Love and Relativity (17 page)

“My
problem
is, I can’t do this shit anymore, Emma. The girl I fucking love is sitting across from me, and I can’t have her. I can never have her because all I seem to do is hurt her, and it’s killing me, alright? Seeing you like that last week...it tore me open and ripped out my insides. It feels worse than the three years I couldn’t touch you combined. There’s nothing left of me, because you have it all. You were right. I am no good for you—not now, and not in the future. I’m done with this back and forth bullshit, so please, just say what you came to say and be done with it, because I
can’t fucking take it
anymore.”

I shot to my feet, my jaw clenching. “Fine. You want to sit there and feel sorry for yourself? Beat yourself up for hurting me? Go ahead. But for your information, I came here to tell you I forgive you, and that what I
didn’t
get to say last week was that
I
messed up, too. I judged you, jumped to conclusions, and didn’t give you a chance. Yeah, I had legitimate reasons to be cautious given your reputation, but I was mostly just scared. Scared of how much I love you, of how much you really mean to me, and how I would lose you as my friend if things didn’t work out between us. I get that you couldn’t just wait around for me to change my mind all these years, that you....had some sort of void to fill, and I doubt I made it easy for you. I needed you to know that I still love you, and I’m ready to put all this shit behind us. But you’re being a stubborn dick right now, and I just...” Flustered, I tightened my purse over my arm and turned to leave. “Forget it. I’m sorry I even came here.”

He was in front of me before I could reach the cabin doorway, his hands gripping my arms, turning, then pushing me backward against the stove.

“You love me? You love me, now? Present tense?” He peered down at my lips, those blue eyes hungrily drifting over my body. I licked them nervously and he swallowed, clenching his fingers tightly against my waist, the muscles in his forearms pulsing in anticipation.

“Yes.” I braced myself against the stovetop, his carnal appraisal sending me into hot flash overdrive, and holy hell, did it feel too good to deny. Why was I here again? Why were we fighting? What was my name?

“Then what are we waiting for?”

“Jackson.” I arched a brow.

“Emma.” He arched one back.

“I’m still mad at you. Don’t come any closer,” I said, feebly attempting to peel his fingers away from my waist.

“Or what?”

“I’ll...I’ll...”

“You’ll what? Clean my mouth out with soap?” he cocked his head, peeking at the bar of soap near the sink behind me. Humor flickered in his eyes before darkening to full-on sexy I-like-a-challenge mode. Not that his funny eyes weren’t sexy, because dear God, they were hot. But his determined I-dare-you look was 100 percent panty combusting, and I had zero willpower where it was concerned.

“Emma,” he leaned in, grazing his nose against my earlobe and then up into my hair, where he paused to take a deep whiff, “stop fighting it. Just breathe.” His breath caused a few loose strands of my ponytail to fall around my face. He caught them and slid them away from my cheeks, hooking them back over my ear. The sensation triggered a chill down my spine and he let out a low sigh against my forehead, kissing it softly, then gently hooked two fingers into the waistband of my jeans to tug me against him. My torso spasmed and heated beneath his touch, and my eyes fell shut. “Open your eyes, baby. Look at me.” He pressed his forehead down to meet mine, my eyelids fluttering open at his command. “Look at me and tell me you don’t want it.”

I peered up at him with unsteady breaths, hearing his throat work when I tilted my lips to graze his. The contact was feather light, my heart hammering through my chest at the feel of it. “I’m looking,” I breathed against him.

“Good. Because right now, all I want to do is rip your clothes off and make you come until you can’t stand, and I want your eyes on me the whole time, are we clear?”

And there went any ounce of willpower I possessed.

Our mouths met and teeth clashed, my arms snapping around his neck in a vise-like grip. His fingers slid along the inside of my waistband to the center and he undid the top button, simultaneously pressing his erection into me, a near-feral groan emitting from his throat.

Dear God, if I made it through this alive and conscious, my name deserved to be added to some X-rated category in the Guinness Book of World Records or something.

