Roses & Rye (Toil & Trouble Book 3) (16 page)

I reach for her arm, but Jack is already pulling me away, recognizing that my batty mother isn’t going to tell us anymore. Not today.

Which is fine, really. My head is already on the verge of exploding. But then I grab my mom and hug her tight, feeling her heart beating light and fast next to my own. “I don’t know if I forgive you, not yet. But I will.”

She gives a watery laugh. “I know.” Then she pulls away to busy herself with the flowers, pinching off one withered bud after another, muttering to herself.

Syana also hugs me one more time before Ajax manages to pull her away. I swear time with the bruins has turned her positively handsy. He assures me again that Stephen was telling the truth, Syana is free of the moon madness. The cure works. She’s still a werewolf, of course, but all in all, I’ll take it.

Jett catches up with Jack and me on the sidewalk. Jack takes one look at her face, squeezes my hand and goes inside, the wards against him apparently null and void. Guess dying kind of wipes more than one slate clean. And it’s not like he’s exactly the same person anymore. Death does that to a person.

I should know.

Looking at the person most directly responsible for causing my death makes me aware of that like nothing else can. My sister. Murderer. I get why she was so angry now. Mom was asking her for more than any of us. But Jett did it.

She opens her mouth to say something, but I shake my head. “Shut it, Jett. We both know there’s nothing you can say that will make it better.”

With a stiff nod, Jett starts to turn back around, but before she can I yank her to me in a hard hug. It seems to be a hugging kind of day. She flinches, then wraps her arms around me gingerly at first, before squeezing more firmly, until she’s holding me just as tightly as I’m holding her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“I know,” I whisper back. And that is that.

Jack is waiting for me inside at the foot of the stairs, looking no worse for having been briefly dead. I look down at my own body and wonder if I still look the same. It still feels weird to see people actually looking at me, feeling me, hearing me. I am never going to take that shit for granted again.

Life is hard. Life is bullshit and cruel, cold and stupid.

It’s also incredibly awesome and a damn sight better than the alternative.

“I want sex,” I say, right before I reach him. Life is also hot, dirty sex.

It’s so good to be back.

He lifts an eyebrow. “I think that can be arranged.” Jack dips his head into the crook of my neck as we walk up the stairs, his warm breath tickling my ear the most exquisite sensation I’ve ever known. “You’re in so much fucking trouble, princess.”

Something warm and liquid trickles down my spine at the familiar words. It pools low in my gut as he opens the door and kicks it shut behind us.

I do like trouble.

He
pushes me back against the door as soon as we’re inside, my wrists above my head, shackled in his warm fingers. Mmm, yes. Definitely liking trouble.

But…

“Jack. We need to figure out what Mom is up to.”

“No. We fucking don’t. I’m alive. You’re alive. Right now I don’t give a shit about anything else.”

“When I asked for sex, I wasn’t thinking straight. My mom is outside,” I hiss. He laughs as he slides his free hand under my shirt and rips it from my body, making me gasp.

“Yet another thing I don’t give a shit about.” But he goes still for a moment and I feel the door at my back settle in its frame. He’s warded the room. No one is gonna get in…or out. Not that I plan on going anywhere. Ever again. Jack is mine, finally and forever mine.

I smile at him even though my stomach is trembling. “You’re gonna have to stop calling me that, you know.
Princess.
I’m gonna be a queen. Your queen.”

He smiles back but doesn’t look up, as his fingertips flick over the front closure of my bra. “Yes. But not yet. First I get to fuck you silly on your pretty pink bed.”

He’s staring when my breasts fall free, my upper half naked, my skirt twisted up around my waist. His eyes are doing that dark, swirly thing again. My throat goes dry and my nipples tighten to hard points, but I manage to croak, “That been a fantasy of yours for awhile, Frost?”

“You’ve no idea,” he growls, right before his mouth crushes mine. He’s groaning when he pulls back. “The
taste
of you. I thought you were dead. I thought I fucking lost you.”

“Back at you, sweetheart.”

He snorts. “You only had a few minutes to deal with my death. I had months, Persephone—129 days to be precise.” He pauses, meeting my eyes. “I think it drove me a little insane.”

His words are trying for light, but I can see his face and the new lines there. FTCs aren’t supposed to age, but Jack gained a couple years in the time we were apart.

