“I want to want you,” she whispered. “I want to stop being afraid.”
“Then let me in and we’ll figure it out together,” he stated, his heart in his mouth as he leaned in and kissed her again, hoping it was enough.
Chapter Thirty-two
The tumult of emotions ripping Liz apart ebbed away as Jake kissed her, giving way to a crushing amount of need. She went with it, because this was preferable to the indecision she’d been fighting.
He’d pushed all her fucking buttons tonight after she’d said what she said, him saying the things she had dreaded but needed him to say all at the same time. But he also understood her fear and hadn’t tried to tell her she was stupid for being hesitant.
He was scared, too, and willing to face it with her.
She wanted this, with him, and the idea made her heart hammer like a galloping horse as his lips moved over her, heat sparking through her body, incinerating her to a husk of coal on the floor, because his admission that he wanted more had melted her.
He wanted her. Not her body, not the distraction she could give him. Buther.
She’d compared him to Darren as she had stared at him, before he’d come over and neatly trapped her against the haystack. Or, more precisely, she’d catalogued the ways Jake was redefining what she thought love was supposed to look like. She’d told him happily ever after didn’t exist, she’d shown her bitter and sad side, she’d shown him her anger, her attitude, and her stubbornness, and still here he was, asking for her to open her heart to him instead of telling her she was being unreasonable.
Darren had never made her feel so utterly bewildered. He’d never bared himself the way Jake just had. Darren had never expressed himself other than to say he adored her, shushing her if she fumbled about, trying to say the same back. Maybe that was why she thought he’d been a safe choice, because he hadn’t challenged her. Darren had never said he loved her. Not once. That had suited her fine when they were together, but now? She suddenly craved that from Jake, and he’d said as much, the words foreign and shocking.
To Darren, she was a novelty until it got serious and she couldn’t give him what he wanted anymore, so he found another. It was all take with him, and she realized she hadn’t demanded anything else, hesitant to let him in. Their communication had been one-sided and broken from the start. That had been both their faults. His impatience and her unavailability. Even though she’d stayed because he was stable and accomplished, she hadn’t trusted him.
Jake didn’t want to possess her the way it had sometimes felt with Darren; Jake wanted her to let him in. He didn’t want to take from her, he wanted to give to her, to face what they felt together. That was different, or at least it felt different when he asked her to let him love her, dropping her stomach into her toes. He wanted her to feel the reckless emotion currently rocketing around inside her but, even though he’d been pretty persuasive, was letting it be her choice.
Darren also never once asked what she wanted until he screamed it at her while they were fighting, and she hadn’t been able to answer because that had been about him, not her.
Jake had cracked her last defense wide open, so she threw Darren away when Jake kissed her, and let the memory of him go. He could rot for all the shit he’d put her through, the walls he’d helped her reinforce in herself. That little voice inside her head telling her she shouldn’t do this was gone.
It had been silenced with Jake’s words.
They had backed up against the hay again, the mix of the fresh timothy and Jake’s scent delicious. She ran her hands up and down his chest, his muscles tense as he held her. He deepened his kiss, pressing into her, their bodies flush against one another, both of them now fully on fire with need.
She bit his lower lip and he let out a growl, his hands moving all over her body, squeezing her waist, her thigh, back up to her rib cage, hungry for her.
A horse nickered downstairs, and she wondered if they could get away with making love upstairs in the hayloft while boarders and clients were just below their feet. It was completely unprofessional.
“We really can’t, not here,” she gasped, but he shook his head and nipped at her ear. She tilted her head and he slowly kissed down her neck, his hands now firmly gripping her hips. She gestured at the loft door, words unable to form as his teeth grazed her skin.
“Door’s locked,” he murmured into her neck. “Didn’t need interruption while we talked. No one can get up here right now.”
All excuses gone, she grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it out of his jeans, hastily fumbling with his belt. She wanted him inside her,now. No foreplay, no slow and sensual; she was desperate for the connection, wanting him with a fierceness she recognized had been there from the beginning.
He helped her push his jeans down his thighs, and he grasped for the buttons on hers, while she sent her boots flying with quick tugs, kicking them away. His fingers hooked into the waist of her jeans and underwear, stripping them down her legs. Cold pebbled the skin on her thighs as the denim bunched under her feet, the hay prickling her ass, but she didn’t care. Her sole focus was on him, in front of her, the heat from his skin against hers all that mattered.
She reached for him and wrapped a hand around his cock, stroking quickly up and down, the feel of him hard in her hand a thrill. That was forher. His deep groan of relief as he hardened more at her touch threaded arousal up through her stomach, and her core throbbed in response.
“Now. Please. I need you,” she begged, and his eyes opened to her, the fire in them pouring back. He pushed her other hand toward her, entwining their fingers, his eyes widening as they slid inside her together.
“You are so wet for me already, oh my god,” he groaned, as their fingers slid in and out, his curling over hers and sending shocks of pleasure up through her. She thought her eyes might roll into the back of her head as his thumb reached up and pressed on her clit at the same time.
“I don’t have a—” he stuttered as she moaned and squeezed his cock. She shook her head, and somehow managed to hook one heel around his waist, leaning back, balancing on her tiptoes and grinding her hips against their joined hands.
“Don’t. Care. I want you. Just you. No more . . . barriers,” she panted, the familiar swirl of imminent climax catching her breath. She wanted him, and only him, the perfection of him erasing any doubt.
The moment she said it, he pulled their hands from her and reached to lift her hips to meet his, holding her with a ferocity that shereallyliked. His mouth covered hers as he braced her against the edge of a bale sticking out from the stack. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs wound around his waist, and cried out into his mouth as he thrust into her to the hilt. Undone, she moved against him, wanting him to fill her over and over. She wondered if it would always feel like this, this sense of completion when he was inside her. She acknowledged it and let herself feel it, feelhim.
“Liz,” he breathed as he held her still, sweat sprouting on his forehead. “You are so fucking hot and tight right now. I won’t last. I—”
“Let go, Jake,” she growled. “Show me how it feels.”
