A Kiss for Luck (5 page)

“Why were you worried?”

Clara pulled away from him when they stepped into the elevator and looked at her hands as the doors closed. “I just don’t—” she started, sighing in a way that made his gut churn.

“Look, it’s cool, Clara Bow,” he said, giving her another dashing grin, knowing it wouldn’t reach his eyes and she could probably see right through it. “I don’t expect anything.”

“But you should,” Clara said, holding the button on the elevator when they reached his floor, keeping the door open and blocking his way out. “There’s nothing about you that’s anything less than phenomenal. You’re fun and considerate and incredible in bed, not to mention drop-dead gorgeous and—”

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Kele Moon

“You don’t have to let me down easy,” he snorted, rolling his eyes at her. “I mean, we’re friends and we did something stupid. We’ll just pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Is that what you want?” she demanded, her dark eyes shining with hurt as she looked up at him. “Do you want to pretend none of this happened? Do you want me to forget you told me you loved me?”

“Okay,” he said stiffly, feeling himself freeze up when faced with his confession and the fact she wasn’t going to let it go. He forcibly moved her arm and walked past her. “What I want is to take a shower and pass out.”

“Well, I want to talk about this.”

“I guess you don’t always get what you want,” he said, opening the door to his apartment that Clara had left unlocked. “Just let me take a shower. Please.”

“Fine. Hide and take a shower.”

She was accusing him of being a coward, which didn’t sit well with him but he felt a little too exposed to say anything. He stripped off his clothes, aware of her eyes on him as she followed him into the master bedroom. Cheeks rosy, her arms folded, dirt from his fall staining her robe, she looked more beautiful than he could bear, standing there studying him. He got into the shower rather than acknowledge the disappointment shining in her eyes.

He was colder than he had realized, because the hot water felt incredible, even under the weight of his life being in tatters. He tilted his head back, closing his eyes as the hot water ran over his face and his libido raged, careless of the complexities of his now drastically altered friendship with Clara.

Remembering her standing in his bedroom, wanting her again with a hunger that was all consuming, he wished he had the balls to jerk off and ease some of the tension that wasn’t subsiding despite their activities earlier.

“Mind if I join you?”

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A Kiss for Luck

“Christ,” he grunted, squeezing his eyes shut tighter even as his cock jerked in agreement with the idea. “I need space, Clara.”

“I guess you don’t always get what you want,” she said, throwing his words back at him.

Against his better judgment he opened his eyes when she pulled the shower door shut. “Shit,” he rasped, letting his gaze run over Clara. Taut nipples peeked out at him beneath the dark rivers of curly wet hair flowing over her shoulders and clinging to her breasts. He loved the curve of her waist and the long line of her toned, shapely thighs.

Her eyes were hooded, droplets of water clung to long eyelashes as a blush of uncertainty showed on her cheeks, telling him she wasn’t nearly as confident as she let on.

Jackson couldn’t resist reaching out and pulling her close. Groaning when he felt her smooth, wet skin pressed against his, he rested his cheek against the top of her head and breathed her in. His resolve to keep her at arm’s length evaporated as if it never existed to begin with as a wave of undeniable longing crashed over him. “You’re so sexy.”

“I think you’re the only one who thinks so,” she whispered, tilting her head back to look at him with dark, soulful eyes. The pain of the last year showing in them, the unhappiness of a marriage to a man who hadn’t appreciated her like he should have, as Jackson would have. She bit her lip as tears spilled down her cheeks mingling with the spray from the shower. “And I wish it’d last.”

“What?”

“This,” she said, her voice choked as she finally looked away. “You looking at me like that, making me feel like I’m actually desirable.”

“You
are
desirable,” he said with a snort of incredulity. He leaned into her, his cock sliding against her bare stomach as a sound of desperation he couldn’t stifle slipped past his lips. “God, if you only knew how badly I want you.”

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Kele Moon

“Yeah, but it doesn’t last,” she said, running one hand down his chest, her fingers trailing lower and tracing over the lines of his abdominal muscles. “It’s exciting now, but in six weeks or six months you’ll look at me and see what everyone else does. A plain, mousy doctor who is overworked and hasn’t had time to get her hair styled in two years or her nails done and—”

“You’ve been sexy to me since high school,” he said, cupping her cheek, forcing her to look at him once more. “Trust me, it’s not something I’m gonna get over. I know because I’ve tried. For years I’ve tried really hard to look at you and see a doctor, or a best friend, or anything other than a strong, beautiful woman who is so fucking smart that—”

“Smart’s not attractive…not really.”

