Playing With Seduction (18 page)

He could feel his orgasm building at the base of his spine and refused to go over without her. “Touch yourself, Kendall,” he ordered as he tunneled back into her tight, wet heat. “Make yourself come.”

Her free hand moved down between her thighs, her fingers working her clit. A few balls-deep thrusts later and her body started to tremble. Her head fell back against the mirror, her face beautifully flushed with desire. Her lashes fluttered closed, and she bit her bottom lip to silence her passionate sounds, but a few escaped anyway in soft, panting moans as her inner muscles gripped and pulsed around his shaft.

Her rich, decadent scent filled his senses, and there was no holding back the blast of white-hot pleasure that surged through his balls and pulsed like liquid fury through his cock. “Fuck,” he growled, as his hips jerked hard and fast against her and his release shot through him in an avalanche of sensation. “
Fuck
.”

His entire body convulsed from the force of his orgasm. His head fell back, his back arching as he came so hard it felt as though it had been ripped from the very depths of his soul.

It took them both a few extra seconds to come back down from that adrenaline rush, to regulate their breathing so they weren’t gulping for air. Bodies still joined, he leaned into her and touched his forehead to hers. The vision they each had for their futures might be years apart, but this was the one place where they were always in sync. The one thing that felt so perfectly right. This intimacy between them. The way she gave herself over to him so completely. And how calm and content he felt when he was with her.

In that moment, he knew he was falling in love with her, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

He lifted his head and stared into her soft green eyes, surprised by the concern he saw there. It startled Jase, how in tune to him she was. How in tune he was to her.

“Care to tell me what that was all about?” she asked softly.

She was smart enough to know that he hadn’t locked her in the bathroom for a quick, hot fuck. Had obviously been aware of the tangle of emotions gnawing at him that he hadn’t been able to contain. It was all so complicated. How could he explain what he didn’t fully understand himself?

He looked away and shook his head. “No.”

She didn’t push him for an answer, and he was grateful. He moved away and took care of the condom while she put herself back together. Once they were both cleaned up and presentable, he grabbed her hand and laced their fingers together as he opened the door. Just outside the bathroom, Adam was leaning insolently against the opposite wall as if he’d been there a few minutes.

His eyes were glassy, and a smirk curled his lips as he leered at Kendall. “Damn, I need to find myself a cougar.”

Kendall had teased him a few weeks earlier about being a cougar, but knowing that Adam meant it in a purely nasty, derogatory way made his temper spike. Jase didn’t flip his shit easily, but he was so done with Adam and his mouth. Releasing Kendall’s hand, he took the three steps to Adam, curled his fists into his T-shirt, and slammed him up against the wall.

Jase heard Kendall call his name from behind him in a panicked voice, but his blood was at a boil and nothing mattered but putting this asshole in his place. “You need to shut your fucking mouth, Adam.”

“Maybe she’d like to shut it for me,” he sneered, his words a slur as he pushed at Jase’s chest, which didn’t so much as budge him. “When she’s done with you, I can show her what it’s like to fuck someone more her own age.”

Kendall’s soft gasp of shock put Jase over the edge, and he slammed his fist into Adam’s jaw. The other man’s face snapped to the side and he grunted, but in the next instant, he exploded and barreled his entire body into Jase, knocking them both to the floor. Punches were thrown, knuckles connected with flesh, along with body shots to the ribs. Even intoxicated, Adam was a well-trained and formidable opponent.

Jase ignored Kendall’s shouts for them to stop, and just as he was about to land a solid punch to Adam’s gut, he was yanked off of the other man by the back of his shirt, with a strength and force that brought him all the way up to his feet. Adam remained flat on his back on the floor, glaring up at Jase belligerently, but at least Adam had a bloody nose and his jaw would no doubt throb like a son-of-a-bitch, Jase thought with satisfaction.

Sawyer had been the one to drag him off of Adam, and Logan gave the other man a hand to help him up. Adam swayed on his feet before gaining his balance, then set his shoulders back in a cocky stance, and Jase was sorely tempted to knock Adam back on his ass again.

“What the fuck is going on?” Dean barked in that authoritative tone of his. His hands were jammed on his hips, and his expression was pissed as he looked from Jase to Adam and back again.

Dean waited for an answer, but Jase knew his boss wasn’t a patient man when it came to petty shit like this. “Nothing’s going on,” Jase said, realizing that the fight, or Kendall’s frantic screaming, had pretty much drawn everyone into the house to see what was causing such a ruckus. The girls were circled around Kendall trying to console her, while the men were keeping a close eye on Jase and Adam to make sure that nobody tried to throw a last punch.

“Nothing?” Dean repeated incredulously. “Are you two beating the shit out of each other for fun, then?”

Adam dragged the back of his hand across his face to wipe away the blood coming out of his nose. He didn’t utter a word. Instead, his gaze mocked Jase as if to dare him to reveal what had prompted the brawl.

He called Kendall a cougar
… Yeah, that sounded stupid and petty and juvenile. But that comment on top of all the other insults Adam had spewed out in the yard, and Jase had blown a very short fuse. Even Kendall, who was looking at him from across the room with wide, bewildered eyes, clearly didn’t understand his outburst, either.

When neither man offered up an explanation, Dean exhaled a harsh breath. “You both need to go home and cool off. We’ll talk about this at the office Monday morning.”

Jase knew a dismissal when he heard one. Dean was a fair man, but he didn’t tolerate his men butting heads and fist fighting. Especially in his home.

Adam nodded and started for the door, and Jase couldn’t resist saying, “After six beers, don’t you think you should call a cab or have someone drive you home?”

Dean’s gaze swung back around to Adam to assess the other man’s inebriated state. He must have seen something that alerted him, because Dean swore beneath his breath before he addressed Adam. “You’re not driving yourself home.”

