“That’s it. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck, baby. That’s it. That’s it. I’ve got you. Oh, Katarina, sweetheart, I’ve got you. I’ve got you. Let go, yeah. Fuck.Fuck.Give it to me.” His voice, those words, thethump thump thumpof the door, all of it disappears in the supernova blast that takes over.
“I got you,” I hear one more time, and then I’m gone.
20
Jake
Shit.
Shit. Shit shit.
I snag the champagne bottle with one hand before it drops to floor and catch the woman with my body, lean up against the flimsy wooden door, and just hold her.
“That’s it,” I whisper when she takes her first deep breath after what was one hell of a detonation. “That’s it, baby.”
I reach down to tuck a stray lock of dark red hair behind her ear and just look at her—face flushed, handful of freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks. That stubborn jaw loose, her lips wet from where she licked them, and so goddamn soft I want to test them with my own.
“Wow,” she whispers without looking up at me.
I squeeze her. “Think that’ll do the trick?”
Her reaction is a light, unselfconscious laugh that I want to hear again as soon as it ends. Slowly, though, tension creeps back into her body, her breathing slows, she nudges me away and peels herself off the door.
“That was…” She casts an embarrassed glance up at me and to the side, her cheekbones a dark, angry pink. “Thanks.”
There she goes again. Thanking me for services rendered.
Hell if I know why it annoys me so much, when I’m the one who offers, every damn time.
Now, here I am again, standing here like a dick, hard as wood, and aching for more.
“Should we go to the bedroom?”
She stiffens instantly.
“Or not.”
“Sorry, I could use a break.” She throws me a side-eye. “You’ve got skills.”
Shutting down a fresh blend of pride and exasperation, I hold up the champagne, and take what feels like my first ever look at something besides her. “You got glasses for this?”
After a brief hesitation, during which I can feel her trying to figure out my mood, she leads the way through the living room, back into the kitchen.
“This matches the outside,” I remark as she opens a yellow-painted cupboard and pulls out two shallow champagne glasses.
“You mean the paint job or the time period?”
“All of it.”
“Needs updating.”
“It’s got its charm.”
“Only so much charm you can squeeze out of chipped Formica and this monstrosity.” She kicks an oven that’s got those electric coils on top.
“See this?” I show her an old scar on the meaty part of my thumb. It’s a faint dark ring now, barely there, but just the sight of it sends a shudder through me. “Had a run-in with one of these stoves when I was a kid.”
“Oh my god, Jake! That must’ve been bad.”
