No, damn it. He wanted to rage and shout, knowing there was more here, more that needed to be said, but unable to think it through with her cunt drawing him in, her sweet tits pressed hard against his chest, her back arching her up into him. Jake grasped her slim hips with all ten fingers to hold her in place and plowed deep inside—forcing his way past her resistance with a powerful thrust that sent him surging in. Before she could find herself in it, he pulled out and drove into her again, taking her hard enough to hurt if she wasn’t so wet and ready for him.
“Oh, God,” she groaned. “I can’t—it’s too—oh, God.”
Yeah, he thought. Fuck yeah. And he couldn’t stop. He felt desperate with the need to make her feel it, to make her understand what he was trying to show her. This was his. All of it. All of her. He owned it. Her gorgeous body and sweet mouth, her laughter and tears and this beautiful pussy that sucked him tighter and wetter than any fist or mouth ever could, as if it really had been made just for him.
There was a spirituality to fucking Taylor that’d been missing with every other woman he’d ever had and he had to make her understand. He was driving his point home with the thick ramming of his body into hers, filling her up with it, saturating her as she broke and clenched and came in a pulsing rush around him, gripping his cock like a velvet lined little clamp.
They shuddered and moaned and fell asleep still glued together, and when she next opened her eyes, he was pressing into her again. The sun was shining bright behind the curtains, and she knew it was sometime late in the morning already. And there was Jake, staring down at her with all the love in the world shining in his dark green eyes, shifting, moving over her, his big, beautiful body crammed between her thighs, his cock plowing into her with each slow, claiming thrust.
He smiled down at her, pressing a chaste kiss to her lips, the innocent action so at odds with the way his cock was mercilessly laying claim to her sleep soft cunt. “Good morning, gorgeous” he rasped, his deep voice still scratchy from sleep, and with the dark growth of stubble on his cheeks he looked like a dark, dangerous pirate claiming his bounty.
She had a sudden flashback to a time when they’d still been in school. It’d been the night of a high school football game, and even though Mitch had insisted she go to watch him catch the winning touchdown, she’d gone to see Jake throw it. She’d gone to watch him and dream. He’d played beautifully, an amazing physical machine of strength, talent, and intelligence, and she’d ached at the sight of his big, beautiful body wrapped up tight in that delicious uniform that showed off every amazing detail.
They’d beaten the hell out of the visiting team, and afterwards there’d been a ceremony naming Jake MVP of the season. The mayor had been there to present the plaque, the crowd roaring cheers and congratulations, and it’d been the strangest thing, but she could’ve sworn Jake’s dark green eyes had been on her the entire time. She’d been standing at the sidelines, lost in her oversized coat, trying to protect herself from the bitter cold of the wind and rain, but those eyes had searched her out, locked with her own, and they’d stayed there, hot and hungry and full of fire, until Mitch had showed up at her
side and caught her up in his arms.
It’d been one of the oddest, most exciting moments of her life because for those brief, heart-stopping minutes, it was as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist and there was no one but the two of them. Two strangers, for all the time they’d ever spent with one another, and yet, the smoldering look in his eyes had been anything but distant. It had been deliciously intimate, almost like a physical touch, as if he’d stroked her naked skin beneath the layers of wool and cotton, and she’d gone home that night and touched herself for the first time.
She’d lain in her lonely bed, beneath the cold sheets, and put her fingers between the folds of her pussy, imagining they were Jake’s. She’d writhed and moaned and begun to sweat, but had been unable to reach the release that had remained stubbornly out of her reach. Finally she’d just given up, screaming a roar of frustration into her pillow, and then dreamed of him throughout the long, fitful night, her body aching and hungry, throbbing, needing him like she’d never needed anything before.
And it’d remained aching and hungry and needy ever since—until last night.
