine. I wanted to fuck her hard and fast. I wanted more than I should have.
Like a lion stalking my prey, I lunged forward and took her in my arms. My breath whispered over her face, hot and rapid, as I bent to kiss her. My fingers wrapped in her hair as I slid my hands down her body. And my breaths were sporadic, as my chest heaved with desire.
“Do you know how sexy you are?” I murmured, lowering my mouth to suck a nipple between my lips.
She moaned, and her short nails raked down my back. “No one has told me that in a long time.”
Alternating between her tiny breasts, I teased, licked, and sucked them into taut peaks with my mouth. “I haven’t done this in a long time,” I murmured.
This was purposely not defined.
She tossed her head back and whispered, “Neither have I.”
I had no idea if she was referring to having sex in general, or banging in someone’s kitchen, or getting her nipples toyed with. And I left it at that.
Releasing my hold on her breasts, I couldn’t wait another second to run my fingers down between her thighs. As soon as I did, her entire body tightened in response.
Christ, she was so wet.
That alpha-in-control male part of me was more than ready to take her, but the widower in me questioned if doing so was the right thing. I’d loved Hannah before Tricia, and Tricia was the one who brought me back from that devastation left in her wake. Now with Tricia gone, it just felt wrong to be with Hannah again.
Raising my head and resting my palms on the table, I looked at Hannah. I looked and looked and looked, like the answer to what I should do might be in her eyes. But all I ended up discovering was something about myself. That I was burning with a blazing heat I couldn’t remember feeling in a very long time.
Guilt inched its way from my core, and fought against the desire coiling tightly in my body.
As if sensing my reluctance, Hannah pulled my mouth to hers. The demand I could practically taste on her lips muddled with my head, and eventually I gave in to my own silent begging.
My voice was strained and edgy when I said around her drugging kiss, “Turn around.”
“Okay,” she breathed out, her own voice a husky whisper.
As she started to turn, I didn’t wait for her to complete the one-eighty before I bent her over the table. With her palms flat on the surface, I positioned my feet between hers and spread her legs wide.
Reaching for the condom I’d tossed on the table, I got to work tearing open the foil package, manipulating the latex, and then I was ready. With my mind clear of anything except my primal need to fuck, I positioned the head of my cock at her swollen heat.
I paused only for the briefest of moments, and then I didn’t hold back as I surged into her. That feeling I was craving rocketed though me and I felt every muscle in my body clench in need. She felt amazing on my cock.
Gripping the edge of the table, she pressed her naked body farther back against my needy one.
Right there, I thought this was going to end before it even got started. Like a pussy, I bit down on my lip, hard, to distract the sensation. And thank fuck it passed. Turned out I wasn’t that much of a pussy after all.
Once I felt more certain I could maintain the stamina I wanted to achieve, I started to thrust deeper, harder, and faster.
With a rhythm set, I slid my mouth to her neck and grazed her shoulder with my teeth. At the same time my fingers found her clit. And fuck, my entire body came alive. Twin bursts of pleasure sizzled under my skin and I felt electrified.
She cried out too, and her sounds of pleasure only fueled me on.
I stood straighter, and with my hands now tightly gripping her hips, I slammed into her. Hard. Deep. Fast. Furious.
It felt so good.
It had been way too long.
Still, I wanted more.
I wanted her deeper.
I wanted her faster.
I wanted it all.
Wanted it so badly, I could taste it like I could taste the blood from my bitten lip as I licked it away.
Feeling unleashed, I fought to hold on to her hips as she pushed her ass back. Everything exploded from there. I pulled back and thrust. My cock slid so deep inside her, deep into places I remembered from so long ago, and I felt like I was soaring.
We might not have been together in many years, we might only be fucking, but we were both pouring ourselves into what we were doing like we both needed this.
Together, we moved with wild abandon; we gave freely to each other. It was the give and take that mattered the most. It meant we were both enjoying what we were doing.
Beating hearts with pulling and pushing bodies and ragged breathing was what we were, and I was thankful that was all I could feel.
In a voice that sounded more like a growl, I said, “Let go, Hannah.”
By the time those three words traveled and my breath blew hot against her skin, she was already tipping, ready to free-fall into the pleasure that was building between us.
My pulse pounded.
My heart beat rapidly.
She cried out in passion. “Jace. Oh God, Jace,” and I knew she was going over the edge.
