My heart was slamming inside my chest but I didn’t show it as I sat up to face him. “Then you know that you have to get rid of those things. In front of me. That’s the only way I’m going to be able to feel like we can try to be us again.” With my hands slipping up his thigh, I had him. As his lips pressed against mine, he pulled his chair under the table, taking my hand and sliding it onto his package. He groaned into my mouth when I cupped him. But after a few seconds, he winced and took my hand away.
“Fuck,” he breathed, laughing as he raked his fingers into my hair and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You can’t do that to me now. I have to make a speech soon.”
I smiled. “Fine.”
Jackson looked at me solemnly. “But we’re going to continue this tonight, babe. ‘Cause I really can’t wait any longer, alright? You promise?”
I gazed at him and swallowed hard. “I promise.”
~
I was in tears by the time Jake found me in the bathroom – the same one I’d met him in the night of his welcome back party.
“Whoa, hey. Easy,” he murmured, cupping my cheeks in his hands and kissing every inch of my face. “What is it, Lara? Why are you crying?”
I was barely able to speak. I stared at the floor and breathed deep, trying to get rid of the hiccups. When I could finally look up at Jake, the concern in his gorgeous eyes made me hurt all over again. “You know I love you right?”
He wiped at my tears, which came in endless streams. “I know you do, Lara.”
“I love you more than I know how to say.” My words were staggered as I put my hands over his. “I didn’t even know this existed. I already thought I knew what love was but you made me realize that wasn’t it and I’m just thankful that I didn’t have to go too long before finding the real kind because this – what you make me think and feel and want to be – that’s the real thing. That’s the love everyone deserves to know.”
Exhaling, Jake kissed me – deep, passionately, with the signature comfort that managed to ease my tears for a second until he pulled away.
“Jake, listen… I need you to please forgive me for what I might have to do,” I murmured into his shoulder as he held me. “I just want us to be together no matter where or how, I just want it. I don’t care about money or a house, I don’t need a car, I don’t a phone, I don’t need any of that. I just want to wake up next to you every morning and know that I’m yours and we can walk outside together and kiss on the street or the beach or wherever we are. But I don’t know how else to get to what we need from Jackson besides to…”
“Stop. Just stop, Lara,” Jake interrupted me, his hands firm on my jaw. With searing intensity, he looked me straight in the eye, easily shutting me up. “Listen to me. I’ve been all in for us. This entire time. I’m at the point now where I’m already fantasizing about what we’ll do together on a random Tuesday or what I’ll cook for you when you turn twenty-seven. Because this is starting to feel real to me now. It feels like we’re almost there.” He swallowed hard, emotion gleaming wet in his eyes. “So what you have to do, Lara – do it. If you think it means that this will be over soon and I can have you the way I’m meant to have you, then do it. You’re right. This is the love worth fighting tooth and nail for. So do what you have to do and when you’re done with it, come back to me. Where you belong.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lara
I downed half a drink right before we left the wedding – to loosen my nerves as much as I could without losing focus. Jackson was a man possessed, his hands all over me before we even got into the car.
He had my dress half off before we even got out into the duplex. The second we stepped inside his cock was out. Bending me over the kitchen counter, he groped my breasts, thrusting against me through my skirt, growling like a hungry dog. “Fuck, Lara, I’ve waited so fucking long,” he moaned. “Take off your dress for me, baby, let me touch you.”
When he stepped back from me, I turned around and pushed my dress down, past my hips till they fell around my feet, leaving me in my black panties. Jackson’s eyes were aflame as he took me in. Stroking his shaft, he gave a roar to the ceiling before starting back toward me. But when he reached for me, I swatted him away.
“Jackson, there’s something I need you to do first.”
He groaned, closing his eyes, concentrating on breathing in and out. Finally, he nodded up the stairs. “Walk ahead of me so I can look at you.”
I obliged. Sauntering slowly up the stairs, I felt in control. I kept myself two steps above Jackson, shimmying my panties halfway down my hips and listening to him groan before I yanked them back on. I needed him riled. So worked up he couldn’t think straight.
I tossed my hair back once I reached the hallway, glancing back a few times to catch Jackson’s ravenous, wild-eyed expression. When I got to the bedroom, I turned around and kept my sultry gaze fixed on him as I slid my hand down the front of my panties and rubbed.
“That’s right, baby. Get yourself nice and wet for me,” Jackson licked his lips, watching me touch myself as he shed the rest of his clothes. “Mm… yeah, babe, get yourself ready for this cock.”
Rolling my head back, I tried.
I thought of Jake’s lips, his tongue, the way it ran up and down the length of my pussy as I stood over him on his couch. I thought of the first time we were in that bathroom together at Buccieri, when his hard cock had pulsed against the back of my throat. I moaned as I remembered the way he dominated me in the conference room at the Monarch Hotel. I thought of him and suddenly I was hot, breathless. Almost ready.
“Ah-ah.” I shoved Jackson away when he touched me. Fire flamed in his blue eyes but when I smirked he exhaled and wet his lips with a grin.
“Forgot how much I like that when I know it’s just a tease,” he rasped, stroking slow on his heavy cock now. “The shirt and the jump drive. That’s all you want?”
“Yes.”
“Stay right here,” he murmured, his stare lingering between my thighs.