Chapter 32

Faith

I drank the wine. I needed it. Nothing like this had happened to me in a very long time.

I’d once been the wild girl, the girl that hooked up with the bad boys, but for the last twelve years I’d been a wallflower. No guy so much as looked at me. They could tell I wasn’t interested. It was like Jackson had marked me somehow, and other men could sense it.

I’d gone from being the wildest thing at the party to a complete bore. I was the designated driver, the one who went home early. Something told me tonight was going to be different. I’d finally be the Faith I’d been a long time ago. I’d be the girl that got the guy.

For the second time in my life, I was getting picked up by Jackson Jones, and it was a thrill.

As I sat with him in the back of the truck, his muscular body right next to me, the thoughts of what he was going to do to me became increasingly vivid.

I was scared, but there was no way in hell I wasn’t going through with this. We’d committed to each other a long time ago. This was just an inevitable part of the journey. A very long time ago, Jackson had told me there would be no going back. I’d believed that. And I would hold him to his word.

I decided to let go of my inhibitions. Whatever was going to happen, and I could feel that something was definitely going to happen, I would embrace it.

I’d already put in the time. I’d waited long enough. I remembered Jackson as a wild passionate lover, and I was ready to submit to his powerful body. Whatever he wanted from me, I would give him.

He opened another bottle of wine, I didn’t even notice which one.

“You want me to try and find buyers for this wine in the city?” I said.

Jackson shrugged. “I don’t know, that’s been Grant’s department up until now. I don’t want to make plans without speaking to him.”

“Well speak to him. Lacey and I could create quite a stir with this.”

I took another sip.

We sat there, drinking the wine, looking up at the stars, and then it came. Exactly what I knew was coming. What I’d been praying would come. You don’t get into the back of a truck with a man like Jackson Jones and not expect something to happen.

His hand was on my thigh.

His strong, masculine hand was on my smooth thigh.

My mind flashed back twelve years, to the first time he touched me at the motel. I shuddered with desire.

I was wearing a short, black dress. I’d always been proud of my legs. They were my best feature. I was glad he started on them. I was terrified of letting him down. A lot had changed with my body in twelve years. I’d given birth to a child. I wasn’t the twenty-year-old he remembered.

I looked at him.

It was strange. There was something intense and real about the look in his eyes. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought maybe it was love.

Love.

Where did we stand on that question? I didn’t know.

I loved him. I loved him with all my heart and I had ever since he’d given me his son, but did he love me? He said he’d been loyal to me for all the years we were apart. Did that mean we were in love? I hoped it did.

Stop thinking, I told myself. Just enjoy this for what it is and stop trying to read anything into it. I couldn’t control what the future held, and I wouldn’t try. If Jackson loved me, if he loved Sam, he would show us. We wouldn’t have to guess.

For now, all I had to focus on was Jackson’s finger, toying with the lace of my panty. His hand was inside my dress, pulling at the elastic of my thong. He was touching my sensitive skin, sending shivers of anticipation through me.

“Jackson,” I said.

“Faith,” he said.

“What are we doing?”

“Whatever we want,” he said and leaned in close and pressed his lips against mine.

It was incredible. More intense than the one outside the bar. Have you ever waited twelve years for a kiss? His tongue was all over mine, dancing with it, entangling itself in the most delicious way imaginable.

“Divine,” he said when our lips broke contact.

“Mm-hmm,” I moaned. I wanted more. I wanted more of that kiss and I didn’t care what I had to give to get it.

He leaned in and kissed me again, this time on my neck, allowing his tongue to slide down toward my breasts. It made my blood shiver. I leaned back in the truck and opened my legs a little. What was I doing? Trying to signal to him to come in and take me? God, was he going to think I was desperate?

He lay me down flat and leaned over me.

“Good lord, you’re a beautiful woman,” he said. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Not lately.”

He smiled.

“In fact,” I said, “the last man to tell me that, was you.”

“Well, I was right,” he said.

He pulled his shirt over his head and threw it away. Those muscles. Those tattoos. That perfectly chiseled chest. It wasn’t exactly the same as I remembered—it was hotter. And I wouldn’t have even believed that was possible. He had more scars, more wounds, more tattoos, and I knew every one of those marks on his body had a story behind it. Each held a meaning.

The memories of his body came flooding back to me. They were the treasures I’d stored away twelve years ago. I’d kept them in a safe place where only I knew about them. They were mine. And now they’d come to life again.

