Katie

Every inch of my body is covered in gooseflesh.

I’m one of three women in the restroom, but I don’t let an audience stop me from patting cold water on my cheeks and attempting to restore my equilibrium. I don’t even think Jack realizes how much sexual energy he gives off, but my hormones sure do. They’ve been riding roller coasters for the last hour, screaming their stupid little heads off, while Jack brushed his fingertips along every exposed portion of my skin. Sending me shameful promises with his green eyes. Groaning each time I crossed my legs.

As if I didn’t have enough to think about during dinner, there was the added conundrum of hard nipples, flushed skin and my pulse jumping at the base of my neck.

Two young women appear in the mirror behind me, one smiling shyly, the other giving an exaggerated sigh. They’re tittering in one another’s ear, just above a whisper, so I catch some of their conversation and can’t help but chuckle under my breath.

She’s the one sitting with the freakin’ Armani model-looking dude.

We should ask if he has brothers.

Or if she has any tips for those less fortunate.

“Sorry, girls. He only likes natural redheads.” I give them a warm smile in the mirror. “Maybe in your next lives.”

“Shit.” I hear the shy one say on their way out. “I need to develop an accent.”

“There’s probably a YouTube tutorial,” the other one mutters back.

Left alone in the candlelit restroom, I try to focus on anything except my damp underwear, my fired-up pulse. Despite my heightened state of arousal making it hard to eat without choking, tonight has been . . . fun. So fun. I love Charlie, Ever and Danika. They’re smart, complicated and warm, a combination I never realized would appeal to me so much. All the while we were bantering about everything under the sun, though, my mind kept circling back to Jack’s reaction to me considering the Olympics again.

Four years of your life.

Before this trip to New York, I put the games in my rearview mirror, but the increasing pressure from my father has me traveling backwards. It’s possible I’ve just become so accustomed to being what keeps my father happy, I don’t know how to shake loose of that responsibility.

Or it could be something else entirely that has me contemplating competition once more. This bone-deep intuition that once I leave Jack, I’ll need to occupy myself 24–7 to keep from missing him. To keep from worrying about him.

But . . . if by some crazy twist, I stayed in New York, would it be the worry for Jack that keeps me here? My tendency to be relied on, no matter the cost to myself? Or would it simply be because the idea of living without him sends a shiver up my spine?

As soon as the thought touches down, the bathroom door opens. My breath catches in my throat, my thigh muscles contracting when I find Jack filling the frame. There’s no question as to why he’s here. Is his inevitable pursuit why I escaped the table? Did I know he’d come find me, put me out of this misery?

My knees begin to tremble as he saunters towards where I stand at the sink, the thud thud thud of his boots increasing the pace of my heartbeat. “You can’t be in here,” I murmur, uselessly, glancing to my right at the three private stalls that proclaim this isn’t a private restroom. “Jack, just take me home.”

His low laugh reminds me of someone twisting their heel in sand. “Ahh, honey. You know this can’t wait.”

Heat coats my stomach, spreading in every direction. My fingers, my nipples, my spine are all tingling with sparks. Every breath scrapes up my lungs and shudders out past my lips. I’m dying for movement, for friction, but at the same time I’m paralyzed. I can’t move as Jack comes up behind me, drawing me back against him with an inescapable forearm. Then he walks me into the stall closest to the wall—a handicap one, may God forgive us—slamming and locking it in our wake.

There’s a half-open window in the tiled wall, old, the glass clouded. Jack urges me towards the wide sill, which is painted by flickering light, courtesy of the candle sitting on one side. I drop my purse on the floor, uncaring how it lands or if it gets dirty. My hands need somewhere to brace and they do, curving around the windowsill’s edge.

Jack’s hands grip my hips, yanking them back to press my bottom against his lap, and I almost black out from the rush of urgent, red-hot lust. He’s right—we never would have made it home with his sex so thick, prominent, refusing to be hidden by his clothing. The only way to fix him is by putting that flesh inside me and the thrill of being desired, needed, to that degree makes my neck lose power, as my forehead meets the glass.

