She reached for the blanket, arranged it over her.
Unrolling the condom, Jack walked to his windows and yanked down his shades. It was before lunch on a Saturday, but who knew what people could see through these windows, depending on which way the sun hit. He dropped the condom in the wastebasket next to his desk. When he turned back, he saw Jamie had tightened the blanket over her so it clung to her curves like linen on a mummy.
Much better than a lumpy draping of the blanket that would hide all of her. Lust kicked him in the gut, surprise, surprise. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“What?” she asked in an innocent little tone that didn’t fool him. “Are you accusing me of something?”
The twang turned up in her voice, and it hardened him even further. Jack went on his knees next to the couch and cupped the outline of her mound with his hand. She gave a startled little sound, laced with approval.
He said, “You covered it up, but in a way that would still show everything to me. I appreciate your thoughtfulness.” Then he jerked the blanket off of her feet and ankles. Shoved it up toward her chin. “Don’t want you to get cold, cutie.”
She should have looked vulnerable, lying there on her back, visibly naked from the thighs down, blanket shoved up to her chin as though she needed protection. She didn’t. In fact, he had the sense she was the strongest woman he’d ever known, true to her convictions, sure of who she was.
He was waiting for her to say this was enough, that it was time for her to go home, time to put a little distance between them. But she didn’t, and he was pushing, shoving, letting them careen forward into an intimacy he wanted, craved, couldn’t imagine retreating from. As long as she smiled and let him, he was going to go forward. He wanted Jamie fiercely, possessively, permanently.
“I am a little cold,” she said.
“Is it time to stop, Jamie?” No, he was the one who felt vulnerable, on his knees next to her, wanting her so bad he was shaking, his erection the size of the Empire State Building.
But she shook her head. “No. I’m not ready to stop.”
He didn’t deserve her or that response, but he wasn’t going to question it. He was going to have her again before she changed her mind. “Jamie, beautiful Jamie. I am a lucky man.”
Jack bent to her ankle and traced the line of it with his finger. He liked the peachy color of her flesh, the way the lamp warmed her skin to the honey gold of a ripe piece of fruit. He kissed her calf, traced his hand over both of her legs, sent the blanket a little higher.
Her smell was different, welcome, the scent of a woman. Nothing in his apartment, his office, even came close to the purity of the lilac aroma that wafted around Jamie, intermingling with the sweet pungency of her arousal. He licked her leg, holding her against the couch when she jerked beneath him.
Leaning forward, he went higher, kissing the sides of her knee, sucking the puckered flesh there. He was so frighteningly aware that Jamie Peters was the kind of woman a man could love, and that he felt a paradoxical, desperate need to settle down with a life partner, like his sister was about to, and fill his apartment with companionship.
And the horrible irony was that he hadn’t been completely honest with her. If he told her now, he wasn’t sure what she would do.
It was frustrating, infuriating, a completely new feeling to not have confidence in what he was doing, to have backed himself into this ugly little corner, and he found himself shoving that stupid blanket up higher, baring more of Jamie before him. Her curls were dusky auburn, like the hair on her head, and her thighs had drifted apart.
He didn’t want to let her go, didn’t want to see disappointment on her face when she found out he controlled Beechwood’s funding. That he had lied about this apartment.
If there was a stupid fuck-up award, he would definitely qualify for it. Motivated by the need to keep her pleased, needing to hold her close, he bent over her. Teasingly, he kissed, petted, sucked, loved, all around her thighs and hipbones, avoiding the part of her that wiggled in invitation, growing wetter and wetter even as he watched. Moisture gleamed off her curls, and her fingers scratched a rhythmic clawing on the surface of the sofa.
He couldn’t hear her breathing or moans, and a glance up showed the blanket had gone past her mouth. Her pert nose was visible, and her eyes were clamped shut, head tilted back. Jack ran the palm of his hand over her in a circular motion, letting his thumb drop down over her clitoris.
Then even with the blanket muffling it, he heard the moan that came from her.
His thumb sank down along her folds, first left, then right, stroking the swollen flesh, making his throat constrict and his blood pound. She squirmed.
The silence tripped around him, his focus on her, and her alone.
Jack bent over. Replaced his thumb with his tongue.
Jamie was expecting Jack’s touch. She knew, even as she fought to breathe under the blanket, that he was heading there. But she didn’t expect the sweetness, the gentle play of his tongue over her clitoris, over her slick sex. She ached all the more for the way he took time with her, slowly coaxing her to intense, riveting pleasure.
She couldn’t see a damn thing as he pushed the blanket even farther up to give him room to palm her breast. Cashmere pill balls brushed her lips, and she turned her head left and right, blind in the darkness. But she didn’t care enough to struggle with it, especially when she realized he was doing it on purpose.
It should make her uncomfortable, but it didn’t. She trusted him in a way that she really shouldn’t. But deep down in her gut, she knew he was motivated by a desire to arouse her, to get her screaming hot.
So she wasn’t going to complain. Especially not when his tongue was flicking into her, wrenching desire spiraling all throughout her body, coiling tighter and tighter. She clamped her eyes closed, let the feeling of the cashmere over her shoulders further arouse her sensitive skin, let him push into her over and over while she let go.
Mind empty, body straining, Jamie embraced an orgasm, reaching out to grab on to something. She clutched the blanket, wrapped it around her fingers as she arched up into Jack’s touch, waves of pleasure washing over her. In the dark, hidden, she let herself call out as loudly as she wanted, and luxuriated in the way he held on to her, wouldn’t release his hold on her long after she’d stopped shuddering.
“You can stop,” she whispered, her leg twitching as she settled back onto the couch. “You can let go.”
The blanket was jerked out of her hands, off her face, by Jack, even as he continued to press kisses on her clitoris. She blinked in the sudden bright light, then looked down at him, still kneeling, short caramel-colored hair bent over her.