Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Lily

What the hell is wrong with me? I can’t remember ever wanting something so badly, yet I chase him out the door. And for what? Because of a bad experience getting involved, or rather getting uninvolved, with Caden? Because I feel badly for breaking it off with a man I’m not in love with? A man I’ve never wanted like I do Jax. For almost a year I’ve walked around numb, filled with an emptiness I never thought would be filled. Then a man comes along that makes me feel more alive than I ever have, and what do I do? Push him away like an idiot.

I pick up my phone to call Reed, as I always do whenever I have a problem. But half way through dialing I realize I know what he’s going to say. Screw this. I’ll figure the rest out tomorrow. Flinging open the door to my apartment, I don’t bother to put on shoes as I make my way to the stairwell, hoping I’m not too late. Just as I reach my hand forward to open the heavy door leading to the stairs, it flies open and I’m met by the most beautiful blue eyes staring down at me.

“Where are you going?” he asks, his chest heaving up and down like he just sprinted up the four long flights of stairs.

“To get you,” I whisper.

Taking a step closer to me, Jax cups my chin, sliding his thumb across my bottom lip longingly, before tilting my head up so my eyes can meet his gaze. “You said you shouldn’t. You didn’t say you didn’t want to.” He searches my eyes, waiting for something, although I’m not sure what else he needs. I’ve come after him.

“Say it,” Jax demands, lowering his face so we’re eye to eye. “Tell me you want me as much as I want you. I don’t give a shit what you should or shouldn’t do. I just need to hear you say it. Tell me you want me.”

“I do.” I breathe out, feeling relief just saying the words.

“Say it then,” Jax commands more firmly as he takes a step closer. We’re practically touching, but it isn’t enough. I want him against me, his hard body crushing against mine again.

“I want you,” I squeak out, little more than a whisper.

“Again. Louder,” Jax wraps one arm around my waist, pulling me close to him. The other hand grips the back of my head, threading his fingers through my hair, he tugs my head back. It doesn’t hurt, but I feel the strength in his hands and it gets my attention, forcing me to look up…maybe even leaving a little more wetness between my legs. Staring back at him, he waits patiently. He wants me to say it to his eyes.

“I want you,” I say louder, with more force, more meaning.

A wicked smile crosses his face that speaks volumes. He lifts me, our mouths colliding with need so consuming I don’t even realize he’s carried us back into my apartment until the door slams closed with my back up against it.

One of his large hands grips both my wrists and pulls them high above my head. It makes me feel small and vulnerable, but instead of scaring me, it turns me on. I want him to take me. I don’t even care if it’s right here against the wall, my whole body yearns with desire.

Leaning down, I think he’s going to kiss me, but instead he buries his head in my neck, the feeling of his warm breath near my ear, ratcheting up my need to an excruciating level. My hands held tightly over my head, I have no way to grab him, bring his mouth to me where I need him, so I do the only thing I can do to force more contact. Arching my back, I push my body deeply into his until we’re pressed tightly against each other. But it’s not enough, I still need more.

“Please,” I say, almost pleading. I need to feel him back against me, know that he’s really here again. “Kiss me.” I groan as he nibbles his way down my neck to the tender skin at the crook of my shoulder.

Pulling his head back, his voice no more than a rough whisper, a delightful twitch of his sinful mouth, he says, “Oh, I’m going to kiss you, Angel. Every part of you. From the tips of your toes to the top of your head. I’m going to bury my mouth so deep inside of you that you’re going to beg for me to stop kissing you.” Distantly I register Jax lifting me and my being carried; but I’m too busy concentrating on the way he sucks my tongue into his mouth as he kisses me with more passion than I’ve ever been kissed.

He lays me down on the bed and stands, looking down at me with hunger in his eyes that brings goosebumps to my skin, even though he hasn’t even touched me yet.

I reach up, offering my hand, wanting him near me, but he grins and shakes his head no. His gaze almost predatory, he leans down, his face aligned with my breasts, and pushes down the fabric to my thin tank top, revealing a very protruding, and wanting, nipple.

“It was killing me knowing you had no bra on under here,” he hisses, then drops his head without warning, sucking deeply on one nipple while staring up at me…watching my reaction. His tongue swirls around my pebbled bundle of nerves before biting down and I gasp at the unexpected pain. Although it’s the kind of pain that feels good, and he quickly lavishes sweet kisses making it all better anyway.

