Stay With Me (36 page)

“And when you get tired of me? Tired of this experiment?” I looked back at him. “Ten times? For real? What were your parents, Nazis?”

He ignored the latter half of my question. “You don’t get tired of people that you lo—”

I slammed my hand over his mouth. “Don’t say that right now. Not in the same sentence as you not being sure about us.”

He licked my palm leisurely, and I shivered. Finger by finger, his tongue paid absolute attention to every digit. By the time I released his mouth I was a shivery mess.

“How can I convince you if you won’t let me tell you how I feel?” When my eyes lifted to his, there was nothing but truth there. So I felt the punch clear to my stomach when he said, “I love you.”

I wanted those words. I needed those words. I squeezed my eyes shut. Wished I could believe those words.

“Look at me.”

I shook my head.

“You don’t want to see me?”

My heart squeezed at the sadness in his voice, and my eyes flew open. “Of course I want to see you. I love to look at you. I would look at you all day if I….” I trailed off to see the amusement in his eyes.

“What can I say to make you believe me?”

I didn’t actually know. I should be ecstatic, over-the-moon happy. But part of me, the part of me that I had only become recently aware of, told me that it couldn’t be real. It couldn’t last. Why should I get exactly what I want with who I wanted?

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

“The baby. What if it’s—”

“Mine? We’ll deal with that then. She’s pretty sure it’s his, though, because we weren’t really intimate at the end there. But you know Rache. She just wanted to cover all her bases and let everyone know about every
possible
outcome. I swear, she’s going to have that kid a day planner before he’s two.”

I had to smile a little at that. He was probably right.

“So you. You and Rachel. Are you—”

“We’re over. There’s nothing there, Mac. But she’s a nice person, a good friend. I owed it to her to break it off gently.”

“Even though she cheated on you?”

“I can hardly blame her.” He spread his hands. “I haven’t been there for her… mentally, for a long time. She found someone who would pay her the attention she deserves.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He smiled a crooked half smile. This time when he reached for me, I let him pull me close. “Besides. I’m kind of into wise-cracking, sun-worshipping surfer dudes who jump to conclusions now. It’s taking up a lot of my time.”

He kissed me then, so thoroughly that it actually curled my toes. His tongue worked through my mouth slow and deep, leaving my nerves sensitized and frenetic. My cock throbbed in response, and I was tired of pretending I wasn’t affected by his nearness. My hands slid down to his waist, then to his behind, and I pulled him flush against my body. Undulating against him. Grinding.

“So we’re okay,” he said. One of his broad hands slid under my shirt, rubbing the sensitive skin of my stomach.

“We’re okay,” I said, unresisting as his other hand tangled in my hair.

He held my head still as his tongue swept through my mouth, and I felt the jolt clear to my knees. His mouth trailed down my neck, pressing kisses against the skin there.

“We should take this slow, though,” I managed, baring my neck for better access. “Slower than we have been.”

He cocked his head in confusion, and I hastened to explain. “So that we’ll both be okay when… if things don’t—”

“Asshole,” he whispered. He gave me a push, and I staggered back. He swallowed a few times. His voice was stronger when he spoke again. “I tell you that I love you, and this is how you respond?”

“What do you expect me to say, Jordan?” I speared my hair with my fingertips, knowing I was screwing this up so badly. “I’m trying to be understanding. Supportive. All that crap. Give you an out.”

“What about anything that I said indicated I wanted an out?”

“Last I saw, you were cuddled up with your fiancée—”

“Yes, and then I bought a rather expensive, last-minute ticket here to prove that you’re important to me. Thanks for that, by the way.”

“I didn’t ask you to come.” The moment the words flew out of my mouth, I wanted them back. His mouth went tight and his eyes went flinty.

He folded his arms. “I’m done chasing you. I’ve chased you to your apartment, to your office, and now halfway across the damn country. One thousand four hundred eighty-seven miles.” The gap between us had never seemed so wide. “You’re going to have to make up those last few feet.”

Dammit
, it was just so simple. Why couldn’t I trust and believe that anything good could last? I felt the sting of tears at the back of my eyes. The hurricane my mother had sent through my life was still thrashing and spinning anything in its path, throwing both tangibles and intangibles in its wake. Destruction. Furniture and trees. Love. Happiness. Trust.
She fucking broke me.

