Floor Time (18 page)

He put his hands behind his head and looked up at her ceiling, unnerving her with silence. She curled her feet under her and retreated to the opposite end of the leather surface. "Well," she tried to control the tremor in her voice. "Why are you here? Lose everything at poker night and need a loan? I'm busy, if you must know. I've got the potential for three great transactions from one referral, but they are fucking commission cutters and I'm trying to figure it out," She stopped as Jack reached out a hand and put his finger over her lips.

"Sara, this is not something you study on Wikipedia. It's something you either get or you don't. Something you want or…" He flopped back and looked up at her ceiling. Mortified, she started to stand up, ready to order him out. His hand on her bare leg stopped her. "I don't mean you shouldn't launch headlong into a lifestyle without understanding. I just, here, give me that back a minute," he gestured for her computer, typed in an address and handed it back to her. A site called "leather and roses" appeared, free of any weird porn-like photos that she kept finding in her search for serious information about the psychology of a submissive. She bit her lip then looked up at him.

He rubbed his forehead with both hands before standing up to head back into the kitchen. "I need water." She stared at the screen, realizing this was exactly what she'd been seeking for the last week with no luck. An email dinged, making her change focus. The damn sellers again, telling her they'd only pay her five percent since she was "getting" two houses to list out of their deal.

Sara resolved then and there to not let him lay a finger on her again no matter how badly her body clamored for it. She was selling herself short with this guy out of pure animal lust. It was time to get some control back. She had no time for all this crazy fetish lifestyle crap.

She turned the music back on, as she made the calculations to justify her company's marketing fee to the cheapskates who wanted her to work for essentially nothing to sell their houses, her fingers shook and her skin prickled. Jack had returned to the room.

She ignored him, with some effort, until he squatted down in front of her and took the computer off her lap. Hands clasped together, she let her struggle to stay angry take over -- it was the only thing keeping her from launching herself into his arms. She could smell the combination of beer, his citrusy cologne, and lust wrap around her. Her foot throbbed where she'd skewered it. She tried to calm her racing heartbeat, but would not meet his eyes. He sighed, stood back up, sat next to her and proceeded to give her a lecture on why her services were worth a full six percent of the sale price. Sara listened, awed by his logical argument.

"Wait, Jack, let me get this down," she reached for her computer, intent on capturing the words tumbling out of his mouth. After typing furiously, asking questions, and formulating her argument for nearly thirty minutes, she closed the computer with a snap and looked up at him. His eyes shone as he studied her. Nervous and uncomfortable all of a sudden under his gaze, she tugged at her ponytail and started to ease away from him. Without a word, he reached for her arm and pulled her closer.

You want this Sara
, New Sara cooed in her ear.
Let him do what he came here to do.

Jack kept tugging at her arm in silence, until she was nestled in his lap, his arms circling her body, his lips near her ear. He released her hair from its holder and ran his hands through it, brushing it back from her face.

She took a breath as his mouth hovered over hers and resisted the urge to grasp his neck and make him kiss her. He brushed his lips over hers before retreating to stare at the ceiling again. Sara let herself remain curled in his lap, breathing him in. Let her mind touch briefly on the protected sensation she had in his arms before scurrying away in terror.

Jack is not your protector. He only wants to get laid
.
And you keep letting him
. Her brain kept up the lecturing and she stiffened in his arms as he spoke.

"Sara, I'm sorry," he said to the ceiling.

"Huh?"

"Let me finish." He leveled his deep blue gaze at her and she fell into it, unwilling to move from her spot cradled in his arms. Her skin broke out in goose bumps at his next words.

"You deserve better than how I've been treating you," he held her gaze. "You're special. I'm a shit. Not a nice guy. I should leave you alone." He shook his head as if trying to clear it. "But I can't leave you alone. I just can't," he paused. "And I've had way too much to drink." His jaw clenched as he trailed off.

She extracted herself from his arms, with reluctance, but needing to get her bearings outside of the circle of his scent. He was admitting stuff she had longed to hear, but somehow it was freaking her out instead of soothing her. She sat beside him and leaned forward. He joined her, mirroring her posture at the edge of the couch.

"I'm not an easy guy to love, or even really like," he said to his clasped hands. Sara's scalp prickled. "I know that, and I won't give you a shit load of sad sack stories about how my parents ignored or criticized me into the man I am now." He snorted. "Hell, I'd barely tolerate me if I didn't have to." Sara felt his gaze on her but kept her eyes trained on the floor. "What I know right now is that there is something about you, Sara Thornton, that has me spinning in circles. It pisses me the fuck off, if you must know," he leaned back again and pulled her next to him. She started to talk but he silenced her by pulling her face to his for a brief kiss. "Shut up, let me finish," he muttered, taking his lips from hers.

Sara started to stand up but Jack pulled her back. "Sit down, please, I. . ." he stopped. "I can't even do this right."

Sara bit back the urge to speak.

"I have thousands of people who consider me a 'friend' -- am invited to events, parties and shit every single weekend -- but I only have two maybe three people on the planet I ever really talk to." He swallowed and turned his face to hers as they sat side by side on the couch. "I need something more. And I don't understand why you keep pulling away from me." He stood up towering over her. "And this thing that I do. I'm not convinced it's good or even right, but you bring out urges in me I haven't felt for years." He turned and headed into the kitchen presumably for more water.

When he didn't return for a few minutes, Sara walked to the doorway and watched as he sat at her small breakfast bar running his hands through his hair. Her heart raced again as she walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. He grabbed it, kissed her palm and stood up in one smooth motion tugging her to him. She sighed as he covered her mouth with his but broke the contact and pushed back on his chest to hold him at arm's length.

