Firestorm (17 page)

One by one, this soft, gentle woman was tearing down the barriers to a relationship he still wanted to fight with all his strength. His cock seemed determined to defeat his resolve, he thought as he tried to quell its unruly demands.

“That must be the pizza,” he said as he went to answer the door, grateful for the intrusion.

* * * * *

Jake’s condo looked spartan despite its plush beige carpeting and comfortable looking leather upholstered furniture. Kate stared at the only object in the living room that marked the room as his.

It was a massive painting above the stone fireplace. Stark metal derricks dwarfed twisted mesquite bushes. They rose, as if against all odds, out of harsh looking desert land into a magnificent sky whose tones of rose and gray and brilliant blue warmed the scene and gave life to the room.

“Like that? It’s a painting of the west Texas field my grandfather opened up back in the thirties,” Jake said as he set the pizza down on a glass-and-chrome cocktail table.

Sitting on a low leather hassock, he stretched out his long muscular legs. “I thought we might as well eat in here.”

“It’s beautiful,” Kate said, moving close to the table and sitting cross-legged on the floor at Jake’s feet. There was something about that scene, something powerful that kept her from looking away.

The scene reminded her of Jake. Hard, sometimes stark, yet imbued with softer, gentler qualities that shone through the tough outer shell like the rosy hues of the setting sun softened the bleak desert scene. Finally she turned to Jake and met his gaze.

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

101

“I’ve always thought so. I rescued the picture from Mom’s attic. Her taste runs more toward abstract stuff.”

Kate watched him pick up a slice of pizza. Silently she followed suit, and they didn't speak further until it was gone.

There was no need for words. She felt the pull of his powerful body, and somehow she sensed he felt that same magnetic attraction toward her.

Finally he shoved away the pizza box and took her in his arms. The kiss he began was endless, and it fueled her need to a painful, fever pitch.

“Jake, let me make love to you,” she said softly when he broke the kiss, and he saw unshed tears in eyes darkened with passion to the tone of a stormy azure sea.

He nodded. Didn’t trust himself to speak.

Her hand moved. He heard a snap opening, the rasp of a zipper being pulled down.

She freed his throbbing cock and caressed it with a slow, smooth rhythm.

He took it for as long as he dared. Minutes, maybe. Probably just seconds. Then he stilled her hand.

“Stop.”

“You don’t like this?”

“Oh, yeah. I like it way too much. Maybe after a while I’ll be able to enjoy it longer without losing it. But I can’t now.”

But she didn’t release him. Instead, she rose to her knees. Her hands scorched his flesh when she slid his jeans and underwear down.

Then she cradled his balls in both hands. Weighed and measured them while she stared, awestruck, into his eyes. He couldn't look down. If he did, he knew damn well he’d embarrass himself. But he had to see as well as feel her loving torture.

Struggling for control, he focused on her rosy, pebbled tongue as it darted out between her soft pink lips to flick the tip of his cock again and again.

She bathed him there like he’d once seen a mother cat lave her kitten. It struck him again how pale and small her hands were. And soft. Silky soft against his own dark, straining flesh.

The pointed tip of her tongue still teasing the blunt head of his cock, she looked up at him. His balls tightened painfully in her gentle embrace.

God, she was killing him with her sensual torment. He was going to die if he didn’t scoop her up and drag her to his bed, sheath himself first with a goddamn condom and then with her tight wet pussy.

But he couldn't move. His strength was in her hands. And in her mouth. Her sweet, soft lips slid down his cock, and the wet, hot cavern of her mouth devoured him.

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

102

Her hands rocked gently, rolling his balls against her palms. Her swallowing motions against the head of his cock were driving him out of his mind.

She took more of him than he dreamed was possible. Now she wrapped one hand around the base of his cock. Sucking and swallowing. Squeezing and releasing her hand. Rocking his balls gently against her other palm.

He should stop her. Hold onto the thread of control that was slipping away in an erotic haze.

But he couldn’t. Giving up, he closed his eyes and let her carry him over the edge.

“Yes,” he cried out as he spurted out hot semen into her mouth for what seemed like hours.

