Goes down easy(26)

It was what Perry had been wanting forever. And the idea that she’d known Jack less than four days didn’t even make sense. What made sense was this. Being here with him. Skin to skin. Touching him and never saying a word.

She couldn’t even talk about what had happened outside. Words failed her, as did understanding. The loss of her parents had been a horrific event, but it was one she had learned to live with.

Whether or not he believed in ghosts, Jack was haunted. And she knew this wasn’t about his family. What he fought against, what he fended off, what he hid from, she didn’t know. She might never know. She only knew that was his truth.

All she could do was be what he needed. He was here and he was with her. For now, maybe for longer, that was enough.

She rolled toward him, her breasts flattened against his chest, her knee flung over his. He lay with his elbow beneath his head, and used the fingers of his other hand to play between her legs.

She pulled in a sharp breath, wishing the room wasn’t so dark, wanting to see his eyes. She supposed he didn’t want anything of the sort, not after the breakdown she’d witnessed outside.

His index finger was long and thick, and she loved how he used his hands, loved the way he teased her, stroking and circling and dipping in and out until she was panting and so very close to coming undone.

Shuddering, she kissed his chest, scrunching up her nose when his hair tickled. She found his nipple, swirled her tongue around the flat disc, used her fingertips to massage the muscle there.

He groaned, and his erection prodded her belly, bobbing against her as if knocking to come in. Smiling to herself, she pushed him onto his back and climbed over him, straddling his hips, her hands on his shoulders, her breasts swinging above his mouth.

He pressed them together, sucked at one nipple then at the other until moisture began to trickle down her thighs. She reached down and wrapped her hand around his shaft, rubbing the head of his cock through her folds.

He moved his hands to her hips, guiding her as she took him inside. She lowered herself slowly, leaning back and bracing her palms just above his knees for the ride.

It was a sweet grinding pressure, the up and down motion, the fullness of his erection spreading her wide. She pushed up on her knees. He followed, lifting his hips off the bed.

They came down together, and then he held her still, sliding his hands up her thighs, capturing her clit between his thumbs.

She strained against the sensations that seized her. She wasn’t ready. She wanted to wait. She hadn’t yet had enough of him, his mouth, his fingers, his cock.

And so she leaned over him, her palms flat on the bed above his shoulders, and took what she wanted from his mouth. She kissed him with a fierceness that surprised her. She hadn’t known how deeply her hunger ran, how very deeply her love did.

His return kiss matched her fever, his tongue sliding over hers, his lips bruising. He lifted one knee and bumped her sideways. She fell to the mattress; still buried inside her body, he followed her over.

And then he was above her, looming, hovering, groaning when he couldn’t wait anymore. He hooked her knees over his forearms and drove forward, again and again.

Since there wasn’t a headboard to keep her there, the pounding nearly drove her off the bed. The springs creaked and the frame shook until she finally planted her palms overhead to keep from bouncing against the wall.

And then she closed her eyes and rode out the storm, letting Jack take her where he wanted to go. He dropped his head to his chest, his eyes screwed tightly shut, his arms straining to bear the weight of his motion, his hips shaking as he came.

She followed him seconds later, the vibrating pressure between her legs the push that sent her over. She cried out, slapped her hands against the mattress, flexed her fingers into the sheet on either side of her hips and held on.

He ground down against her, and she straightened her legs, pushing her clit up against the base of his shaft. It was almost too much, the sharp bursts of pleasure bordering on pain, and she whimpered as he rolled them both to their sides.

“You okay?” he whispered, and she nodded.

“A bit too much of a good thing, is all,” she said, feeling the burn of raw skin.

He reached up, brushed her hair from her eyes. “You should’ve said something.”

“No. It was a good thing, remember?” She rubbed her face against his palm and purred.

“Yeah, well, let me…do this.” He eased his body from hers, then reached for the blanket they’d kicked to the end of the bed and pulled it over them both. “There. That’s better, yes?”

