♪♫••════════CHAPTER 20════════••♬ ♭
JACK PULLED HIS kiss from its current locale inside her unbuttoned blouse, and the tiny area hard from the heat of his mouth remained hard when the air cooled it. He promptly cupped his hand warmly over it, playing a different game and brought his lips to hers.
“So when is Tristan’s next Tylenol dose?”
“Why?” She managed the playful inquiry despite the current tug of his fingers.
“You know why…” The question was a hot breath into her ear, eliciting a shiver.
“Thought you liked it better by yourself.” Brazenly, and still slighted by his actions the previous night, she provoked despite all that had gone down so far tonight.
“The hell!” His growl was immediate, and her lips curved.
“You are a jackass for doing that last night…” Her words were light and airy, even using his name as a pun in the curse, but his response was no longer playful.
His motions stilled, and he locked his gaze onto hers. “No, you are. What you did last night was bitchy beyond belief.”
There it was. He was mad about last night. Maybe some part of him had tried to understand when she walked out the door, or maybe he had never been accepting. Ultimately, he was mad.
“You mean going out? I didn’t think you would care…”
“No. You were testing to see if I cared. At least that’s what it felt like. And I do care.” His weight left her as he leaned against the back of the couch. “Do you know how hard it was to play with our son like nothing was wrong while you were out with some douche?”
Hot fury blazed in eyes that only minutes ago had blazed with hot desire, and mentally she revised last night’s assessment of failed ‘Phase One.’ It was looking like it had carried off better than she hoped. She didn’t like him being mad at her, and yet it was titillating to find that he was.
Unsure where to take the phase from here, she simply let her feelings lead.
“Probably about as hard as the shoe on the other foot.” Her mumble was intelligible enough to catch his attention.
“What are you talking about?”
“You partying in LA while I’m sitting around here with our sick kid.” The words were part of the plan at some point, but to actually say them broke her voice. Speaking them aloud also embarrassed her. They were simply parents joined by circumstance, and she was acting out as if they were a real mother and father with a relationship. Mortified at her outburst, she was about to look away when something in his expression changed.
“Momma, Mom, Mom, Mooommma!” From down the hall, the growling chant began.
Jack’s steadfast gaze never left her face, and he incredulously denied, “I wasn’t!”
His indignant astonishment threw her, and again she reflected on the internet picture and what it portrayed. “It seemed like you were. Creeping around with your ex and all!”
“My ex?”
“The ‘lingerina.’” When he continued blankly contemplating the made up word, she huffed with all the haughtiness of Tristan when he had to explain himself. “The underwear model!”
His laughter was abrupt, and just as abruptly his mirth dissipated. Quietly, he studied the frown she felt on her face, and she made an effort to relax those muscles. She wasn’t sure what or why she was feeling whatever this was, and she damn sure didn’t want him privy to these confused reactions.
Watching as she buttoned her blouse, he replied, “I’m not dating her, never have.”
“Momma!” Tristan was no longer practicing the screamo growl, so she knew the water had cooled and the bubbles evaporated.
Swinging her feet off the couch, she sprinted to the bathroom, wrapping his slight body in a towel and helping him with his pajamas. Directing him to bed, she promised to send in Bally and that Jack would be in to say goodnight. However, it wasn’t that simple to pick up her conversation with Jack.
“But, do I get a snack?”
Containing her aggravation at the timing, she replied, “Of course, sweetheart.” And a big dose of Tylenol, she crazily thought. Because, this discussion with Jack, no matter how it progressed, was ending with phase two. Of that, she was determined.
Phase two was S–E–
“Mom? I get a snack, right?”
‘X.”
“Want to eat in your room and watch tv?”
“I wanted to eat with Jack and watch tv.”
“What do you want for your snack?” Following the tiny boy as he swung on his crutches into the den, she met Jack’s eyes, and he stood, automatically clearing a path of shoes and toys to Tristan’s chair.
“Hey, buddy. I was thinking about an orange. Is that what you want?”
Tristan nodded, and while she cleared the taco trash, she watched astounded as Jack puttered around the kitchen and shortly returned with a paper towel of peeled and sectioned oranges.