Discarding my tank top for better access, he shifts his attention to the other breast. His tongue again swirling around in gentle circles, awakening every nerve ending, setting my body on high alert, before biting down with just enough force to make me gasp.

My nails dig into his shoulders and I try to pull him up, but he doesn’t budge. Not upwards anyway. With a nearly maddening slow pace, he kisses and nibbles his way down from my breasts, inch by inch, leaving no skin untouched as he makes his way down to the edge of the bed.

Dropping to his knees, he watches me, his captivating blue eyes searing into me as he pulls me down the bed until my ass hovers near the edge. He slips off my pants in one fluid motion, leaving me lying bare in only my skimpy black lace panties.

He strokes his fingers languidly along the edge of the lace, before his hand slips underneath, his thumb grazing lightly over my clit, but it’s enough to have me panting at his simple touch and my body throbbing for him. The tension inside of me builds even more as he slips one finger inside of me, finding me already slick from my own juices. “You’re so wet for me,” he murmurs approvingly.

Adding a second finger, he pushes in and out in a slow, steady, unhurried rhythm. Keenly focused on my eyes, he watches how my body reacts to his every touch. Seeing him fixated on learning my body’s reactions only serves to heighten the intensity of what I’m feeling. I never knew how incredibly sexy it could be for a man to be so focused on bringing a woman pleasure. Bringing me pleasure.

He speeds up the pace and I feel my body climbing higher and higher with each blissful pump. But I want him with me. Want him inside of me when I come, need him to fall with me when I spiral down from the mountain he’s brought me to the top of.

“Please, Jax,” I breathe, reaching down, trying to grasp his shoulders and bring him up to me.

“Shh…later, I promise.” A dirty grin crosses his face, “I’m just getting started.” He adds his thumb to my clit, rubbing gentle circles around as he continues to push two fingers into me. Fast and firmly, his fingers glide in and out, in and out. I’m so close…dangling over the tunnel that leads straight to euphoria.

“I need to watch you come. Your sweet little pussy is tightening around me. Let it happen, Angel. I can’t wait to spread you out and lick every drop from you.” His words enough to send me spiraling over the edge, my body begins to convulse, clamping down around his fingers as I climax. Between the innate instinct to close my eyes and let it wash over me and the intimacy of the moment, I struggle to hold his gaze. But I do, because it’s the only thing I can give him in the moment, and his eyes flare with satisfaction as he watches me, brings me to this place.

Barely recovered, I’m in a fog as he slips off my now soaked panties. Jax lifts one leg high, starting at my ankle and kisses his way gently up to my thigh. Slowly, he lifts and worships my other leg, only this time, when he reaches the top, he arranges both legs over his shoulders.

The first lick from his hot tongue elicits an unexpected shudder that runs through my body. I moan, a feeling of ecstasy taking over me, between the strength of my orgasm just a few minutes ago and the feeling of his tongue lapping hungrily, almost needily, at my juices, my emotions consume me.

My body arches off the bed, greedily craving more. And he gives it to me selflessly, his tongue tunneling deep inside me, licking and sucking, drinking in all my body gives as if he needed it to survive.

My breath quickening, one throaty moan leading directly into the next, my body begins to tremble against his mouth. Clutching and tugging at his hair as my orgasm washes over me like a tidal wave, it pulls me under in its fury until I have to struggle to breathe.

In a euphoric haze, I sense the activity around me, but my brain doesn’t register what’s happening until I hear the crinkle of a wrapper and feel the brush of Jax’s thick erection waiting patiently near my opening.

Hovering over me, Jax hesitates, one arm supporting his weight, the other hand brushes my hair from my face with a tender touch. “You okay, Angel?” he asks, true concern in his voice even though I should be the one asking if he’s okay after the marathon treatment he’s just delivered.

I nod, a goofy grin on my face, which apparently he finds amusing. Taking his time, he gently kisses around every inch of my lips, his tongue dipping in to mingle with mine leisurely. His smile is still firmly in place as he pulls his head back to look into my eyes. I lift my pelvis slightly under his weight, silently urging him to take me. He knows what I want and I watch as his eyes change from playful to hungry, filled with raw desire. “You want my cock inside of you?” he groans.