Music plays loudly through a speaker overhead, fast-paced and dizzying, but it’s not enough to cover Jack’s curses as he grinds his lap against my ass. Pressing his open mouth to the pulse of my neck while he rolls forwards, me teasing back. Both of us groaning. If we were in a quiet room, I would hear the rasp of chiffon now while his greedy hands lift my dress.

“There’s that sweet, sexy ass, Katie. All prettied up in a thong for me.” His teeth abrade the back of my sensitive neck, his hot breath ghosting through my hair. “I haven’t forgotten I wanted to take you from behind this morning. Hell no, I haven’t. I’ve been wondering all day if you’d have sobbed from the pressure, same as you did when I fucked you on your back.”

My feet slide out from beneath me, but Jack holds me upright, that steady, unyielding forearm keeping my hips angled back. “Oh. My God.”

His expert mouth traces along my neck, shoulders, into my hair, leaving kisses. “Should I find out, honey?”

“Yes.”

“About the sobbing, I mean.”

“Yes.”

My dress is rucked up around my waist, so I can feel the back of Jack’s hand, his knuckles grazing the separation of my backside while he unfastens his belt, button, lowering his zipper with a metallic zing. “Reach back and tug down these sopping wet panties for me, Katie. Tilt your hips until I can see pink. All of it’s mine. Hand it over.”

I’m pretty sure I’m going to pass out, because blood has fled from my head. My thighs are wobbling so bad, they’re chafing along the front of Jack’s jeans, but despite the sudden loss of control of my motor skills, I manage to complete the task of leaning all my weight on the windowsill and reaching back to slide down my underwear. It slips to my knees and remains there a split second, falling to my ankles when I widen my stance, push up my bottom and present myself to Jack as he asked. “Like this?”

“Just like that. Jesus, honey. You’re so fucking perfect.” His calloused hands conform to each side of my bottom, tightening and releasing. Tightening again. Lifting me onto my toes. Dropping me down. I’m a whimpering disaster, attached to the puppet strings of his will, accepting every touch with gratitude and hungering for more. One hand falls away and I hear the crinkle and rip of foil. “Want to be inside you bareback again, honey. You know I do so goddamn bad. But I need to use a rubber this time, or my come will drip down your legs all night, okay?”

My mouth falls open, my core constricting, at the familiarity of his speech. The crudeness of it shouldn’t make me this insane with want, but it does. I love that Jack is so well acquainted with me, my body, that he filters nothing out.

“You like me talking like that, don’t you, Katie?”

The answer whooshes out of me. “Yes.”

That’s when the bathroom door opens and footsteps join our chorus of heavy breathing and salsa music. Irritation claws up my back—that’s how far gone I am. Someone walking into the public space where I’m getting ready to engage in something illegal annoys me instead of causing me the normal reaction of panic. I’m only panicked that Jack will stop.

“Shh. There’s no one here but us.” I needn’t have worried because his incredible hands grow even more determined. I’ve never been touched this intimately by anyone else, but instinct tells me Jack’s touch is singular. Utterly unique. No man would rake his fingers up my scalp, mashing the tips into my nerve endings, tugging lightly on the strands and setting off explosions in erogenous zones I didn’t know existed. Not when my panties are already down, my most private places exposed to his eyes. No other man would slowly, deliberately unbutton my dress, uncovering my breasts while high heels scuffle in the neighboring stall.

His breath races in my ear, his erection resting on my backside, sliding up to the small of my back when he works his hips. “These buttons have been making me crazy all damn night,” he rasps. One hand slides into the parted material of my dress to cup and squeeze my breast, searing my skin through the lace of my bra. “They’re the same size as your hard little nipples.” His index and middle fingers coast into my bra, clamping around the bud in question and a shiver racks my body. “You’re lucky we’re in a dark restaurant or everyone would have seen how badly you need to get railed.”

