Chapter Twenty-Six
On the TV, a program is on called I Survived—a documentary about real survivors of brink-of-death experiences. Not exactly the kind of thing I wish to be watching while belt-buckled to a bed, though it does remind me to value life.
Some twelve minutes later, Jaxon emerges from the bathroom, a towel slung low around his hips.
“Can you change that depressing documentary, please?” I beg as he takes his first step in. “Switch it to Discovery Channel, or something.”
He eyes me, then the TV. Listens for a few seconds as a victim recounts the chilling story of her encounter with a serial killer and moves to get the remote with a mumbled, “Sorry.”
He scrolls down the guide, reads, scrolls, reads, scrolls, reads, scrolls, reads…until he finally settles on HBO.
“What’s that?”
He throws down the remote. “The Great Gatsby.”
On a half sigh, half moan, I shift at an awkward angle to transfer the pressure to my left shoulder blade. I’ve been alternating sides to share the aching discomfort equally for the past ten minutes.
He moves to the foot of the bed. “Arms hurt?”
I hike my brows. “What do you think?”
He slinks his long fingers back through his wet hair. “Will you try to leave again if I untie you?”
For his own safety, I don’t want him to unbind me, so I say, “Yes.”
Also because I’m afraid I might embarrass myself attempting to make sexual advances.
Looking frustrated, he shakes his head and disappears into the closet, returning a minute later with leather cuffs. Actual leather sex cuffs, complete with lamb’s wool lining.
Shite.
From my angle, he’s like a skyscraper, arching over me as he undoes the belt and, with nimble deftness, frees my right hand while cuffing my left hand to the bed.
He then picks up my right hand and begins to massage my wrist, easing the tension there, and I swear to the high heavens I feel his touch down to my very bones.
“Better?”
I glance up. Up the planes of his naked chest. Up his strong throat. Up into his blue eyes. “Why is she still here?”
“Hmm?” His gaze is on my wrist. I know he hears and understands the question. He’s just being a jerk.
“Why is she still here?” I repeat. “And why are you forcing me to sleep in your bed while she’s here. It’s weird.”
“Why is it weird? You’ve been sleeping in my bed for weeks now.”
“Because she’s your girlfriend, you slimy sod.”
Just barely, his head shakes. “She’s a girl. And she’s my friend.”
My chin jerks up. “And what am I?”
He smiles something mischievous. “The possibilities are endless.”
I scowl.
He sighs. “She’s sleeping over.”
“Why?”
“She’s my partner. We work together. She lives on Long Island, and we have a critical meeting in the morning with our boss. It’s practical for her to spend the night here.”
Partner? Boss? Critical meeting? What else is he into, separate from the Unseen? I frown. “She’s your work partner.”
“Yes.”
“As in, different from your bed partner?”
He lets go of my hand so it falls to the bed, and he strides across the room to shut the bedroom door. Moving to the dresser, he opens a drawer, his back to me. “Remember when I first took you to lunch?”
My eyes feast on the musculature of his back. “Uh-huh.”
He picks out a pair of black boxer briefs. “You remember asking me about Nadine and other girls?”
“Yeah.” Vaguely. I recall something about accusing him of being a hypocrite. But truthfully, at the moment I’m finding it difficult to remember my own name.
His towel drops. My heart stops.
His arse is—
I swallow. Oh, sweet sins, I want to go over there and bite it. I want to touch and squeeze it to see if it’s as tight as it looks.
“Remember me dropping you home and leaving again, right away?” he continues.
My eyes glued to his bum, I’m speech-impeded. I’ve never seen a man’s bare arse before. In real life, that is.
It’s glorious.
“Remember?” he prompts when I don’t answer. Yet, he doesn’t glance over to check if I’m all right…which proves he’s doing it on purpose. To muddle me.
“Hmm? Um. Yeah. I do. Remember.” See? I’m all muddled.
He flags out his boxer briefs and proceeds to put one foot in, then the other, pulling the fabric up his strong legs and over his tight bum, robbing me of the view.
Tease.
Bending at the waist, he picks up the towel pooled at his feet and turns. His gaze lands on me, but there’s nothing in his expression. No amusement or mischief. Just his typical I’m-not-giving-shite-away mien.
He strides coolly across the room, disappears into the bathroom, and returns without the towel.
He climbs into bed, flips on his side to face me, his head propped up with one arm. “I wasn’t being a dick that day. The way my brain works, whenever I feel the urge to do something, that urge takes me over, and I can’t function until I get it done.”
Okay…I’ll bite.
I shift to find comfort, my cuffed hand starting to ache again. “What did you need to do that day?”
“What I had going with Nadine. And others.”
Huh? “I don’t understand.”
His fingers reach out to comb through my bangs. Bangs I’m positive are wild and frizzy as hell now from being air-dried. “I made personal visits. Cut them all off.”