He was like something from a movie poster, built like a model. His muscles were perfect. He had ripples and bumps and grooves everywhere they were supposed to be. He had a perfect six pack, large, hard pectorals, arms like tree trunks. He was like a marble statue.

I smiled at him while he reached under my dress and clenched my thighs. Holy hell. His hands slid under me and grabbed my bare buttocks. It sent a shiver of passion through me like an electric pulse. I wanted him to take me, to possess me in the deepest way imaginable, to own me, to destroy me. I was his.

I’d always been his.

When he lifted my dress and peered underneath, I gasped. I was thrilled and terrified at the same time. I wanted him, but I was scared he wouldn’t want me back. What if he didn’t like what he saw?

“What have we got under here?” he said, teasingly.

I giggled like a girl. I’m not exaggerating. On an ordinary day, I could count myself as a normal, mature, adult woman. But with Jackson I felt like a teenager all over again. I felt like I was about to lose my virginity all over again. I wanted to shut my legs as tight as I could, stop him from exploring me, but I couldn’t. Something deeper within me allowed him to do what he wanted.

I held my breath and waited.

He put his head under my dress. A moment later I felt his hot breath against the skin of my inner thighs.

“What are you going to do to me, Jackson Jones?” I whispered.

I didn’t even know if he heard me. He pulled my underwear down to my ankles and then off completely. My shoes fell off in the process. Then he leaned down and let his tongue touch the soft skin of my clit.

Can I tell you one thing? There is nothing in life as thrilling as a guy like Jackson climbing up under your dress in the dark. He gently sucked my clit while I lay there and looked up at the stars.

It was crazy. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Jackson sucked my pussy like it was his favorite flavor of popsicle. He put his mouth over it and sucked until I thought I would faint. I could feel his drool all over me. His saliva combined with my own juices. I was so wet anything could have slid up inside me. Especially his cock.

“I want you,” I moaned.

He didn’t stop sucking. His tongue went from my clit, down over the mouth of my pussy, and pushed inside me. From there it went down even farther and before I knew it, he was holding me up, his strong hands on my buttocks. I gasped when he licked my anus.

“Please,” I begged. “Fuck me. I want you now.”

He lowered me. I felt his finger touch my pussy. I thrust forward, forcing my clit back against his mouth, and when his finger slid into my gaping pussy, I cried out in pleasure. I was desperate for him. I moaned. I didn’t want his finger, good as it felt, I wanted his cock.

He kept sucking my clit while his finger probed the depths of my pussy. Then I felt another finger, and this time it was touching my anus.

“I don’t know if I can bear this,” I cried.

I’ll tell you the truth. If someone had come across us right then and there, I don’t think I’d have been able to stop. I was in such a frenzy of lust that I couldn’t have stopped if an earthquake struck. I’d have just lain there and let him eat me.

He angled me back a little, his mouth firmly sucking my clit, and his thumb pressed the tight ring of muscle inside my anus.

“Oh, God,” I cried. “I’m coming. Jackson, I’m coming. I can’t hold it.”

He sucked harder. I shuddered in ecstatic agony. His fingers thrust up deep inside me. My thighs clenched his head so tightly I was sure I’d strangle him. I didn’t care. I didn’t fucking care about anything. The orgasm surging through me had taken hold of my body, my mind, my very soul. I was powerless to resist it.

All in an instant, my muscles contracted. Every nerve in my body began to fire on overload. My synapses exploded. A wave of orgasmic pleasure rushed through me and it washed away everything in its wake. I was powerless against it.

I was impaled on Jackson’s fingers, his mouth sucking me like a vacuum cleaner, and my body acted of its own accord. There was nothing to do but surrender. The orgasm washed through me like a tsunami and it was immediately followed by another, and another.

“Jackson,” I cried out. “Jackson. Jackson.” How many times had I moaned that name to myself over the years in the privacy of my bed? It was the word that would be on my lips on my dying day.

Jackson. Fucking. Jones.

You took me and you ruined me for other men. You owned me for so long I couldn’t even remember what other men felt like. I was yours wholly and completely. All yours.

He was finally taking what was his.

That’s what I felt. If he’d suggested we go get his name tattooed to my lower back, I’d have agreed. I was his. I always had been and I always would be. From the moment of his naked orgasm inside me all those years earlier, there was no going back.

You know what it’s like to belong to a man? You know what it’s like to surrender yourself to him? Then you know exactly what I’m talking about. It defies logic. It’s a law of nature, not of society. It’s something animal.

I was Jackson’s. I’d been waiting for his return, and now he was back.