He dared a lot. He dared with teeth and pinches and the soothing flat of his tongue. He dared to move her limbs to where he wanted them, to mold them around his body. He dared to simulate the sex they’d have, sliding his cock along her slit, his body shaking with the pleasure of that.
“Jaaack.”
She almost turned inside out when he pulled away, deprived of his heat and his mastery. But the short absence—while he opened a drawer, drew on a condom—only made her greedier. “You get those tests. You get them so you never have to leave me to suit up again.”
He grinned. “Yes, Boss.”
She laughed and flopped back on the bed. She was so strung out, her emotions were chopped into strands. She felt outraged to lose him to the mechanics of protection; she felt grateful to have him stretch over her again. Anticipation was a whip and desire was its sting, and the ricochet of feeling made her toes curl and her back arch.
It felt like a threat when he entered her. Like he’d opened up a secret place inside that only he could, like he’d unlocked the core of her and burned the map so no one else would ever discover it.
“So good, Derelie.”
But it was a held breath, not yet anything but a tinge of fear, until he kissed her, cloves and cinnamon and coffee and sex and that was the lubricant, mouth to mouth on her anxiety.
And when he moved, it was relief and tension all wound together and straining. He eased farther inside, stretching her, jerking back to do it again.
“So good, Jack.” That ease became a raw dance of power and motion, a slap of flesh, the song of lovers, a spiraling uncoiling of pressure so vast and unplumbed the pinnacle was unreachable.
“Let me have you.”
She let go, a gush of heat and wet, a release, a whiteout, a loss of control that made her shudder. He let go too, shouting incoherently through his own orgasm, his body tense like a wire snapping to collapse against her a moment before he fell to her side.
There was only unsteady loud breathing after that, sweat soaking into cotton and limbs glued comfortably together, and a cat with a wide-eyed WTF expression, staring in at them from the next room.
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“Are you okay?”
She was floating, drifting, unmade, remade. “I’m wonderful.”
“You are.” He pulled away again. She heard water running, a flush, a drawer opening and closing. He spoke to Martha. He came back with a warm wet cloth, which she used, and slid alongside her and pulled the covers over them. She found herself bundled into his arms, awash with exhaustion.
“Sugar overload,” she said. He kissed her behind the ear. “I didn’t get a turn to touch you.”
“Stick around and take advantage of me later.”
She fully intended to. “I don’t want to sleep.”
“This isn’t done, Derelie. Not near done.” Fatigue made his voice thick and treacly, made what he said all the weightier.
He was almost asleep already, so she let the comfort of his arm over her hip carry her into dreams, until their body heat woke her in a sweat some time later. He’d turned the lamp out and it was dark in the room. She needed to stretch out, she needed the bathroom, but she didn’t want to risk waking Jack.
She could’ve woken the dead when she shrieked. Within touching distance two slits of light glinted.
Jack was out of bed and had the light on in seconds.
Martha sat on the sheet in sphinx pose and stared at Derelie with her pointy ears pinned back. Derelie’s heart thudded in her ears. “Oh my God, cat, you gave me a fright.”
“Martha.” Jack clapped his hands, but Martha simply transferred her yellow eyes from Derelie to him, turned her ears around and sphinxed some more. He stalked around the bed and picked her up, holding her away from his body, her back legs and orange-and-white banded raccoon tail dangling. “You’re not supposed to scare the guests, especially the pretty ones I want to keep. Under the bed or out.”
They seemed to reach an understanding. Jack put Martha down and she disappeared from view. He looked down at Derelie, gloriously naked and utterly at ease with that. “Do you need anything?”
She glanced at the clock on his side table. Three in the morning. She’d lost track altogether of how long they’d slept. “I need the bathroom and I need you.”
He stepped aside to let her out of the bed, but his eyes didn’t leave her body.
“You’re going to make me self-conscious if you watch me walk out there.”