“It is to me,” he said, unable to hide his smile as he shook his head at himself. “I have this thing—”

“For smart girls?” she barked out, laughing at him in disbelief. “That’s not true.”

“I know, it’s stupid,” he said, shrugging self-consciously. “I’m not—” He pointed at his head and raised his eyebrows pointedly. “Like those guys, like—” He choked on the name, but didn’t know of another example. “Frank.”

“Thank God,” she said, her eyes wide as she stared at him in shock. “You don’t want to be a stuck-up, pompous asshole, do you?”

“I’d like to be as smart as one,” he admitted, feeling his cheeks heat. “You think I could go to one of your doctors’ conferences and mingle like he used to? I don’t have anything to talk to them about unless they ask about football starting lineups.”

“You’re a trained paramedic,” she said, her face showing disbelief. “And you think you’d have less to talk about at a doctors’ conference than Frank? He studied ancient cultures. You save lives. You’re in the trenches with us. Who do you think would blend better?”

Jackson opened his mouth, not knowing how to respond to that, feeling at a loss all of a sudden.

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A Kiss for Luck

“You have a degree. You’re extremely smart,” she continued, her voice sharp with the passion she had when she debated something she truly believed. “When are you going to give yourself credit for everything you’ve accomplished?”

“Only ‘cause you helped me,” he said, stepping back and leaning against the tiled wall, running a hand through his wet hair. “High school, college, all my certification courses. It was all because you helped me.”

“You took those tests, Jackson.” She reached out once more, her hand resting against the hard muscles of his chest above where his heart beat. “You’re wonderful,”

she said distantly, lifting her head to stare at him with a longing that shocked him. “I want this.”

He might have said something if she hadn’t pressed herself against him once more, her arms wrapping around him, her nimble fingers tracing the curve of his spine. He sighed, arching into her when she placed a kiss against his collarbone and then moved lower, her hot mouth tracing a trail down his chest.

“Fuck.” His head hit the tiles when she fell to her knees in front of him. The excitement coiled in his gut, his stomach muscles clenching in anticipation. “You don’t—” He choked on the words as she stroked him, licking at the head of his cock with a slow, lascivious sweep of her tongue before she took him into her mouth. “Oh God.”

Powerless to her, he surrendered to the moment, tangling his fingers in her wild curls and thrusting his hips forward in invitation. The pleasure was blinding, her mouth soft, wet, torturous as she sucked him. Her hand slid up and down his cock in a rhythm that was pushing him to the edge shockingly fast considering he had already come a couple of times. It was Clara. She made him burn in a way that was wild and rare and he wanted to capture this feeling and keep it forever.

“Stop.” He tugged on her hair lightly until she released him with a soft pop.

He blinked against the pleasure, seeing her lick ripe, red lips as she said in a soft, earnest voice, “I want to taste.”

37

Kele Moon

“Later,” he said, admitting to himself as much as her that a later between the two of them was inevitable. “Come here.” He reached down, grabbing her arm and helping her to her feet. He threaded his fingers in her hair and pulled her forward, unable to resist the lure of kissing her. She was languid in his arms, curving into his embrace as her lips parted to the slide of his tongue and he drowned himself in her. The kiss was hot, open-mouthed, possessive on his part and wonderfully receptive on hers. She clung to his shoulders, shifting against him in a way that made her needs blatantly obvious. Never one to sugarcoat things, he growled against her lips, “I wanna fuck you.

Say you want me inside you, Clara Bow.”

“God yes,” she whimpered, parting her lips in an open invitation he took, kissing her again, deeper this time. He wrapped an arm around her back, pulling her so tightly against him they could hardly breathe. She panted, sounding as desperate as he felt. “In me. Please, Jackson. I need you.”

He turned her around, pressing her against the cool tiles. He ran his hands up from the curve of her waist to her rib cage, admiring the soft, feminine shape of her back and the way her long, curly hair clung to her wet skin.