“Yes, much,” she said, nodding rapidly as if the movement would keep unexpected tears from spilling. After-sex hormonal overload, that was all it was. Tight-wire emotions finally set free.

“Perry?”

She sniffed. “Jack?”

“You’re not crying, are you?”

“Not really.” This was so embarrassing. “Just sort of…leaking.”

“If I scared you outside earlier, or hurt you—”

“No, it’s not that. Not really.” She wasn’t even sure she could explain it to herself.

And then she felt him tense. “If you don’t want to be here—”

“Oh, no. Don’t even think that for a minute.” She found his hand, cradled it between both of hers, lacing all of their fingers together. “There’s no place I want to be more.”

“Including your own bed?”

“Right now? No. It’s too big.”

“And this one’s not too small?”

“Size isn’t everything, you know.”

“Hmm. And here I’d been under the impression that it was the only thing that mattered.”

She sighed, loving how easy he was to be with, to tease with. “I suppose in some cases it does matter.”

“Such as?”

“Like when buying in bulk.”

He snorted. “Does anyone really need that much of anything? Think about it. You buy it, don’t use it, it goes bad. Then you’re out a lot of money on all those ruined condoms.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. “So, less is more, then?”

“Less is at least worth considering,” he said.

“Sorta like quality versus quantity?”

He pulled his hand from hers, draped it over her hip and pulled her close, caressing her back and her bottom and the length of her thigh. She closed her eyes and tucked both of her hands beneath her cheek as if in prayer.

Because, in a way, that’s exactly what she was doing. Praying that he wasn’t going to walk out of her life. She knew so very little about him. She wasn’t ready to let him go.

“I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be here. It’s going to depend on where the case takes me.”

“Have you decided what to do next?”

“Beyond talking to Della in the morning?” He shook his head. “I’ll do that, find out exactly what drove her away from the warehouse, then I’ll decide.”

Perry asked the question she knew had to be asked, the question that had been eating at her all night. “Does that mean you believe in her now?”

He didn’t answer, and his hand stilled just long enough that Perry began to worry that he was thinking about leaving her alone in the bed.

But then his fingers began rubbing tight little circles on her hip, and his voice was dark when he said, “I’m not going to talk about it. About the reading. But, yeah. Whatever she can tell me about seeing Eckhardt? I’ll pay attention.”





JACK WOKE feeling beat instead of rested. Beat and cramped and uncomfortable, due to more than the bed. He was uncomfortable with the situation—being here with Perry and her aunt being upstairs, and her aunt knowing a lot more than he wanted anyone to know about his past.

It had been an off-the-books operation, an undercover assignment to infiltrate a human trafficking ring moving laborers from rural Thailand to L.A. He’d been taken on as a crew member on the cargo ship, and assigned to the galley, peeling potatoes, washing dishes, carting loaves of bread and buckets of broth to the men chained in the hold.

They had no clue that once they reached their destination they’d be working eighteen-hour days and have their contact with the outside world restricted. That they’d be subjected to slave-like labor conditions, held by induced indebtedness, and suffer non-payment of wages and the threat of deportation.

And what he’d done—freeing the men who’d been unaware they’d sold their souls to the devil when they’d paid for illegal transport to the States—had pretty much been the mission’s end.

It had pretty much been the end of his military career as well. Part of him regretted that it had gone down the way it had. But he’d considered his options, and found the good of the few to outweigh the good of the many.

Obviously, his superiors hadn’t agreed. When his choices came down to desk work or a discharge, he’d whipped out a quick “Hasta la vista, baby,” and gone into business for himself.

That business had now brought him Perry Brazille, and he was at his wit’s end. What the hell was he supposed to do when his work took him everywhere, and he had no idea when he’d get back to New Orleans? He didn’t even know her middle name.

He lay on his back, one arm hooked beneath his head, the other hooked around Perry where she’d backed up to him and was using his biceps for a pillow.