“Do you want it?” he exhaled against my lips.

“Yes.”

He didn’t have to ask twice. Lifting me up onto the edge of the stove counter, he shimmied my pants down, tearing them from my ankles to toss them to the floor. We yanked off his swimsuit, and I dragged my fingers over his smooth, toned abs, which I was sure I’d have loads of fun running my tongue over. I marveled at the sight of him fully nude. When he went for my shirt, he stopped just beneath the hem, inching his hands up over my ribcage, smoothing his fingers between each rib, feeling as he went. He moved farther north, my heart rate spiking when his thumbs reached the undersides of my breasts. Feeling my nipples beneath the cups of my bra, he lingered for a second, his tongue stroking mine, then snaked a hand around to unhook the clasp at the back.

“Jackson,” I gasped, glancing down, “I haven’t done this in a while. So I might not be very good at—”

“Stop right there.” He angled his head down and bit my bottom lip, a sexy-as-hell reprimand. “Come here.” He stepped back a hair to give me room to slide down from the counter. “This is not about what you can do for me, do you understand? This is about me making you feel good and showing you how fucking beautiful and valuable you are. Emma, look at me.” He pinched my chin between his thumb and forefinger and forced my gaze upward again. “You. Are.
Beautiful
. I will
never
reject you like he did. Never.” He took my hand and placed it over his erection, forcing my fingers tightly against his shaft. “That’s all you.” Planting his hands firmly on the sides of my thighs, he dug his nails into my skin and spun me around. I found myself facing a small, cracked mirror over the sink.

Gliding his throbbing erection against my ass, he sucked in a tight breath, and I felt the heat from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. He ripped my shirt and bra off, leaving me standing naked from the waist up. Pulling the hair tie from my ponytail, he let my long, soft waves fall over my back and shoulders, pushing the locks to one side for access to my neck. I squirmed against him, wanting his mouth all over me.

I moaned as he kissed from the center of my neck to the corner of my shoulder, then dropped to his knees to kiss the tops of my thighs, his teeth roughly grazing the curve of my ass. “You have the most gorgeous ass. And these hips,” he latched onto them, “they drive me crazy.”

Feeling the heat of his mouth from behind and his callused fingers gripping my hips, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Jackson, please.”

“Say it, Em. I’ve been waiting so long to hear you say it.” He flicked his tongue across the small of my back and I practically convulsed.

“I want you inside of me. Please.”

Standing to his feet, he buried a hand in my hair to reach the scalp, then gently eased my head back against his shoulder, his other hand encircling my waist, fingers splayed across my abdomen. He stroked the swell of my breasts, then eased his fingers into the sides of my panties to peel them off, sliding my legs farther apart, slipping just the tip of his erection inside of me.

“Better than I imagined,” he hissed, adjusting the stance of his legs. I writhed against him, our eyes meeting in the broken mirror. Each tiny crack emphasized our distorted features, drawing out each jagged line and accent on our faces, each one broken like the mirror, but beautiful. I couldn’t look away. “There are so many things I’ve wanted to do to you.” He pulled the tip out, then slipped in again, teasing, smiling at the sound of my protest. “Want some more?” I whimpered and nodded, and he repeated the torture, slipping in, stilling slowly, then sliding out, causing my entire body to spring into thousands of tight coils.

He stopped teasing and turned his focus to my front, his fingers gliding down below my navel, rubbing slowly and rhythmically until I lost control and met the friction with soft, pleasurable moans. He had me coming in seconds. I cried out his name and splintered all around him, my head dropping forward while I gripped the edges of the counter for support. He rocked into me with a low, husky intake of breath, and when I looked up into the mirror again, he was watching only me, his eyes fierce and full of want.

The sound of a condom wrapper tearing filled the small space, and before my breathing had time to resume its natural speed, he lifted me up again, onto the stove, easing into me. The luscious, full feeling coaxed another loud moan from my lips. I wrapped my legs around him and he turned us, slamming us against a cabinet door. Pieces of paper and plastic rustled around our feet with the collision. My back smacked the door with a thud, a tackle box and containers of cereal falling from a shelf above, their contents scattering to the floor, narrowly missing our heads.

