Chapter 11
Britt was opening the bottle of wine. She decided she needed a small glass to steady herself because she was still upset. A knock came at her door. She peered through the peephole and saw Jack standing sheepishly in the hall. She opened the door and he caught her in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t.”
Before she could reply, before she could even process the fact that he’d come to her, that he couldn’t stay away, his mouth was claiming hers. The explosive reaction she felt when his tongue slid into her mouth shook her to the core. It was hot and thrilling and it felt right, like they fit together in some primal way that went beyond mere sexual pleasure and into some form of destiny. To her horror, Britt started to cry. All that careful effort to keep her distress concealed and one touch of his lips set her to weeping. She sobbed into his mouth and he pulled back, touching her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry I hurt you and made bad choices and I just—don’t let me think I’ve lost you, Jack!” She fisted her hands in the front of his shirt and clung. He kissed her forehead.
“The thing is,” he said, leaning his forehead against hers, so close to her that she could feel his breath fan across her lips.
“What? What’s the thing?” she asked with a nervous laugh.
“I’ve been dying to do this,” he said, scooping her up into his arms and carrying her to her carefully made bed.
Jack set her down on the bed and climbed up beside her, brushing her long hair back from her face and looking at her, silent, gazing at her face.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, dropping his face onto her shoulder for an instant.
Britt curled around him instinctively, embracing him, holding him close.
“I didn’t know what to do, how to handle the way I needed you so much and you were gone...I was wrong. Don’t let me go.”
“I’m not. I couldn’t,” he breathed as she kissed him again.
Britt’s eyes fluttered shut as his lips trailed down her neck. Her skin came to life, every nerve ending alight with the excitement of his stimulating touch. In his absence she had told herself that making love with Jack could not have been the mind-altering total body experience she remembered. Now she knew it was so much more. The way he touched her, the entire spectrum of his touches ranging from the gentlest whisper of his fingertips trailing up her thigh to the firm, tantalizing pinch of thumb and forefinger on her nipple, was pure ecstasy. Jack was not merely a skilled lover, but a man who saw her, was truly with her and sharing the experience. To watch his face, to see the play of expressions—playfulness, focus, determination, lust and affection—was to see that he garnered as much pleasure from touching her, from kissing her and driving her nearly out of her mind with desire as he did from his own completion. There was a connection, a union to their lovemaking that transcended anything in her experience before Jack.
She peeled off his t-shirt and ran her hands along the smooth skin of his lean muscled back. Her body arched against his bare chest of its own volition, wanting, wanting. She helped him pull her sparkly top over her head, hungry for the feel of her naked skin rubbing warm and ready against his. Jack deftly unclasped her bra and the weight of her breasts tumbled forward into his open hands, his fingers eagerly stroking and rubbing her sensitive flesh. She shrugged out of the straps, free in his arms. She turned toward to him on her side and stroked his face, touching his forehead, his cheekbones, his jaw, brushing aside black hair that fell across his cheek. Britt brushed her fingers across his lips, under his chin, memorizing the geography of his face, both objectively gorgeous and suddenly dear to her.
Softly, tentatively, Britt kissed his full lower lip, then his upper lip, working the tip of her tongue into his mouth. Jack parted his lips, drawing her tongue more deeply and stroking it with his. She shuddered at the depth of the kiss and moved in closer for more. They wrapped their arms around each other, kissing with a fervor and focus more common among teenagers parked on hilltops an hour past curfew. His hands roamed over her chest and stomach, keeping her squirming at the ticklish and alluring ways he touched her. She kneaded his shoulders, his back, feeling every movement, every slight flex of his muscles as he braced himself above her, his mouth on hers. She felt herself just slip away, pulled under by a blurry, giddy passion. She had no thoughts, only sensation and impulse. He had kissed her so long that it stripped away her self-consciousness, her intent, and left only desire.
There was no urgency, no frantic ripping at the remaining garments to urge on the ultimate release. Instead, there was exploration, tender and sensuous. Jack held her shoulder, his thumb tracing circles lightly on her skin as they kissed. Somehow the rubbing of his thumb against her flesh, making tighter and tighter circles turned her on even more. She bit his lip, whispered, “Don?
?t stop,” into his mouth. His lips moved against hers, pressing and nipping, teasing her with his tongue. The kiss went on until she felt she dissolved into it, with no beginning and no ending. It seemed like hours that they lay there, rediscovering each other with a thoroughness, an appreciation of being together.
