All I Want Is You (17 page)

“I want to lay you down,” he rasped, and she liked that idea, too. And as his hands closed over her waist, they sank to their knees together in the sand.

She pushed at his T-­shirt, whispering, “Take this off.” And together they removed the soft fabric over his head, Christy tossing it aside and pressing her palms back into his now gloriously bare chest. She'd been falling in love with that sexy chest and stomach of his every single day she'd been on the beach with him wearing only swim trunks, and to now get to touch it, explore it, felt like finally getting to play with a long-­wanted—­and very sexy—­toy.

When he finally lay her all the way back onto the bed of sand, she went willingly, ever-­so-­ready for more. And what followed was the closest she'd ever come to heaven.

Jack kissed his way down her neck, onto her chest—­and then he kissed his way thoroughly across both breasts even while he sensually kneaded them. His tongue swirled around one nipple and then the other, until finally his mouth closed fully back over her breast and he began to suckle once more, the sensation shooting straight into her panties.

“Oh God,” she breathed. “Oh Jack. You make me feel so, so good.”

As he sucked and nibbled at her nipples, his hands slid up under her skirt, his touch skimming across her thighs—­until he began to tug at her panties. She lifted without hesitation and soon felt the delicious slide of elastic and fabric down over her hips and lower. Even with her skirt still on, having his hands beneath it and her panties gone made her feel gloriously naked with him, for him.

Once the panties had been kicked off into the sand, his warm hands returned, this time more playfully, leisurely grazing her outer thighs, hips. She shivered in his grasp and wanted to be bold enough to reach up, undo his shorts—­but somehow, in that way, she still felt a little shy. It was easier to just let him take charge and guide her through this. Despite being undeniably aware of her lack of her experience, putting Jack in control made her feel comfortable, and safe.

He was kissing her again, his tongue pressing between her lips as his fingers sank into her wetness below. A sharp cry of pleasure left her, and then she relaxed into it, beginning to move instinctively against his sure touch.

“So wet, baby,” he practically growled against her ear—­then lowered a delicate kiss just below it, making her tingle all the more.

“You make me that way,” she heard herself say in a near purr, her lips raking across the stubble on his jaw. “All the time.”

A guttural sound erupted from him, and even though she hadn't quite planned to admit that, she liked exciting him.

When he stroked more deeply between her legs, she clung to him, giving herself over to every sensation, every response he brought out in her. And she realized that maybe this was one perk of sex with Jack not having happened too fast. Because she knew him now, really
knew
him, she could be even more open with him—­another way she felt safe, being so intimate with him.

Soon he thrust two fingers up inside her, ripping another small, heated cry from her throat. Her lips trembled against his neck as she panted her pleasure, and the yearning to connect their bodies in that even deeper way raged within her.

Enough that she finally reached for his belt.

His breath grew ragged again as he helped her undo his pants, and then—­oh God—­he took her hand and gently pressed her palm to his stretched cotton briefs directly where they covered his incredible hardness. The feel of him, the size of him, threatened to overwhelm her senses. “You feel so . . . big,” she murmured without planning.

He gave her a sexy grin to say, “You make me that way. All the time.”

She felt her eyes widen on his. But her voice came soft, airy. “Really?”

He nodded, looking unbelievably hot. She took in all of him—­those gorgeous eyes, that darkly stubbled jaw, the hair that still needed to be cut. And one more unplanned utterance left her lips. “No more waiting, Jack. Please. Inside me. Now.”

A low, lustful groan echoed from him and Christy's desire rose to a fever pitch as she waited for him to urgently extract a wallet from his back pocket, pull out a small square packet, and roll on the condom. She let her eyes drift down to watch, biting her lower lip in anticipation, especially since it was the first time she'd seen that part of him.

And then finally his weight settled between her open thighs, her skirt pushed high around her hips, and she took a deep breath as he began to enter her.

Oh God, she wanted him—­but it was tight, and it hurt. She closed her eyes, clenched her teeth, clung to him.

