And after he’d helped her to the top of Mount O once, he eased her down to the landing, where she rolled on top of him.
She hovered with her hips above his. She wanted him to feel as right as she did, but she suddenly felt shy. Inexperienced. Almost virginal.
He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “Okay, Anna Grace?”
Oh, yes. Very okay. Except?—
“I don’t know what you like,” she whispered.
She caught a hint of a dimple. His warm hand left a trail of hypersensitive, happy-tingly skin down her back.
“You,” he said, and he didn’t need to say more.
The affection in his gaze, the timbre of his voice, the feel of his body beneath her, foreign and familiar at the same time, the rightness of it all swirled around her insecurities and swept them away. She lowered herself onto him, taking his solid length into her already swollen, satisfied body…all the way in…feeling him, enjoying him, watching his eyelashes flutter as she pleasured him, pleasured herself. And nothing else mattered, because they were right.
Maybe not forever, but for now, they were oh, so right.
So right, and so easy to make love to him, to come with him again, until she collapsed against him, the two of them a pile of rubbery limbs, satisfied down to their bones.
At least, she assumed he was satisfied. She snuggled onto his chest, feeling the rise and fall even out while his fingers tangled in her hair. His lips pressed into her ear.
He didn’t say it, but she heard it all the same.Real good progress there, Anna Grace.
Real good, indeed. He was a perfect new first.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“My pleasure, Anna Grace.”
“Let’s not wait so long to do it again.”
His answering chuckle sent a happy after-shiver through her. “Yes, ma’am.”
And because he was the obliging kind of gentleman, they didn’t.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Her baby steps had become leaps that burst beyond the tethers of her old life.
—The Temptress of Pecan Lane, by Mae Daniels
Anna awoke Sunday morning to the soft pitter of rain. Someone was snoring, but when she rolled over to give Jackson a shove, he was watching her.
Not wide awake, but awake enough that the continued snoring couldn’t be his. “Your dog sleeps loud.”
Beneath the sheet, he ran a hand over her bare hip. “She’s not the only one.”
She did give him a playful shove then.
“Rested yet?” he said. “I’m real good in the shower.”
His gray sheet was draped across his stomach. She reached out and traced the 33 in the middle of the Auburn tiger paw on his chest. “Showers are cold.”
He screwed his eyes up all crinkly and his lips did that thing like he was holding back a laugh. “Anna Grace, you been showering with the wrong people.” He rolled up and over her with a speed she still found uncharacteristic of him, but the grin was all Jackson. He dipped his head and pressed a kiss to the hollow of her neck. “You go on and head to the bathroom, and I’ll show you how two people are meant to showertogether.”
That sounded promising.
Radish snorted. Her tags jingled. Jackson’s hand slid up to caress Anna’s breast, but when the dog let out a low growl, he stopped and cocked his ear toward the door.
