The Sapphire Affair (A Jewel Novel Book 1) (18 page)

“And the fucker got away with it,” Jake added through gritted teeth. A bout of long-simmering tension curled through him, winding in his veins, twisting through his blood as memories flashed before him.

The cops at the door.

The knock.

The solemn look on their faces as they took off their blue caps, came inside, and told them the news. Died on impact. The car had skidded off the road and wrapped itself around a tree.

“I was seventeen, Kate was eighteen, and the younger ones were only seven and eight.”

“Wow. I can’t even imagine. That’s so sad. Did they find the guy?”

He breathed in sharply. “Yes, but nothing happened.”

Those words—nothing happened—contained all his anger, all his frustration, and all his reasons.

“What do you mean?”

“He was some twenty-three-year-old trust-fund baby, smashed out of his mind, and he lawyered up and got away with it. I think, if memory serves,” Jake said, sarcasm dripping from his tone, “he did have to put in fifty hours of community service. Reshelving books at the library. I’m sure that taught him a big lesson.”

Steph huffed. “Amazing how just hiring a lawyer and fighting like an asshole can enable you to get away with stuff.” She squeezed his arm. “And that’s why you do what you do? Because you don’t like it when the bad guys get away with it,” she said, and she got it. Not like it was hard to connect the dots, but it was a relief not to have to.

“I guess I’ve found my own way to try to see justice done.”

“You’re Batman,” she pronounced, and that made him laugh. The serious moment started to fade away, like grains of sand pulled out to sea. “So that makes us Batman and Robin Hood, then?”

“Seems like it. Except I don’t have that weird nipple armor.”

She stopped walking, darted out her hand, and splayed it around the fabric of his shirt. She pretended to assess his nipple armor, or lack thereof. “Confirmed. The subject does not have nipple armor. However, he does have insanely hard pecs, and quite possibly the firmest chest we’ve ever felt.”

He chuckled deeply as he backed up, leaning against a lifeguard stand, unoccupied at this late hour. The bar wasn’t far away, but he felt like they were in their own corner of the night. He couldn’t deny there was something nice about the moment shifting so seamlessly from heavy to light. That the harder conversation was had, and they weren’t going to linger or wallow in it. They were speeding toward the path of innuendo again and that had its own risks.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

He clasped his hand over hers, tugging her closer.

“This whole
just-work
thing is working out really well, isn’t it,” he said in a low voice as he held her hand against his body. He craved her touch. Hell, right now, a part of him seemed to need it. Not just that insistent organ in his pants knocking on his fly. But his heart.
That
organ. Because he liked this woman. Liked her humor. Liked her heart. He still didn’t want to get involved on a job . . . but he knew one thing for sure—he wanted her.

Badly.

Despite all the reasons he was supposed to stay away from complications, he was having a hell of a time walking away. Maybe it was foolish, maybe it was risky, but this second, being with her felt only right.

“Incredibly well,” she whispered, running her thumb in a circle across his chest.

“Steph,” he said in a warning.

“Jake,” she said, like she was pushing back. “I thought we agreed . . .”

“We did.” He guided her hand across his chest and down to his stomach.

She inhaled sharply as she traced his stomach, her touch like a torch, setting his nerves aflame. He tried so damn hard to be practical, to be focused, to refuse to give in. He had a job. He had responsibilities. But he didn’t know if he’d last any longer holding out. “You have sand here,” he said, pointing to her ear. His voice came out like dust.

She ran her finger over it. But missed.

“No. Right there,” he said, reaching for her ear and brushing off the grains, and then catching a faint whiff of that coconut smell again. Drove him wild. He let his fingers drift into her hair. Looped them farther, cupping the back of her head. “What is it about you that I can’t resist? Your kisses are my kryptonite.”

He wrapped his hands in her hair, grasping the back of her skull as he kissed her on the beach by the lifeguard stand. Her lips were delicious, all cherry sweet from the Popsicle. As he deepened the kiss, she murmured against his lips, kissing back with all she had. It was a kiss you’d write home about or watch on a movie screen. He couldn’t even pinpoint what made it so damn good. He couldn’t deconstruct the kiss and say it was the shape of her lips, or the softness of her tongue, or the depth of the kissing.