The moment the tot was in bed with a dose of Tylenol down him, they adjourned to the kitchen after a story read by her and another by Jack.
Again, fascinated, she watched finding him already familiar with the location of utensils and food items. Retrieving the alcohol from the top of the fridge, he began to mix drinks. He asked many more questions about Tristan’s physical limitations, and wondered how quickly in the future these would be a thing of the past.
When it got quiet, she curiously observed as he divided one of Tristan’s juice boxes between the two glasses of orange juice and vodka.
“Don’t knock it till you try it.” Revealing the slight dimples that fluttered her stomach, he passed the finished mixture over. Taking a long sip of his, he turned, leaning a hip against the counter in the sexy stance she remembered so well from the tour bus. Indicating her drink with a tip of his head, he inquired, “Okay?”
Obligingly, she swallowed a sip and nodded in surprise.
Dark eyes quickly honed in on the movement of her throat, and provoked by this attention, she tilted her glass for another.
A comfortable silence stretched, and finally he ventured, “Mariss, I’ve never dated her.”
Searching his earnest eyes, she quietly refuted, “That’s not what Perez Hilton says.” Although she had clicked through the famous blog to some unremembered gossip site, she nevertheless used the name she remembered to make the point.
If possible, his face was as dumbfounded as earlier when she first brought up this supposed ex. “You stalk me online?”
“Just once. The other night. And stop looking at me like that!” The last part she yelled when he seemed entirely too pleased with this new revelation.
Taking a couple of steps, he came to a stop before her. “Her name is Randi Gavin. We are friends. I go to her publicity crap, and she goes to mine. Some of this stuff is planned out for months, and the events require RSVP names way ahead of time for background checks. It’s easier to bring someone who is already on file.” He paused for a few sips of his beverage and then wryly continued, “Besides, I learned, the hard way. The person I’m dating might change by the time whatever is happening actually happens. And it sucks to be stuck with someone you can’t stand by that time or going it stag.”
“You’ve never been more than friends?” Doubtfully, she asked as if she had the right to be this inquisitive, but he didn’t seem to care.
“No.”
“You’ve never banged her?” Why couldn’t she shut up?
“I told you we’re friends. That’s it.” Skillfully, he eluded the query.
“You’ve banged her.” Conclusively, she nodded.
“Marissa, what does it matter?”
“You’ve banged her.”
“As friends. A couple of times. But not in a long, long time.” A flash of perception crossed his face. “Is that what your date last night was all about?”
“Not exactly,” she fibbed, not wanting him to know she was so desperately infatuated with him. “Olivia tried to set us up a while back. And I told her I would after Tristan’s surgery.”
“And after all that waiting for a date, it had to be the weekend I came?”
“Well no. But you were coming to see Tristan–”
“And you,” he interrupted before she could play out the ploy.
‘And you’
No two words, or even three words, had ever made her so happy.
Taking her glass, he thrust both drinks aside, and his palms came to rest on her hips to pull her close. The hand snaking so familiarly under her shirt was cold from holding his drink, but it quickly warmed against the heat of her skin. Greedily, she couldn’t get enough of his kiss, and she found herself practically hanging on him in an effort to get even closer.
His hand splayed on her back, smashing their chests together. Phase two was all downhill from here, or rather down the hall. As she thought of her bedroom, some sanity returned. Five years ago, they had hooked up for the sake of hooking up. And tonight? Tonight she had phased sex into some devious plan. A plan that, not for the first time, felt weird and wrong.
“Jack?” She wedged a hand between them, and when he pulled back enough to warm her face with his inquiring gaze, she pulled in a fortifying breath. “You’re not seeing anyone?”
A myriad of emotions crossed his face, and one seemed to be annoyance. “I thought we just cleared this?”
“You said not Miranda.”
An awkward silence stretched, and he still seemed exasperated with this line of questioning or with the interruption.
And so she joked, “I’ve heard about rock stars. They have a woman in every city! I just don’t want to be your gulf coast girl.”
“What are you asking, Marissa?”