And now she was here, pressed beneath his body, taken and penetrated and packed full to the point of bursting. My God, she loved the physical intimacy of it almost as much as she loved him. There was a vague, sleep-dazed memory of having done this in the early hours of the morning too, when the sun was only just beginning to rise, and she wondered with a small smile how the man could be so insatiable.
“It’s you,” he groaned against her soft lips, as if reading her mind. “I can’t stop wanting you, Taylor. You’re like a drug in my system. All I have to do is look at you or smell your wicked little scent or hell, just think about you, and I’m hard and aching to fuck.”
Pushing up on his arms, he straightened them with his palms planted flat at her shoulders. His eyes locked on to the place where they joined, his cock stretching that tiny hole so friggin’ wide, and his jaw tightened when he saw how brutal he looked pushing into her fragile, over-stretched flesh.
He pushed harder, and her voice broke as she cried, “Me too, Jake.” Her body was on fire, liquid and scalding and aching, hungry for every long, thick inch as he worked himself in and out of her. “Me too.”
He shifted above her, and she wanted to moan from the delicious press of his hard body against her own, but then he was doing something to her hips, twisting her, and suddenly she was on her side, one leg pushed up against her body, while Jake plowed himself inside of her, cramming even deeper at this strange angle. The head of his cock was rubbing against some wonderfully untouched spot, stroking it with increasing pressure, ramming into it, and suddenly she was gasping and crying and coming all over his cock, drenching him in cream.
“You like this, don’t you, sweetheart?”
She shuddered beneath him, her face dark red, cries choppy and raw in answer, and he fucked her harder, ramming her full of him till he thought he must be slamming against the back of her throat. Her cunt was gripping and pulling, soaking him in hot, slippery heat, and he growled low in his throat as his orgasm pounded its way out of him. He pressed as deep as he could, holding himself there, loving the
thought of filling her womb with his seed, praying that someday he’d be right here, with no hormonal barriers between them, and he’d be filling her up just like this and they’d make a baby together. A beautiful, wonderful baby that was just like its mother.
The first of many.
The beginnings of a family.
The beginnings of his life.
“Keep holding me while I sleep?” he asked huskily, his voice rough from physical exhaustion when he
finally collapsed against her.
She smiled against the top of his silky head. “Of course.”
He raised his head to look into her eyes, watching her from beneath the long, thick fringe of his lashes. She smiled again, thinking of him as a beautiful little boy and how he must’ve hated having such pretty eyelashes.
He leaned up to place a soft, sweet kiss against her smile. “Be here when I wake up so I can fuck you again?”
The smile slowly fell away, knowing he was afraid she was going to run out on him. “We have a deal,
Jake. I’ll be here.”
“We have a hell of a lot more than a deal, Taylor.” He placed a warm, lingering kiss to her heart, and
fell asleep with his face planted there, buried between her sweet breasts.
He breathed deep and even, blanketing her in his heat and scent, her sex-flushed body replete with drowsy satisfaction. She stroked his hair, drifting into dreams, wondering how she was ever going to survive another night like the last. Wondering how she’d ever survive a lifetime without the man in her arms. And hating herself for knowing she’d never be able to find the courage to try and keep him.
She couldn’t live every day waiting for the axe to fall, wondering who was on every call, worrying where he was when he left the house or came home late, the way she had with Mitch. Who could go through life like that? She’d done it once already and it’d been a living hell. And with Jake it’d be even worse, because she loved him. His betrayal would be more than a blow to her pride, the way it’d been with Mitch. It would rip her heart out, crush her, break her, and she couldn’t risk it. There was so little left of her as it was.
God, this was so friggin’ scary, and it seemed to Taylor that her fears only compounded the more time she spent with him. Fears about his feelings, and fears about her own. About what this was all leading to and how it would all end.
But most of all, she was terrified by the idea that she was dangerously starting to believe him.