It was something else entirely.

Something unknown. Something that drove him on. She kissed with such passion, such vulnerability, as if his kisses were the only ones she wanted, the only ones that would ever make her feel this way. She held nothing back as she melted into his arms and pressed her body to his in a full-body kiss—lips, tongue, hands, hips. Every part of her aligned with every part of him.

Even though they were fully clothed on the beach, she started rubbing against him, her crotch grinding into his erection. His body thrummed with lust. Whatever reasons he’d had not to touch her again seemed woefully unimportant compared to the rush of heat in his veins from her closeness.

“You taste so good,” he whispered hotly as he broke the kiss.

She flashed him the sexiest grin. “So do you.” She ran her fingers along his jawline, tracing his stubble and brushing her thumb across his face. Even that small touch turned him on fiercely. This was risky, but yet, his brain was urging him to roll the dice.

Or maybe it was his dick calling the shots.

He cupped her ass and tugged her closer, and soon, she was practically riding him vertically by the lifeguard stand. She moaned into his mouth, and his erection knocked against his shorts. He broke the kiss, grabbed her hand, and climbed up the lifeguard stand.

“Jake,” she whispered with a naughty grin.

“What? The view’s better up here. I can see the water perfectly,” he said as he sat down on the weatherworn white wood and held her hand as she reached the last rung. “Climb on top.”

They were far enough away from the bar that they weren’t making a spectacle of themselves, and the dark of the night shielded them the rest of the way. He tugged her on top of him, so she straddled him, her knees pressing into the wood.

“Ride me,” he said in a low voice.

She arched an eyebrow, asking an unspoken question.

No, he didn’t expect her to fuck him like this, though the image sent blood to all the right places. But he wanted her close, wanted to answer the call he felt in her body. Her need. Her desires.

“Like this?”

“Yes.”

Like high school. Like college. Like dry humping. Which could be pretty fucking awesome when you wanted a woman with this kind of intensity. She lifted her skirt and pressed against his hard-on through his shorts.

He wrapped his hands around her rear and squeezed, then pulled her closer, guiding her moves. She parted her lips, a sexy sigh escaping as she rocked against him, the full length of his erection against her wet panties. She swiveled her hips and jammed down hard on him.

“I’ve been picturing this,” he said as she rocked back and forth against his hard-on.

“Just like this? Clothes on?”

“On. Off. Doesn’t matter. Ideally off. But I’ll take this,” he said, groaning as she picked up speed. “You look so fucking hot on top of me and you feel incredible.” He could only imagine how fantastic she’d feel when he was buried deep inside her, her wetness gripping his dick. Desire crashed wildly through his body as she moved faster, building friction, seeking release. “I bet you’d look crazy hot under me with your legs spread, and you begging me to slide into you and fuck you ’til you come hard.”

Her pretty green eyes widened, and for a moment he wondered if he’d gone too far. If his dirty words and filthy thoughts were too much for her. But she didn’t answer him with words. Instead, she answered by rocking her pelvis faster on him. She dropped her face to his neck and layered soft little kisses there.

Kisses that drove him wild.

She reached his ear. “Two,” she whispered, and he knew what she meant.

“Go for it.”

“I want to come like this,” she whispered like it was a naughty confession.

“Do it,” he said, like a command. “So no one hears you but me.”

No way was she going to do this. She could not, would not, dry hump him to orgasm outside on a beach. But she was doing it anyway, riding him with her clothes on, craving more of his sweet dirty talk. “Tell me how much you want me to come,” she said, her voice sounding like it belonged to someone else as she talked to him in ways she’d never spoken to a lover before.