“I’m sorry about what my mom did,” I whisper. “What
I
did—“

Jack leans over, putting a finger to my lips. “Shut up. We’re past all apologies. You understand me?”

“Yes sir, fucking sir,” I mumble against his touch and he laughs.

His fingertip slips past my lips and I suck the pad lightly, eliciting a groan from him before I nip it with my teeth.

“Watch it, baby,” he says. “I bite back.”

“I sincerely hope so.”

“By the way,” he asks before shoving my skirt higher around my waist. “I had this very interesting fantasy, not so long ago, right here in that very bed. You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”

“Well.” I look up at him, lifting my eyebrows. “This one time, at ghost camp…”

“I thought so.” His laugh rolls over me again. Jack happy is something new, something to savor. I can’t help but laugh with him.

Then his free hand is between my thighs. My laughter fades away as my breath starts to hitch. My trapped hands clench. There’s not enough oxygen in the room, not enough in the whole world for this feeling. This greedy, desperate feeling. My brain shuts off like Jack just hit a switch. I can’t take it.

All those months, months of maddening nothingness. Of starving for the slightest touch, the slightest bit of warmth. My nerves track the progress of those rough fingers up my thigh, sending shivers up my spine as they trail over the sensitive skin. Higher. His fingertips brush between my legs, teasing the seam of my pussy through my panties. My head falls back and my knees go weak. I need him inside me, filling me. Everything inside me tightens until I’m half out of my mind. Jack knows what he’s doing to me. I can see it in his eyes. And the bastard smiles and takes his hand away.

“
Jack
,” I whimper, my hips trying to follow his touch.

“You’re soaked.”

“I know,” I whine. “Do something about that, would you?”

His laugh this time makes me curse.

“Settle down, princess,” he says, keeping my wrists pinned to the door, yanking the bunched and tangled skirt down with a curse. “I just want you naked first.”

“I could help with this part,” I point out impatiently.

“No. I’ve got it.” Something cold replaces his hands on my wrist. I look up to see a band of ice pinning me to the door. Seconds later, the skirt is at my feet. Along with my panties. I kick them both across the room. Jack raises an eyebrow and steps back, taking me in. “That’s better.”

I’m bare just like he wanted, stretched out and displayed against the cool wooden door, but I don’t really feel naked until his eyes start to wander. And wander. The man is maddeningly thorough.

I start to squirm.

“That just makes everything look better, you know,” he says, that smirk on his lips

“So come over here and enjoy it.” It’s meant to be a taunt, but it comes out more like a plea.

Jack takes a step closer, then another. Until I can feel the heat of his body through his clothes, tantalizing against my skin, but he allows no part of him to brush up against me. I’m trembling when he dips his head. I expect a kiss, but what I get is something else.

He nips the tender skin over my racing pulse sharply, making me jump and cry out, but a second later, his tongue slides over the bite, soothing the pain away. I’m so wet now I can feel the liquid seeping down my thighs.

“Mine,” he whispers against my throat. I swallow and nod, no longer able to speak. But he’s not done. “I’ve dreamed of having you back for so long, I’m not sure this is real yet, baby. So I am going to look and touch and taste until I’m convinced. And you’re going to let me, aren’t you?”

His teeth scrape my skin again and I shudder.

“Say it, princess.”

“Yes, Jack.”

His laugh this time is low, almost a snarl of satisfaction.

The warm, silken heat of his lips trails down, exploring my collarbone as he lifts my breasts in his hands. Rough thumbs drag over my aching nipples until they’re so hard they hurt, only to be engulfed by the hot, wet torture of his mouth.

Being helpless is driving me mad. I’m already a squirming, shaking mess. I’ve wanted to touch him for so long that waiting a second more is torture, but if this is what Jack needs…

He’s kneeling now, looking up at me, one hand spread over my stomach. His hair looks almost black in the shadowy room, only the faintest glint of chestnut in the tousled strands. His eyes are intent on my face.

Slowly, he lifts my knee to his shoulder, spreading me open, the lick of the cool air between my legs a delicious and deliberate tease. His lips quirk at my gasp, then brush my stomach, the rasp of his jaw against my skin making me whimper. His mouth trails down, over my hipbone and I go to my toes, curling my other leg around those powerful shoulders, pleading shamelessly.