His breath came warm on her neck as he whispered, “Just relax, honey. Relax.”

And then he was kissing her cheek, and then her forehead, and then her lips, ever so gently—­and she did relax, and her body began to open to him more, allowing him to sink into her until she was full, full, full—­filled to the brink in a way that brought tears of joy to her eyes because it felt so very right.

“Oh God, Jack,” she whispered softly.

“Is it okay, baby? Feel good?”

“Uh huh,” was all she could say at first. But then she managed, “More than good. Amazing. Oh God.”

“You're
amazing,” he told her, and something in the low whisper reached down into Christy's soul and told her he truly meant that. And she wasn't sure anyone had ever thought she was amazing before.

When Jack began to move in her, it was jarring at first—­though she'd been with Kyle, this somehow felt new all over again. Yet then she relaxed into it once more, shut her eyes, and accepted the pleasure. It grew deeper with every rhythmic thrust he delivered. And for all the pain and frustration she'd endured getting to this point with Jack, now, making love with him on the beach, everything felt perfect. Their struggles to get to where they were, to this astounding place in time, had made it all the more special.

She didn't hold back when his drives into her moisture began to tear hot whimpers and cries from her. She didn't hold back when her body lifted of its own volition to meet his. To connect with him like this was all she had imagined and more.

She'd always heard that sex on the beach was uncomfortable, but she didn't feel that way at all. The soft sand created the perfect pillowy bed beneath her body, and the sound of the surf and the salt-­scented air only made the experience all the more wonderful. “I love being with you like this here,” she told him. Coral Cove had always been special to her, but now more than ever. No matter what happened between her and Jack going forward, this moment would always mean something to her.

“Aw baby,” he murmured deeply, “I love being with you, too.” And then he kissed her, slowing his movements, slowing
everything
, and somehow making her feel it even more.

“I'm so glad I asked you to kick down my door,” she said, thinking back on how far they'd come.

He cast down a sexy grin. “Mmm—­me too, honey.”

“And I'm glad you stuck around afterward,” she added on a labored breath.

“A damn good move on my part,” he agreed.

But then the little smiles they were sharing died away as Jack resumed deeper thrusts into her waiting body and as she rose to meet them. When their eyes connected now it was with the heat of shared lust, the way their bodies were fusing.

“You want to get on top?” he asked, a fresh glint of an animal desire burning in his eyes.

“Huh?” she breathed. She could barely think at this point.

And he said, “I want to make you come.”

She sucked in her breath, somehow so replete with pleasure already that she'd actually forgotten that part. “This is enough,” she said.

Then watched as his face took on a puzzled expression. “But . . .”

She shook her head lightly against the sand. “Trust me, this is about all I can handle at the moment. Nothing against a good orgasm, believe me—­but right now, I just want to keep feeling you inside me, exactly the way we are.”

He continued to hold her gaze, and when he began thrusting more deeply into her welcoming flesh again, it felt like a hot, sweet, powerful reward.

They continued that way for a wonderfully long while, until finally Jack said, “God, I'm gonna come in you, Christy.” And somehow she opened her heart to him even more, overjoyed to have taken him there as she absorbed his every last stroke.

And when he finally went still, his weight settling gently onto hers, she said, “I love you, Jack.”

Oh crap. She'd just put a label on it. A really big one! It had just somehow slipped out! Because it was so undeniably true. But she hadn't meant to tell him, for God's sake! “Oh Lord, pretend I didn't say that,” she rushed. “It just snuck out. Please don't let it ruin this.”

Jack stayed painfully quiet for a long, still moment. They no longer looked at each other—­his head rested near her shoulder and she peered up at the stars millions of miles in the distance, wishing she could snap her fingers and suddenly be that far away, too.

Oh God, how had she let herself say that? Her heart beat faster in panic and she wondered if he could feel it or if he was too busy still being as horrified at her words as she was.

And then, finally, he said, “Did you mean it?”

Oh God, what to say? Now her heartbeat tripled. And with no time to think, she simply opted for the truth. “Yes, but . . .”