In an unexpected move, my bare chest met her bare back and I reached for her hands, intertwining our fingers and pulling our connected hands toward our connected bodies. “You feel amazing,” I grunted close to her ear.
One glance back told me she felt the same.
As everything intensified, I squeezed my eyes closed and let my body take over. Like that I could do nothing but feel. All thoughts destroyed, I absorbed the delicious friction of being inside her.
She cried out again, and this time my thrusts slowed as soon as her pussy began to tighten around my cock.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
When her body stilled I knew she had found her release, and I let go.
The climax I was experiencing drove that incredible feeling of being inside her higher and higher until I was soaring in ecstasy and coming hard and fast. “Hannah,” I panted as my cock jerked one last time.
Breathing hard, I dropped my head into the crook of her neck, and for a few minutes, we stayed that way—her cocooned in my warm body bent over the table.
It wasn’t ideal.
Nothing about what had just happened was ideal. I had just fucked a girl I once loved in the house I had once shared with a different woman I loved, and the best fucking part was my daughter was asleep upstairs.
Fuck me.
As the head on my shoulders started to function properly, the implications of what I’d just done hit me like a tractor-trailer, and my muscles tensed instantly. She had to feel it.
Gently, I pulled out of Hannah. As I grabbed for my slacks, a stab of pain sliced through my chest.
“Jace?” she whispered.
Too far into my own head, I was already disposing of the condom and grabbing some tissues before I even glanced over at her. “Yeah?” I said as I punched my legs into my pants.
“What’s going on in your head right now?” Clearly she knew me a little too well.
What she didn’t know though was the remorse I was feeling was over my dead wife. Glancing in her direction, I couldn’t meet her gaze directly. “This was a mistake.”
Apparently she knew something wasn’t quite right because before I even spoke those harsh words she was hurrying to get dressed. “I’m sorry you think that.”
I scrubbed my hands down my face. “It’s just—” I let my words fade away. “Never mind.”
Slipping into her sandals, she glanced across the room. “Is that Scarlett’s mother?” Hannah asked, pointing to the bulletin board, which had pictures of Scarlett, Tricia, and I tacked down one side.
“Yeah,” I said, reaching for my shirt.
Hannah was dressed and stuffing her underwear into her purse, which made me feel like a real dick, when she nonchalantly asked, “Is she a part of Scarlett’s life?”
Hey, I got it. Her baby daddy hightailed it out of town and shucked his responsibilities, but still the white-hot rage that hung so close to the surface of my existence didn’t see it that way. I wanted to scream, yell, cry, who the fuck knew. But as soon as I shot my stare in her direction, it landed on those blue eyes which always seemed to calm me. And I found myself exhaling and blowing out, “No, she died three years ago.”
She clapped her hand over her mouth. “Jace, I’m so sorry.”
That was not happening. My guilt was heavy enough without her sympathy. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s late and I have to get up early,” I said, and started for the doorway.
“Right, yes, me to. The babysitter is waiting,” she said, giving me an easy out. She always knew when to lay off me and when not to—until she didn’t.
In the foyer, I opened the door, but didn’t dare look into her eyes. With my gaze steady on the floor, I said, “Don’t forget to tell Miss Eastling Jonah will be going home with Mrs. Sherman tomorrow.”
Her hand braced my upper arm and I froze. “Are you sure about that, Jace?”
I stepped back and shoved my hands in my pockets. “Yes, Scarlett wants to be the best quarterback in NFL history, so she’ll love the extra training.”
“Should I pick him up here?”
“No!” It came out a little too strongly. “When we’re done, I’ll drop him off at home.”
The distance didn’t stop Hannah from stepping closer and placing a soft kiss on my cheek. “Thank you, and again, I really am sorry for—.”
Sorry for what? The past, the present, the fucking future. I cut her off. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
She shook her head, and then without another word, turned on her heels and strode out the door.
For a moment I watched the way her long hair blew in the breeze, and remembered all those times long ago I had done the very same. But when I felt like I was suffocating, I closed the door tightly and found myself sliding down it to the ground.
With my head in my hands, I tried to stop the noise whirling in my mind. You could have fucked anyone, anyone, but it shouldn’t have been the girl you loved before Tricia. That was just wrong.
Guilt.
It was heavy.
A burden that felt so thick.
Had I just cheated on my wife?
And what the hell did I want from Hannah, especially after everything?
Nothing, I assured myself. Stay away from her. She’s no good for you. She’s not what you need. Not what you want.
But I knew it was all a lie.