I blink.
Wait…
“Are you saying you went to visit all your girlfriends and ended all your, er, sexual affairs with them?”
His head nods in the affirmative.
Whoa.
I feel there’s something huge here. Something I’m missing.
Why kill all his affairs?
Did my hypocrite accusation penetrate that deeply? In which case, why would he also cut it off with Nadine, instead of going exclusive with her?
“That was…decent. Far more thoughtful and sensitive than sending a mass text message, I guess.”
He tries to fight it, but his smile and accompanying chuckle win out. “I’m not a dick, Timber.”
My lips twist. “I beg to diffe—”
“Shut it,” he says through his smile, tweaking my nose.
“So, you and Nadine are like, not together anymore?”
“We were never together,” he corrects.
“You don’t like labels. I get it.” Much like Melanie.
With a sharp shake of his head, he says, “Before we were lovers, we were partners. Before we were partners, we were best friends. Before we were best friends, we were classmates. It’s never been serious between us. We just know each other well, know each other’s limits, and we have fun when we’re bored. Mostly when we’re on long missions.”
“Long missions?” I pry. “What kind of missions do you do together?”
“Classified.”
“Is it of the same nature as what you do with the Unseen?”
“Classified.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Classified.”
I grunt in frustration and throw my head back on the pillow. “You’re not gonna tell me anything, are you?”
“Classified.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just let me loose so I can go to sleep.”
I’m frowning up at the rustic light fixture in the ceiling when his face suddenly takes its place, his smile crooked and up to no good. “You sure you’re ready to be freed? Your nipples are still hard.”
“Oh my God.” I groan, mortified. I squeeze my eyes tight and turn my face away.
“Hey,” he whispers, touching the side of my face and urging it back toward him. I don’t open my eyes. “Why are you always so ashamed of being turned on by me? Do you hate being attracted to me?”
I’m not ashamed of being turned on by him. I’m ashamed that I don’t know what to do with it. Ashamed of my lack of experience. Ashamed that I have the words for everything else but not for asking for what I want from him. Ashamed that I have the guts to break into high-security establishments and steal items worth millions of dollars but no guts to reach out and take what I crave from him.
But I cannot admit to any of those truths. “Yes.”
There’s a long stretch of silence, before he asks, “Why?”
I lie further. “Because, you know. Col. And if I go with you, I mean, how will I be looked at? Being with him and then you…”
His thumb brushes back and forth over my cheek as he whispers, “Let me see your eyes, Timber.”
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
I open my eyes and am instantaneously set on fire by the heat and intensity in his. He’s so hot for me right now I can feel it as palpably as I can feel the throbbing ache between my thighs.
“Do you like it when I kiss you?”
My chest rises and falls as shivers run through me. “Yes.”
“Do you like it when I touch you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you fantasize about…more?”
My heart tries to crawl up my throat. “Yes.”
“Do you want to want me, Timberly?”
“No.”
“But you want me, anyway?”
I take a deep breath. “Yes.”
His head dips close, his lips a hair’s breadth from mine. “Ask. Take. And forget about everything else.”
His lips meet mine. He kisses me. He kisses me hard. He takes my breath, holds on to it, and suffocates me, before he gives it back to me. As his tongue delves in and demands control, his fingers drift along my cheek and down to my neck.
Shivers jolt through me at each touch. It doesn’t stop. Torture. His touch is torture. His kiss is death.
My back arches up off the bed, pushing my body into him, because I want more.
So much more.
He angles his head to kiss me deeper, a groan escaping his throat as his hand moves to my breast. His broad thumb grazes over my nipple, taut under the satin material.
I moan in his mouth, because, God, that touch…
He does it again, and again my back arches, pushing me into his hand for more.
Breaking our tongue battle, he drops kisses beside my mouth, on my chin, along my jaw, down the side of neck. Tiny mewls escape me, despite my struggle to swallow them.
His big palms cup my breasts at the same time his tongue swirls at my collarbone.
“Oh!” I attempt to touch him with my free hand, but it’s so awkward—along with the fact that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. What I do know is that I want to feel the heat of his skin beneath my fingertips. So, I skim them along his shoulder blade. He mumbles something, but I’m too drunk on his kisses to hear.
Moving lower, he nips at my nipple, then flicks it with the tip of his tongue. And I burn hotter. I curl my fingers into his shoulder and thrust my chest up for more.
More. More. I want so much more.
I want him to tear this inconvenient piece of satin off me. I want to feel his tongue on my naked flesh.
With my free hand, I pull and tug feverishly at the nightie. “This thing— Lift it. Tear it off. Whatever. Give me more contact. Please.”
He chuckles, and his eyes drift up to meet mine. “Easy, there.”