“Good,” he said. “ 'Cause I love you, too, honey. I love you, too.”

 

Alice was so astonished that she

could not speak for a minute: it quite
seemed to take her breath away.

Lewis Carroll,
Through the Looking Glass

Chapter 16

A
S UTTER
astonishment flooded Christy's expression, Jack realized what he'd said. He'd more been thinking it, feeling it, than actually meaning to say it. But he understood that she'd been in the same boat and so he'd just let it out—­without much consideration for what this meant, for the questions it opened up.

But now it was out there, for both of them, and Jack reached another conclusion: He had no regrets. He loved her. And he was finally ready—­to believe in her, to let himself go there. He was finally ready to do the thing he'd feared he'd never be ready for again—­trust.

And if she loved him, too, well . . . how freaking amazing was that? He hadn't really seen any of this coming, but now that it was here, he thought it seemed almost like . . . destiny. After all, he'd been fighting it from the start—­he'd harbored doubts, he'd stayed wary, he'd pushed his feelings away time and again. So if he'd managed to get through all
that
and change his mind, and if she'd stayed patient and forgiving all this time and still wanted him . . . hell, giving in to it felt good. And not just the sex, but the rest of it, too. The part that made the sex . . . more than sex. And what they'd just done had definitely been more than sex.

Finally, he let out a laugh. “Don't look so surprised.”

She just blinked up at him, looking pretty and flushed beneath him in the moonlight. “It's hard not to. I mean . . . you haven't
seemed
like somebody who loves me.”

The next short chuckle that echoed from his throat was a little more self-­deprecating. He lifted a hand to her face, gently brushed a wavy blond tendril from her cheek. “I'm sorry, honey—­I know I've been . . . fighting this. And . . .” He lowered his chin, raised his eyebrows teasingly. “You know I actually had a pretty good reason.” He didn't mean to make her feel bad, but it was the truth and he wanted to keep things real here.

She lowered her gaze, but then met his again, her expression soft and sweet—­just like all of her. “Yeah—­it was bad timing for me to meet you at the one moment in my life when I was doing something that didn't seem totally . . . aboveboard.” Then she bit her lip and peered up at him more pointedly. “But you aren't worried anymore? About . . . getting attached.”

He nodded.

“Why?”

He tilted his head, still thinking through it. “It's just . . . getting to know you. And learning about your life, and who you are. I liked you from the start, Christy. A lot. You were . . . all I could think about,” he admitted.

Her eyes widened on him prettily. “Really?”

Another short nod. “But . . . I've been burned before. Trusting somebody. And it made me wary. Can you understand that? And forgive me for . . . everything I've done wrong up to now?”

Now it was she who nodded—­and said, “I'm sorry someone hurt you, Jack. Is it . . . something you want to tell me more about now?”

And for the first time tonight, Jack hesitated. Because . . . how could he tell her all of it? Beyond the simple part about having been cheated on—­where would he even begin? And yet he knew he owed it to her—­after all, hadn't he just told himself he wanted to keep things real? “Well, you've probably already figured out . . . it's not the easiest thing for me to talk about.”

She nodded once more, her eyes brimming with compassion, and pressed her palm softly to his bare chest. “You can tell me anything and I'll understand.”

And he felt that. Yet still his gut churned. This night was too damn good—­he didn't want to ruin it. “How about not tonight?” he whispered. “How about tonight . . . we just enjoy each other?”

And—­aw God—­he loved hearing her soft little intake of breath in response; it moved all through him.

And no matter what she claimed, he still wanted to make her come.

So without waiting for a reply, he lowered his mouth to hers for more long, slow kissing. Her light, delicate moan reached all the way into his soul, urging him onward—­and soon his kisses left her sweet lips to move down onto her slender neck and then to the smooth skin of her freshly tanned shoulders.