“That was the sexiest damn thing I think I’ve ever heard in my life,” he groaned against my mouth, his tongue finding mine as he adjusted our position against the cabinet. Thrusting deep, he rocked my thighs up and down as he moved inside me. Chest to chest, skin to skin, we crashed into one another, our breathing an orchestra of low-pitched hums and gasps, a rising crescendo amidst the boat’s serene creaking sound as it swayed.

“Please,” I panted, bracing my hands on his upper arms, “faster. And hard.”

Screwing his eyes tight, a muscle in his jaw jumped, one hand guiding my waist, the other on the cabinet door next to my head, fingers spread wide. “Shit, Emma, are you trying to kill me?”

“Jackson, come on,” I whined, bucking harder into him and yanking his hair. He was so deep, and his stubble grinding against the insides of my elbows as I grasped the sides of his head did nothing to slow down my impending, Earth-shattering orgasm.

And then there was his smell.

Good God, did he smell un-freaking-believably amazing: pear, coconut, sunscreen, and some kind of exotic spice all rolled into one. The man was sex on legs, that’s all there was to it. And right now, he was between mine, and the wait was about to send me into cardiac arrest. “Jackson! Come on, harder.”

His growl was damn near enraged then, and thank the heavens and every celestial being that inhabited them, he picked up the pace and pounded harder into me, wrenching my hands from his hair to pin them above me. “Fuck, you’re demanding. I love it.”

“Yeah, don’t stop, just don’t stop.”

His breath grew ragged at my words, rapid gasps bursting from his lips. He kept working me up and down the cabinet door, riding me harder and sending me thrashing against him in fragmented waves, my body bowed against him.

“Come on, beautiful,” he urged, sending me plummeting into a tectonic plate-shifting orgasm that rocked the Richter scale. Dizziness flooded me, and I vaguely wondered if the shouts from my mind-numbing encounter with Mr. Sex on Legs could be heard outside, throughout the marina.

As if reveling in that feeling couldn’t get any better, hearing him approach his climax was utter bliss. The mere sound of his strangled tone as he ascended higher and higher, the tortured whimper that emanated from him as he throbbed inside of me, was about to send me straight to orgasm number two.

“Shit, that’s good, so good...” he gasped, securing me against the cabinet surface, sending sharp, crazed upshots into my now-limp body. “Oh God, Emma,” he howled into my neck, biting down on the skin, voice raspy through clenched teeth. He came hard as he gripped the wall behind me, cupping my ass with his free hand while he rode it out. I gave him every last drop, let him take all of my pleasure, and was turned on all over again at the sight and feel of him falling apart against my body. He sighed heavily as he stilled, the most delicious sounds rumbling in his throat. “Can you stand?” he asked, gently setting me on my feet. My knees gave out and he caught me, slipping one strong arm around the curve of my waist.

“Barely.”

“Good. I’m a man of my word, then.” A lazy grin coasted over his lips and he bent and scooped me up into his arms, carrying me over to set me down on the sofa.

“What a relief.”

He cleaned up and grabbed a large, fluffy throw blanket, grinning down at me as he draped it over my body. “Lucky for you, I’m also a good cuddler.”

“Oh?”

“At your service, baby.” Drawing back the blanket, he slipped underneath it, rolled me on my side, and pulled me against him. His chest rose and fell against my back until it resumed steady, peaceful breathing. “
Mmmm
, I love you, Emma Pierce.”

I glanced back at him, his satisfied grin and drowsy eyes making me smile. “Jackson?”

“
Hhhmm
?”

“I love you, too.”

Prying one eye open, he laughed, kissing my hair and nuzzling my head deeper into the crook of his neck. “
What a relief
. Sleep, Pumpkin. You’re mine now.”

Chapter 9