Jonquils for Jax: The Rousseaus #1 (The Blueberry Lane Series Book 12) (18 page)

“I guess…I guess friends do that sometimes,” she said, sighing as she cast him a quick glance.

He reached for the hand closest to him, pulling it gently from the steering wheel and pressing his lips to her skin. “
Oui, Duchesse.
I guess they do.”

***

They stopped by Haverford Park to give Gard a chance to speak to Felix for a few minutes and grab some of his belongings. He explained what had happened at Jax’s house over the weekend, how he’d been injured and how he wanted to make sure her place was secure. Felix had nodded in understanding, telling Gard to take the rest of the week off to see to his head and to Jax, for which Gard was grateful. He’d packed a bag with some extra clothes and toiletries, then gotten back into her waiting car.

He wasn’t sure what had come over him when he told her that he wouldn’t come stay at Le Chateau unless he was sleeping in her bed, and truly he didn’t expect to suddenly have sex with her tonight (though he couldn’t deny he was hopeful.) It embarrassed him that he’d injured himself in pursuit of her safety, but she didn’t seem to think less of him for it. Well, if she could live with it, he could too. But under no circumstances would he allow the passion they shared to be tempered by his “condition.” Either she saw him as a man she desired as much as he desired her or he’d just as soon leave Pennsylvania and never return.

Now, however, he’d lobbed a curveball into their relationship, and he wasn’t positive what she’d do with it. She seemed awfully skittery as she pulled into the driveway.

Cutting the engine, she turned to him. “Do you want to, um, settle in?”

Holding her eyes, he nodded. “Yep.”

“In—” She cleared her throat. “—my room?”

“Yep.”

“Do you want me to come?”

The breath in his lungs froze and held. And he was pretty sure time just fucking stopped. He stared at her for a moment, his eyes wide.

“Ohhh.” She whimpered like she was in pain, her eyes flying open as she realized what she’d said. “I mean, c-come
with
you? To my room? Or do you want some privacy?”

“I want you to come, Duchess,” he said, exhaling with a huge grin as two deep spots of color pinkened her cheeks.

“I didn’t mean…Oh God. I really didn’t mean—”

He pulled his duffel from the backseat. “Why don’t you show me where to put my bag?”

“Yes! Your bag. Show you. Yes,” she said, practically bolting from the car.

He opened his door, swinging his body out of the car and swallowing a chuckle as he followed her to the front door. He pushed it shut behind him with his foot and just about had to run across the foyer to catch up with her. It was like she was on autopilot, all but running up the grand staircase and not daring to look back around at him. Wow. She was nervous. Really nervous.

He checked out her ass in a short butter-yellow skirt as he walked up the steps just behind her. It was curvy and round, and he was dying to feel its naked softness beneath his fingers. However, in light of her jitters, sharing such a thought probably wouldn’t help right now. In fact…

“Jax?”

“Hmmm?”

“I’m not going to jump on you,
cher
.”

“Oh,” she said with a slightly crazy-sounding, high-pitched little laugh. “I know.” But she still didn’t glance back at him.

When they reached the second floor, he stopped following her, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to get his bearings. The staircase went up through the center of the house, which meant that there were long galleries off to the left and right. He couldn’t make out much detail, of course. The red carpeting extended in both directions, which was helpful for finding his way back to the stairs. Looked like the walls were cream-colored. No. Cream and gold. Wallpaper? He squinted. Maybe. Sort of looked like there was a pattern beneath the color, but he’d have to get closer to be sure. He looked up to see a brass chandelier over his head and what appeared to be two more in the wings to his left and right, brightening the ceiling at intervals. He numbered them one through five in his head. Once he knew the doors located under those chandeliers, he’d be able to find his way easier. Sitting room at chandelier one. Bathroom at two. Stairs at three. Jax’s room at four…et cetera, et cetera. A map in his head based on colors, lights, and numbers. He’d have to remind her not to turn off the lights at night too, or else he could easily lose his way.

He sighed, taking in his new surroundings as best he could, waiting for her to realize that he wasn’t following her anymore. Before he took another step, they needed to talk.

“Gard?” she asked from a distance to his left. He turned to the sound of her voice but couldn’t make her out well until she turned around and started walking back to him. Finally she came into focus. “You coming?”

“Let me ask you somethin’,” he said, looking into her bright-green emeralds. “Where do
you
want me to sleep?”

She blinked at him. “You said you’re sleeping with me.”

“That’s not what I asked you,
cher
. Where do
you
want me to sleep?” He uncrossed his arms, taking a step toward her. “Because, to tell you the truth, you seem pretty nervous, and I don’t want that. I want you to be comfortable. So you tell me, Duchess. You want me to stay in a guest room? I will. You want me to stay downstairs on the couch? I will. I’m here, Jax. I’m here and I’m not goin’ anywhere till you tell me we’re done,
mon coeur
, so you call it. Where do you want me?”

She flinched, looking so beautiful and young and vulnerable, it made his heart throb with tenderness for her.

“
Mon coeur
?” she murmured.

He took another step toward her, placing his palm over his heart, meeting her gaze with surrender and hope. “It’s yours for the takin’, Jax.”

“With me,” she said softly, but with a certainty she’d been missing a minute before. She held out her hand to him. “I want you to sleep with me.”

He placed his hand in hers, letting her pull him along. She walked halfway down the corridor, stopped between chandeliers one and two, then stepped through an open door into a room. Reaching back, he closed the door behind them.

When he turned to face her, she was standing beside the bed, stepping out of her heeled sandals. Stepping forward, she pulled his bag from his shoulder, setting it down on the floor.

When she lifted her eyes to his, they were so full of aching tenderness, his breath caught, his heart clenched, and his chest tightened with the certainty that this woman was his one in a million, that she—and
only
she—held the key to his happiness in her hands.

