Chapter 40

The fact that his action was innocent has quelled any fear; there’s no panic in my response, no fluttering stomach. Instead the intimacy is sending me haywire.

Without thought I lean up gently and kiss his mouth lightly. A slight touching of the lips, almost a chaste contact. I don’t know what makes me do it. I’ve no reasoning or thought in my head, only this need to feel his mouth on mine. His soft, warm, full lips enticing me for just a moment to see how it felt again. Pushed on by the proximity and gentle warmth of his breath against my own. My body reacts low down inside, spreading heat through my pelvis and shivers down my legs.

I’m playing with danger, and trepidation is beginning to rise within me; fear at my own reaction to him. He smells familiar, his mouth too alluring. I peck him on the lips again, only slightly firmer this time. Urged on by something inside of me but this time he responds, his mouth parting lightly and he kisses me back, pushing his own mouth to me.

I freeze. My heart rate escalates into a frenzy and I hold still, very, very still. He doesn’t open his eyes or move, just inhales heavily indicating he’s still asleep.

Crap. What the hell am I doing?

I make to move away, no longer able to trust myself but his hand on my jaw tenses, pulls my face forward and he sinks his lips to mine. It’s tender at first, my heart pounding, my head spinning, but every part of my body responds with a vengeance. I open my mouth to his advance; his hand slides down to my breast once more, laying over it and cupping it while my body sizzles under his palm. His lips move against me seductively, kissing me—not tongues—but it feels like the most erotic thing in the world.

Jake kisses exactly as I expected him too. Mind-blowing and experienced. His mouth matching mine in soft grazing movement, making me lightheaded and my breathing turns shallow. I allow my hands to wander up to his face and trace his square jawline softly, bringing us closer together. He feels so good! His face firm and I want this more than I should. I let myself move into the touch and let it continue. Lost in how he feels and tastes.

His hand moves down boldly, curling behind my butt and pulls me into his groin, making it clear he’s aroused, his hard body pressing into my pelvis. I groan involuntarily, closing my eyes tighter, letting him take control, ignoring the little voices in my head trying to pull me away. His lips part further, pressing into mine and his tongue slides into my mouth, setting me alight with passion. Deepening it. It’s erotic and intense; the sensation causing my stomach to flutter and flip. He tastes like heaven and for minutes I’m lost to what we are doing, all reason floating away. His tongue feels divine and I respond with a longing I never knew I was capable of as his arms come around me suggestively. Breath hitching between us.

One hand releases me to latch my thigh and pull me up the bed so it’s around his waist, grinding our pelvises together. He maneuvers over me, his body weight pressing down, and our groins rammed snugly against one another. I can feel everything, my body sizzling with the sensations and my breath shallow and fast. Passion ignited fully as his hands and arms cage my head and my own fingers, cupping his jaw, pull him closer. Mouths fully intertwined with his stubble grazing my soft face.

Hell!

I know where this will head, in the darkness, escalating the way it is. Our bodies moving against each other in the first throes of foreplay. I know I won’t have the strength to say no or stop it. He’s causing cravings I have never experienced; a low, deep, throbbing heat and the desire to have him satisfy my hunger. His kiss too addictive to want to stop. I instinctively know that these urges are a longing to have sex, something I’ve never felt before. Something so new and so overpowering. The apex of my thighs hard against him is almost on fire and waves of desire pulse up to my stomach.

He rubs against me also breathing heavily; his kiss moving to urgent. Upping the gear from erotic passion into searing lust. Our tongues caressing one another in an intense motion; he knows how to seduce my mouth in ways that has me gasping for more, the taste of him exquisite. It’s like we just know instinctively how to come together, how to kiss each other. A perfect fit. The first man I have ever wanted to ever do this to me, and he lets me lose myself in him. My first French kiss ever and it’s beyond heavenly. I moan out softly, lost in this. My hands in his hair and nails raking down the back of his neck and over his shoulders. Feeling him out.

