She'd certainly given him cause with all her talk about needing a definite understanding of how they would work through their problems. Yet only a few days spent back with Jack and he'd already filled her life and mind again to the point where the thought of just quitting knotted her stomach with as much tension as the notion of pressing ahead on faith.
"Well, Korba? Are you ready to let me be in the driver's seat for a change? Because I definitely have some plans to fill the next hour."
"I'd say that's one helluva move, Mon."
She held out her hand, heart thudding. Three lazy, loose-hipped steps brought him to her. Chair between them, he cupped the back of her neck and sealed his mouth to hers. Her knees went wobbly, her control not any steadier.
Which of course was what Jack was telling her with the heat of his kiss. His submissive stint could evaporate at any moment. A power play that stirred her all the more.
He pulled away, slowly, sank into the chair. She circled around to face him, his arms splayed on the rests, his knees wide enough apart for her to step between them.
She brought one of her booted feet up to rest on his thigh. "Remember when I said I wanted you to undress me?"
Masculine approval rumbled low in his throat an instant before his fingers set to work on the long laces on her desert-tan combat boots. With expert touch, he freed the knots, constraints loosening, pressure releasing around more than her foot.
The boot thudded to the side and before the echo finished, Jack had one hand up the leg of her flight suit. Strong fingers caressed past her ankle. Without once looking away from her face, he lowered her sock, peeled it away in a sensual massage over her calf that left her swaying long before he repeated the ritual with her other boot.
He rubbed from her heel to her arch. "You have the sexiest feet."
"Feet? Korba, I think you're losing your touch."
Bold, calloused fingers played over her skin, behind her knee to linger on a sensitive patch of skin that threatened to buckle her other knee from under her.
As always, Jack rose to the challenge. "Really?''
"Keep on convincing me."
"This bossy gig of yours is starting to grow on me." His hands stroked up her thighs, over her quivering belly to cup the undersides of her breasts, tormenting her with the knowledge that too much fabric kept them from skin-to-skin contact. "I seem to recall your saying something about wanting my hands on you, undressing you, watching me see you."
He skimmed her flight suit down over her shoulders, loosened the Velcro around her wrists with expert hands until the uniform slid, pooled around her feet. "And I do enjoy seeing you, Mon."
His eyes scorched every inch of her bared skin, heating through the pale cream cotton of her sports bra and high-cut panties.
She knew he was subtly reassuring her without blatantly throwing the former wife issue out there like a bucket of ice water. Even thinking about the subject on her own was chilling enough. So she refused to think. Only feel. Take this moment.
Take Jack.
Monica canted forward until her mouth met his. The chair wheeled backward across the floor. Jack's hands clamped around her waist, steadying her with broad palms against tender flesh.
Without breaking their kiss, he lifted her while she brought her legs up to kneel, straddling his thighs. The snug confines of the chair pressed her flush against him. The chair bumped to a stop against the desk with her bag and gear.
After three and a half months without him, Monica indulged herself to the fullest with the breadth of his shoulders under her hands, the musky scent of him around her, the taste of his salty skin as she nipped his neck.
Jack peeled her sports bra over her head and sent it fluttering to the floor like a white flag of surrender. He filled his hands with her breasts, lifted, dipping his head to draw on the hardened nipple already sensitive, needy, while his thumb brushed, circled attention on her other.
Greedy for the feel of more of him, Monica crawled her fingers down his chest and yanked up his T-shirt. Since she couldn't get him na*ed without standing, she thanked heaven for the long zipper on his flight suit that still gave her easy access to him. All of him.
She freed him from his boxers. His fingers twisted in the fabric of her panties, the power play of restraint continuing. Who would give first? She stroked down, slow, up again.
His clenched fingers tugged, pulling cotton tighter along her hip, almost cutting into her skin until...her panties snapped. He tugged, tore and flung away the underwear along with any remaining barrier between them.
Her aching br**sts rubbing against his chest, she took his mouth, ready, needy for more. She flung one hand out to the side, to her bag, searched by touch through the stacks of clothes, flinging T-shirts aside until her fingers closed around...oh, yes...the box of condoms. With fumbling fingers, she filched one free and smacked it against Jack's chest.
He looked down, smiled. "Maybe you weren't so sure you could write me off after all."
"Jack."
"What, Mon?"