She stayed quiet for a while then. Well, that wasn't exactly accurate-she stopped using words at that point. And he didn't count it against her when she started gasping his name. No, he loved hearing his name on her lips. Every "Jack," she breathed seemed to ratchet up the tension in him another notch. He was restless and hot, and not from the shower. Consumed by her but distracted by her at the same time.
Enough. He'd been intending to make her come in the shower, but he couldn't stand it anymore. "I have to be inside you," he said, turning off the twin shower heads as he stood. When she opened her mouth, he placed his hand over it-not hard, but enough to convey that he wanted her to remain silent.
Throwing a bath sheet over her shoulders, he used it to pull her to him-so they were both wrapped in the white cotton-and nipped the side of her neck, which was reddened from the heat of the shower. She grabbed his ass and he kissed her, hoping she could taste on his lips how delicious she was.
"I thought you were going to-"
"Shut up," he said, kissing her again but propelling her so she walked backward into the bedroom, both of them still wrapped in the bath sheet. He reached for a condom as he tipped her back on the bed, displaying the whole mass of her pink, damp skin. Kneeling over her, he picked up where he'd left off in the shower, licking her clit as he unwrapped and rolled on the condom. When she raised her knees to her chest, he kneeled, hooking her legs over his shoulders, and slid inside her.
Maybe it was the residual heat of the shower, but she was a furnace. "Oh, God," he choked out, fearing that once he began to move, it would all be over. But he couldn't not move. Something inside him took over, forcing his hips to move faster and faster as he slammed into her, losing himself in the unbelievably hot sight of her moaning and shaking her head from side to side, dark damp hair whipping through the air.
She screamed then, and the wave of sensation he'd thought was going to crush him became almost unendurable when she began clenching around him. Then she went silent, her head stilled, and she focused the shattered gemstones of her eyes on his. It was as if there was a silent command in them, and his body responded, sending sharp surges of pleasure through him that went on and on.
"That wasn't fair," she whispered when he was finally done coming. "I was supposed to be in charge."
He was glad she was competitive, he thought a few minutes later, when they were sprawled out across his king-size bed, staring up at the sky visible through his skylight. He'd never had a lover per se, meaning a woman he'd slept with repeatedly. He'd always wanted to avoid that kind of … entanglement, to use her word. But he did pride himself on being skilled in the bedroom, on making sure his one-night stands left their one-nights with smiles on their faces. But this playful tussle for control with Cassie helped their … thing feel like a game. And it was important to remember that that's what it was-a little exercise in breaking rules. A temporary suspension of what experience had taught him was the optimal way to structure everything. She was skeptical of his rules, he knew, but without them he never would have had the discipline to build Winter Enterprises. Without them he'd probably still be trying to please his father.
She sighed. A sweet, satiated sigh that stroked his masculine ego. He loved the way she looked after he fucked her senseless. She flushed so easily, and her hair looked like she'd been in a monsoon. Damn, she'd been right about one thing. If the rules were going to be broken, they might as well blow them to smithereens in the time they had available. His dick stirred. Jesus, with her he was like a teenager.
She turned to him, catching her bottom lip with her top teeth. She looked like she wanted to eat him. Damn, he was lucky, if only for two more nights. "Do you have a printer?"
"Huh?" She might as well have thrown a bucket of cold water over him. He shook his head. It was hard keeping up with her sometimes.
"A printer." She scrambled to sit up, and he struggled to wrest his eyes from her spectacular breasts and pay attention. "Those files you sent me-it would be easier if I could print them, spread them out, and look at them all side by side. Mine at home is out of toner."
He tried to hide the fact that it took him a second to catch up to the radically new topic. Leaning over, he scooped up an iPad from the floor next to the bed. "You can print from this if you want. But you sure you want to do this now?"
"I'm too wired to sleep."
"I can think of other things we could do to pass the time."
She shook her head. "I'm like a dog with a bone with this." She grabbed the iPad. "Carl is going down."
He hopped out of bed, went to his dresser, and tossed her a T-shirt. "At least put this on."
She rolled her eyes. At least he hadn't said what he was really thinking, which was for God's sake, cover yourself, woman. He left her pulling the shirt over her head and ran downstairs to retrieve her papers from the printer and to throw together some snacks. She might have eaten at Edward's, but that was hours ago, and surely someone so dedicated to vanquishing his enemies deserved snacks.
Back upstairs, he hopped into bed with a book, leaving her alone for the next hour, aside from feeding her the odd almond. But when three o'clock rolled around, he set his book aside and rolled into her line of vision.
"Time for bed."
"Oh!" Genuinely startled, she looked at the bedside clock. "Sorry! I got carried away." She slung her legs over the edge of the bed.
"Where do you think you're going?"
She paused, looking like a teenager caught pilfering her parents' liquor cabinet. "Um? Home?"
"I thought we talked about this."
"I thought we talked about having sex. Not, like, sleeping in each other's arms." She made a funny face, as if she'd tasted something sour.
"Who said anything about sleeping in each other's arms?" He grabbed one of the arms in question, and tugged. "I'm just talking about sleeping. You're a superstar, I get it, but surely you need at least a few hours rest."
Her expression turned serious. "I'm just trying to follow the rules. You don't seem like the kind of guy who … "
"What?" Suddenly, he really wanted to know how she'd meant to finish that sentence.
"Like the kind of guy who does sleepovers. Crazy junkie mothers notwithstanding." She pulled back against his grip, but he didn't release her.
He sighed. He hated it when she made him confront the contradictions in his psyche. He hated it when she caused contradictions in his psyche. "It's true that I'm a private person."
She snorted then, a full-on, completely unladylike snort. All the same, it made him want to pin her down and shove his tongue into her mouth. "He said to the person lounging in his bed, wearing his shirt, up to her eyeballs in his company's financials," she drawled.
"Touché." It was all he could say. Unless he wanted to admit she was the first woman he'd ever let into his bed, much less allowed to spend the night. "Will you just shut up and come to bed?"
She gave up resisting, and he settled her under the covers. Turning out the light, he reached for a remote control on the bedside table and aimed it at the skylight. A shade began to retract.
"Can we leave it open?" she asked.
He lifted his thumb from the button.
"I know it's stupid," she said from underneath the duvet. "We're in the middle of the city, and it's overcast. But I love this skylight. I like the idea that the stars are just up there, even if you can't see them."
He hit another button, reversing the shade's progress to expose the full expanse of glass. He couldn't give her anything close to what she deserved. In fact, he could only give her one more night after this. So he could at least let her sleep under the invisible stars.
Chapter Eleven
Cassie awoke warm and cozy under Jack's duvet. When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was the white winter sky through the skylight. It looked like snow. She stretched. "Mmmmm." She sounded like a cat. She felt like a cat. Scooching over-Jack's bed was enormous-she wondered what they would do this morning. The slideshow of possibilities that flipped through her head brought a grin to her face. Who knew last night's epic marathon could leave her still wanting more? She fanned her arms out under the mound of covers, intending to wake him, but her fingers glided over nothing but cold sheets.
She was alone in the bed. Well, that was … surprisingly disappointing. But it was a work day. Popping her head out of the cocoon of down, she made out of the sound of the shower.