Every alarm bell in my brain starts going crazy, deafening me as the realization dawns on me and the lust fueled haze subsides a little. I’m on the verge of complete surrender or complete panic, body ready to self-combust, starting to come to terms with what the hell I am doing when he just stops. Instant halt to all of it. He pulls away.

He moves back off me, rolling to his side, resting his face against me, his body relaxing fully. He mumbles something incoherent and returns to deep heavy breathing while I pause and wait, scared to move, or breathe and realize he has been asleep this whole time. I’m laid panting and heaving and he’s just, well, he’s sleeping! I blanche and stare at his profile in disbelief.

It wasn’t real!

He’s dreaming and acting out in his slumber; sleep walking in a way. I’m confused, disappointed, but also relieved and yet conflicted. He’ll never know what we did, he’ll have no memory of it. I’m not sure if I want this or not. I have no clue what the hell I’m doing, or even thinking.

I think about kissing him again, trying to rouse him properly, but don’t. Instead, I slide free and get out of bed, aware of how close I just was to screwing everything up with him. Despite being completely captive to how kissing him felt, as though I’ve broken some line of trust, that I abused him in his sleep, and it makes me feel disgusting and vile. No better than my mother’s perverted lovers and what they did to me. I climb out of bed and get up quickly, in a rush to put distance between us and cool my overheated senses.

I wander to the sitting room, shaking. Unsure what to feel. I’m angry and so confused.

Why would I kiss him like that? It’s Jake! I have no excuse. I wasn’t drunk, I wasn’t half asleep; maybe it was the shock? But that kiss … Oh, my god … that kiss!

It must be shock; yesterday, from the episode with my mother, with Vanquis, and here Jake is, my savior, my protector, the hunk of the Carrero empire. I am a woman after all! I can see why my body would respond to him that way. He is gorgeous in every way and despite my issues with my past, I am still capable of being turned on. By him anyway. And that kiss is something no woman could deny.

I shouldn’t have touched him that way. I crossed the line and I’m glad he never woke up to realize what we were doing.

I could forget it ever happened if my brain would stop turning it over and over in my mind. I can still feel his mouth on mine, the taste of him, the way his tongue slid against mine, urging my body to tingle and sizzle. I can’t shake it.

The feel of his strong body caging me in, pressing down on me …

Stop it!

I shiver and reach for the throw on the couch, wrapping myself in it; standing by the window, looking out over dark Chicago to distract myself. The rough down-trodden area looks worse by moonlight and I’m counting the hours until I get out of here. It’s a distraction anyway. Something I so need right now, instead of obsessing over the highly erotic episode a few minutes ago. My skin is still tingling from head to toe.

“Hey,” Jake’s husky voice startles me, and I turn quickly, my face flushing with heat and shame. Embarrassment oozing from every pore thinking there’s a possibility he did know what we were doing after all, if he’s awake so soon.

“I woke up in a bed alone … Thought you’d run off.” He smiles lazily, still looking sleepy with messed-up hair, in his T-shirt and jeans. Poster boy for ultimate sexiness and I swallow the urge to groan with horniness.

Crap. Don’t go there.

“Hey,” I respond quickly, looking back to the window, unable to make eye contact with him while the memory of his mouth is still on mine. My body going insane with a thousand confused sensations. On high alert at his nearness.

“I’ll call the airfield in a bit … You want to go see your mom before we leave?” he yawns, and I catch him in the corner of my eye stretching out, elongating his body, and showing off naked midriff in the motion. I inwardly tense. Sculpted abdominal muscles, memories of his body pressed on top of mine, the way I reacted to him. The heat in my body refuses to simmer down with so much of him on show right now and I curse my own weakness.

“No … I don’t need to see her, she’s fine, her injuries are minor.” I retort quickly, flippantly, tension in my voice giving away my emotion, but he doesn’t pick up on it and if he does, he ignores it. He comes up behind me, wraps his arms around my shoulders while casually resting his chin on my head like he has no clue. He’s acting as though nothing has happened and I tense up inside more so. I shrug out of his arms, unable to control the longings I’m feeling. Leaving the throw to slide off onto the floor at his feet, I duck toward the kitchen and clock sight of him frowning at me.