In response, Jack slides his tongue over my clit once lightly, using his fingers to keep me open as he pauses to look up when I cry out. That look is pure unadulterated greed. He craves my response as much as I crave giving it to him. When he drops his head again and wraps his lips around my clit, I can’t take it anymore. The ice at my wrists bursts apart and I drop my hands, burying my fingers in his hair as I rock my hips, coming so hard that if the door weren’t there to hold me up, I’d be on the floor.

Seconds later, I am. Or rather Jack is on the floor, on my fluffy white rug and I’m on top of him.

I look around blurrily. “This isn’t the bed.”

“We’ll get there.” Jack stretches lazily, one hand palming my lower back, then sliding down, cupping my ass. I can feel him hard between my legs, the bulging seam of his jeans rough against my still-pulsing center. “Eventually. We’ve got time, baby. We’ll be playing catch-up for the rest of lives.”

Our very long lives.

Something warm and content snuggles deep into my belly and purrs. But I’ve never been as patient as Jack. One orgasm down, ninety-nine more to go.

“You’re still dressed.”

“That is a problem.” He doesn’t seem fussed, though, his hands wandering to my bare breasts again. Since his touch tends to take away my higher reasoning skills, I pull back and shake a finger at him.

“It’s not fair. I’ve missed your body just as much as you’ve missed mine.”

His grin is wicked and slow. “Prove it.”

“Alrighty then.” A hastily whispered snippet of rhyme later and Jack’s clothes are gone, only a tendril of ash floating in the air. His eyes widen.

“You
have
to teach me that one.”

“Witch magic.” I wink and move against him. I’m slick and hot from the orgasm he just gave me. Jack gasps, his hands dropping to my hips. He’s hard as stone and the feel of him between my legs sends little shocks of pleasure dancing up my spine. I grind myself along that rigid length over and over again, but I don’t let him inside of me. Not yet. My tenuous willpower isn’t going to last long, but I need to bask in this feeling just a little longer.

Jack’s chest tightens under my hands, his eyes fixed on my body as I move, his gaze just as hungry as I feel. Then he lifts his gaze to mine. My heart nearly stops, still half expecting the familiar ache as he looks right through me. But I’m alive and so is he and suddenly I can’t take it anymore.

I reach between us, wrapping my fingers around him, squeezing once. He’s slippery with my juices, pulsing against my hand. Jack groans and lifts his hips, forcing his thick length through my fingers as I watch. His body is taut under me, dark against the white rug, muscles rigid as I circle his thick tip, both of us starting to shake.

“Enough,” he growls. That’s all the warning I get.

An instant later, I’m face down on the rug and Jack’s inside me in one wickedly sudden thrust. The tidal wave of pleasure has my eyes rolling back in my head. He’s doing that thing with his hips again, that thing that hits every sweet spot I have and makes me mindless and desperate and greedy. His fingers are tangled in my hair, tugging my head back as he fucks me slow and deep. Each motion deliberate and hard, like he’s trying to join more than our bodies. To make sure we’re never separated again. But our souls are already intertwined so tightly even death couldn’t keep us apart.

“Let me come,” I plead seconds later, my nails digging into the rug.

“Patience is a virtue,” he grinds out, his hips slapping into my ass.

“You took my virtue long ago. And I’m fresh out of patience. Goddammit, Jack.
Please let me come
.”

He pauses at the top of a stroke, his tip barely inside me. My fingers dig into the thick rug as I try not to scream in frustration. “Why should I?”

“Because you love me.”

“Gods, I do. I really do.” That rough voice licks up my spine as he bends over and whispers in my ear. “There’s no getting rid of me now.”

“That better be a promise, Frost.”

“It is, baby.” His hands tighten on my hips, fingers digging into the heated flesh as he lifts me to him. Then he slams into me so hard I scream, not caring who hears. The sensation of his cock sinking deep into my body is like heaven and hell all mixed up.

This man owns me, heart and soul—and body, too. No one knows it better than me when his name leaves my lips. My muscles clench and roll, locking around him until Jack comes, too, in a burst of heat that leaves me breathless and panting.

He carries me to the bed a long while later, once we can both move again.

I lay there, staring up at the star-dotted ceiling, my orgasm-limp arms wrapped around the man I love, never more happy to be alive. Despite the pain and the blood, we made it.

Happily fucking ever after, here we come.

I’m half asleep when Jack tilts my face up for one last kiss. I look into those misty green eyes and I know something else.

He’s mine and no one better try taking him from me again.

From what I hear, that would end badly.