Chapter 12
The morning was a lazy, sensual interlude meant to be enjoyed by lovers. They spent the time lying in bed, their bodies wrapped around one another, snuggling together as the sun climbed high into the sky and the rain drummed slowly against the windows. Only when their stomachs demanded refueling after all the endless hours of physical exertion did they abandon white cotton sheets for clothes, deciding to catch some fresh air and head out for a drive.
They grabbed coffee and pastries at a corner coffee shop, then drove around the prospering town of Pressmore, talking about which of Jake’s old school buddies was doing what now and with whom. Taylor was surprised by how well they adjusted to the intimacy of going from strangers to lovers to friends, amazed to find herself so comfortable in his presence, when always before he’d made her so nervous she’d felt sick with it.
Of course, those churning butterflies and damp palms were still there, and that shortness of breath every time she found herself caught directly in that knowing green stare, but there was a newfound comfort in the knowledge that she affected him the same way. And it didn’t take a leap of faith to believe it. Now she recognized the signs. The way the lines at the corners of his mouth went tense or his hands flexed, or the way he’d rub his hand across the back of his neck, his dark cheekbones tinged with faint color—they were all clues that Jake was feeling the effect of her nearness as well.
And knowing he wanted her as badly as she wanted him lent a degree of easiness to their just being together, sharing stories and laughter and time that she’d never dreamed she’d find with another human being. The fact that it was Jake, the last person in the world she’d ever expected to feel “herself” with, only made it that much more meaningful.
They’d just decided on hitting Angelo’s later for dinner, their metabolisms in overdrive after the hedonistic hours spent in bed, when Jake headed down an old road on the outskirts of town that weaved back toward Westin. They drove through the falling leaves of thick, overhanging trees, her heart skipping in a special way when he reached across the leather console to grab her hand, twining her slender fingers with his own larger ones. It was almost funny, the disparity in their sizes—and yet, they were a perfect fit.
As they neared the end of the old road, it merged into a rocky dirt track that finally sloped off at the edge of a hill overlooking a bubbling, picturesque creek, and in the near distance, several old, dilapidated apartment structures that had long ago ceased to be inhabited and were now slowly rotting into the ground.
Taylor’s breath caught in her lungs, her hand shaking in Jake’s sturdy grasp as she looked out over the odd beauty of the tableau below. It was a view she’d never seen before, at least from this angle, and she wondered how Jake had known to come here.
She looked at him, her eyes huge in her small face, and he answered her unspoken question. “I used to drive up here and watch you paint by the creek.”
Her bottom lip trembled, and she pulled it between her teeth to stop the telling action. “I—I never knew, Jake.” She looked back out over the scene. She looked out at what once had been the place she
called home. “How come I never heard you?”
He laughed softly. “That creek runs pretty noisy, and you always seemed to be off in your own little world anyway. I probably coulda bulldozed down the hill and you’d have never noticed.”
She shook her head in awed disbelief. “Why’d you do it?”
She sensed more than saw him shrug beside her. “Just to be close to you. You made me feel—hell, I don’t know how to explain it. It just gave me this strange feeling of peace to be near you. I’d drive up here and watch you paint and everything just felt—right somehow. Better.”
She dipped her chin, smiling a shy, beautiful smile, her cheeks going red with color, and then looked off into the distance to the apartments where she and her mother had lived and he followed her gaze. He’d hated that she’d had to live there, surrounded by drunks and drug addicts, people who her sorry-ass mother had fit right in with.
“God,” she whispered, “I hated that place, with all the noise and fights and people.”
“Your mother was a royal bitch.”
She was startled by the unexpected outburst. “Um, yeah,” she replied awkwardly, wondering just how much Jake knew of her childhood.
He shifted restlessly in his seat, muscles bulging and releasing, the inside of the cab going hot and thick with tension. “I saw you that day when she dropped you off in front of the school. You’d called Mitch to tell him not to pick you up, so I was worried and waited out in my truck for you to show up. When I saw you get out, you had blood running down your chin from your lip and your cheek was bruised.”