He drags his hand over his face, like he’s messed up. Like everything he’s said is a risky confession. And it is. I feel the weight of his words in my soul.
This can’t be easy for him.
He lowers his face, pinches the bridge of his nose, and heaves a sigh, and for one of the first times ever, I don’t simply do.
I think.
I take my time.
I don’t act on instinct and slide next to him. I don’t stretch my hand across to his neck and knead it.
I speak from the heart and the mind.
“I appreciate you saying that, Jackson. Appreciate you laying it on the line. I don’t know how to reassure you with anything but the truth. And it’s this—I will keep my hands off you. I will keep my dirty thoughts to myself. I will stop flirting, stop teasing you. Stop everything. I can do it. I did it for the last month. You know I did.”
He raises his face. “You did.”
“I don’t want to compromise you. I don’t want to risk your integrity. You’re amazing at your job. And I need you to know I would never fire you for what happened, and I would never fire you because I want you. And I would never fire you for what you just said. I’m not that kind of guy. Hell, I barely feel like the boss.”
A tiny smile curves his lips. “What do you feel like?”
That’s a good question. But the answer is easy. “I feel like someone who needs you too. You need the job, sure. But, man, I need you. You make my job possible. You make me feel safe. You’re the best I’ve ever had.”
He smiles wide now. Full of pride. “Thank you. But you need me to think. To anticipate. To be ten steps ahead.”
“I do, and you are.”
“But I don’t want to mess that up on account of the other stuff,” he says, his tone heavy. “On account of the way I’m all wound up.”
“I don’t think you could mess it up.”
He glances out the window. I follow his gaze. We’re zipping past The Extravagant now, heading away from our hotel.
He turns back to meet my eyes, and his aren’t anxious anymore. They aren’t worried.
But I’m not entirely sure what I see in them.
Because it looks like he’s still working through a problem, turning it over, trying to solve it. “The thing is,” he says, taking his time with every word, “I need to be able to think clearly around you.”
I give him the space to sort this out. I don’t want to assume I know where he’s headed.
“To do my job,” he goes on, “I need to have a clear mind. I need to be around you and not . . .”
Not wonder what it’d be like if we fucked?
“Not be distracted?” I offer. That’s a little classier than what’s in my head.
“Yes. Exactly,” Jackson says.
But I need him to be crystal clear. We’re tiptoeing close to a line I’m more than willing to cross. Is he? I rub my thumb against my forefinger, hoping. “And what’s it going to take for you to have a clear mind?”
He inhales deeply, then licks his lips. “Maybe it’s going to take going through the distraction, rather than ignoring it.”
Ohhhh.
Keep talking. I am listening.
“And how would you like to do that?” I let him lay it out. He’s the one with the bigger risks, the one with the job worries.
He gives a casual, sexy shrug. “Maybe we need to deal with it.”
In the bedroom. Please say in the bedroom.
“How?”
“Get it out of our systems.”
And there it is. The recipe for my favorite kind of activity.
“Get it out of our systems . . . tonight?” I ask, waiting on a tightrope for the answer.
“One time only. Then I can think.”
My chest heats, and my lips form the only answer in my universe. “Far be it from me to stand in the way of your logic.”
He looks like he’s vibrating with desire. Like he’s going to rip the back seat out if he doesn’t get his hands on me.
“Stone, I don’t want to think right now,” he says, his gaze locked with mine, his voice low and dirty.
“You want to feel? Tell me how you feel, then. Tell me how you feel right now.”
His eyes blaze with lust. “Infatuated,” he says slowly, almost like he’s tossing it to me.
And I catch it. Take my time with it too. “So infatuated.”
He breathes out heavily, swallows roughly. Whispers in a voice like smoke, “Get over here.”
I am there.
With that invitation, all the meditation and yoga unravel.
Or maybe they’d already unraveled.
Maybe they unraveled when I got in the car with him alone. Maybe they unraveled when I told him about my resistance plan. Or maybe they’re unspooling now as I straddle him, sinking onto the outline of his erection, pushing my hard-on against his.
I curl my hands over Jackson’s shoulders.
Those tense, tight shoulders.
Our eyes lock.
His are blazing with heat and need. He stares at me like he’s dying to touch me. But like he has to as well. Like he’s compelled.
And since I know he likes control, since I know he likes to lead, I wait for him to give permission.
It comes first in his hands.
They snake around me, sliding over my stomach, around my hips, leaving a trail of sparks in their wake, until they settle on my ass.
Those big palms curl over me, and he growls, “Yes.”
His groan is the most satisfied one I’ve ever heard, and that one word of approval makes me throb everywhere.
“You like what you feel?” I whisper, my voice low, raspy.
“I do,” he murmurs, then squeezes again, rough and hard. “Mmm. Yes, I do.”
He’s like a different man after dark. He’s a new Jackson at midnight. He lets go. He shows me who he is. What he wants.
He doesn’t kiss me though. Instead, his hands travel inside the back of my jeans, under the waistband of my boxer briefs. They curve over my flesh, and it’s spectacular—this contact. The way he feels. The way he feels me.
He kneads my ass, and just breathes out hard, like this connection is all he wants. “This ass,” he says on a groan, letting his eyes fall shut. “I want this ass.”
“You can have it,” I say, desperate, grinding against his dick as he palms me. One month has been hell. I am so wound up. So pent-up.
“I know,” he says, his tone heavy, laced with lust. Keeping one hand inside my jeans, he slides the other one up my spine and into my hair, cupping the back of my head.
Jackson licks his lips. Meets my eyes. Then he bends his head to my neck, sliding his lips across my skin.
“Oh, fuck,” I grunt, closing my eyes. “Yes. That’s so good.”
I rock onto his dick, desperate for the contact, even with clothes on, seeking out all the friction I can get from this fantastic ridge of a cock.
He takes his time, all slow and lingering, fully in control as his mouth travels across my neck, his lips exploring me, his five-o’clock shadow rubbing against me. He makes his way to my ear. Bites the earlobe. Whispers, “So infatuated.”
I don’t know if he’s talking about me or him.
I don’t care.
He clasps my face so I can’t move—just holds me in place so he can wander across my neck, my jaw, my chin. Sucking. Biting. Kissing.