“Can you just . . .” I’m gasping for air, shocked by his blunt words, but thrilled by them down to my toes. “Do it. Please.”

Jack’s laugh tugs my stomach south, the uneven quality of it making me brave. My knuckles turn white on the windowsill as I sway side to side, circling my bottom on his lap, trapping his erection between my cheeks, lifting on my toes and lowering in as sensual a movement as I can manage when my self-control has withered and I’m going to die. His hands become punishing on my breasts, his low, rumbling growl sizzling my blood.

Water begins running out in the main area of the bathroom, but Jack pays it no attention, skating his right hand down my belly, his long middle finger finding my clit and teasing it. “Tiny little buttons everywhere, wanting to be pinched and stroked.” The pace of his rubbing picks up until I’m biting my lip hard enough to draw blood, to stop myself from screaming. “Can’t believe I’m the lucky bastard that gets to do it for you, Katie. You just give me those big eyes and flash me your hard nipples and I’ll know it’s stroking time, won’t I? You trust me to know when it’s time, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I gasp, my focus wavering. No longer do I care about where we are, who is listening or how deeply I’ve fallen for Jack. How scary and irreversible these feelings seem to be, gathering like storm clouds, preparing to pour down on my head. Getting him inside me is the pot of gold at the end of my life’s rainbow and I’m so, so ready that moisture is trailing down the insides of my legs. “Please. Please. Please.”

A kiss on my nape, following by a rough bite. “It’s coming, honey.”

No sooner does that bathroom door slam shut, leaving us alone once again in the restroom, than Jack drives himself inside me so hard I’m elevated several inches off the ground. I scream. I scream without attempting to subdue the wild sound, but it’s swallowed in the loud, fast-paced music and the sharp slap of Jack’s thighs against my bottom. My orgasm is blinding, tightening and loosening bolts beneath my belly button, shaking my limbs and filling my eyes with startled tears.

“I love you,” I attempt to say, but it comes out strangled, too quiet to be heard and unintelligible to anyone but me. I mean it, though. Somehow I mean what I said with every fiber of my being. But even as Jack’s heavy flesh pumping into my body drags me back towards the edge, a nagging intuition tells me to keep the words to myself. That I need to hang on to one final scrap of my emotions for safekeeping.

From what?

Jack

I’m disappearing into Katie. Or we’re vanishing into one another. I’m too strangled with sensation and need for this girl to figure out a goddamn thing. There’s only the barest outline of her in the foggy window, my thrusts propelling her up and down, so I close my eyes and picture that gorgeous flush that deepens on her cheeks when she climaxes.

Can’t believe she’s already coming. Or can’t I? I could spill every drop inside of her right now, if I didn’t want to spend a little longer high on the unbelievable feel of her. Katie does something to me. Does everything to me. Gets me so crowded full of possessiveness and starvation that I can barely focus on lasting. Knowing I do the same for her makes me proud. Not in an arrogant way. Hell no. I’m humble as fuck. I want to kneel at her feet and beg for the continued duty of giving her orgasms.

“You’re wrapped around me so tight, Katie.” I lift her onto her toes, bracing her hips against the windowsill, desperate to keep her still, so my cock can drive the deepest. As soon as I get her in the right position, my head falls back and I groan, my hips moving with a mind of their own. “I’m fucking myself right up against the curve of your ass, watching it get pinker every time it bounces off my stomach. Looks like you’ve been spanked. Jesus, I’m going to love tucking that thong back between those slapped-up cheeks.”

When she goes off again, her pussy clenching around me and milking, milking, I almost laugh over the perfection of her. The pleasure that curls in my chest, my head, over being the man who is allowed this privilege. Even though I’m now suffering, because I’ve held back from coming so fiercely, my body is moving without any kind of precision or direction, trying to find its way back to the Promised Land. I’m fuck-stoned on Katie, every skill or trick in my arsenal utterly useless against the magic we make.