He peppers kisses to my neck and plants a knee between my legs to balance himself, one hand sliding down and under my nightgown, skimming along my inner thigh, gliding up my pelvis, up my stomach, up to my breasts.
Hear my sigh of approval? It’s a desperate sound.
“Jaxon.”
“Hmm?”
“Please.”
He knows what my squirming body wants. Of course, he knows. With one slightly painful nip of my nipple, he abruptly yanks up the stupid nightgown—yes!—so it bunches up above my breasts, and he dips his head to suckle one of my nipples into his hot mouth.
“Ahh, yes,” I cry out.
Holy shite, but this feels good. So, so good. He suckles and kneads, alternating, delivering equal treatment to both.
“Jaxon… Jaxon, yes.”
There’s a great flooding in the south. Build an ark! I can literally feel my arousal dripping onto my knickers. Oh, God, so damn good.
There. I need him to touch me there.
I thrust my hips up. I thrust my chest up. I’m confused. I don’t know which I want more. I’ve never been in this much heat before. Never felt anything like what I’m feeling right now.
“Perfect,” he whispers, almost in reverence, as he pulls back to gaze down at my curves. “So damn perfect.”
Cupping his hands to the sides of my breasts, he pushes them together and dips his head to swipe his tongue over each nipple, going back and forth, clearly enjoying himself. “It’s like they’ve never been touched before,” he murmurs.
Because they haven’t. And, boy, I had no idea what I’ve been missing all this time.
Having feasted his fill, his mouth finds mine again, and he kisses me something fierce. I move my free hand to his hair, twisting my fingers into it as I kiss him back with equal fierceness. My body is like a furnace beneath him.
He groans in my mouth, and I loathe the gap between our bodies as he holds himself above me. Until one hand smooths down my belly, skirts along my pelvis, and drifts farther down…
My hips involuntarily jerk up as I shiver from his intimate touch.
Over the sheer material, his two fingers gently pat my sex, and the surprised but pleasured sound I make escapes down his throat. It’s odd to feel someone touch me there, and I almost want to run and scream, “Stranger danger! Stranger danger!”
But, no. I’m a twenty-two-year-old virgin, and the fact of the matter is, I really like this dangerous stranger patting my sex. I can’t freak out and run from this. Not that I even could—since I’m cuffed to the damn bed.
A single finger begins rubbing back and forth over my sheer-covered clitoris. And, oh, for the love of all things beautiful, my whole body is quivering, tingles of pleasure hijacking my veins. I’m so soaked, his fingers have to be coated with my arousal. I want to rip from his kiss, press my head back into the pillow, and moan out loud to the ceiling. But he has my mouth captive, stealing every little sound I make.
Reflexively, hungrily, my hips lift and rotate, begging his finger for more. More.
He crawls his fingers up to the waistband and dips them down inside my panties.
His bare skin…against my bare skin.
Jaxon King’s fingers…touching me raw.
I could die happy right now.
Finally breaking our kiss, he blinks down at me with heavily hooded eyes, a tornado of desires swirling violently within them. “You’re so wet,” he whispers. His fingers glide through the slickness, the sticky heat, and my toes curl at how good it feels. “All this…for me.” His voice is scraped raw with lust. “Soaked. All for me.”
He deposits a quick, soft kiss to my lips before moving down my body, down between my legs, and I start to panic.
What’s he doing?
I jerk up and peer down to see. His body is now half off the bed as his head settles between my thighs, in direct alignment with my sex, a starved look in his eyes as he licks his lips.
Ohmygod, he’s not going to—
With a soft shift of my knickers to the side, he does. He sucks my clit into his mouth like a Christmas candy.
I breathe his name in a whoosh of pleasure, my head tipping back on the pillow as my hips jerk up, pressing me tighter into his mouth.
Releasing me from his torturous suction, he darts his tongue around the aching point of my arousal, again and again in an interminable loop. And then, in an abrupt switch, he’s licking my whole sex, top to bottom, through and through. Driving me insane.
I’ve never experienced anything this euphoric before.
He shifts so his broad shoulders are pressing my legs wider apart, and he inserts one finger inside me.
I’m momentarily jarred by the intrusion of his finger. I wasn’t expecting it.
To mask the pained, nervous noise that travels up my throat, I moan out loud. But my body winces and stiffens, anyway, in anticipation. I know this part is supposed to hurt a little.
He stops moving, stops licking me, stops everything.
No, no, no, keep going!
Why did I wince? Why did my own body betray me?
My sex throbs in protest of his lack of movement. Lifting my head from the pillow, I peer down, about to beg him to continue, and find him gazing up at me. Something in those eyes makes me bite my tongue. Oh, lust and desire is still there all right, but there’s also something else.
Something unfriendly. Something resembling…resentment?
I want to tell him to keep going, but I’m afraid. My clit pounds as if it has its own heartbeat.
