Society Rules (61 page)

Chapter 40

Indie sat cross-legged on the floor of Will’s living room, surrounded by boxes and small crates, along with several rolls of bubble wrap. She wrinkled her nose at the mounds of anonymous objects, mingled with the potentially obsolete items she had yet to go through.

“How did we get so much stuff?” she wondered, beginning to feel slightly overwhelmed.

Jackson bounded into the living room with an annoying amount of energy. “Come on, love, you promised Will it would all be finished today! Looks like you need another week or so!” He seemed to dance, rather than dodge around the shoe Indie threw at him, and he dropped down beside her with a heart-stopping smile.

Indie’s breath caught, and she tried to stay focused.

But, God, he was such an adorable little pest.

“What’s wrong, my precious, too much for you?”

“Either make yourself useful, or sit over there, be quiet and look pretty!” Indie growled, thoroughly in a state of huff.

“Oh, but I can sit right here beside you and be all annoying and still look pretty!”

Jax was working her, but good, Indie decided. She had shot him down on his offer to have a moving company come in and pack up the place, telling him that she absolutely had to handle this herself.

Will had been all on board with the moving company plan, especially if Jackson was springing. But Indie would not hear of it. She was an old pro at this, she reminded Will. After all, the family had moved how many dozens of times? Indie pretty much considered
herself
to be a professional moving company at this point, but it seemed that a couple of things had happened in the last two and a half years; she had forgotten how much she actually hated it,
and
they had collected more belongings.

Especially Will and his freaky packrat self. What was she thinking? “Ready to wave the white flag yet, beautiful?” Jax tried to hide the mirth behind his words, as he rolled Indie onto her back and pinned her to the carpet, which was now littered with the horrible static-y crumbs left by the countless bags of packing peanuts.

Unbeknownst to Indie, Jackson had been watching in fascination as the little white balls had been rolling toward her, and even zipping through the air to attach to nearly every part of her body, and much of the back of her hair, magnetically attracted by the snapping electric charges she generated by crawling around on the carpet.

He was having quite a lot of fun today, or at least he was now, having finished sulking after Indie would not even let him help her. So now, he’d decided that tormenting her for her bad decision making skills on the subject of packing and moving could help ease his suffering.

“I will never wave the flag, do you hear . . .
NEVER!”

Indie put as much force into the vow as she could, while Jax ignored her, covering her with silky, shiver-inducing kisses.

“Oh, but just think, Indie . . . the kids are at their Grandmother’s. We could get the moving people here in a half an hour. I hired them for the day anyway, so that they could be ready to roll if you changed your mind!”

“
OH!
Are you crazy?” Indie fumed. “Do you
know
how much a moving company costs?”

“As a matter of fact I do, since I paid them this morning at the same time I paid them to pack up my . . . I mean
our
house.” Jackson gave her his most disarming smile; the one he knew she could never resist. He allowed the front of his hair to flop down over his eyes, and tilted his head to look up at her through the tangle of chocolate colored silk and closed his eyes halfway.

Ah.
He
had
her.
He knew it.

Jax could feel her struggling with her natural tilt toward stubborn defiance, and another need he could feel beginning to build in her.

One that he had been fighting all day.

“Come on, Indie,” he whispered against her ear, his voice a little off kilter from the ache of needing to be alone with her.

In their house, not Will’s.

With a little moan of defeat that exited her lips simultaneously with Jackson’s laugh of triumph, Indie grabbed a small dusting cloth that was lying nearby and waved it feebly in the air.

“Will this do?” she asked, a little breathless from the attention Jax was giving her neck and shoulders with his lips.

“Quite nicely,” was his muffled response.

Indie had allowed the television to remain switched on, in a fruitless attempt to distract Jax from harassing her. It suddenly blared the tinny, generic orchestra music that someone long ago had decided was the logical intro to every single newscast shown on the planet.

The female anchor wore a heavily sprayed hairstyle, and a suitably furrowed brow to compliment her look of contrived interest, as she continued the weeks-long story about the dangerously high amount of solar activity that had occurred recently.

It had died down to within normal limits now, but the parade of “experts” that were being shuttled through the studios to offer their opinions on the causes, and the dire consequences of drinking bottled water and driving pretty much any vehicle other than a skateboard, was painful to watch.

The anchorwoman nodded her head in the most serious manner, eyes vacant and utterly bored. “Yes, we need to see this as the sign of things to come,” stated expert number eight thousand and seven, a gaunt gentleman, who needed a shave and a good meal, was droning, turning directly into the camera and boldly suggested that people cut down on their toilet paper usage.

This caused Indie to burst into laughter as Jax helped her to her feet. Who knew? To save the planet, all we need to do is start wiping with leaves . . . or maybe pinecones.

Jackson gripped Indie by the waist and pulled her into a spine-bending embrace, cutting off Indie’s laughter with a kiss that conveyed a message.

A very urgent one.