“You’re so beautiful, it hurts to look at you,” he said, the words coming from a pure, visceral place of longing, of certainty, of gratitude, and yes, of love. “What do you want,
mon coeur
?”

“I want you to make love to me,” she whispered.

He placed his hands on her face, staring deeply into her soft, darkene
d
eyes, then lowered his lips to hers.

***

Jax had known, after seeing him facedown on the pool deck with dark-red blood seeping from his head, that her feelings for him were deep and intense and real. It no longer mattered that they’d met by chance, that he was an ex-cop gardener and she a movie producer heiress, that his accent was Cajun and hers Parisian, that they’d fallen for each other so quickly and without restraint. None of it mattered. Her heart had already ruled on the matter—every other consideration be damned. She wanted him in her life. And having him here, in her home, in her bedroom, with their feelings for one another propelling them both forward, made this the only place on earth she wanted to be.

She’d worn a cream-colored linen tank top and short tailored, yellow linen skirt to pick him up at the hospital, and now she felt his fingers on the zipper of her skirt, pulling it down as he kissed her. She wiggled her hips just a little, and the light fabric slipped down her legs, pooling around her bare feet and leaving her in cream-colored satin panties and her tank top. As he dragged his lips to her throat, his fingers trailed over the material of the top, finding the three little pearl buttons at the back of her neck and slowly unfastening them. Then he stepped back and drew the tank over her head, dropping it to the floor, holding her gaze all the while. He reached up, pulling a pearl comb from her chignon, which released her waves of onyx hair, and he threaded his fingers through it from her temples to her shoulder blades. As his fingers found the clasp of her bra, she held her breath, then released it as the lingerie slipped down her arms, joining her skirt and top on the floor.

Standing before him in nothing but panties, she felt her cheeks flush with heat.

“You are so beautiful, Jax. My beautiful duchess,” he said softly, as though mesmerized, his fingers touching down gently beneath her ears, following the curve of her neck to her shoulders, trailing down her arms then clasping her hips, his palms just covering the waistband of her underwear.

Still staring up at her, he dropped fluidly to his knees, and she gasped to see the contrast of his thick, wavy hair just in front of her still-covered sex. Her blood coursed through her veins like liquid lightning, making her hot all over, making her long for more—more words, more touching, more everything.

“I want to taste you,
cher
,” he said, his fingers smoothing gently from her hips to the waistband of her panties. He tugged them a little, and they slipped over the curve of her ass, gliding down her legs with a whisper and leaving her completely naked to him.

For the first time, he dropped her eyes, his gaze searing a path down her body, pausing at her lips, her throat, her breasts, her stomach, and ending at the small thatch of soft black curls covering her sex.

So exposed, with the bright light of early evening streaming into her room, she knew she should have felt at least a small flare of modesty, but she didn’t. She felt electric. She felt powerful. She felt trust. And more than anything, she felt a lust so consuming, so hot and demanding, she had to draw her fingers into a fist to keep them from plunging into his hair to shove his face forward.

“Lie down,” he said without looking up, his palms hot on the skin of her hips.

She stepped back until her thighs hit the side of her bed, then sat down, lowering herself until her back was flat on the bedspread but her feet were flat on the floor. When she placed her hands on the bed and started to push back, he stopped her, flattening his hand over her damp mound.

“No,
cher
,” he said, reaching for her legs and looping them over his shoulders, spreading her wide. “Like this.”

“Gard,” she whimpered, closing her eyes, her body as tight as a wire, her insides coiled in anticipation. She curled her fingers into the soft fabric by her sides, trying to catch her breath as she felt his thumbs spread the lips of her sex.

She threw an arm over her eyes as she felt his breath kiss the sensitive folds of skin, and she cried out when the heat of his tongue circled her aching clit.

“Oh,
merde
,” he groaned, his tongue lapping her throbbing flesh in one long stroke from base to hood, and making her shiver, “you taste perfect. Sweet. Hot.”

She tried to catch her breath, swallowing as she pressed closer to his face, trying to concentrate on the pressure of his hands clutching her thighs to slow down the fast build to orgasm. He swiped his tongue around her slit again, then gently sucked the pulsing bud between his lips before releasing. She cried out an “unh” sound, moving her hips as her breathing became more and more shallow.

“Did you go to school for this?” she half-moaned, half-whimpered.

“No.” He chuckled softly, a low, rich sound that vibrated against her sensitive skin, and she clenched her teeth, burying her head back into the mattress. “But remember, Duchess, you asked if I wanted you to come, and it’s all I’ve thought about since. The answer is
yes
.”

He took her clit between his lips again, but this time he suckled harder, two fingers entering the slick opening of her body and hooking forward to press on the throbbing wall of her sex. Jax’s hips bucked off the bed as she exploded into a million tiny pieces, gyrating mindlessly on his fingers, her head straining back, her nipples peaked, her skin covered with a thin sheen of sweat, and her heart so full, she didn’t know it was possible to feel this much for another human being.

***

As if tasting her and watching her full-body climax wasn’t enough to make him rock hard, the tight, tight walls of her pussy clenched his fingers with such force that his dick was literally pulsing for its turn, his mouth watering at the prospect of making love to her.

Tenderly stroking her clit, he watched her face, the way her tongue slipped between her lips to wet them, the way her breasts moved up and down with her shallow breaths, the way her eyes finally opened to show that she’d exchanged emeralds for onyx, the heat of her arousal making them shiny and black.

“Are you okay,
cher
?”

She moaned softly as her eyes rolled back into her head, and Gard grinned, standing up and sliding onto the bed, then pulling her into the curve of his body. Her naked breasts pressing against his T-shirt made him groan softly.