Of its own volition, my hips jerk upward and my slick folds brush his chin. While my mouth cowers from begging, my body demands.
Again and again my hips thrust up on his finger, coating his chin with my arousal each time.
At last, with his eyes fixed on me, he licks his lips and begins working his finger in and out of me in devastatingly slow strokes. I wince a time or two, but it’s sweet pain, and eventually, after a few strokes, it dissolves into nothing but sweet, sweet pleasure that has my legs trembling around his shoulders.
Euphoric pleasure begins to pool and build, growing and muscling up for something great. With each stroke of his finger, something in my belly coils tight, my limbs getting stiffer and stiffer.
“Jaxon… Jaxon…” I whisper his name over and over.
He lowers his head to my sex but never his eyes. No, those eyes remain stuck on mine as he licks me through and through, intensifying the buildup, my body coiling tighter and tighter, my breaths coming faster and faster, his name leaving my lips in a staccato chant.
He sucks my clit into his mouth, and I’m gone. I’m in the ether. I’m experiencing it—the infamous orgasm.
I’m conscious and unconscious. I’m here and I’m not. I’m flesh and I’m spirit. I’m among the stars and I’m straddling the moon.
It’s exquisite. It’s unfathomable. Unexplainable. There has never been anything quite like it. Not for me.
As the moment begins to fade, I want to weep in protest. I want to experience this again, and again, and again. I want to live and die in the awesome feeling.
I become aware of him shifting off the bed, and the moment is done. So intense, so euphoric, yet so fleeting. No wonder people are in constant chase of it.
If orgasms are always this ephemeral, I can’t imagine anyone ever having enough.
He disappears into the bathroom, then into the closet, and then he’s at the side of the bed. He frees me of the cuffs, tossing them onto the nightstand.
Just as he’d done earlier, he takes my hand and begins massaging my wrist, soothing the tension there.
There’s a hard bulge pressing at his boxer briefs, wanting out. I tear my wide-eyed gaze away from it and look up at him. Gone is the mischievous, teasing Jaxon who just gave me the best experience of my life, and back is the all too familiar expressionless brick. Just staring down at me, without abandon, as he works out the kinks in my wrist.
With a shot of bravado, I say, “We aren’t done, are we?” I swallow. “Will you do, um…that to me again? It was…really nice.”
He lets out a half scoff, half chuckle, and the stench of bitterness from it damn near suffocates me. “That.”
What’s his problem now?
I loved what he just did to me, but I’m not in the mood to be muddled. I want more. More of that feeling. I want to touch him more, now that both my hands are free. I want to kiss him back, I want to pet him back, I want to go all the way, I want to give him my innocence.
But there he looms, gazing down at me with impassive eyes and a barely there snarl.
He lets go of my hand and presses both of his flat to the pillow on either side of my head. He leans in real close, nose to nose. In a flat tone, he says, “I’m going to ask you this just once, and I expect the truth.”
My heart thuds once in my chest. Just once. “What?”
His eyes narrow and his head tilts. “On second thought, I’m not going to ask you. I’m going to shut up and give you this one chance to tell me the truth.”
I gaze up at him with a puzzled frown, trying to figure out what on earth he’s on about. While he waits for the truth.
What truth?
Sifting through my brain, I replay the events of the past hour, trying to pinpoint where his mood went south. And then it slams into me.
He knows. Or at least, he suspects. But all he did was slide his finger inside me. How could he possibly tell from that? There was no breaking of the hymen, no blood, so how does he know?
I think to lie, but then I figure it’s pointless, since I intend to let him deflower me, anyway. I had hoped we could somehow do the deed without him being the wiser—if I took swift action with a shower after.
But I’m a fool, aren’t I? To think this was something I could hide… To think I could use him to deflower me without him catching on. And I’m supposed to be the smart one?
Feeling like an imbecile, I start to turn my head away, but he grabs my face with one hand and stabs me with his glare. “Tell. Me. The truth.”
On a deep, sheepish breath, I confess, “I’ve never had sex.”
There. The truth.
Almost imperceptibly, his head shakes. “Before me, have you ever been kissed? Really kissed?”
I swallow. “No.”
“Ever been touched?”
“No.”
“Have you ever messed around sexually, in any way, with anyone, at all?”
That’s technically the same as the previous question except with more words, but with the look he’s giving me, I think it’s best not to be a know-it-all smart-ass and correct him. “No.”
He straightens, his hands falling to his sides. “I can’t believe this.” He gives another one of those bitter scoff-chuckles that smell like bile. “In my own fucking house.” He turns and walks off a few feet, shoves a hand through his hair, and plants them on his hips. “Me. Jaxon King.”
After a lengthy pause, he looks back over his shoulder and straight at me as he mutters with disbelief, “I’ve been gamed.”