And I knew then that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take that last step. As I spun on my heel, I knew I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life.

Despite his words, he grabbed my arm when I would have fled and whirled me around to face him. I struggled against his hold for a moment, realizing with a little bit of shock that it was futile. I was strong but obviously no match for him. Apparently he took working out as seriously as he did everything else.

“You’re not leaving me that easily. Not this time.”

“Move,” I ground out. “Or I’ll move you.”

He twisted my arm up behind my back—not hard enough to hurt, but certainly enough to show who was in charge. “You and what army?”

I growled furiously, helpless. I would rather he hurt me than treat me like a wayward child. Maybe that’s why I was determined to let my past win. On some level, I was still hurt, and I wasn’t done hurting him back, despite my agreement to do so. It was cowardly, and I hid the shame with anger. “Get. Off!”

“Mackenzie,” he began warningly.

I worked one of my hands loose and took a swipe at him, which he blocked and then recaptured my hands. Fingers deftly shoved my flimsy belt through the loops of my khakis and began working my button one handed. His fingers brushed my aching dick through the worn material, and I hissed.

“What are you doing?” My voice wasn’t nearly as authoritative as I wanted it to be.

“I should think that would be obvious.”

My pants fell around my knees, restricting my movement. I bucked against him, but I couldn’t deny what he and I
both
knew—I was as turned on as he was. Even without the visual of my dripping cock, bobbing in the air. I felt him throbbing against my leg. Thick. Insistent. The combined scent of our arousal was heady. Made my vision blur. I wanted him to shove me down and have his way with me, had wanted that from the moment I laid eyes on him, all icy and distant in the cold. And as I felt the sudden pressure on my lower back driving me to my knees, I realized with certain clarity that I was about to get my wish.

I was exposed, my most sensitive areas bare to his gaze. I should have been trying to hide. But when I felt those fingers working the ring of my muscle I only sighed. He must have felt my acquiescence because he let my arms fall gently. My spine dipped, and he ran his hands up and down my back, following the arch. I braced my elbows on the floor and let my head fall slack between my tense shoulders.

The sudden scent of apples hit my nose, and I squawked briefly as he inserted his finger, slick with what I could only imagine was the Sugar Valley lotion Nick had left in my goodie basket. “I was going to use that… for something else,” I managed.

“Better than this?” He was close to my ear as another delving digit joined the first.

No, I couldn’t say that applying lotion to my knobby knees while hopping foot to foot was better than this. But he was sure taking his slow-ass sweet time, and I had already waited too long. Even as irritated as he was, he was clearly going to make sure I was good and ready.

I smacked his hand away. “Just do it,” I said through gritted teeth.

He tried to go back to loosening me up, and I slapped him again. He finally bit down, hard, on the hollow of my neck. The pleasure/pain made me go stiff and still as he slowly twisted and rotated those two fingers, pumping them in and out slowly. A whimper escaped my throat, and he groaned in response.

“My luggage,” he ground out. “I need… condom.”

Despite his statement, he added a third finger, making me huff out a breath. I knew it was wrong, but I pushed my ass back at him, daring him to take it, begging him wordlessly.

“We can’t,” he said, but somehow his cock had tunneled its way between my asscheeks and was leaking a copious amount of fluid there. I clenched and pushed back against him, causing him to grip my hips tensely.

“Just a little,” I whispered, and I knew the magnitude of what I was asking him to do. I didn’t bareback, but damn if I didn’t want him buried balls deep in me, filling me, pounding me clear into the goddamned floor.

The thick, mushroomed head popped in, just enough to make us both groan. And then he was gone, leaving me empty and frustrated.

“We’ll get tested,” he ground out. “And then God help you.” He anchored his hand in my hair and pulled my head back, taking my mouth roughly. “I can’t believe you let me do that,” he scolded when we came up for air.

“I trust you,” I said, and I was surprised to find it was true. We shouldn’t have done it, and I briefly had lost my mind, but I
did
trust him. When we finally did come together with nothing but skin on skin, it would be absolutely worth the wait.