“You’re so fucking hot.” He placed a kiss against her throat and then brushed her hair aside. Addicted to the taste of her, he licked and kissed until he was whispering against the sensitive skin at the nape of her neck. “Say it. Say you want me to fuck you,”

he encouraged as he ran a hand up the inside of her thigh until she widened her stance and spread her legs for him. He touched her then, his fingers sliding into her tight pussy. He curved them upward, savoring her gasp and the way her hips surged forward. “Tell me. Say it. Beg for it and I’ll give it to you.”

“God,” she gasped, her back bowing invitingly. “Fuck me, Jackson. Fuck me, please. I feel like I’m dying.”

He gave her what she wanted, taking her hard, burying his face in her hair as the pleasure surged through his bloodstream in a wash of overwhelming bliss. The feel of her so hot and tight around him had him pulling out and thrusting back in mindlessly.

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A Kiss for Luck

His fingers threaded in her hair once more, tugging her head back and exposing the line of her throat that he licked and kissed, his teeth nipping lightly in a raw possessiveness he couldn’t contain.

“Oh God,” she panted, her fingers curling against the tiles, her hips pushing back against him thrust for thrust. “I’m gonna come.” Her words became a choked sob of pleasure that ended in a sharp cry as her entire body shuddered in release.

He pounded into her, his own release tightening in his stomach, the pleasure pulsing through him to the point he could do nothing but surrender to it. He tightened his other arm around her waist, pulling her closer as he came harder than he had in his entire life.

The pleasure was pulsing, decadent and blinding. It seemed like an eternity until it started to subside and both of them ended up sagging weakly against the tiles. “I want you to be mine,” he breathed into her ear. “I want it more than anything.”

“Okay,” she whispered, her voice breathy and sated with sex.

He snorted. “It’s not that easy.”

“I think it is,” she said, reaching down and placing her hand over Jackson’s where he still held her tightly. “I love you too.”

39

Kele Moon

“Even if someone’s dying you’re coming home,” Jackson said, stabbing at the overcooked, under salted chicken on his plate courtesy of the hospital’s finest cooks.

“You gotta promise.”

“I’m not promising that. If someone’s dying I’ll make sure the situation is handled and then come home. You’d do the same.” Clara snorted, staring at him across the small table in the corner of the hospital cafeteria. “But the risk is minimal. I made sure my shift is covered.”

He was so handsome in his black work shirt and pants. The look was good on any physically fit man, but Jackson made it especially hot with his charming smile and sparkling blue eyes. The holiday season had been busier than usual for both of them and his hair was curling at the nape of his neck. She should probably drag him in for a haircut, but longer hair was easier to tug on.

“What’re you smiling about?”

“Nothing,” she said, looking down at her own plate. She pushed at the chicken with lackluster interest. “What do you have planned anyway?”

“I would have taken you somewhere outrageously expensive but every where’s closed,” he said, giving her a mock look of being hurt. “’Cause you can’t get off until ten.”

She raised her eyebrows and reminded him haughtily, “You worked on Christmas.”

“This is our anniversary,” he shot back. “I requested the time off two months ago.”

She smiled at that, pushing her plate toward him. “Crappy chicken for being sweet.”

He frowned at the offering. “You don’t want it?”

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A Kiss for Luck

“All yours,” she said, holding her hands back to make sure her meaning was clear.

“Enjoy.”

“I worry you’re not eating enough,” he said, using his fork to stab at her chicken and transferring it to his plate.

“There’s no nutritional value in that chicken.”

“I’m making dinner tonight for you,” he said, giving her a wide, blue-eyed stare of innocence. “It’s gonna be awesome.”

Clara arched an eyebrow, not buying the act. “You mean you’re ordering dinner and putting it onto plates. You’re a horrible liar.”

“Busted,” he said, laughing once more and then taking another bite of chicken. “But I am gonna turn on the stove and keep it warm until you come home.”

“Always chivalrous,” Clara said and then turned around when she heard a huff of indignation a few tables over. She winced, wondering why she was still on the same rotation as the only two nurses who would never fail to get her guard up. She whispered under her breath, “We have a whole hospital full of responsible, professional nurses and I’m stuck with Mary Kate and Ashley.”