As Indie responded with equal enthusiasm, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him, impossibly, even closer, he broke contact with her mouth just long enough to growl in her ear.

“We’ve got to get out of here. Now!”

With a small leap, Indie wrapped her legs around Jax’s waist, and her held on to her tightly as he all but ran through the house to the front door.

Jackson couldn’t understand what had become of his self-control lately. Something was dreadfully wrong with his restraint now. He was randy as a seventeen year old whenever he was around her.

Basically, all it took was a full-length glance at Indie, and parts of his anatomy sprang to life with a completely unmanageable urgency. It was embarrassing, actually, but then it wasn’t like he had forty years of celibacy to make up for or anything, right?

What made it even more difficult, was the fact that she was always on board for any naked time; as long as they were in an appropriate place.

Unfortunately, Jackson’s body had no such mandates, hence the cause of his usual state of discomfort lately. The feelings were something utterly alien to Jackson prior to his connection with Indie.

He was having to re-school himself on control nearly constantly, it seemed.

“Hold tight, now,” he whispered, eyes glinting with excitement as he jogged down the deck stairs, doing his best not to bounce her around too badly.

She wasn’t complaining.

They reached the Mercedes, and Jackson stowed Indie into the passenger seat, buckling her up, and pulled a Starsky and Hutch-worthy scramble across the hood of the vehicle, and was in the driver’s seat. He started the car and looked over, noticing Indie was panting, her hand pressed to her heart.

Alarmed, he reached out to her. “Are you okay?” He was instantly on edge . . . and then instantly back in the game. He could feel her thoughts.

She wanted him just as desperately. But Indie thoughtfully answered his question. “No, but I will be!”

The look in her eyes nearly drove him to take her right here in the car. Right here in this driveway.

Will’s
driveway.

Oh no. That was so not happening. The thought cooled him enough to decide that they could make it back to their house . . . if he drove very,
very
fast.

He threw the car into reverse and screamed down the driveway, hit the street and nailed first gear. They made it to the stop sign before Indie shrieked. “Wait!”

Jackson skidded to an abrupt stop, and grabbed her hands. “
What?
What is it . . . ?” His eyes were wide with concern.

“Stop right now . . . and call that moving company! Tell them we will be back here at five o’clock, and that we need them to be finished by then!” After staring at Indie for a full minute, Jackson simply began cracking up.

The car shook with his laughter as he grabbed her and pulled her to him.

Still laughing, and still gripping her in one arm, Jackson pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

“Okay, my leader!” He shook his head. “All business, aren’t you, love?”

“You’d better believe it, baby!”

*     *     *

“
Say
it, Indie . . .
please.
Say it out loud!” Jackson’s voice was hoarse with need. “I need to
hear
it from you.”

Jackson looked down at Indie before burying his face into her sweet smelling hair, and then once more rolling his forehead into the soft space between her eyes, right at the bridge of her nose. They were drenched in sweat, their bodies connected fiercely.

Jackson was trying not to be a savage, but he found himself in the throes of some very male need to possess and to claim. It wasn’t helping his mission of restraint that Indie was matching his urgency move for move.

He was hovering near the edge, but he simply needed one more thing. The sound of her voice in his ear, whispering the words that he knew she was feeling, but needed so desperately to hear.

Jackson used both hands to push back her damp hair, stroking the sides of her face with his thumbs, and made direct eye contact. “Please . . .
tell
me!
” He was shivering with anticipation.

And
so
who
is
the
needy
one
now
, Indie silently chided him, enjoying his desperate need for her to the max.

Deciding that he’d suffered enough, Indie drew up her knees, pulling him even deeper into her, and clenched her fists full of Jackson’s hair. She whispered in ragged breaths.

“I need you, Jax! I love you and I’ll need you
always!”

Oh
yeah!
That was it.

Jackson topped the mountain and began the slide toward home plate, his groans of love and satisfaction coming from deep within his chest, breaking through the kisses as he staked his claim. The sounds drove Indie to the top of her own precipitance, where she felt her body rise, and then fall as she arched her back into a swan dive, riding the rippling current back down to Earth.

Indie had never in her life felt so wanted.

So
needed
. And so treasured.

She could feel in Jackson unequivocally, that she was his top priority, his deepest need. The words he spoke to her on that fateful day, when she invited him into her house, came back to her . . . .”
I’m
afraid
I
am
a
slave
to
your
wishes
.” It felt like a promise kept, because she knew without a doubt, that there was nothing he would ever deny her. Never would she feel forgotten, neglected or unimportant again for the rest of her life. She felt an absurd urge to cry, but only tears of joy. Soft gentle kisses, full of love, pulled her from her thoughts.

“You are right on all counts, Indie. You will want for absolutely nothing from this moment on. Anything you wish for, I will lay it at your feet!” He kissed her once more, as if to make sure she understood.

“ . . .
but
you’ll
never
see
the
end
of
the
road,
while
you’re
traveling
with
me
 . . . .” Jax quoted with a laugh.