One Man (Naked Trilogy 1)
“And that would lead to the affair,” I supply, following where he’s leading, far too easily for comfort. “You think you’re connected to this.”
“I think my brother might have been.”
My stomach knots with how dirty this is looking, how connected. My cellphone buzzes with a text message and I grab my phone where it sits on the coffee table next to me and check the screen. “Chance,” I say, reading the message and going cold inside.
“What is it?” Jax says, squeezing my leg but I’m still staring at the message in disbelief.
“He wants me to be in the office for a meeting in the morning.” My lips thin and I look at him. “A meeting with Marion. I don’t like where this is going. This is all about her intimidating me after York threatened me.”
“Can she?”
She can’t, I think, but York can, which is a rabbit hole I’m not going down with Jax now, maybe not ever. “York can find a way to hurt anyone. I was with the man for three years, two of which I thought he was a good man. He wasn’t. That’s how good at manipulation he is. She knows I know that.”
“What does he have on you, Emma?”
“He doesn’t need to have anything real, Jax. He’ll create it. I need to figure out what my brother knows.” I eye my phone and text him back: I’ll be there. That’s all I say. I set my phone down. “That was the point in telling you all of this,” I say, continuing with my prior point. “York is trouble. Don’t underestimate him.”
His eyes glint. “Let’s hope he underestimates me. I loved my brother but he lacked a back bone. I’m not my brother.”
“What does that mean, Jax?”
“It means that you can stop worrying about York. I’ll handle him.”
His voice doesn’t change. His expression doesn’t change, and yet there is a lethal quality to Jax in this moment. I lean forward and grab his hands. “I didn’t tell you this to lead you to trouble. Don’t ask for trouble. Just be ready for it if it finds you.”
“York asked for trouble the minute he walked into your apartment and tried to control you.”
“Jax—”
His hand slides under my hair and he drags my mouth to his. “I told you. I’ll protect you.”
“You don’t know how dangerous these people are. If you aren’t careful, Jax, it will be me protecting you.”
He pulls me to him, taking me down on the couch with him, his powerful leg catching mine. “Fuck me instead.”
I open my mouth to object, to warn him about York until he listens, but his mouth closes down on mine in a searing kiss. A kiss that is all about demand. It’s possession. It’s sex and sin and satisfaction. It’s a kiss that leaves no room for conversation.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Emma…
All too easily, I forget everything but how this man feels. There is just his tongue, his hands, and this wild passion vibrating between us. Our kiss is somehow different than any kiss we have shared before now. It’s a kiss that is wicked and possessive, hungry and greedy, and yet somehow tender, and it unlocks a part of me long suppressed, long lost. A part of me that I’d thought never to be found, buried for reasons that I tell no one, reasons that are my secret, but that secret is here now. I’m here with him completely, consumed in all ways. I’m not only kissing him back, I can’t stop kissing him, touching him. And he’s touching me, too, skimming my shirt up my waist, his warm, strong hands on my naked skin, and I’m touching him, hard flexing muscle beneath my palms. I can’t get enough and I can feel his urgency expand into mine. He deepens the kiss, scooping me up by my backside and molding me to his hips, the thick ridge of his erection pressed against my belly. I need this man. I need to forget everything but him for so many reasons right now, and remarkably, he makes that possible.
I am so inside the moment, living every lick and touch that I barely know how we end up naked, but we do, his thick shaft between us. My hand reaches for it, wraps it, and I revel in the low groan that slides from his lips. He tangles his fingers in my hair and drags my mouth to his mouth. “Who knew you were what I needed?” he murmurs, nipping my bottom lip, his breath warm on my cheek, his cock pressing inside me, stretching me, filling me, and I can barely catch my breath. I breathe out as I take all of him, and finally, he’s buried deep, our bodies pressed together on the small couch, a wild pull between us that should drive us to move.