Shivering at the memory, she heard the rasp of his honeyed voice blend with the strings. Waiting for the lyrics to register, she couldn’t quite hold onto which song it was. She knew it was vaguely familiar, but she didn’t know the words, too lost in his voice and his music to wonder much about its origin. Something about a thief, a barefoot servant that made her think of troubadours and medieval castles and dancing, a costume ball perhaps. The way he sang, just like the way he had spoken to her of India and South America, made her see things and believe things.
When he was finished with that song and began the intro to another, he looked up at her, searching, looking for a reaction, for approval. Britt hesitated only a moment, uncoiling her legs from beneath her and going to kneel beside him. She pulled his head down to kiss him. He laid his guitar aside and pulled her up into his lap, her legs splayed open, the tunic rucked up above her hips. Jack’s hands slid up her thighs and cupped her backside, drawing her hard against him. Their kisses were urgent, playful. She had his shirt off, and there was something about kissing him like that, his skin under her hands, that made her feel reckless. Jack’s hands worked up her dress to stroke her back. Britt tossed her head back to give him access to her neck, arching against him as his mouth found her throat. Everything, even the bru
sh of her own earrings against her skin turned her on when she was with him. Every place he touched her seemed to catch fire, to cry out for more.
Britt caught his hand as he swept her fallen hair back. Holding his wrist, she kissed it, her tongue tracing the line of the arrow inked there. She spent a terribly long time kissing his wrist, the back of his hand, his palm. She took his thumb in her mouth and sucked at it. He rubbed her bottom lip, kissed her chin and her jawline. Soon Jack had her legs around his hips. He lifted her up and laid her on the couch, a smile on his lips. He set his forehead against hers, and she could feel his breath coming fast against her skin, could just make out the gleam of sweat on his neck and shoulders. She loved seeing him above her, welcomed the weight of him on top of her. Britt stretched her arms above her head languorously and smiled at him. He nipped at her lips, teasing her until she caught his head in her hands and held his face to hers for a deeper kiss. She loved the texture of his hair in her hands, the brush of his trousers along her bare legs. They kissed and touched, teasing each other round and round until he stripped away her dress and left her bare but for a scrap of lacy panties.
“May I?” He raised an eyebrow as his fingers hooked into her pink lace knickers.
“Yes,” she said emphatically.
With one swift movement, he ripped them off of her. She made a sound, a light squeak as if she had always wanted him to tear her clothes off, as if the act had been erotic as well as urgent. Never in her admittedly limited experience had a lover been so carried away with desire that he’d ripped her clothing. It seemed shocking to her that she could rouse such lust in a man like Jack. She waited for him to take off his pants, to position himself between her legs and take her. She lay there patiently, her pulse finally slowing down. He was just kneeling there looking at her. She was growing self-conscious. Had she left streaks of self-tanner? Was it obvious that she didn’t go to the gym more than once a week or that she ate too many carbs? Uncomfortably she started to twist beneath his gaze, finally sitting up.
“At last.”
“What?”
“I was waiting for you to come to me. I thought you never would. Britt, I don’t want you to submit to me, I want you to need this, too.”
Relieved, she wound her arms around his neck and tipped her face up to be kissed. He smiled, waiting until she closed the last inches between them and kissed him. When at last they broke apart to breathe, she hung breathless from his neck, her head lolling at his shoulder.
“I was wrong. I thought I wanted someone dependable, a standing date. I think someone like you is what I needed all along, someone who challenges me and makes me think and makes me try—makes me want.”
“I want to be your lover, Britt. Not just today,” he said frankly, and her eyes grew wide.
She had seen the laser focus of his gaze, could feel the heat rising in her skin from his nearness. He was the opposite of a Kevin. He wasn’t a man who would show up for business dinners or meet her for a movie on a Friday night. He was a man who wanted to take her to India, who would sing to her and dizzy her with the ten or fifty projects he had going with his relentless energy and enthusiasm. He wasn’t easy or uncomplicated. He was better.
“It seems that I’m taking a lover,” she said with a half-smile. “It sounds so European, so sophisticated.”
“I’m not European, but I’ll do my best,” he said.
“I want to see your best. If what you’ve already done isn’t your best, I may need paramedics,” she teased.
“I want you to look at me in absolute wonder, that a man could bring you such pleasure.”
“I’ll work on my expression of wonder,” she said.
“I promised I wouldn’t make a pass at you. You can hold a man by his promises,” he faltered, standing up.
“Wait, are you refusing to have sex with me, Jack Fitzsimmons?” she demanded. “Because that is both stupid and aggravating.”
“So you’ll let me out of that promise?”
“I’m dragging you out of that promise. Now show me what you can do,” she purred.
Jack took her in his arms and kissed her, her head falling back across his arm and her lips parting for him. Bracing her against the arm of the couch, he shoved his pants down, never releasing her from his arms, from his kiss. He spoke to her then without words, with nothing but the savage need of his member pressing against her sex, parting her and moving into her with slide and thrust. Taken, she thought. His kiss on her forehead, her cheek, her chin kept time with his thrusts, as gentle as the latter was powerful. She was pulsing around him before she was ready—climaxing because she couldn’t hold back. Gripping him in her arms, her eyes locked with his, she rode it out, pulling his completion from him with the need in her expression, the desperation in her hands as she framed his face, kissed his bottom lip softly, coaxing until he found his release. Instead of letting her go, letting her tumble back onto the couch, Jack pulled her closer, his head dropping onto her shoulder. Britt stroked his hair, damp with sweat, and kissed his temple.
“Six thousand percent,” she said with a shaky laugh.
He eased her to her feet and kissed her cheek with a smile. Jack dressed quickly, and Britt tried to smooth down her tumbled hair and find her dress. She slipped it on over her head and looked with a pang of regret at her torn underpants. It wasn’t as though she had an extra pair with her. She located her shoes and sat on the edge of the chair to fasten them.
“Don’t go,” he said, raking his hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean for you to have to get dressed so quickly, Britt. I found it awkward to walk around with my pants about my ankles is all,” he said, his hand covering hers as she tried to fix the strap of her shoes. “I’d like you to stay the night if you will.”
“I think it’s—too soon for that.”
“I slept over at your place.”
“Not to sound completely slutty but that was when you were a stranger, not my boss’s son and my coworker. It was fine to go have dinner with you, but sleeping over at your place seems—conspicuous. Like I’m trying to lay claim to you or something. Like announcing that we—” She gestured toward the arm of the couch to elaborate.