I nod again. My thirst for this man is barely quenched even after what he’s already done to me. Keeping his eyes locked with mine, with a strong thrust of his hips, he finally sinks into me. Slowly. He’s long. And thick. I’ve never seen him naked before this so I don’t know what to expect. But whatever I expected, the reality blows the fantasy away. Painstakingly slow, he rocks into me a little at a time, stretching me unhurriedly, like he knows he needs to take his time, until the base of him is finally flush against me.

It feels heavenly. More than just him inside of me, I feel filled by him, possessed completely and totally connected. Like we’ve just shut ourselves off from the world and only the two of us exist. Together, as one.

He takes his time, giving me a chance to adjust to his wide girth, before he begins moving. Our fingers linked together tightly, he sets our rhythm. At first it’s slow and sweet. I wrap my legs tightly around him, allowing him to sink even deeper than he already is. I moan his name and Jax responds with a sound that can only be described as a growl. And then slow and steady goes out the window. Jax slams into me hard and fast, relentlessly pounding over and over until my furious grip on his back goes limp and both of us climax with a ferocious groan that he silences with a kiss.

***

I don’t remember falling asleep, but I wake completely tangled with Jax, our arms and legs wrapped around each other in a vice like grip. My head on his chest, I tilt my eyes up, expecting to find him still asleep, but he’s already awake.

“Morning,” he says in a low, gravelly morning voice that is sexy as all hell.

“Morning.” I smile at him and snuggle a bit closer. It feels so good. So right. I spent months with Caden and never wanted to spend the entire day in bed. Snuggling was just never my thing…until now.

“How long have you been up for?” I ask.

Jax strokes my hair back, his touch soothing more than my morning bed head. “I don’t know. An hour maybe.”

“Do you have to be somewhere?” I ask, quietly hoping he doesn’t.

“Nope. You?”

“It’s my day off from the gym. The uptown manager is covering for me today.” I pause. “Although I do need to do a little sketching at some point. I’m a bit behind because of all the extra hours I’ve been putting in at the gym with Joe away.”

Flipping me over onto my back in one swift move I didn’t see coming, Jax pulls the sheet covering my body down, sucking one nipple into his mouth. “You can sketch me.”

“I can, can I?” I tease, pretending he’s arrogant and I don’t really want to sketch him. Even though I’ve wanted nothing more than to capture his jaw line on paper since the first time I laid eyes on him.

“Yep.” He smiles, moving his attention to my other nipple and biting down until I yelp. “Naked.”

“What if I don’t want to draw you naked?”

“Then you can do other things to me naked.” He wiggles his eyebrows playfully.

“Hmm. Tough choice. I really do like to draw, what other things did you have in mind? I need a little more specifics before I can decide,” I tease.

“Let’s see…my cock has so many ideas….” He slides two fingers inside of me.

I gasp. “I can sketch later.”

“Good choice, Angel.”

***

If morning sex was always like we just had, I’d be anxious to get to bed every night, just to wake up. Sitting in my kitchen wearing nothing but tight black boxer briefs, Jax keeps me company as I finish up making us pancakes.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sixteen,” Jax answers without hearing my question.

“Sixteen what?” I’m almost afraid to ask.

“That’s the answer to your question.”

“But I didn’t ask a question yet.”

“Oh. I just assumed you were going to ask me how many times I thought I could service you in one day,” Jax grins as he speaks.

“Wiseass…wait, what? Sixteen?”

“You think I’m exaggerating?”

“I do.”

He reaches over to my plate and tears a piece of my pancake, bringing it to his lips, but falling short of stuffing it into his mouth. “Only one way to find out?”

“Let me guess. We give it a try?” I roll my eyes playfully.

“You got it.” He rewards me with a full dimpled smile.

My cell phone rings on the nearby counter. It’s the third time in an hour. I’m almost positive that it’s Caden, but I reach to grab it and check anyway. I hit REJECT and slide it back onto the counter.

Almost immediately, Jax’s phone starts ringing. “Guess we’re pretty popular.” He reaches down to his phone, finds his father’s name on the caller ID and hits REJECT with a clench of his jaw.

“So what’s the question?” He tries to resume our playful banter, even though I see the name on the screen has shifted his mood.

“How come you don’t fight professionally? Marco says you’re good enough.”

Jax arches an eyebrow, a satisfied boyish grin tilts upward at the corner of his mouth as he speaks, “Asked about me, did you?” He forks another bite of pancake from my plate.

