The Reluctant Romantics Box Set (The Fall, The Mind, The Heart)

Ecstasy coursed through me from that simple contact, and I didn’t realize I was being lifted until I heard the door shut behind us and was laid onto the couch in the adjacent waiting room.

He hovered above me, his eyes filled with lust as his tongue roved over my chest and neck. I opened my legs, and he sank down on top of me. My mind did a mental ‘click’ at that moment at the way we fit. This time, there was grinding between the both of us. I gasped his name over and over. I needed him more than my next breath, and he had to be the one to free me.

“Jack, please,” I said as a single tear emerged and fell down my cheek. Jack lapped it up with his tongue as he hovered, patiently waiting for me to acknowledge him. I opened my eyes to see both heat and concern.

“I need you so much.”

“Okay,” he said as he leaned in and drew my lips in a slow, passion-filled kiss. He twisted his body to the side of me on the couch as he cradled my neck with one hand and slipped inside my panties with the other. I bucked as his fingers grazed my tender nerves and he pushed his finger inside, releasing a groan as he massaged me with his thumb.

“So wet and ready. I want you so much,” Jack said, adding more pressure. “Rose,” he beckoned. Gasping and panting, he looked down at me, and I saw behind the heat a flicker of desperation. He was at his breaking point. “Fuck, I can’t handle this.”

He sat up and then knelt on the floor before me, making quick work of pulling down my scrubs and panties. Once naked aside from my bra, he looked at me while I moved restlessly beneath him.

Jack’s chest heaved as he watched me, still hesitant, and I pulled at the back of his head and brought him down to meet my mouth with a kiss so raw, it surprised even me. It was filled with permission and longing, and it was returned with fire and possession.

Jack tore himself away and positioned himself at the V of my legs. His eyes still glued to mine, he slid his warm hands up my thighs and pushed them further apart right before he buried his head between them. I screamed out in surprise and pleasure as his velvet tongue teased me with expert skill. He tasted and sucked, making sure I saw his every move. His fingers and tongue orchestrated together perfectly as I abandoned all my senses, letting him take me where I needed to go. I watched him devour me, his hungry tongue darting in and out while he caressed me with his free hand. The look in his eyes, the movement of his tongue, sent me spiraling out as I burst into his waiting mouth. Fast breaths erupted from me as I called out to him, his fingers and tongue unrelenting as it pulled out the very last of my orgasm. My head shook back and forth in disbelief. The mere strength of it had me dissolving beneath him. Aftershocks ripped through me as I came down from the highest of highs and landed comfortably back into my body. Jack continued to soothe me with his mouth as he blazed a trail over my stomach and back to my chest.

“I think I’ve found something I love more than building,” Jack whispered as he hovered above me and drew my nipple into his hot mouth. Wrapping my arms around him, I clung to him for dear life, a new habit of mine, and one I wasn’t willing to let go of.

He looked down at me with reverence, and I couldn’t help the tears that overtook me in that moment.

“Oh God,” I said as they slid down my cheeks.

Jack frowned and covered my face with his hands, gently wiping them away.

“Do you always cry after sex or is it me?”

“It’s just you,” I said with a chuckle, and he joined me. “Why did you stop?”

“I thought you’d finished?” Jack said with another chuckle.

“No I mean—” I cupped his bulge and made a move to unbutton his pants, but he pulled my hand away and gave it a tongue-filled kiss.

“I know what you meant, and if I was in this for sex, we’d be having it.” He moved to sit up, adjusting himself and pulling my pants off the floor to sort them out. He replaced my panties and slid my scrubs back up.

“Jack, I don’t think that.”

“I don’t want you regretting anything.” He looked at me with sincerity. “I want to deserve you.”

I stayed silent because I didn’t want to push it and seem like the easy prey that I was. He’d just captured me with his mouth, his tongue, and his words. He pulled me to his chest as we lay for several minutes, my breathing evening out as his fingers stroked my skin.

A thousand questions I didn’t ask swirled around in my head. Was he this good to every woman he dated? And if so, who in their right mind would let him go? If I asked him those questions, it would give him the right to ask the same ones, and I wanted to wait a bit longer before I reluctantly gave them.

It wasn’t so much pity that scared me. It was the fact that Grant had been such a definitive force in my love life. He had declared himself my end-all-be-all and made sure I felt the same way. I didn’t have any clue how to get around that idea. Even lying in another man’s arms, I wasn’t sure that Jack wasn’t the first in a series of men I would feel unsure about. I still had no idea when, if ever, I could ever fully let myself believe otherwise.

“Let’s go screen you for everything,” a sated me suggested minutes later, eager to test out the equipment.

“Next time, I pick the place,” Jack said, pulling me off the couch and letting his eyes drift over my chest. “I’d hoped I would see this again,” he said as his fingers trailed over the top of the cup of my bra, making me per

k up with renewed need. “What made you wear this today?”

“I’d hoped you’d see it again, too.”

“Lord, woman, in a twenty-four hour period, I saw you in this and you came on the back of my bike. How in the hell is a man supposed to walk away from that?”

“Both embarrassing situations for me, Jack, okay? Let’s not use these stories for reference down the line.”

“The hell I won’t, and don’t forget about your tongue,” he chided as we again entered the CT room. He took his place, a shirtless wonder on the body tray.