Beard Science(54)

“Oh, oh, oh God!” She shuddered, her lips parted, her eyes wide and foggy with lust. She tilted her hips forward and threw her head back.

I’d never witnessed anything so sensual, so goddamn sexy. She was seduction and sin, excess and decadence.

“Is this what you want?” I demanded, rubbing her slick center and slipping my fingers into her luxurious heat.

She didn’t respond, and I hadn’t expected her to.

The compulsion to devour gripped me, the craving raged within me as I stroked her supple body and she mirrored my maneuverings with clumsy movements, holding and stroking me with no finesse. That too felt essential. It felt exactly right.

I felt the first pulsing of her release and I slowed my pace, drawing a confused whimper from her lips.

“Cletus, oh, please, don’t stop. Please. It feels . . . it feels—”

“I’m not going to stop.”

I wanted to prolong the moment, indulge myself. I wanted immersion in my primitive and possessive thoughts. From now on she would be mine: her skin was for my eyes only, for my mouth to cherish, my hands to touch. Her body was made for my body and I would claim her as she’d unknowingly claimed me.

“Cletus!” she cried out, trembling, twisting on the bed, unable to catch her breath in her orgasm.

She squeezed me reflexively and I pumped into her hand, coming along with her on a low roar of satisfaction and transitory fulfillment. I captured her mouth and her screams. Her heart beat along with my heart, our skin sliding together and she endeavored to press closer, as though she wanted to climb inside me and live within.

I know, because I feel the same.

Claire was right. Love negated experience. Completely and utterly. Love negated so many things. I was satisfied by my woman, by her unskilled touch, in a way I’d never been before. Because I’d been making love, and the person touching me had been Jennifer.

My Jennifer.

She was still out of breath, but I kissed her anyway. I wanted her hot mouth, the taste of her on my tongue. I wanted her naked and beneath me. I wanted her on her knees. I wanted her bent over and gasping. I wanted her on top, using me to pleasure herself. I wanted . . .

Sanity didn’t arrive all at once, it drifted, reaching the surface by degrees.

The first moment of clarity arrived when Jennifer pulled her mouth from mine and said, “Wait.”

I blinked at her, at her profile. She’d turned her face away, chasing air. I leaned an inch or two backward, my eyes moving over her cheeks, jaw, neck, then lower. My hand was still in her panties, stroking her. She moaned and shivered, the air she needed hitching in her lungs.

I swallowed, tasting not quite remorse, not quite dismay, but rather a sobering mixture of both.

Maybe she sensed the shift in my mood. Or maybe it was just a coincidence. Regardless, her eyes sought mine. They were still glazed and hazy.

They were also bright.

And happy.

And she was smiling.

“Mmm . . .” she hummed, cuddling closer, tucking her forehead into the crook of my neck. She placed a kiss on my chest. “When can we do that again?”

My woman was extraordinary.





CHAPTER 23


“Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work, whereas economics represents how it actually does work.”

 Steven D. Levitt, Freakonomics



~Cletus~

“Where were you on Friday?”

The question startled me. My eyes shot up. Jethro stood on the other side of the counter, wearing a nice dress shirt that made his eyes look green. He was looking at me as though nothing was amiss.

He was up to no good.

I frowned at his sudden appearance. “You look nice. When did you get here?”

“Just now.”

I squinted at him. “Just now?”

“Yep. I let myself in.” He tossed his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the door.

I blinked at this news. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Really?” He leaned his elbow on the counter. “I wasn’t particularly quiet.”

“Hmm . . .” I shifted my attention back to the quote for service I was reviewing. Shelly had initiated it. She’d done a good job.

“Cletus?”

“Yeah?” I double-checked her figure for labor, comparing it to the dealer’s website. The labor amount seemed high, but it checked out.

“Where were you on Friday?”

I stilled, bracing for the flashes of memory: Jenn’s eyes as she pressed me back to the bed, her mouth on mine, her hands on me. The images and sensations had been playing on repeat since Friday night. As had the aftermath.

She’d climbed on top of my body and snuggled close, kissing my chest and neck and chin, saying, “I want us to be like this always.”