My ability to be rational or make sense is dead. There’s only me and Katie. What else is there besides this? Us? This is only the start, though. I want to be better. She made me believe Jack the Good Man is not a hopeless pipe dream and I’m dying for the chance to prove her right. Prove it to both of us, starting now. Now. It can’t wait.

Stay, Katie.

My middle finger slips down to where our bodies are joined, where my cock rides into the only place it ever wants to call home, gathering moisture. I get my finger nice and slick, then use it to worship her poor, swollen clit. Rubbing her there until she’s a whimpering mess, dancing around on my fat dick like she can’t stand another second of feeling good. “One more time, honey. Just one more time, I promise.” I make a soothing sound in her ear. “I’m going to finish so hard, just give me another squeeze, right where I need it.”

As if I’m not already sprung as fuck on everything this girl says and does, she flattens her palms on the window and constricts those little muscles around me, her thighs shaking with the effort of not collapsing, of giving me that final push. Shit, shit, shit. The promise of shattering is like a manacle around my throat. Wrapping both arms around Katie, I go wild, bucking into her cunt and reveling in the wet sounds that echo in my ears.

“Give yourself to me. I’ll keep you safe. Keep what’s mine safe,” I growl into her ear, a vengeful beast who has been stripped of everything but his desire for one thing. The girl. Forever. “I need you, Katie. Stay with me. I need you so much.”

We both go off, my lower body pulverized by the intensity of the release. Through the teeth-clenching ride of finally giving in, though, I swear I sense a thread of tension in Katie. Must be my imagination, right? Must be. We’re meshed together in a boneless heap against the windowsill, my fingers still desperate for the smoothness of her inner thighs, tracing shapeless symbols there, my mouth laying kisses in her hair.

As the seconds tick by, though, it becomes more and more obvious that I didn’t imagine Katie holding back at the very end. What is it? I don’t know, but I’ve just dropped every bit of my armor, leaving it scattered across the floor. It no longer fits and I don’t know how to put it back on. “Katie?”

She eases out from beneath me, correcting her dress while I stoop down, gliding the thong up her legs, settling it back in place as promised. I dispose of the condom and zip myself back into my pants, buckle my belt with stiff fingers. When she still hasn’t turned around by the time I’m finished, panic is a blade inserted in my jugular.

“Hey, Snaps.” Taking her shoulders, I turn her to face me, swallowing hard when I see her downcast eyes. “What’s wrong?”

She licks her lips, face ashen. “What you said . . .”

“About you staying?” I don’t hesitate. I can’t. The desire to let her see what’s written on my heart is fierce. “I meant it. Stay.”

Electricity zips back and forth between us. “There was more.”

“Tell me what I said that bothered you.” I reach out, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Tell me what you didn’t like, so I can apologize.”

“This isn’t out of the blue, it’s something I’ve thought about.” She shakes her head. “I’m not sure it’s something you should apologize for.”

“Let me decide that.” My voice is growing hard with fear. What the hell is happening? “Was I too rough, or—”

“No. No, it’s nothing like that.”

Raking my hands over my head, I curse my stupid crew cut. I’d love to pull out some hair by the fucking roots right now. Especially when the bathroom door opens and two female voices ratchet up the thick atmosphere between Katie and me. As soon as I hear the girls lock themselves into stalls, chatting away happily, I take her hand and lead her out of the bathroom quickly. I stop in the dark hallway just outside the door, pressing her shoulders back against the red wall, dropping myself to eye level, searching her distress for an answer. “Talk to me.”

She takes several deep breaths while my impatience and dread multiplies. “I’m sure you didn’t mean to freak me out like this. I know you didn’t. But saying you need me—”

A plate smashes in the kitchen down the hallway, seeming to divert Katie’s attention. Like it’s a sign or something. I take her chin and draw her back, trying desperately to maintain focus through the crashing waves in my head. “Keep talking.”

Her expression remains clouded. “You’re doing so amazing already with your recovery. You’re going to try so hard to stay on track—I know it. But I’ve been needed by someone before. I still am.” She shakes her head in quick jerks. “Even if you won’t mean to, I’m . . . I’m just afraid of being relied on. More than I already am.”