“’Bout time,” he muttered. “Now where the hell is my bag?”

Mercifully, he found the condom and was back inside of me before I could even voice a complaint. He entered me with no preamble, his length dragging across every sensitized nerve on the way in.

“Shit,” I managed, my hands clawing for traction on the smooth floor.

“Mine,” he ground out as he stroked, long and smooth.

“Who else’s would it be?” I managed. I swore fluently as he pulled out and drilled me again.

God, no one could fuck me like Jordan did. There was no point in denying that. I was mad, not crazy. He was it for me.

“I love you,” I blurted and then wished the floor could open up and eat me whole.

He stilled. “Say it again.”

I shook my head, and he pulled back, nearly all the way to the head, and then even more slowly pushed back in. His grinding had me groaning, making noises that ripped from my throat like a feral animal forced into a cage.

“Say it,” he growled, and finally I did.

“I love you,
goddammit
,” I swore, pushing a wild tangle of hair out of my eyes. “Now fuck me.”

I could feel his grin against my neck. “I love the way you talk to me so pretty, baby.” And then he complied, pinning me down and fucking me into the floor.

“Yesssss,” I hissed, pushing back onto him, meeting his hard thrusts. “That’s. Fucking. It. Don’t stop.” I could feel the pressure building in my core, the tingles spreading through my extremities. “Don’t you dare fucking stop.”

“You feel so fucking… good,” he managed, mouth flush against my neck. “I don’t know how much… how much longer….”

There was something just fundamentally different about making love to someone who loved you back. Every move, every touch was meaningful. Fingers lingered and stroked. Lips caressed, and words were whispered. We found each other’s rhythm—moved in perfect synchronicity without any effort at all.

His hand took control of my bobbing cock and began a firm stroke, base to tip, that mirrored his thrusts in my ass. When his thumb dug into the slit, I gasped, my back going rigid. I yelled as I spurted over his hand, coming so hard I saw stars, forgetting that I was at a bed-and-breakfast with vanilla guests and very thin walls. Dimly I was aware of Jordan groaning in my ear, his thrusts taking on an erratic rhythm. He convulsed against my back, and I felt him swell inside me, his hand falling off my sensitive cock. He came for quite some time, shivery and jerking there, heavy on my back as I braced us both against the storm, my breath still coming harsh and fast in my ears.

My knees hurt a little, and my leg was starting to cramp, but I would stay there as long as he wanted me to, as long as he needed me to. His weight finally powered me flat to the floor, and I collapsed there silently, his body heavy and welcome on my back. I didn’t yet care that I was lying face-first on a strange floor. Or that I had just screamed the walls down in the most intense orgasm of my life.

I briefly spared a prayer that my fellow guests had attended the Thursday night hayride and wondered how I was going to get my brains back on the inside of my head.

“You think they heard that?” Jordan’s voice, sleepy and quiet, echoed my own thoughts.

“Wonder if we’ll get a refund if the guests demand our removal?”

“You got a check from this inn in the mail,” he said, yawning. I felt bereft as Jordan slipped out of me. I heard him disposing of the condom but couldn’t be bothered to open my eyes yet.

A check in the mail? My eyes flew open. “What?”

“Peyton must have sent you a refund. I assumed you knew. That’s how I knew the exact address.”

I popped up like a jack-in-the-box. “That sneaky little mountain man. He knew I wouldn’t get it until I got back.”

Jordan flopped onto the bed. “Get up here. I have activities planned for you that don’t involve a crick in your neck and a sore back. At least not until after.”

My eyes went wide, but I was revitalized enough to scramble up and join him in bed. Sounded promising. And Jordan always kept his promises.

I
WOKE
up alone. Cold. Instinctively, I snuggled into the blankets, gradually awakening. I looked around, getting my bearings, fighting the softness of the bed that threatened to pull me back into dreamland. The dying firelight was low and lazy, sending dark patterns flitting across the walls. Despite the lure of the cozy bed, I got up, sticking my bare feet in a pair of Sugar Valley slippers. I pulled on a pair of jeans and padded to the deck. When I slid the door open, cold air rustled through the room, and I wished I’d bothered to find a shirt.