“Cletus?” Jethro snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Hello? Where’d you go?”

“Someplace nicer than here,” I mumbled. I’d meant it to be a joke, but it didn’t sound like a joke. Maybe it didn’t sound like a joke because it was the truth.

Being with Jennifer, just the two of us, was preferable to double-checking service quotes. Being alone with her was more preferable to anyone, anywhere, and anything else.

And there’s the rub.

We had no place to be alone. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t so keen on living at home and keeping tabs on my brothers. They could keep tabs on themselves.

“Speaking of nice places,” I cleared my throat and endeavored to appear nonchalant, “do you know if Claire is still looking to rent her place?”

“I think so, why? You know someone?”

“I might.” This glimmer of an idea had occurred to me on Saturday and was quickly becoming a wildfire. “I guess I’ll give her a call.”

Claire’s place would be a good temporary fix. It was halfway between Jennifer’s house and the Winston homestead. The old farmhouse sat on two acres of land, plenty of room for Jenn’s garden beds. I’d have to invest in a writing desk for her, someplace close to a north- or south-facing window so she’d have the best light.

“You never answered my question,” my brother pressed.

Jennifer Sylvester loved me. I loved Jennifer Sylvester.

A fact.

Surreal.

She hadn’t said it yet, but I knew the truth. I could tell. Yep.

She loves me.

“Did you ask a question?” I was still thinking on Claire’s place, the ideal privacy it would afford, and the fact that Jennifer loved me.

After cuddling for too short a time, I drove Jennifer home. I held her hand as we walked to the car. I held her hand while I drove. I held her hand as I walked her to her porch. And then I was forced to let go of her hand.

I’d had indigestion since. Not real indigestion; I was suffering from a type of heartburn caused by missing a person.

Agitating matters, I’d spotted an article in The New Yorker on Saturday morning about verbing and wanted to share it with her.

Saturday afternoon, I’d been forced to call Repo—the highest ranking member of the Iron Wraiths other than Razor St. Claire—and request a sit down for the week after Jethro’s wedding. Repo knew us Winstons as kids and used to insist we call him Uncle Repo. He and my daddy used to be good friends, but I had no idea if they still considered each other brothers.

Also of note, I suspected Repo was—in fact—Jessica James’s biological father. I hadn’t shared this theory with Duane about his woman, but I was fairly certain. However, that’s a different story for a different day.

The good news was Repo sounded amused by the whole business with Isaac Sylvester. The bad news was I could hear Catfish in the background making threats.

Then on Sunday, the pastor’s wife had cornered me after church and asked if I knew anything about roses. I did not. But I knew who did.

“Yes, I asked a question. Where were you on Friday?” Jethro asked again.

I scratched my beard. My phone buzzed in my pocket, so I pulled it out and read the screen.

Jenn: I had a lox bagel for lunch and thought of you.

I studied her text for a full minute, re-reading it several times. Jenn and I had sent each other a quantity of texts since Saturday morning. I’d never sent a quantity of texts to anyone. Up to this point in my life, text messaging was for relaying grocery lists and status updates.

But now they were mini-conversations, each holding weight and importance, yet none adequately satisfied the missing-person perpetual indigestion. I wanted to see her. We had too many things left unsettled. It was time to impose order on the chaos and plan our course. It was time to move forward together.

And, in the interest of full disclosure, I couldn’t stop thinking about her body. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things I wanted to do to her, all the ways I wanted to monopolize her time and space.

“Cletus?” Jethro asked hesitantly.

“Just a minute.” I held my finger up and typed a quick response.

Cletus: Why’d you think of me? Because I’m fishy? Cheesy?

Jenn: Because it had capers; lox bagels give a whole new meaning to the word “capering.”

I grinned at that. She had this effect on me. Was my case was terminal?

“So, Friday?” Jethro prompted again.

“I was, uh . . .” I scratched my jaw. “None of your business.”

He was quiet for a stretch and I could feel his eyes on me. Finally, he said, “Fine. Suit yourself. I’m here on a mission.”