Run From Fear (29 page)

She smiled up at him, a little sad. “He never took the time to make me feel like this. No one did.”

Her eyes were suspiciously shiny and Jack felt an answering tightness. He had about a million things to say swirling around in his head but he couldn’t get any of them past the lump clogging his throat.

Instead he cupped her cheek and bent his head and kissed her, trying to tell her without words how much he cared about her, that she was worthy of kindness and consideration and, goddamn it, pleasure and didn’t have to settle for assholes and losers who didn’t care about anything but their own selfish desires.

But his own selfish needs quickly roared to the surface. His kiss turned hungry, demanding, even as he warned himself to back off. Yet when he tried to pull back, slow it down, Talia wouldn’t have it. She sucked and nipped at his tongue and wound her legs around his hips. She slid her hands down his back and slipped her fingers into the waistband of his pants, under the top of his boxers to curl them into the tight muscles of his ass.

She moved her hands to his hips. “Lift up,” she whispered, and he held his breath as her hands came around to
the front of his waist and her fingers landed on the tab front closure. The muscles of his arms quaked as he held himself over her, perfectly still as though any sudden move-ment might send her fleeing from the room. He could hear the pounding of his heart, the panting of his breath as she flicked his pants open at the waist. She dragged the zipper down, and even through his boxers he almost came at the first brush of her fingers against his cock.

She caught her lip in her teeth as she shoved his pants down his hips and he rolled to the side, squirming to kick his legs free. Then he was on his back, his erection tenting out the front of his boxers so outrageously it would have been funny if he weren’t so hard he felt like he was going to burst through his skin.

Talia lay on her side next to him, dark waves falling across her cheek. So beautiful it almost hurt to look at her as she slowly leaned over to kiss him. He gasped into her mouth at the first brush of her hand against his stomach. The hand slid lower to brush against the waistband of his boxers. Then lower still, and she curled her fingers around him and stroked him through the fabric of his underwear. He let out a low groan against her mouth, then swore as her hand slipped under the waistband to take him into her hand.

Silky and warm against his hot flesh, it was all he could do to keep himself from coming in her hand. But she seemed into it, too, her breath coming faster as she gripped him in her fist and stroked him from root to tip. Her thumb swept over the head, spreading the droplet of precome that had pearled at the tip, and Jack felt his balls tighten against his body. Talia was making those hot little sounds in the back of her throat again, and as she pumped him again, he knew he’d reached the end of his rope.

Breathing like he’d run a marathon, he ripped his mouth away and wrapped his fingers around her wrist to hold it still.

“What’s wrong?” she said, and even through the roar of blood in his head, he could hear the thread of anxiety. “Nothing,” he gasped, “not one goddamn thing except for the fact that if you don’t stop touching me like that, I’m going to come in your hand.”

Her cheeks darkened with a blush, and he took a second to marvel at the fact that this woman who had once led men around by the sheer force of her sex appeal was so easily embarrassed by crude language. He could spend the rest of his life working out all of her contradictions.

“Look,” he said through gritted teeth, fighting the urge to pump against her hand still wrapped around him, “I could settle for a hand job tonight and be totally satisfied.” Okay, that was a huge exaggeration. “I know this is a lot for you and I don’t want to push you into anything you’re not ready for.”

A smile spread across her face, its glow sending a warmth that had nothing to do with lust rushing through him. She tugged her hand from his grip and released him with a last, teasing stroke and brought her hand up to cup his cheek as she pressed him back against the pillow.

She leaned over him, and he felt that smiling mouth against his lips as she whispered, “That’s my Jack, noble to the bitter end.”

He parted his lips with little urging and sucked her tongue inside. He pulled her against him until they were breast to chest, her legs brushing against his as she hooked one knee over his hip.

“I’m all in, Jack, and I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
To prove her point, she took his hand in hers, guided it between her legs.

Take it easy, take it slow
, Jack chanted silently as he rolled her to her back and took himself in his hand. He pressed the head of his cock against her hot, moist core, pushed inside. Oh, Christ, he was barely inside her and he was about to lose it. Nothing had ever felt this good, ever. She was hotter, wetter, tighter, every sensation turned up to eleven as he eased himself in a millimeter at a time.

Then, like a hammer blow, it hit him why it felt so ridiculously good.

He pulled out with a curse and flung himself onto his back.

“What?” Talia asked, breathless.

“I don’t have a condom,” he groaned.

“Oh,” Talia said with a little laugh. “It’s okay.” She nuzzled his neck and nipped at his earlobe. “I’m on the pill,” she whispered.

He could be inside her, nothing between them? For a second Jack thought the top of his head was going to blow off. He held himself still, digging deep for self-control as he struggled not to drive himself full length inside of her.

“I’m… I’m clean too,” she said, the embarrassment evident even in her whisper. She squirmed underneath him and he bit back a groan at the feel of her wet flesh sliding against him. “I can see why that might worry you, but I was with only David for a long time, and of course no one since.”

It was hard to form the words with the blood roaring in his ears. “God, of course I’m not worried,” he said. “And
for the record, I had everything done on my last physical and I’m good and—”

He broke off as he pushed the head of his cock against her, felt her tightness close around him as he pushed inside. “God, I’ve never done it without a condom. It feels…” He trailed off, unable to find the words. He bent his head, kissed her, pushed in a little farther. So hot. So tight. Like a wet, silky fist closing around him as he worked himself in inch by torturous inch.

Talia sucked Jack’s tongue into her mouth, whimpering as he rocked his hips in careful, shallow thrusts. He was huge, hot, squeezing inside her tightness until pleasure danced on the edge of pain.

