At least his hands are a safe distance from Dickey’s beak.
“Little bit full of yourself there, Jack?”
He turns, and his grin shows off those dimples. Damn. I should’ve worn something sexier.
No. No. No.
Dave’s a nice guy. Think of poor, unsuspecting Dave.
Jack rubs his chin as though contemplating something important.
“What?”
“You take slipping into something more comfortable to a whole new level.”
I hold my hands out and pirouette. “You don’t like my choice in loungewear?”
“I didn’t say that. Actually, I want to pet your teddies.”
My teddies. The two bears on my shirt smile at him. So much for trying to discourage him.
Lecher.
Jackson strides to me, his arms sliding around my waist as he pulls me to him, chest to chest.
“You see, it doesn’t matter too much about the wrapping. Diamonds come out of mines covered in coal. Gold is often dug out of the dirt.” One big hand slips into the waistband of my P.J.s, his feather touch slipping down the seam between my cheeks before he grabs a handful of my ass. “Hell, if you look at pudding, it doesn’t necessarily look good, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t taste delicious.”
My breath hitches as his lips find that sensitive spot over the erratic pulse in my neck.
His tongue swirls along the line where my necklace lies. “I’ve been dying for a taste of your peach puddin’, Ronnie.”
I push him away. “No. No pudding for you. I’m going out with Dave again.”
“All right. If I can’t talk you into a little teddy petting session, tell me about Dave. Think he’ll fall for your”—he makes air quotes—“method?”
I huff at his tone. “He’s human. Just like everyone else, he wants love. I’ll show him I am capable of filling that need, and he’ll reciprocate.”
“Need love? You think all men need love?”
“Thought you said you read my book.” I plop onto the end of the couch and cross my arms over the bears he keeps staring at.
He hands me my drink and sits right next to me, his hip against my curled up leg. “Peaches, I hate to break it to you, but men need sex. Some of them want love, but they need sex. You want to win your guy? Give him what he really needs.”
“You’re telling me that you’d rather have sex than love?” I set the drink on the side table.
He chuckles. “Fuck yeah, I would. Love is fickle. People love you one day, but not the next. They love you when it’s convenient. Sex is in the moment. You’re together while you’re scroggin’ and then you’re on your way. Like that song says, Love the one you’re with. No emotional entanglements to threaten your happiness. Just live for the moment.”
Oh. My. “Who was she?”
“What do you mean?”
“Who broke your heart, Jackson Tremaine?”
He looks right into my eyes, holding my gaze for several long seconds. “I’ve never had my heart broken. And I won’t. My mother, on the other hand, lived with a broken heart. The line of bastards she trailed through our house—not one of them was capable of monogamy. The guy she shacked up with when I was about fifteen finally explained it to me. It made perfect sense. Men aren’t made to be monogamous. It’s against our nature. Our nature is to spread our seed. Women want the house and the picket fence because of the nesting instinct.”
“So, it’s all instincts?” Poor guy. He really believes this crap.
He nods once, as though that should put this discussion to bed. “Purely instinctual.”
“Well, I believe you’re the exception, not the rule. Besides, what happens when you’re too old for sex? When all the little blue pills quit working and you find yourself all alone?”
His eyebrows knit. He chews the corner of his bottom lip.
Finally, his perplexed look melts, replaced with a mischievous grin. “If that day ever comes, I’ll hang out with my friends. We’ll play poker and talk about when we used to have sex, and I’ll wish I could still get it up.”
Jackson rubs my knee with his knuckle. “But I can still get it up. As a matter of fact, it’s not far from up now. Just a look from you would set it off.”
“Yeah, I bet it would. Seems like you have a hair trigger when it comes to your pistol.”
“Nothing wrong with being ready to go in an instant. Don’t worry, I have plenty of stamina. Not everything happens as quickly as I get hard. Hell, last night I took three cold showers and still had to jack-off to get some sleep.”
A mental image of his hand wrapped around his huge, engorged cock, and him drawing his hand up and down the length, invades my mind. That vein that runs down the side throbs when he’s aroused; it was thumping my fingers under the table at the restaurant.