He turned to face me, and the heat of the kitchen clung to his skin. His hands settled at my hips as he kissed me, slow and deliberate.
“I needed this,” I said against his mouth.
He didn’t answer. Just kissed me again. Less thoughtful. More driven.
A fork clattered to the floor as he cupped my jaw and backed me against the counter. I took a firmer handful of ass. His tongue pushed into my mouth, hard and hot and eager, and I felthis cock stir against my thigh. I loved that I could still get a rise out of him, even after all these years. Guess we just pushed each other’s buttons.
I almost felt guilty—almost—for being relieved when Jacob had stayed behind at HQ today. But I cut myself some slack. The way he was grinding his thigh into my crotch was nothing if not evidence of exactly how distracting he could be.
The case of the empty apartment was like a ball of string with no beginning or end, just one big, tangled knot. And I, for one, was good and ready to stop picking at it for the time being.
Instead, I focused on Jacob: the chafe of his short beard against my jaw, the salt-sweat taste I tongued off his neck, the sureness of his hands as he unhitched my belt and left my slacks pooling at my feet.
When he found me stiff and eager, he sank to his knees. It should be me doing penance, I thought, for leaving him at the office and venturing out into the field myself. Jacob loved combing through a scene as much as I did. Our boss had given him a chance to escape the cubicle farm for a few days, and I’d blithely traipsed off alone.
But I was probably reading too much into things, and really, Jacob was just taking up where he’d left off a few nights back, before work had so rudely interrupted. And besides, he was just so good at giving head.
I let my fingers rake through his hair, and for a few seconds, the only sound in the kitchen was the gentle ebb of pasta water coming off its simmer and the catch of my breath. And some hot, wet sucking.
Jacob’s mouth was hot and eager. He wasn’t just going through the motions—he was on a mission. I let go of his head and gripped the counter’s edge, knuckles white, as he took me deep. No teasing. Just pure, unadulterated skill.
“God, Jacob,” I breathed. He glanced up, eyes locking onto mine, and the intensity in his gaze sent a shiver down my spine. He wasn’t only doing this for me…he was doing it for us.
Every flex of his cheeks, every bob of his head, was a declaration. We were in this together, partners in every sense of the word. He knew what I needed before I did, and he always delivered.
“You’re—” I started, but words failed me. He was everything—my compass, my rock. And it went without saying, he was the best damn thing that had ever happened to me.
I could feel the pressure building. But it wasn’t only about the physical release. It was about the connection, the understanding that passed between us without a single word spoken.
Jacob wasn’t just going down on me, he was proving a point. We were a team, a unit, two halves of a whole.
When I came, I tried to pull out. Not from any sense of courtesy, but because I know Jacob gets his jollies from watching the money shot. What better way to erase any mere “satisfactory” ratings than with an unequivocal spurt that acknowledges his fine achievement? But tonight he had me mashed into the counter, gripping tight, and he deep-throated a gut-wrenching climax out of me. It left me so lightheaded, I suspected my brain was filled with alpha waves.
Where were those brainwaves when I really needed them?
If only I could say for sure what was in Boswell’s apartment. If only I were better at controlling my own talent. If only they hadn’t upgraded my stupid app.
Ghosts fall over themselves telling me about whatever fixation is keeping them earthbound…until they don’t, and I’m stuck wondering if I’m just being a headcase.
At my feet, Jacob hummed in self-approval and nuzzled the crook of my thigh. I traced the backs of my fingers along his cheekbone as he stood, and I nudged him toward the living room so I could reciprocate. But he shook his head and gave me an easy smile, then eased me away from the counter. “Later. I could hear your stomach rumbling.”
Luckily, I know him well enough to know he wasn’t expecting me to come up with a sexy protest about the meat between his legs being all I needed. Because who could say something like that without rolling their eyes and ruining the whole effect?
After dinner, we curled up on the couch, half-watching some rerun Jacob swore he hadn’t seen before. During a lull in the action, I decided that he didn’t seem put out by whatever did or didn’t happen at work earlier. And besides, if anyone shared my frustration about our talents’ lack of an owner’s manual, it was him. I said, “I did everything right today and still came up with nothing.”
Jacob considered. “Nothing doesn’t always mean nothing. Sometimes it meansnot yet.”
I hatednot yet. I’d rather get a hardnothan amaybethat left me standing there in the middle of a depressing apartment, talking to myself and feeling like an idiot.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THERE’S A RHYTHM to the way my workday normally starts. I swipe my badge, nod to the security guy, and ride the elevator up in silence, counting ceiling tiles or watching the floor indicator light up—whichever seems more pressing that day.
I like unlocking the office door and finding things exactly where I left them, with two spotless desks facing one another. Carl’s mug on the coaster. His desktop without so much as a single sticky note stuck to the monitor. My desk empty except for a closed laptop, a charging cable and my favorite pen.
We don’t talk much. We don’t need to. Carl likes his order, and I like mine. And I guess, in our own ways, we’re content with the status quo.
So when I walked in that morning and found a teetering pile of manila folders on my desk, I actually stopped and checked the nameplate to make sure the room still belonged to me.
