I didn’t know how to describe the change in our relationship, but there’d been a seismic shift. I didn’t know what we were going to be to each other, but we weren’t just sex anymore. If anything, the realization made me want him more, this man who’d taken care of me.
Pressing against the arm still draped over me, I turned until I faced him. He stirred, not quite awake or asleep. I ran my nose along his jaw, breathing in our combined warmth, and he cupped the back of my head, holding me as if I were precious to him. I trailed kisses down his neck to the thick muscle at the top of his shoulder, scraping my teeth gently over the skin and waiting for his response.
I wanted him, this tender version of the man I’d fucked so many times.
“Really?” he asked, tipping my chin up to search my face. “Are you sure?”
The gaze that held mine made promises of things I hadn’t known I wanted.
“Yes.” I murmured the word into the dark.
He brushed a quick kiss over my lips before reaching for the hem of his T-shirt. In one sure movement, he had the fabric up and over my head and me back in his arms. He stroked my cheek, tracing the line of my neck to the tip of my breast, his fingers circling my already tight nipple. I ran my hands over the muscles of his back down to hold his hips like an anchor.
There was no urgency in our caresses. Our hands discovered and rediscovered each other. We knew how to wind the desire higher. Our bodies’ responses were well-known territory by now, but when Jake pulled me to him in the dark, there wassomething more this time. His mouth found my breast, and warmth and want washed through me. While his mouth teased my nipple, his fingers slipped through my slick sex, his touch gentle and demanding. He nudged my panties over my hips and I wriggled out of them, baring myself completely to his touch.
He’d made me come dozens of times. He knew my body, and this time he knew more. In a few whispered breaths, I teetered on the edge, my orgasm right there. Right there. I reached for him, wrapping my hands around his length, wanting him inside me when I fell.
“Please, Jake. I’m so close. I need you inside me. Now.”
He didn’t tease me or draw things out. He did exactly as I asked. Balancing his weight on his elbows, he hovered over me, his hard length pressed to my opening. Keeping my gaze pinned with his, he slid inside me until he was seated as deep as he could go. I wrapped my legs around him, my heels digging into his ass, holding him to me.
For a moment, there was nothing but him and me and the place our bodies joined, together in the dark. Then he started to move and the world shifted again, realigning to this place, this time, this single moment. My climax caught me between one stroke and the next, my body bowed and my sex pulsing as Jake took us both higher.
“Please.” I whispered the word into the dark, not sure what I was asking for just knowing I felt too much for him to stop.
He cupped my head, cradling me to his chest as he drove inside me, harder and faster, cherishing and punishing at the same time. I felt his breath catch, and then he was coming too, his cock pulsing as he fell with me.
21
“You’re alive!” Alex’s voice came out in a squeal that made me pull my phone away from my ear. “Where are you?”
I’d sent a somewhat cryptic message to the group chat the day before just to let my friends know I was okay. I hadn’t mentioned vomiting on or staying with Jake or really anything other than that I’d been sick. I’d have to tell them sometime, but after last night, I wanted time to think on my own before I added in other opinions. Even well-meaning ones.
“On my way to the studio.” I’d woken up at five thirty and kissed a still sleepy Jake goodbye before heading home for a shower and clean clothes. I sent him a text, thanking him again for everything, in case he didn’t remember the kiss when he finally got up. I didn’t want him to think I snuck out. Especially not after our time together in the middle of the night.
“Oh, good. That must mean you’re feeling better. You should have let us bring you soup or something. You know Meredith’s care packages are legendary.”
“I know.” Of all of us, Meredith was by far the most maternal. Whenever one of us got sick, she showed up with soup, fresh baked bread, and her amazing kitchen sink cookies. They haddark chocolate, caramel, nuts, toffee, and some other kind of magic that made them irresistible. “I wasn’t sick long enough to need anything.”
Alex let out a derisive noise but seemed content not to push. At least for now. I’d gone as far as I could with the lie of omission. I hadn’t needed anything—Jake took care of everything—but I wasn’t willing to outright lie to my friend.
“I’d still have let her bring cookies. Anyway, I’m glad you’re better. Charlotte’s thing is just a few weeks away. I wouldn’t want to be you if you missed it.”
“Not a chance.” I opened the door to my studio and flipped the sign in the window. I didn’t get a lot of walk-in business, but the ritual of turning the sign from Closed to Open did good things for my brain. “Do you have time on Saturday to go over the last few details?”
With Meredith handling the catering, it was mostly ordering the florals and rentals, but Erik and Alex volunteered to handle the bar, and I wanted to make sure we had mixers and everything else covered. Kindra would meet us the morning of to help with the set up, but I wanted to get together with Alex and Meredith one more time before then.
“Absolutely. We can get there early, and you can tell me how things went with the toys. You’ll have a chance to play by then, won’t you?”
I put the kettle on for coffee and said a silent prayer of gratitude that I hadn’t told Alex when I’d actually planned to get together with Jake. She’d never have let me off the hook. Then, almost as quickly, I wondered when—if—Jake would want to play again. Last night definitely shifted things. What if we’d gotten too close to a relationship and he wasn’t looking for that? We’d been clear early on about expectations and rules. We broke a lot of them in the past forty-eight hours.
“Are you still there?” Alex asked, calling me back to the newly complicated present.
“Sorry. I’m here.” I dropped a scoop of coffee into the French press. “Just making coffee. I don’t know if we’ll have time by then.”
“Don’t be silly. Make time, and then I want all the details. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
I hung up the phone and poured boiling water over the grounds, breathing in the fortifying aroma of coffee while I tried to work out what to do about Jake. I’d sent the last text, so the answer was probably nothing. Not until he responded. As if the Universe had taken to listening to me, almost as soon as I had the thought, my phone buzzed with an incoming text. I picked it up, anxious to see what Jake wrote, but it was a text from John.