Slowly, the tempo picked up from an intimate, romantic encounter to something increasingly primal. At first, Britt simply held on to Jack more tightly, unwilling to let him draw back even a few inches from her face. She didn’t care if either of them could breathe, didn’t care if they drowned in this. She knew only that she needed more of it. The soft tug of his teeth catching her lip made her shudder palpably in his hands, rubbing her sensitive nipples against his taut chest. Twisting her hips, rubbing against him, Britt bit his ear lobe with a sound in her throat almost like a growl. He removed his pants and reached for the condoms she’d left out prominently on the nightstand. When he returned to her, hard and ready, she sat up and reached for him, her hands caressing his broad, muscular shoulders. When his hands found the zip of her skirt she shook her head, pushing his hand away. Britt reached for the hem of her conservative business-suit skirt and tugged it up to reveal her nakedness beneath it.
“Oh, Britt,” he ground out, his hands pushing the skirt up to touch her.
She grinned wickedly, parting her thighs to accept his fingers rubbing, parting her folds, stroking up into her wet sex. She spread her legs wider, rocking her hips to push his long fingers in deeper. The rigidness of his hand tight against her made her grind, his other hand gripping her hip hard to keep her still. Her mouth came down over his, his tongue reaching out to lick hers even before their lips met. His thumb circled her nub, flicking and rubbing it until she was pumping against his hand to get the pressure she wanted. Just as the jolts of pleasure mounted, he released her hip, grabbing her breast and squeezing her nipple The shock of it sent her tumbling over the edge into a screaming climax, her teeth sinking into his shoulder as her head fell forward against his neck.
Catching her breath as he withdrew his slick fingers from inside of her, Britt wrapped her hand around his cock and straddled one of his thighs, forcing him to lean back. She rose up and parted her sex with her fingers, guiding just the tip of his cock against her folds. She bit down on her lip because she wished so much that she could feel him, his velvety heat, the dampness at the head of his cock instead of just the latex that covered him. Never in all her adult life had she wanted a man raw and complete inside of her. Now she longed for it. It made her ache to be robbed of that closest sensation of consuming his hot flesh, unsheathed except by her body. Resolute, she pushed his cock into her and took him all at once. He groaned as she closed over him, his hand reaching between her legs as she knelt straddling one thigh. He stroked her above where they joined, but soon he had to stop. The staccato jerks of his thrusts came fast and hard, making it impossible for him to do anything but keep thrusting, getting closer to total oblivion.
Britt climbed off of him. His bewildered expression, his face, his hands almost pleading as he reached for her. She drew him on top of her, pressing her lips against his breathless ones as he joined with her again, her mouth whispering “Please, Jack” against his lips. When she said please, he stiffened, went rigid in her arms and, with a cry, collapsed, his arms going slack as he rolled her onto her side with him. He stroked her face, brushing back her tangled hair, and kissed her very softly. Then he crushed her against his chest, holding her fast.
“That was barely the beginning, Britt. It’s been weeks of missing you. Weeks of not being able to touch you or reach you, of feeling you slipping away.”
“I’m here now,” she said, rubbing her cheek against his chest, catlike and content. Britt levered up on one elbow and took his face in her hand so he would look into her eyes. “This was us, and closer than I’ve ever been to anyone. What we have, what we do together, it makes me ashamed that I had sex with other guys before you. Because it’s so different, so much more personal and it feels so right. Not just good, you know, but right. Like this, right now, is where I’m supposed to be. Like I belong on your shoulder this way.”
“Don’t be ashamed. If we hadn’t both slept with other people, we wouldn’t be this good together. There’s a certain amount of trial and error involved, at least when you’re a guy, learning what to do.”
“We could’ve learned together. We might be even better than we are now if we’d started exploring just you and I, years ago,” she teased.
“Even better and I might have a stroke. When you said please, Britt, I don’t even know why it affects me the way it does but it makes me want to give you everything, like anything you need if I didn’t have it, I’d go tear down the world to get it. So use it wisely, okay?” He said, his voice a little shaky despite the playfulness.
“I will. Only if it’s really important like I want Chinese and you want Mexican food.”
“Something a little more serious than that. Otherwise it could lose its power. There’s always that risk that overusing the please could result in a please-failure.”