"Jack," she said, fighting New Sara's urge to straddle him and make him carry her to bed. "I, um, I'm not a coddler, you know? I've been on my own long enough that I buy myself flowers, make my own pancake breakfasts, and am more than a little emotionally constipated. I don't know how to give up control if you must know. And the fact that I even want to…" He moved her hands from their position on his shoulders up around his neck and she melted into him again. "You scare me," she muttered into his chest. "I'm actually terrified of how I feel about you. I don't want to get hurt." Tears stung her eyes but she clenched them back. "I don't know what I want. But I know you've done something to me. And it pisses me the fuck off too." She sighed, loving he smell of him so close. "And as for the other, well, it scares me too. But it fascinates me at the same time. Kind of like you."

"Well, hell darlin' that makes two of us," he whispered into her hair. "I guess we'll just have to work through our fear together, eh? I'm willing to try, if you are." He kissed her before she could answer. She yelped when he scooped her up. "Where the hell is the bedroom?" Her brain spun, as she relished his lips on hers and his words in her ears.

Could it be, really? Jack Gordon wants me? For what? A girlfriend? A sub? Holy shit Blake is going to kill me.

Jack put her down and sat on the bed, tugging her down onto his lap, so close she no choice but to straddle him. He smiled when she pushed him back before crawling up to his lips, grasping her ass against the stiffening under his zipper.

"Jesus, woman, I have no business getting hard, I am so goddamned drunk, but you," he growled into her ear. "You, could make a dead man come, to quote Jagger and company," he yanked her t-shirt up and pulled a nipple into his mouth.

"Jack," Sara started, eyes closed as her pussy clenched in anticipation. "Are you gonna remember any of this tomorrow?" She sat up and glared into his darkening eyes. He propped himself on his elbows.

"Yes," he said, simply and pulled her back down, rolled her over and held her wrists down on the bed. She squirmed in anticipation. He took a minute to kiss her deeply, his tongue invading her mouth, before moving his lips down her neck, between her breasts, and pulling her nipples erect with his lips and teeth. He shoved a thigh between her legs and something primal in her made her rub her now aching clit against him.

"Ah, Jack, Jesus," she called out and yanked her arms out from his grasp and buried her hands in his course hair. He kept sucking each nipple, sending blasts of erotic sensation straight to her core. "I need you inside me," she demanded into his hair. "Now. I've waited long enough."

He grinned against her breast, pulled her shorts and panties aside in one quick movement and plunged two fingers inside her velvet depths. "No need to wait baby. Let me have it." His words and touch set off a hair trigger orgasm and she yelled in pleasure as her pussy clutched at his fingers and gushed moisture onto his hand. Alarmed to find herself near tears with the intensity of it and her emotional state, Sara sighed. Jack removed his fingers from her body and put them in his mouth.

"Okay I think you're really ready for me now," he started to unzip his shorts but stopped. "Oh, shit, I, um, I didn't bring anything." She grinned at him.

"Never fear lover," she sat up, unzipped his shorts and yanked them and his boxer briefs down over his hips, releasing his shaft. "I'm gonna return the favor," he laid back as she drew his thickness into her mouth, pulling, sucking, relishing the taste and essence of him.

"Ah, sweet Jesus," he fisted his hands in her hair as she cupped his balls in her hand, using her other hand to run up and down his shaft under her lips. She dipped her tongue into the slit, sucking down the pre-come that moistened him, licking around the edges of his head, bringing him nearly to the brink. His hips started bucking into her. But he stopped, and pulled her back up, forcing her to stop. "No, I want to come inside you, now," he declared. "But I…"

"I'll rustle up some protection, you get all the way undressed." Sara pulled her clothes off under his admiring gaze and checked her bedside drawer. Nothing. She ran into the living room to look in her purse. Empty. At the last minute, she ran into the bathroom, scrabbled around in the drawers and came up with a condom packet. She stopped to run a brush through her hair and grinned at herself in the mirror.

Jack Gordon eh? Well, at least she'd always have great real estate advice when she needed it, not to mention some of the best fucking she'd ever. . .

The sound of a massive snore rolled through the room, stopping her in her tracks.  She sighed and opened the door, leaning in the entry as the man who had sort of confessed that he might very possibly love her lay on his back, completely naked, his mouth open, sound asleep.

* * *

Sara jerked awake to the sound of what sounded like cars crashing and loud cursing from the vicinity of her kitchen. She sat up, rubbed her eyes and took in the rumpled side of the bed where Jack had passed out on top of the covers. Glancing down at her naked body, she smiled with the memory of last night's actual discussion. He must be trying to find the coffee pot or something in there. A nearly fruitless endeavor she knew. She laid back on her pillow and let her mind drift back to the confessions they'd made to each other. The cursing got louder and moved towards the bedroom.

"Sara!" Jack barked. "I'm late! I'm supposed to be touring a Ford exec in forty-five minutes." He stood there completely naked still, magnificent cock at half-mast. He ran a hand over his face once, found his underwear and pulled them on. "Do you have any decent coffee? Never mind, I'll get some later," he started to stalk out of the room. She sat up, alarmed.

He had forgotten. She knew it. She tried to quell crushing disappointment. He stopped in the doorway, put both hands on either side of the jamb, and took a deep breath. "I, um, need a ride home. Do you mind?" he asked without looking at her.

Sara rolled out of bed, pulled on jeans, a t-shirt, and her flip-flops, wincing as her sore foot made contact with the floor. She glared at Jack as he fiddled with email on his Blackberry, forcing back tears
.