She’d just never expected, in a thousand years, to say as much to him. And she’d never expected to have him reply—“Yes.”
He came even closer to her in the semidark, and then the knees of their crossed legs were nudging together, and his good hand created a dip in the mattress as he leaned on it, and his forehead bumped hers. Eve’s eyelids fluttered shut as his breath, still biscuit-sweet, ghosted against her mouth. “Yes,” he said again, “I think about you. I’ve been trying to stop. I haven’t—I haven’t even touched myself because that would make it wrong, Eve, really wrong, but I’ve been thinking and I haven’t been able to stop.”
Her breaths were quick and so, so loud over the background hum of the music, but his were quicker and louder and that turned her frenetic, nervous lust into something slower and more sure. He’d pushed out his words as if his throat was thick with this forbidden need, as if he didn’t even want to say them—like he was clinging to them desperately with bloodied hands but they escaped on an uncontrollable wave anyway. She was being wanted, if not completely then too passionately to deny, and it settled over her like a blanket of snow and a wall of midsummer heat all at once: bright and fresh enough to suck the air from her lungs, but languorous and sensual, too.
“We should do something about this,” she said.
“No.” But he didn’t sit back, didn’t stop touching her. He touched her more. He leaned an elbow against the high sofa cushions, because his wrist couldn’t support him, and then he used his other hand to—to touch her cheek, a barely there caress.
She shivered.
“It would be a terrible idea,” he went on steadily. “I’m too hard, at present, to remember why it would be a terrible idea, but I feel certain that it would.”
“Probably because we’re trying to be friends,” she supplied, “and because of the whole employ—”
“Don’t say it,” he cut in. “At least, not before I kiss you.”
“You’re going to kiss me?” She swallowed, a heavy swirl of pure want spiraling out from her pussy to skate through her entire body.
“I don’t know,” he said softly. “I shouldn’t. I didn’t intend to. But look at your face.”
She flushed. “What—what about my face?”
“You’re so obviously horny,” he said. Which was rather mortifying, until he followed up with, “It’s very difficult to resist. So, yes, I think I’ll definitely be kissing you. As long as you’d like me to. Would you like me to, Evie?”
It was the understatement of the century, but all she could manage was, “Yes.”
And apparently that was all it took for Jacob to be done talking. His hand slid from her cheek to her hair, and he gathered her braids in a gentle fist and angled her head with the same aching precision he used to angle display pillows. Then he kissed her with a lack of restraint that blew said precision out of the water.
Her pulse fluttered, desperate and relieved. A pool of liquid light glimmered behind her closed eyelids. For a moment all she could think was, I must be yours and clearly you are mine.
Fortunately, her vagina quickly took over proceedings and replaced all those fanciful feelings with good, old-fashioned arousal.
Eve moaned against the firm press of his lips, because her sensitized nerves had been ready for more of his delicacy, yet he’d given her pure passion instead. His tongue flicked out against the inside of her upper lip, a subtle yet insistent whip of warm, wet softness. Her mouth opened on a gasp and his tongue slipped deeper, teasing and taunting as his big body pressed against hers.
She could feel his cast resting on the sofa cushions behind her head, the heat of his broad body directly in front of her, his left hand in her hair completing the cocoon of Jacob she’d been trapped inside. And she liked being trapped by him, being close to him. Liked it even more when he grunted and dragged his hand lower, down her throat and over the swell of her breast. She arched into his touch and he squeezed—sudden, strong, unapologetic. He just—he fucking groped her, and it was so un-Jacoblike and yet so completely him in its ruthless demand, her pussy seemed to dissolve into a pile of glitter. Wet glitter, if the sudden flood in her underwear was anything to go by.
She shifted a little, searching for the pressure her body demanded, wanting this—wanting him—too much to be slow and measured. Sometimes, when Eve had sex, she felt like she should be stiller, quieter, in case whoever she was with realized that she genuinely lost her mind when she was horny, and they found it weird or overwhelming.
Quite a few people had found it weird or overwhelming.
But she felt oddly certain that Jacob wouldn’t be one of those people. And when she whimpered a little and sort of humped a pillow, she was proved right. Because all he did was break the kiss and pull back to look at her writhing body, and all he said was, “God, you’re amazing.”
Eve bit the fleshy part of her hand, just under her thumb, because if she didn’t, she might bite him.
“But we should stop,” he said. Only, he sounded a little hypnotized and he was still watching her with burning blue eyes. “We should really, probably stop. For the sake of professionalism, if nothing else.”
“No, thank you,” Eve said. “Here, let me get rid of my bra.”
He released an agonized sound and fell back against the cushions. “I’m going to have to take my glasses off, aren’t I?”
“And why’s that?” she asked, wriggling frantically out of her T-shirt and fumbling with her bra clasp. Jacob appeared outright inebriated with lust right now, his pupils blown and his cock a solid column beneath his jeans—but God only knew when he’d find his usual sternness and really put a stop to this. She wanted as much pleasure as possible before he came over all sensible again.
“Because,” he said, removing his glasses carefully as he spoke, “if I kept them on while I buried my face in your tits, I’d probably bend the frames.”
“Oh,” she said faintly, collapsing under the weight of her enthusiasm. “Gosh. Okay. Off with the glasses, then.”
“Mmm.” He put them on a nearby table, then turned and grabbed her hip. His hand was strong as steel, almost as if he was pinning her in place so he could lower his head and stare at her body the same way he stared at everything: with unnerving focus and obvious intent. He exhaled, hard and sharp, as his gaze moved worshipfully over her curves. Then he pressed his face against her belly and grazed his teeth over her flesh.
“Oh,” she gasped, the sensation shooting straight to her clit.
He licked the spot he’d bitten before moving upward. “Sorry. You look like you taste good.”
“And do I?”
His gaze flicked up to meet hers, his voice a low growl. “Eve. You must know that you do.” And then his inexorable examination continued. His hand slid up, up, up the length of her body, until he was cupping her bare breast, his thumb sweeping over the peaked nipple.
A whimper fell from Eve’s lips as she arched against the pillows, her thighs spreading automatically, the space between her legs feeling hollow and hungry and aching for—something. Pressure. Pleasure. Him.
Jacob drew her nipple into his mouth and sucked hard for one torturous moment before licking softly, softly. The contrast set a series of tiny fires across her body, from the pit of her stomach to the bud of her clit to the place just beneath her breastbone.