“So. Fucking. Much,” he said, his strong arms looped around her, his hard length pressing between her legs, his sexy growl in her ear. “I love the way you look when you lose control. How your lips part,” he said, narrating her own path to orgasm as her lips fell open. “How your breathing turns fast,” he continued, and her breaths came quickly. “How you rock against me wildly, your hips going crazy.”

“Oh God,” she said, gasping as she chased her own orgasm, racing after it, like a comet, grabbing its tail and holding on for dear life as it flew. She started to shout his name, and in a second his palm was on her mouth, so she screamed into the silence of his hand as she came undone on him in a wild frenzy of silence and heat.

She would not be deterred tonight. As soon as they reached Happy Turtle where his car was parked, she dropped her hand to his shorts, cupping his erection.

“I have to tell you something,” she began, stroking him through his clothes.

He moaned. “Is this truth or dare?”

“Truth. And it’s this. That ratio just got compressed.”

“Is that so?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

“That is so. Because tonight we’re going to be two-to-one.” She moved in close and whispered in his ear. “I want my turn. I want you.”

“Steph,” he said in a low warning.

“Jake. Resistance is futile.”

“Does it feel like I’m resisting?”

“No. It feels like you’re dying for me to wrap my lips around you,” she said, unzipping his shorts in a flash.

He grabbed her hand, stopping her. “In the car?”

“In the car?” she repeated, imitating his deep voice. “Yes, like you did to me yesterday. Think of it as my evening the score.”

“But I’ve given you two orgasms,” he said playfully, but then he stopped talking when she sneaked her hand into his boxer briefs. She bit her lip as she felt him for the first time. Holy hard-on. Holy size. Jake was packing some serious inches. She’d sensed it from rubbing up against the full length of him, but now with her bare hands wrapped around him, she had the confirmation. She ran her hand up and down him, hot and heavy to the touch. Fireworks ignited in her, setting off a new round of sparks all over her body just from this—from the moment of contact.

“Lower your seat,” she said, and he obliged, dropping the driver’s seat to a fully reclined position.

“Take your shorts off,” she continued, thrilled to give him orders.

With his big hands, he pushed his shorts down to his knees, and she licked her lips as she admired the view for the first time. It was fantastic.

“Anything else you need me to do?” he asked wryly.

She shook her head, wrapped her hand tightly around the base, and met his eyes. “No. Just enjoy yourself,” she said, and lowered her mouth to his hard-on, flicking her tongue against the head.

He drew a sharp breath, and a sexy moan landed on her ears. That was her cue to continue, so she wrapped her lips around him, so damn eager to give back at last. She drew more of him into her mouth, savoring the moans and groans he made. He was not a quiet man, and that was music to her ears.

“Ah, just like that, and use your hand, too,” he murmured as he threaded his fingers into her hair.

She followed his directions, loving that he gave them, because she wanted this to be as good for him as he’d been to her.

“Harder, Steph. Do it harder,” he said, clasping his hand around her skull and moving her mouth up and down. “Take me deeper,” he said in a throaty rumble, then whispered, all hot and husky,
“please.”

Her mouth was divine. She was an angel of mercy, and the friction was heavenly. His fingers curled around her skull, her golden blonde hair spilling over his hand as he guided her. Red-hot flames sparked in his bloodstream, and pleasure crackled through his bones as she sucked him deep. Her lips tightened around his shaft, and her tongue worked miracles, flicking and licking as she took him to the back of her throat.

“Fuck, your lips look so fucking good on me,” he said on a groan. She raised her eyebrows sexily.

With one hand, he let go of his grip to sweep her hair to the side, giving him the perfect view. The sight of her mouth stretched wide, her cherry-red lips tight around his dick sent heat tearing through his body. Electricity sparked in his bones as he filled her warm mouth. Her hand wrapped tighter, and the tension in him coiled, rising higher and faster.

He could barely take it anymore. The sight of her mouth sucking him like that, her hand fisting the base, and her hair a wild tumble, drove him crazy. With barely a thread of control left, he thrust up into her, fucking her mouth.

He was going to come any second.

Words failed him. He was reduced to moans uttered in a ragged voice, desperate for release.