Later, when his sanity returned, Jake watched Kate use a linen towel to wipe him clean. Then he pulled up his pants, scooped her up, and took her to his bedroom.

“I’m gonna fuck you as thoroughly as you just loved me,” he growled as he tore off both their clothes and dragged her into the shower.

* * * * *

Water sluiced over his darkly tanned skin when he re-joined her in the shower a few minutes later, a condom sheathing his erection. The hard muscles in his shoulders and chest rippled when he splayed his hands over her buttocks, lifted her as though she weighed no more than a feather, and pressed her back against the shower wall.

“Wrap your legs around my waist,” he said gruffly.

Could they make love that way? Kate wondered, but she did as he asked. She held onto his shoulders, too, although she had no doubt that Jake could still support her weight if she let go.

Truth was, she just wanted to touch him everywhere she could, feel those hard, lean muscles flexing beneath his supple skin. She loved the way the silky hair on his chest teased her nipples into rigid points while his penis throbbed against her mound.

He took her mouth and coaxed it open, but he nibbled instead of gobbling. Light nips of his teeth and a slow, lazy exploration with his tongue primed her for him. And when he thrust his tongue deep in her mouth it made her want to take his big, hot penis into her body and ease the now-familiar feeling of heat and fullness that suddenly was too much to bear.

“I want you to love me now,” she told him when he came up for air.

Warm water slithered between their bodies, and the lingering scent of the liquid soap they’d rubbed into each other’s skin filled her nostrils. When she nibbled at his shoulder, she tasted coconut and something else tropical and erotic. With her tongue, she lapped up water off his body, and between her legs she felt him swell and pulsate against the opening to her vagina.

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

103

“Feel my cock? It wants inside you, too. Loosen up your legs and let me slide you down.”

Slowly he lowered her, not stopping until she was fully impaled. He throbbed inside her, the broad, blunt tip of his steely sex doing wicked and wonderful things deep where it pressed against the mouth of her womb. In this position she was fully open to him, and the sensation of his pubic hair tickling her already swollen clitoris each time he partially withdrew and sank back inside her soon had her screaming out in ecstasy.

“Hold on, honey. You’ve got me coming again.”

The jerky spasms of his climax set off another series of tremors in her pussy that soon spread through her body.

Just as he lifted her off him and set her down, the doorbell rang.

“Damn. That must be Shana and Bear.”

Kate looked through the cascading stream of water at Jake, sorry their romantic interlude had to end for now.

“I didn’t think they’d be coming for another hour,” Jake said, his tone reflecting annoyance when he turned off the water and handed her a thick, soft towel. “Hold onto those feelings, honey.”

Hurriedly blotting herself dry, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. God, how she loved everything about him, from his darkly handsome face to the bottom of his well-shaped feet.

As she was admiring his long, muscular body, he dropped the towel, and her mouth watered at the sight of his sex, impressive even now, when it was only half erect in its nest of soft, dark hair. Her nipples hardened, and her pussy rained moisture onto her thighs.

“You’d better put on some clothes,” she said inanely, as conscious of his rapacious gaze on her as she was of her desire for him.

“Yeah.”

Striding into the bedroom, Jake opened a drawer and pulled out a soft, old Texas A&M sweatshirt. “Here, honey, this ought to cover you up enough to be decent,” he said, tossing it to her as he stared lasciviously at her taut, tingling breasts. He pulled on some gray sweatpants and padded barefoot toward the door, his sable hair still glistening wet from the shower.

They'll know what we were doing.

Alone in the bedroom, Kate rummaged through her suitcase. She pulled on panties and an old pair of running shorts. Setting down the bra she’d selected, she put on Jake’s sweatshirt instead. Her nipples ached, but for his touch, not the restraint of lace and nylon.

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

104

Somehow wearing his shirt made her feel closer to him. As she hurried to run a brush through her damp hair, she wondered if the sex could be any better if Jake loved her. The way she loved him.

Setting her dreams aside, Kate went to meet the last of Jake's sisters.

