I pull at his jacket, a silent request for him to take it off. It’s not enough, I need more of the soft skin on the back of his neck. I need so much more. He carefully lowers me to the floor and lets me go, and I immediately miss the feeling of his hands on my body. And that’s crazy, because it wasn’t very long ago that I couldn’t tolerate any touch from him at all. But right now, it feels like it’s been a lifetime since then. A different Zoe, a different Jase.
Yet somehow we’re still the same.
Zoe and Jase.
Jase and Zoe.
The jacket slips off his shoulders and lands on the floor behind him with a rustle. He hesitates for a moment. His gaze is dark and stormy, and a warm flutter spreads through my stomach. I reach out for him with both hands and pull him closer again. My fingers wander over his T-shirt, doing whatever they want. They trace his hard, defined muscles, and I feel goose bumps prickle on his skin as I gently stroke his chest with my fingernails.
“Jase.” His name is on my tongue again. I can’t say anything else, but no words are necessary because he understands. He understands because he knows me, and he knows me because I have told him almost all of my secrets.
He pulls his shirt off over his head, and I forget to breathe as my eyes roam over his chest, down his stomach to the V of his hips. I look up at him, and my heart skips a beat. His eyes are so infinitely green. His hair is messy from my fingers, and he’s soJasethat it hurts. It not only takes my breath away—it actually hurts.
I want to take off my clothes. Imust. But as I grab the hem of my sweater, he stops me, and all at once his hands are on mine. I look up uncertainly. If he rejects me now, I’m going to die, because my body won’t be able to take it. The racing heart, the tingling, the desire, and the longing. God, I want to touch him so much. Really, really touch him.
But Jase has no intention of stopping me. He takes the soft fabric of my sweatshirt and rolls it upward as I lift my arms, so he can remove it. Now I’m just as naked as he is. I don’t have a shirt on underneath, and I’m not wearing a bra.
I blush as his eyes wander over my body, and with his gaze alone, he sets me ablaze.
“Fuck,” he murmurs. It’s a breathless, admiring word. The fluttering in my stomach grows stronger, the throbbing between my legs more urgent. I want him.Now. Now. Please.
Somewhere deep inside, I know there’s something I should be remembering. But I don’t want to think; I just want to feel. I reach for the waistband of his jeans and slide my fingers between the fabric and his skin. I tug on the cloth, a silent invitation. His breathcomes out in a hiss, and I have to smile because I realize he was holding it. Because of me.
His eyes burn into mine, and we both know where this is going.
“If you want to stop, all you have to do is say the word.” His voice is husky and sends a pleasant shiver down my back.
“Don’t stop,” I say.
He pulls me close again, kisses me deep and hard, and I see stars. My head tips back as his lips wander down my neck, over my collarbone, and down my breasts. I can’t breathe anymore when he takes a nipple in his mouth and sucks. His tongue is playing with it, and I almost can’t take it anymore. I’ve never felt this way before. So complete and so vulnerable at the same time.
I moan, unable to repress the sound, and I feel Jase shiver under my hands. They’re tangled in his hair again.
He murmurs words into my skin that I don’t understand, but I don’t need to. He guides me toward the bed. I bump into the mattress with the back of my knees and collapse backward, and then he’s above me. He kisses me again before pulling away from me. Then his hands are on the waistband of my jeans, and he hesitates again.
“Keep going,” I whisper hoarsely, because he obviously needs to hear it, and I don’t want him to stop.
He unzips my jeans and pulls them down my legs along with my underwear in one fluid motion. Then I’m lying naked in front of him. Naked and vulnerable, and a voice inside me whispers that I should feel exposed, but I don’t.
Jase takes a deep breath and swallows hard. My mouth goes dry. “Why are you so damn beautiful?” It’s a rhetorical question, and I have no answer for it.
I can’t see myself the way he sees me, but just like this, in his bed, right in front of him, I feel beautiful. Safe. Confident.
He swallows again. The desire in his eyes sends the heat flooding right to the center of my body. I sit up and reach for the waistband of his jeans and push my fingers into his boxer shorts. He groans as I squeeze his butt, then slide my hand to the front and grip his hardness. The skin is silky soft, and he twitches in my hand as I begin to move it a little. I’m surprised by how courageous I am.
“Are you trying to kill me?” Jase moans, but he’s pushing toward me, not pulling away.
I have to smile at how good it feels to know I’m responsible for his excitement. “Not today.”
My lips touch his, and then I lean back and pull his jeans and boxers down all in one motion. I stare at him in wonder, first gazing at every muscle and then tracing them with my fingers, and then my lips. I’ve never done this before. Not the way we’re doing it now. Maybe I should tell him that, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to talk. Plus, I know that Jase is definitely not a virgin, and I don’t want him to treat me like one either.
When I look up again, his gaze is both dark and promising at the same time, and my stomach tightens. He goes to the bedside table and opens the drawer, and I hear the soft crackle of plastic as he tears open the packet of a condom and slips it on.
I watch him, following every little movement. My heart is racing again, my breathing is shallow, and everything inside me feels hot and sensual. Hemusttouch me now, because anything else would be pure agony.
Then he holds out a hand to me, waiting. He lets me make the decision again. He lets me be in control, and I take a shakybreath. He’s doing all this, even though he has no idea what I’ve been through.
I put my hand in his, making my decision. I let him pull me back onto the bed and fall onto the mattress. My mind switches off, and I feel so damn safe that it’s strange, but also completely right. The mattress is soft, the sheets smell like him, and I breathe him in, moaning softly as he leaves a trail of hot kisses from my collarbone across my breasts and down my stomach.