She started to stiffen as old, ugly memories threatened to rear their heads. Rough hands holding her down, harsh breathing in her ear as the heavy weight pinned her to the mattress.

“Talia,” Jack breathed in her ear. “You feel so good, so perfect.”

The memories fled as she opened her eyes on Jack’s face. His eyes were squeezed tight, his face a mask of pleasured agony. “Jack.”

His eyes opened at the sound of his name. Glittering hot, it felt like an electric current arced between them.

“Jack,” she whispered again, reaching up to thread her fingers through his hair and pull his mouth down to hers.

His skin was hot under her hands, his coarse chest hair rasping against her nipples in a way that sent jolts of
pleasure coursing through her. Jack’s huge, strong body settling over her and oh, God, driving hard and deep inside of her.

Heat sizzled through every cell as he kissed her lips, sucked her neck, whispered how good she felt, even better than he’d imagined.

Talia wanted to tell him that before tonight, she wouldn’t have even been able to imagine feeling anything like the pleasure he was giving her. Never would have known it was possible to have her entire world center on the feel of his thick hardness inside of her, cramming her full but making her crave more.

She moaned and felt the familiar tightening, heard his answering groan as her body squeezed and pulsed around him. He slid his hand between them and found her clit with his thumb. Rearing back on his knees, he circled and stroked in rhythm with his thrusts. Talia gripped the hard muscles of his ass in her hands urging him harder, faster…

She came with a sharp cry, flying apart once again as pleasure burst between her legs and rippled through every nerve ending. Jack rode her through it, his pace slow and steady until the last pulse shimmered away.

She looked up to see him poised above her, muscles tight, veins bulging through his skin with the force of his restraint. She dug her nails into his ass and slid her knees up either side of his rib cage. “Your turn,” she said with a smile.

He flashed her a quick, almost pained smile in return and started to move in quick jarring thrusts that made her appreciate just how much he’d been holding himself back. He threw his head back and she felt him twitching and
jerking inside her, bathing her with heat as he shuddered in release.

He collapsed and rolled to the side, hauling her against him until they were glued breast to chest, so close a light particle couldn’t get between them. “You okay?” he whispered.

Was she okay? She was better than okay. With his one hand sliding up and down her back and the other combing through her hair, she felt warmer, safer, better than she had in years. Maybe ever.

And that was even before she factored in the languid relaxation that came from two back-to-back orgasms.

As far as she was concerned, she could spend the rest of her life in this bed with him and be perfectly happy.

Jack seemed to agree, and within a few breaths he’d drifted off to sleep. Talia lay there, her ear pressed to his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. He was the most amazing person she’d ever known, and tonight he’d proven himself to be the most patient, gentle, satisfying lover a woman could ever ask for.

She’d fought to keep him out of her life, certain she didn’t need him, convinced he could only make her miserable as he served as a living reminder of everything she’d struggled to leave behind.

But the past had come back to haunt her, and once again he proved to be the only one she could count on to get her out of the muck. The only one she wanted to count on.

He would go back to Seattle when this was over, she reminded herself. He’d made no promises, made no claims to his emotions other than that he wanted her.

He
wanted
her. Nothing more and nothing less than
the few that had come before, except he was a lot less selfish about it.

He wanted her, and tonight she’d realized she wanted him right back. The discovery should have made her happy, should have brought her comfort and reassured her that contrary to her fears, she really was capable of feeling desire, of having amazing sex with this amazing man.

And it would have, had she not had another terrifying realization.

She was in love with Jack Brooks.

Admitting it to herself, even in her head, was so terrifying it propelled her up and out of the bed. She grabbed blindly and snatched up the first article of clothing she could find—Jack’s shirt. She wrapped it around herself and darted from the room, down the hall and up the stairs to her own room. She closed and locked the door behind her before climbing onto the bed.

She curled up against the headboard, calling herself a hundred kinds of idiot as pure, icy panic made her heart pound and her stomach churn. She didn’t even realize she was crying until she saw the drops hit her bare knees and reached up to feel where the wetness was coming from.

Even as some rational part of her brain tried to remind her that this was Jack she was talking about, not a monster in disguise like David Maxwell, it couldn’t drown out the steady lament of “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

She was so stupid, thinking sex was the biggest stumbling block. Good for her, she could have orgasms.

But she couldn’t allow herself to be vulnerable again. Couldn’t go back to that place where her entire world revolved around a man who might turn on her at any
moment. Couldn’t let herself be under someone’s thumb, dependent on a man for her happiness and security.

She’d worked too hard to put her life back together, and she couldn’t afford to risk it on an emotion that had nearly destroyed her in the past.

She couldn’t trust anyone—not even Jack—with her heart.

B
y the time Jack reached out a hand to stop her, Talia was already out the door and halfway down the hall.

Shit. Goddamn it.

He should have known it was too good to be true. It was too much to hope that tonight’s breakthrough would be the beginning of something—finally—between the two of them.

Not that he expected her to just flip a switch, sleep with him and be good to go with happily-ever-after, but was it too much to ask her not to go sprinting from the room before the sheets even got cold?

Screw it. From the second he’d realized he had it bad for Talia Vega, he’d known there was no hope. So it should be no problem to just go back to normal.

And hey, at least he had the added bonus of relieving the unrelenting sexual frustration that had dogged him for the past week straight. Although, given his body’s swift and eager recovery from an orgasm that had nearly made him black out, he had a bad feeling this was going to be one of those one tastes that only makes you crave more.