“Shana couldn’t wait. She had to see her favorite brother before we went to the hospital, or the house, or anything. Looks as though we may have come at a bad time, though,” a man was saying as he crushed Jake in a fierce bear hug.

He was huge, about Jake’s height but thicker than Jake through the chest and shoulders.

“That’s okay. By the way, I’m your wife’s only brother. How was your flight?” That was Jake, sounding out of breath after the other man’s greeting.

“Bear! I haven't hugged my brother yet,” a beautiful brunette complained, her arms full with a plump, dark-haired infant. “Here, you take Jamil.” She thrust the baby into the man's big hands.

Then Kate watched her practically leap into Jake's arms.

The man knelt with the baby, bringing his face level with those of two pretty, quiet little girls. “Uncle Jake will get to you, too, my little princesses,” he told them in a deep, slightly accented voice that made Kate wonder if he’d been educated in England. His tailor-made dark gray suit contrasted vividly with the pristine white cloth that covered his head and rested against his massive shoulders.

Kate smiled. The larger of the girls looked like a feminine version of her father, while the other one was the image of the beauty in Jake’s warm embrace.

This was Shana. The sister nearest Jake’s age, the one he’d grown up with. The one who made his cynical expression soften whenever he spoke of her.

“Jake. Are you going to introduce Kate?” Shana asked, freeing herself from her brother’s embrace and turning to smile at Kate.

Kate felt out of place in the loving group until Jake joined her and wrapped his arm around her waist. “We weren't expecting you for a while,” he said with a wicked grin.

“I can see that, little brother. Come on. Where have your manners run off to?”

Jake made the introductions, leaving Bear for last. “And this is Sheikh Dahoud el Rashid, better known around here as Bear.”

Sheikh? Jake had told Kate his sister lived in Kuwait, but she didn’t remember him saying Bear was Kuwaiti. She’d certainly not visualized the man as this big, dark, absolutely gorgeous specimen who looked so good that women must fight each other for the chance to join his harem. Kate hoped she managed to hide her shock. “Bear.

What an unusual nickname.”

“My teammates gave it to me,” Bear said with a grin.

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

105

Shana shot her husband a loving look. “Bear was an all-American linebacker for the Longhorns, but he’s really a teddy bear. Jake, did you tell Kate how I met Bear?”

“No. But I guess I’ll have to, now. Shana was staying with me at the hospital after I had a run-in with Bear on the football field. Nice guy that he is, he came to see how much damage he'd done to a poor, unsuspecting freshman second-stringer for his team’s biggest rival. Of course, this was after the game was over and the Longhorns had trounced the Aggies. From then on, he and Shana were inseparable. They both had been on the UT campus for three years by then, but that was the first time they’d run into each other.”

“I didn't know you played football.” There was a lot Kate didn't know about Jake, she thought as she tried to school her expression into one of neutral friendliness.

“Jake! I can't believe that. From the time you were ten years old, all you talked about was drilling for oil and being a first string quarterback in college. Jake still holds the Texas A&M record for most yards passing in a single game.” Shana's dark eyes sparkled, and Kate realized how proud she must be of her brother.

“Yeah. Well, it's been a long time since college. Probably if it was football season, I'd have mentioned it.” Jake's voice sounded strained, and Kate wondered what was bothering him.

“We need to get to the hospital and see Dad. I just couldn’t wait to see you,” Shana said breathlessly, her dark eyes sparkling with apparent curiosity when she watched Jake lay his hand on Kate’s hip.

Jake turned to Bear. “Better lose the
ghutra
. No need to get the Old Man's blood pressure up before his operation. Since when have you started keeping Kuwaiti traditions in Texas?”

“Since I didn’t have time to get a haircut before we rushed out and flew halfway around the world,” Bear replied, reaching up and removing the white cloth and the woven cord that had secured it to his head. Laughing, he shook his head and almost shoulder-length jet-black hair flowed from beneath what looked a lot like a loosely woven yarmulke.

“Shana, you let him go around like that, shaggy as a dog?” Jake asked.

“I like his hair long. Gives me more to run my fingers through, doesn’t it, darlin’?

Besides, yours was almost as bad when you came up to see us last month before you left Riyadh.”