He laughed again, wondering idly if he’d ever had a lover who had been quite so outspoken. He knew for damned sure that there had never been another woman who had made him feel this much.
But he wasn’t about to think about another woman right now, not when he had a bewitching little redhead beneath him, the woman who had utterly and completely bewitched him.
He slid his hands down the sides of her ribcage to grasp her narrow hips, using his knee to spread her thighs wider, and only then did he begin to move - slowly at first, long, deliberate strokes, withdrawing from her pussy until just the tip of his cock remained inside of her, and then just as slowly sliding all the way back in. He repeated this action over and over, until Scarlett was thrashing madly beneath him, her fingers digging into his buttocks as she silently urged him to go faster, to go harder.
“You’re driving me crazy here,” she panted.
He grinned, palming one breast and then the other before tweaking the nipple, watching in satisfaction as she shuddered in reaction. “Yeah, I know. But I guess that’s enough for the warm-up act. And as I recall, someone did say they wanted it rough tonight.”
He slammed into her hard this time, lifting her legs to wrap around his waist as he did. Scarlett bit down on her lip, but it wasn’t enough to stifle her whimpers as he continued to ride her hard. He slid his hands under her ass, squeezing the firm flesh of her buttocks as he lifted her partway off the mattress, a move that brought him even deeper inside that tight-as-a-vise pussy. Her lips parted this time, her breath escaping in ragged, uneven pants, as her hands clamped almost desperately around his forearms.
“Ah, God,” she sobbed, her eyes drifting shut as tears began to trickle slowly down her flushed cheeks. “It’s - ah, too much, Jackson. I can’t take anymore.”
He kissed her then, his tongue ravaging her mouth in the same way his cock continued to ram into her vagina. “Yes you can,” he whispered. “You can take whatever I choose to give you, babe. You’re my wild woman, Scarlett. My wild, passionate, beautiful woman. Show me all that wildness now, all that passion.”
She met him thrust for thrust after that, her hips bucking up in sync with his, the two of them taking each other on the wildest of rides, sharing the most frantic lovemaking Jackson could recall in his entire life. He barely felt the indentation of her teeth as she bit his shoulder when she came, too obsessed with his own overwhelming need to finish. The fact that he was bare inside of her for the first time, having foregone a condom at her suggestion, had only heightened his pleasure from the moment he’d slid inside of her. That pleasure had continued to grow and grow until it had finally reached this apex, the moment of exquisite release as he climaxed noisily, yelling out indecipherable words and grunts.
He flopped onto his belly almost lifelessly when he was done, too spent and too wrecked to move a single finger or toe. Scarlett had asked for it hard - more like demanded it in her usual bossy way - but in the end he was the one who’d wound up totally sapped.
He groaned into the mattress at the touch of her hand at his nape, giving him a gentle massage. She smoothed stray locks of hair off his damp forehead, causing him to lift his head just enough to gaze up at her smiling face. Her thumb brushed back and forth over his lips as she looked into his eyes with so much tenderness it made his heart ache a little.
“Hey,” she murmured, her eyes twinkling mischievously even in the dimly lit room. “Have I told you yet today that I love you?”
Jackson practically vaulted into an upright position, his previous exhaustion immediately forgotten as he hauled Scarlett up off the mattress. “What did you just say?” he croaked hoarsely, grasping her shoulders as he stared down at her.
She laughed. “Well, guess I figured out a way to shock you, huh?”
He gave a little eye roll. “Babe, you’ve been saying and doing stuff to shock me from the first time we met - mostly on purpose, I’d guess. But yeah, this one definitely caught me by surprise. I wasn’t sure - ”
“If I felt that way about you? Or maybe you weren’t sure if I was capable of really loving anyone. To tell you the truth, before we met I’m not sure I was,” she replied bluntly. “I mean, I love my foster moms, I care a lot about Ananda and Isaiah, but that’s a different kind of love. What I feel for you, Jackson - well, I always figured I was too screwed up emotionally to ever have a healthy relationship with a man. That I’d find a way to sabotage anything really good. But so far so good, I guess.”
She held up her right hand where she’d crossed her index and middle finger together. He took hold of that same hand and brought it to his lips.
“I’ll say,” he whispered, the corners of his mouth lifting up into a smile. “It’s all been good with you, Scarlett. Every single minute, even those times I wanted to wring your neck. And,” he added with a chuckle, “leave it to you to beat me to the punch. All along I figured I’d be the one to say it first.”
She cleared her throat. “Ah, hate to mention it, but you still haven’t actually said it.”
Jackson grinned wickedly, tumbling her back onto the pillows without warning, causing her to squeal in surprise. “Is that a fact? Well, let me say it loud and clear then. I love you, Scarlett Strohman. I have for quite some time now, and the only reason I haven’t come right out and said so was because I figured you’d get scared off.”
She looped her arms around his neck, shaking her head. “Nope. Not a bit scared. So you can start telling me at least once a day or so.”
He kissed her softly. “You can count on that, babe. You can count on me. I know almost everyone in your life has let you down or failed you. But I’m going to promise you now that I won’t ever let you down. I can’t tell you what the future holds for us, or how we’re going to find a way to be together openly considering the circumstances. But whatever happens I won’t fail you. And I will tell you every single day how much I love you. Okay?”
Scarlett nodded, smiling at him tenderly even as a tear seeped out of the corner of one eye. “Okay.”
***
Christmas Day, Las Vegas
Scarlett closed her eyes, groaning in ecstasy. “Oh, God, how I missed your scalloped potatoes, Margie! All that cheese and butter and whatever your so-called secret ingredient is. Best Christmas present ever!”
Margie reached over to squeeze her former foster daughter’s arm. “Funny. Roz and I were just thinking the same thing. Having you back home for Christmas is the best gift we could have asked for.”
“I’ll second that,” declared Roz, lifting her glass of wine in a toast. “We missed you these past few years, kiddo. Though we totally understood why you might not have wanted to return to Vegas.”
Scarlett clinked her own glass against those of her foster moms before taking a sip of the chardonnay she’d contributed to the meal. “Still, I should have forced myself to come back for a visit way before now. I was being kind of selfish, I guess, too caught up in my own issues to consider your feelings.”