My breaths are deafening in my ears. Jesus, I’ve been worried about Katie’s father using her as a distraction from his pain, a crutch. Am I in the same category? No. No, I need her because she’s welded herself to my heart and she’s going to rip the side off of it by leaving. I haven’t even begun to try to make her happy and if she goes, I’ll miss out on . . . her. What’s next for Katie? What’s next for us? I understand why she’s worried about me leaning too heavily on her, but I’m at a loss how to ease her mind. What if I can’t? “I told you, Katie.” My voice creaks like a moored boat. “Me getting my act together is not your responsibility.”

“Even if I stayed . . .” We both go still, the elusive possibility hovering in the air like a glowing halo. “Even if I stayed, I couldn’t be the only reason you fight. Every time we argue or one of us gets busy with work, I’d worry I wasn’t doing enough. I-I can’t. It has to be about you.”

“I’m not going to lie. Wanting to be a better man for you is a huge part of what’s motivating me, but I know it’s not your fight, Katie. I know.” I shake her by the shoulders. “How do I convince you?”

“I don’t know if you can.”

Her mouth snaps shut, like she didn’t mean to say it, but in degrees her resolve hardens and she can no longer meet my gaze, unleashing a legion of denial in my gut.

How does a man go from king of the universe to flat on his ass in the space of five minutes? Katie is the reason I started going to meetings, the person who made me realize I want more out of my future. All of that is true. But I have too much awareness now to rest all my fears and hopes on Katie’s shoulders. I won’t do that. Not after her father pinned his journey from grief to recovery on Katie, too. Put her through four years of training to occupy his mind.

No. I won’t.

“Honey, look at me.” I capture the sides of her face in my hands, devastated right to the core of my being when tears form in her eyes. “You can’t fix the world. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me, because no one else could have gotten to me like this, made me realize I’m capable of better. But you alone can’t fix me, either.”

She blows out a breath and nods, but doubt lingers in her expression. There’s a good chance I could hold her for a while in this hallway, take her home and get past this. At least until she gets on the plane, we could have fun, fuck until our bodies give out, discover a million ways to miss each other. But that’s no longer enough for me. This girl has given me hope. I’m not going to rest until I give her the same. Until she, too, knows her needs are just as important as everyone else’s. Mine, her father’s. Even her brother’s.

She came here with a plan for herself. And I got in the way. But I won’t be selfish anymore. Even if making sure Katie realizes her own hopes and dreams means sacrificing mine.

And the one thing I have worth sacrificing is my final days with her.

Invisible teeth sink into my throat, making it impossible to swallow as I kiss Katie’s forehead and back away. One step. Two. She looks confused by the distance between us, making what I’m about to do infinitely worse. “I’ll be there before you go to the airport, Katie. Don’t doubt me, okay?”

“Jack.” Her hand lifts, curling around her throat. “Where are you going?”

“I’ll be fine.” I can’t help myself, I crowd her against the wall one more time, pressing our foreheads together, looking her in the eye. “I will be fine. Nod if you trust me.”

It takes her too long to nod, which makes what I’m going to do even more necessary. My heart is shouting at me from its position in my chest, trying to escape my ribcage. So I give in. Give in to what it’s insisting I set loose. Who knows if I’ll get a better chance?

“I love you, Katie.” My mouth settles over hers and devours, impressing my vow on her with a hot glide of my tongue. A thorough tasting. Thumbs tracing her cheekbones. She sways forwards into me, and it costs me an effort, levering her back against the wall, leaving her there, supported by something other than me. “I’ll make sure Charlie and the girls get you home safe.”

Talking to Charlie, Ever and Danika on the busy dance floor is a blur, but I gain their promise to get Katie back to her room, locked inside for the night. No exceptions.

And then I go to work on my plan, hoping like hell my sacrifice makes a difference, missing Katie more with every step down the dark sidewalk.