The Phoenix Candidate(21)

Jared’s teeth sink into my shoulder.

I scream.

“Now, Grace. Tell me why you’re here.”

My breath comes in little short pants, my shoulder still stinging from where he bit me, my body clenching around his two fingers that twist inside me. “I … I can’t.”

“You don’t want to talk politics right now? Foreign policy? School funding? Maybe agriculture subsidies?”

“No!”

Jared’s hand continues to torture me, and my hips buck and writhe, begging his thumb to land on my clit and push me higher. “How about Medicare? How about Social Security?” His thumb finally hits the right spot and I moan in pleasure and need. But I’m not there yet.

“How about you shut up, Jared, and just fuck me ’til next Tuesday?” I look over my shoulder and see a satisfied smile on his face as he pulls his hand from my throbbing pussy. I nearly throttle him. “Oh no, you do not, Mr. Tease. You will not fucking take me to the edge and just leave me there.”

“Demanding bitch.”

“Pussy-teasing asshole.”

Jared’s smile spreads on his face and his eyes crinkle with mirth. “Well, when you put it so sweetly…” He moves his hands to unbutton his shirt but his fingers are deliberately slow and I’m half-insane with a denied orgasm.

“I hope you brought another shirt.” I grasp the placket with two hands and tear—buttons go flying. I strip him head to toe in a matter of seconds, then I whirl and push him down on the bed, climbing above him, ready to ride him like my own personal stallion.

Jared’s eyes glaze as he palms my breasts and rolls my nipples between his fingers. I arch my back, pushing his cock deeper until it reaches the place inside me, that catch, where the fire burns brighter and hotter and the intensity is almost unbearable.

I slam my hips back and connect with him as he bucks, the penetration so deep I feel the painful twinge of being stretched too far, too deep, too much.

It’s too much, too much sight and sound and smell. I’m fucking an almost perfect stranger in an anonymous hotel room and just as the words Who am I? penetrate my brain, Jared thrusts harder and groans with his climax. His thumb finds my clit and drives me to follow him.

I moan his name and God’s and a dictionary’s worth of curses. I don’t know how to hang on here, I just know that the orgasm wracks me and drains me of everything.

Energy. Tension. Coherent thought.

And I finally collapse forward, breasts against the soft hair of Jared’s chest, my face buried next to his neck as he remains buried inside me.





Chapter Fifteen





Jared’s hand goes to my nape, his fingers sliding into my hair where the French twist has disintegrated.

He remains buried inside me.

Oh, God. Inside me, as in, he just came. Inside me. Without a condom.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

I tense and push myself off him, but his arm bands more tightly around my ribs. “Stay a while, Grace. We’re good for another hour or so.” Jared’s murmur is warm and contented, his stubble tickling my cheek as he speaks.

“No.” I push again and this time he releases me. I run to the bathroom, lock the door, and sit on the toilet, wondering exactly how I could be so fucking stupid.

Am I really this rusty? That I can sleep with a man precisely twice and manage to forget the condom on round three? What the hell is the matter with me? I’m smart enough to remember my pill, but not smart enough to grab a rubber.

Minutes tick by, and I hear a tap on the door.

“Grace? You OK?”

“Fine,” I grit out. “I just need a minute.” I pee and furiously wipe my eyes, trying to shake this off.

It’s nothing, my logic says. It took three years playing without a goalie with Seth to conceive Ethan and we never had another. I can only hope that Jared’s clean, that grabbing a condom the first couple of times we did it suggests some modicum of responsibility.

I’m fine, I scold myself.

I step out of the bathroom, a little bashful as Jared finishes dressing and watches me. His normally expressive eyes are crinkle-free, placid, as if he’s psyching himself up for something with deep meditation.

I dress silently, wondering if this is all we’ll have—some hot, intense sex in an anonymous room.

“You’re meeting with Shep downstairs in forty-five minutes,” Jared says. He touches a few keys on his laptop. “I sent a text to your phone with the details. He’s not going to want to go point-by-point with you yet, just do a deep dive on one of the issues, see how you two line up.”

“Which one?” I’m nervy. He could have told me which one to study harder on the flight.