As he rained still more kisses across the curves of her pale breasts, outlined in tan by the shape of her bikini top, he paused to suck on their puckered tips. Her impassioned sighs made him harder than he'd already gotten, and everything in his body tightened with hunger. Damn, she was beautiful. And when her fingers began to thread through his hair, grazing his scalp, he suckled all the deeper, harder, and one hand drifted instinctively between her thighs.

He loved when she parted them automatically—­loved that he could feel her giving herself to him completely, wanting the same things
he
wanted. He'd spent too long resisting this—­and it was nice to be on the same page now, both opening to the desire together.

Heady whimpers and hot little cries rose from her throat, fueling his need as he stroked his fingers through her wetness, focusing on the swollen point he knew brought her the most pleasure.

But he didn't want only his hand there—­he wanted to
kiss
her there, wanted to love her with his mouth. And so he left her breasts, dropping tender kisses across her tan stomach and next to her navel, and it was just as he pushed two fingers up inside her moist warmth that he raked his tongue across the parted flesh between her legs.

She yelped, jerked, but he pressed his other hand warmly to her hip to still her, calm her.

And then she relaxed into it. And he licked that sensitive spot again, again, until her pelvis began to rise against the pressure of his mouth in rhythm with his ministrations, moving against his eager tongue more and more fervently.

His cock had grown rock hard again now, his whole body responding to her pleasure. He wanted to make her feel so damn good—­he wanted to make her feel better than she'd ever felt in her life. And it filled him with a masculine pride he hadn't expected to know he was only the second man to be with her and that, in fact, he probably
was
making her feel better than she ever had. And he intended to do a lot of that.

“Oh . . . oh God, Jack,” she murmured in a haze of excitement he could feel wrapping around him. It set every nerve ending on edge, made him hunger still more to make her explode into orgasm.

Now her fingers practically clawed at his scalp, but he didn't mind—­he liked it. His own fingertips dug into her ass as he used both mouth and tongue on her, and she moved faster and more powerfully against him until finally she tensed, then cried out as she came. Hot satisfaction flowed through Jack—­after all the frustration he'd put her through, somehow this felt like a way to make up for it.

When finally the orgasm finished, she said, “Jack, please,” and—­mmm, God—­she sounded desperate, her voice heated.

“Please what, baby?” he whispered against her skin, then lowered a soft kiss to the spot just below her belly button.

“In me again. Now.”

Oh. Okay. Definitely. And he didn't waste a second before sliding up alongside her body, using his hands to firmly spread her legs once more, and sliding smoothly into her, all the way to the hilt. Aw, God, yes—­she was so snug, warm. Her deep gasp told him it felt just as good to her as it did to him.

And funny—­but he felt like their bodies had been apart longer than they really had, like he'd been waiting for this, aching for her. Maybe it was just soothing the ache he'd been trying to push down all along, all over again.
Maybe it'll always be that way. Maybe we'll always be filled with that hungry need. Maybe with her, it'll never get normal, never get average.

He didn't know where those thoughts came from—­only that he liked them. And that he believed with Christy maybe he could really have that, and it made him glad all over again that he'd finally given in to what he really wanted.

This is the real thing. And the past doesn't matter. This is safe. This is special. And . . . this time it can last.

Following his animal urges, he moved in her hot and wild, thrusting hard, hard, hard. Until the time came when he needed to go slower, to rest a little and rebuild his strength—­and that's when he whispered more sweet things to her about loving her, loving to be inside her, loving to kiss her and touch her.

She whispered back that she loved him, too. And then she told him this was the most amazing night of her entire life. And that “you take away everything bad.”

And then he couldn't hold back anymore and he came inside her, thinking it might just be the most amazing night of
his
life, too. When he'd least expected it. But then it hit him that was when most of the important stuff usually came along.

Only then something
not
so good hit him. “Aw shit. Honey, I'm so sorry—­I was so excited that I forgot a condom.” Damn, he'd never done that in his life. “But I promise I'm safe. You don't have anything to worry about.”

And she simply said, “I know. I trust you.”

And he trusted her, too.