If looks could kill, Adam’s death glare would have murdered Jase on the spot. But as much as Adam believed Jase’s remark had been a petty one, the thought of Adam driving under the influence and possibly causing an accident didn’t sit well with Jase at all.

Mac stepped forward. “I’ll drop Adam off on my way home. He can come and get his car tomorrow.”

The party broke up, with everyone deciding it was time to head home, too. Jase apologized to both Jillian and Dean for his behavior, because he knew he’d been out of line. The drive back to his place with Kendall was quiet, and not in a good way. He was silent because he didn’t want to talk about what had happened with Adam, and she was, undoubtedly, mulling over what had really caused him to come unhinged on his co-worker.

He parked his truck in the garage, and they both went through the door that led directly into the kitchen. They’d been staying at his place over the past week. He’d just recently purchased the house in a middle-class neighborhood, and it was much bigger and roomier than Kendall’s apartment. Things between them had become routine and comfortable, but he had a feeling he’d just shaken the status quo.

She set her purse on the counter, then followed him into the master bedroom, then the adjoining bathroom. He’d intended to take a shower, but she obviously had a different agenda.

“Let me take a look at that cut by your right eye,” she said evenly, in a way that made it difficult for him to read her mood.

He frowned. He hadn’t even realized he had any open wounds—bruises by tomorrow, absolutely—and he absently touched his finger to where she’d indicated. The spot right at his brow was tender and sore, like a raw scrape, and he winced. Sure enough, Adam had somehow managed to break open his skin with his fist during their scuffle.

“I’m fine,” he said with a shake of his head. “It’s just a small cut.”

Her lips pursed and her eyes flashed tenaciously. “Sit down and let me clean it up so it doesn’t get infected.”

Ms. Bossy pointed to the toilet seat, and with a sigh, he sat down on the closed lid as she took charge. He watched her retrieve a bottle of hydrogen peroxide from the medicine cabinet and a bag of cotton balls from the drawer. She washed her hands, then moved to his right side to examine the cut a bit closer.

“What happened back at Jillian’s with Adam?” she finally asked as she doused a cotton ball with the antiseptic.

She asked the question in such a calm manner, and he wasn’t sure what to make of her reserved demeanor, which made him feel distinctly uneasy. “The guy is a certified prick and has a problem running off at the mouth.”

She applied the wet cotton to his open cut, and he flinched and hissed out a sharp breath at the initial sting. “Shit, that hurts,” he muttered.

“It’s a little deeper than you think,” she said, ignoring his grimace of pain as she dabbed and wiped at the wound again. “But at least it’s not deep enough to require stitches.”

Things between them grew quiet as she continued tending to the abrasion. He didn’t care for the tension between the two of them but wasn’t sure what to do or say to alleviate it.

After a long stretch of silence, she finally spoke again. “When we came out of the bathroom and Adam made the cougar comment, I got the impression that wasn’t the first time he’d provoked you about our relationship.”

As much as he wanted to spare her the details, Jase wasn’t going to lie to her. “No, it wasn’t.”

Finished cleaning his cut, she dabbed a bit of Neosporin ointment on the scrape, then started putting everything away. “What other things did he say?”

Shit. He so didn’t want to go there with her, didn’t want her to have to hear those ignorant comments. “Kendall…”

She turned around to face him and crossed her arms over her chest. “Tell me, Jase. If it was bad enough for you to have to jump to my defense the way you did, I have a right to know why.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers and closed his eyes for a moment. All those uncertain feelings from earlier came rushing to the forefront again, along with a dose of fear…the fear of losing her once they had this conversation. He knew the possibility existed, knew he was about to touch on all the issues that would cause her to withdraw and build those walls between them again.

He opened his eyes and lifted his head, already seeing the cautious look in her eyes. “Let’s just say Adam made some very crude remarks about you being an older woman, and I’m not going to repeat his comments word for word, so don’t ask.”

“I
am
older than you. By
eight
years,” she said, her voice tight, as if she was trying to hold back her own swell of emotion. “What are we doing, Jase?” She shook her head in frustration. “You
should
be with someone younger and more your age, and I need to—”

“
Don’t
say it,” he snapped, his tone harsher than he intended. She gave him a painfully heartbreaking look before turning around and walking out of the bathroom.

He jammed his hands through his hair in aggravation. He hadn’t meant to snap, but he wasn’t ready to hear those inevitable words that would have Kendall walking out of his life. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

It was such a selfish thought considering he couldn’t make her any promises.

W
ith the day
almost done at Pure Bliss, Kendall sat in her studio office, working to finish editing the pictures from a recent boudoir photo shoot before she left for the evening. She was meeting Jase at his place in an hour for dinner, so she still had about forty minutes before she closed shop and headed out.

Four days had passed since the incident at Dean and Jillian’s, and since that night, there’d been a definite change between them. It was as though that evening, and their conversation back at his place, had initiated the beginning of the end. Things had gone from comfortable to strained, and they both knew why. It had nothing to do with Jase’s altercation with Adam—that had just been the catalyst—and everything to do with the fact that they were at different points in their lives. They were standing at a fork in the road with two contrasting paths leading in opposite directions.

They were also at a stalemate because neither one of them could bring themselves to make the next logical move. They hadn’t spoken about the huge elephant in the room, had avoided any discussion about the future, but she felt the shift between them in the tentative way they glanced at one another and in the quiet tension between them. Even the sex had changed. Having Jase inside her had become more about the slow, intimate pleasure of making love rather than indulging in the raw, primal, erotic edge he’d introduced her to. The passion between them hadn’t abated; it had just transformed into something deeper and more emotional.