Of course I did, but I hadn’t meant to let him know that. This man has seen every part of my body. Hell, he’s licked, sucked and nipped at most of it…you’d think I’d be past the point of shyness, yet I feel my face flush at being caught simply digging a little bit…asking about him.

Attempting to avoid the question, I reach across to his plate, fork a pancake, and swirl it around in the syrup leisurely. Flush rises up my face. His eyes never leaving mine, he watches me intently. Bringing the fork to my mouth, I attempt to deflect, “Are you avoiding my question, Jackson Knight?”

“Maybe.” His face turns serious. “I guess I just wish I had a better reason to tell you.” He pauses, reflecting on something before continuing, “I wish I had a better reason for myself.”

“I’m sure whatever you decided, you had good reason at the time. Sometimes things we choose to do make perfect sense at one time…but later, in hindsight, we can’t imagine what we must have been thinking.”

Jax searches my eyes, “I guess you’re right.”

“I usually am,” I tease, an attempt to lighten the mood.

“Well, I could have used you ten years ago, when I decided to follow my father’s choice of careers for me, instead of my own.”

“Is that why you didn’t fight? You didn’t want to disappoint your father?”

Jax’s face tenses, “Not my finest hour.”

“Actually, I think it’s honorable that you followed his guidance.”

“At the time I thought he was an honorable person.”

I’ve always known how lucky I was to have the father I did. It saddens me to think Jax’s father let him down when he looked up to him so much. I try to offer comfort, “Parents are human too. Sometimes they make bad decisions.”

Standing, Jax looks anxious to change the subject, but not before delivering his final thought, “And sometimes they’re just bad people.”

***

Together, we clean up breakfast in relative quiet. Although the quiet isn’t the same comfortable one as it was earlier. It feels like he built a wall and I’m on the other side of it. The recent conversation is still obviously weighing on him.

“I’m going to take a quick shower.”

Jax nods.

The warmth of the pulsating shower helps to soothe my aching muscles. It’s been a while since I’ve used some of them. Closing my eyes, I smile as the memories of last night play over in my head. Sex with Caden, even in the beginning when things were good, was never like it was with Jax last night. It was just sex. An activity. A mutual release, which I enjoyed at the time, but we never had a connection to elevate things from sex to making love. Last night felt more like making love than I’d ever experienced in my life. I didn’t just give over my body to Jax…it was more. I let him in, gave him a piece of me. Maybe even a piece I’ll never get back.

When I’m sufficiently pruney, I wrap a towel around my body and open the bathroom door which leads to my bedroom and find Jax lying in my bed. The sheet covering to his waist, the sight of his shirtless torso enough to bring my body that just relaxed in the long, hot shower back to life.

“Hey,” Jax says softly.

“Hey.” I smile and make my way over to the dresser to grab some clothes.

“Come here,” His voice is low, but his tone makes the simple two words more of a demand than a question, it stirs something inside of me.

Still wrapped in my towel, I sit on the edge of the bed next to him.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what? You didn’t do anything.”

Jax strokes the wet strands of hair away from my face. “I shut you out when you were only trying to get to know me better.”

I smile, appreciating the thought he’s given to our conversation and his ability to recognize what he’d done. A sign of maturity, something I’m not used to with the men I’ve dated over the years.

“Thank you.” I smile.

Jax nods. Folding his hands behind his head, he leans back leisurely on the headboard. “I had an epiphany while you were in the shower.”

“An epiphany, huh?” I arch an eyebrow. My shower seems to have washed away something for both of us.

“Yep. I’m turning over a new leaf. From now on, I’m not hiding what I want. No more worrying about my family, the media, the reflection my actions might take on the precious Knight legacy. Let them snap pictures. I know who I am.”

“That sounds perfect,” I say, because it really does…and he makes it sound so easy.

Jax leans forward and pulls me back onto the bed, then lifts me onto his lap. “What are you doing?” I giggle.

“I’m starting on my first order of business,” he says, fingering the top of my towel until he loosens the tight wrap and the towel falls around me.

Already squirming while sitting on his lap completely naked, Jax runs both hands down the sides of my arms. Goosebumps flare on my skin. “And your first order of business is…”

“Watching you ride me.” His arms tighten around my waist. He visually assaults my still damp body now bared completely before him as the midmorning sun shines through the nearby window.

Jax’s epiphany may just leave me walking a little funny tomorrow. But I’ll worry about that then.