And as he eased away to lie beside her in the sand, the cool sea breeze wafting over them, he thought he could easily stay here like this with her forever.

F
OR
Christy, the following days and nights were blissful.

In addition to relaxing with Jack on the beach, they spent time in a variety of other ways, too.

One afternoon, they drove to area thrift shops and Christy found some amazing old pieces of costume jewelry, cheap. And in between other activities, she found time to make some new items for consignment, usually working in the evening, in the room, while Jack looked at his laptop.

They hung out with Grandpa Charlie at Sunnymeade and he told them funny stories about Christy's dad as a kid that she'd never heard before. Twice they picked up dinner and had an evening picnic with him, one night even inviting Ron the Nurse to join them out on the lawn for fried chicken. When Jack broke out the camera and started taking pictures, he reminded her, “New pictures for new memories,” and she smiled. Seemed all kinds of new memories were being made on this trip.

Another evening John and Nancy Romo invited them to their cottage near the ocean for a cookout, allowing them to spend more time with Anna and Duke. And it turned out the Romos lived only a ­couple of streets away from Fletcher McCloud. Jack was right—­Christy adored all the little pastel beach houses Jack had told her about, and after grilling out, they sat in white Adirondack chairs around a fire pit on the beach roasting marshmallows for s'mores.

She and Jack snuggled, sharing one of the big white chairs, and later, Anna pulled her aside to quietly say, “Seems like things are going well with him now, yes?” And Christy assured her they were, and couldn't help thinking it seemed like almost
everything
was going well for her these days. And she wasn't sure exactly how that had happened, but she wasn't complaining.

Christy asked Mrs. Romo if she wouldn't like a nice white cat, and Anna joined her in prodding after she heard about Dinah at the Hungry Fisherman, but Nancy declined. Christy also asked several of the nurses at Sunnymeade, along with the stained-­glass artist, Tamra, when they saw her the following night at the Sunset Celebration. And she asked Fletcher, too—­who said, “I like cats, but I can't. My wife's allergic.”

When, in response, Christy exchanged looks with Jack, Fletcher just laughed and said, “I know, I know—­but she'll be home soon.” And Christy saw what Jack meant—­something in the easy way he said it almost convinced her it was true.

Reece Donovan invited Christy and Jack to go out on his catamaran snorkeling in the small bed of coral about a half mile offshore that gave Coral Cove its name. Christy had seen the vessel docked behind the motel, but hadn't realized it belonged to Reece until he explained that he sometimes took tourists snorkeling, and that Happy Crab guests went for free. “Since you're the only guests right now, you'll have the coral and the fish all to yourselves.”

Although Christy felt bad that business seemed lacking at both the Happy Crab and the Hungry Fisherman, she and Jack enjoyed a great day with Reece on the water, complete with lunch.

Of course, the best parts of those days for Christy were actually the nights, usually after they returned to “the Crab,” as they'd started calling it. They now shared the same bed, and Christy loved that Jack couldn't keep his hands off her. Sex, sleep, sex, sleep—­that was how most nights went, and Christy always found herself sleepy but happy the next day. Fortunately, it was easy to squeeze in a nap on the beach.

Late Friday afternoon, Christy paid a visit to Grandpa Charlie on her own to drop off the paperback mysteries he'd requested she get for him. She'd pushed his wheelchair out onto the lawn and now sat on a wrought iron bench next to the chair. “I'm so happy, Grandpa,” she told him. Then she let out a replete sigh of joy, just basking in it.

“I can't tell you how glad I am about that, my grandgirl,” he said on a laugh. “You and Jack have gotten past your differences and moved things along to where they
should
be—­am I right?”

She hadn't told him that—­she hadn't talked to him about her relationship with Jack since explaining she'd let Jack think she was only interested in money—­but she guessed her grandfather had seen the two of them together enough this week that it was obvious. “Yes, you are,” she informed him with a smile.

Another chuckle echoed from Grandpa Charlie's throat. “I knew that Jack was a good egg and would come to his senses.”