Oh hell. What was she asking? Was she trying to define their relationship, right here, right now? Because what faster way to scare away someone like him? She was an idiot!
“I’m not asking anything,” she tried to salvage a shred of humility. “I just don’t want to go where this is going, if you have a girlfriend. It’s wrong.”
Picking up his glass, he drained it. She had definitely killed the mood, and she was regretting it now. She was about to drink to her own stupidity when he dropped to her level again, speaking against her lips.
“I’m not seeing anyone. No woman in any city. No one.” His lips brushed hers as he spoke, and his gaze sank into her eyes. “Is there anything else you need to clear up in this kitchen before we move to that bedroom and fuck like it’s been five years since?”
Hypnotized by his words, and heated with his look, she could only shake her head in one small chin movement.
“Anything you want me to sign?” He pressed, as he pressed a kiss to her mouth, and when she smiled at the humor, he did too.
A touch of their tongues had them heating up fast, and within seconds, the past minutes fell away as if she had never cock-blocked herself.
When he lifted her against him, she wrapped him with her legs, entwining them together as he headed into the other room, beyond the other room, and into her bedroom. From the previous night, he must have recalled the layout because even in the dark, he went straight for the bed and came down on top of her.
His fingers were on the buttons of her shirt, and she rose, flinging it off along with the bra beneath it as soon as it was undone. His shirt came over his head at the same time, and they pressed together eager to feel skin to skin. Fervently, she traced each muscle and skimmed her fingers across hot skin. Her lips were on his lips, his neck, his chest, taking in and tasting everything her hands were feeling. His reciprocation was driving her to a frenzy, and finally crazed, she realized she was lying limp while he was tasting and teasing every bit of exposed skin.
By some sanity in the back of her mind, she was listening for any sign of Tristan being awake, any clank of his crutches. “Jack,” she gasped at the next flick of his tongue. “I should see if Tristan is asleep…”
He dragged his tongue across the expanse of skin just above the waistline of her low-rise jeans. Her muscles jumped beneath wet skin, and she breathed in another unsteady breath. Lifting her head, she beheld the top of his dark head, and the visual aggravated the throbbing ache deep inside.
“I will. Stay put.” For emphasis, he flicked the button of her jeans through its denim slit, drew the zipper down, and suctioned a kiss to the skin he’d exposed. Pulling his shirt back on, he exited the room and was back in a flash, pushing the door completely closed. “Tylenol strikes again.” She could hear the fond smile in his voice, and his clothes rustle as they came completely off. “Can I turn the lamp on?”
A second after her assent, she was blinking in the light and basking in his admiring look. Her eyes ran down him, all long, lean hard muscle.
Back against her, he whispered, “You are just how I remember… And I remember everything, Mariss.”
The sweet words whispered against her neck. “The way you look. The way you taste.” Her hand was now in his, and the lash of his tongue on the palm, the stroke between her fingers, brought a whimper to her lips and brought back the memories she held so vivid. Thinking of his tongue other places as he continued this tease had her moaning again as other places heated unbearably. “The way you sound…”
Abandoning the assault on her hand, he sought her lips again, swallowing the next sound from her throat. Her hand traveled down, wanting to pull the same sound from his lips, and the second her fingers closed around what they sought, she was rewarded with a low rumble.
Everything resumed full throttle; she couldn’t keep up with his next touch or kiss, and her lips, tongue and hands could not get enough of him. Somewhere in this madness, the rest of her clothing was shed, and when his kiss strayed intimately to those ‘other places’, the reality replacing the recollections had her smothering her cry with a pillow.
Wild and sweet, fiery and intense the kiss continued until she was weakly pulling him by his hair to her lips. If she had thought that was nirvana, she was soon reminded wrong. They rocked and they rolled until she thought every cell in her body would explode with the intensity and her heart would burst with emotion.
Being with Jack was everything she remembered and more. The connection was mental as well as physical, and as she lay against him sweetly sated, with their child in the next room, she couldn’t help but feel that they were fated to be together.
Phase two. Complete. At this point, after the depth of passion between them, phases was more of an amusing last thought as she fell asleep, no longer a direct plan.
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