Rachel sensed the change in him. It felt like the calm before a storm, when the temperature increased, the wind stilled, and the air became heavy with expectation. She shivered, so damn worked up she felt as if the slightest touch could set her off. Her skin felt too tight and hot. Her chest too constricted.

Leaning his head back, he looked at her with heavy-lidded eyes. Watching her, as two fingers slipped inside her.

The sound that escaped her was thready with need. Her pussy rippled with greed, sucking at the two thick male fingers sliding in her to the knuckles. The tension bled away, her muscles slackening as pleasure coursed through her veins.

“You’re so tight.” His voice was rough as sandpaper. His fingers withdrew to the tips, then thrust deep. Her quivering thighs lost their grip on his hips.

Jack pulled free of her clinging pussy and cupped the backs of her legs, bending down to help her feet touch the floor. She fell back against the wall with her eyes closed, her palms pressed flat against the wainscoting, her breathing quick and shallow.

He caught her face in his hands and kissed her, his mouth slanting across hers with a ferocity he hadn’t displayed earlier. Whatever resistance he’d felt before was gone, replaced by a sharply focused determination that made her heart race.

She’d had it so wrong. There was no way she could have prepared for this. As his mouth moved along her cheek to her throat, suckling and nibbling the tender skin, she felt herself unraveling. All the stability and structure she’d forged for herself melted away beneath the scorching heat of Jack’s single-minded desire. There was no hesitation in his approach, no tentativeness in his touch, no caution in the command he exerted on her body.

His hands moved from her jaw to her shoulders, then down her arms. As the liquid heat of his mouth surrounded a tightly puckered nipple, he gripped her rib cage in his hands and pulled her to him, arching her backward so that her breasts thrust toward him like a gift.

Her eyes flew open, focusing on the shadowed ceiling above her. The feel of Jack’s tongue fluttering over her nipple was so exquisite, she thought she might orgasm. Her stomach quivered and her hips writhed. Her clit pulsed with need.

“Suck me,” she begged, needing a quick release to take the biting edge off her lust.

He did as she asked but not in the way she needed. Not fast and not gentle. Every slow, hard suck radiated downward, intensifying the hunger gripping her in an iron fist. The hot tugging at her breast was echoed in her womb, with sharp rhythmic contractions spurring her need to climax and driving her insane.

“Faster.”

His mouth moved across to the neglected nipple, his teeth scraping over the hardened crest, pausing at the tip to flicker his tongue across it.

“Jack. Please.” Her head fell to the side, her flushed cheek pressing against the cool drywall. “More.”

“Beautiful,” he murmured. “Soft and sweet. Too sweet to rush tasting them.”

“They’re smaller than you like,” she gasped.

His next suck was so strong it brought pleasure bordering on pain. She whimpered and dug her short fingernails into her palms. He drew hard on her again, then soothed the throbbing point with soft licks.

“You’re what I like.” His hands moved in counterpoint to the recent fierceness of his mouth, his thumbs stroking tenderly across the crease beneath each breast, gentling her. Two sides of the same man—one careful and reverent, the other rough and wild. “Every inch of you.”

Urging her back against the wall, his hands slid down past her waist to her hips, his knees bending as he moved lower. He kissed the moist spot between her breasts. “This inch.”

His tongue followed his downward path, licking along the center of her stomach to dip his tongue in her navel. “And this one.”

When he gripped her buttocks in each hand and pulled her hips forward, electricity raced across her skin. He nuzzled against her bare mound. “Definitely this one.”

“Jack . . .” She didn’t know how she’d survive it if he put his mouth on her. She didn’t know how she’d survive if he didn’t.

“Hold yourself open for me,” he ordered, his voice husky. “Let me see you.”

Her gaze locked with his. Although he spoke with command, there was a softness to the way he looked at her that prevented shyness or second guessing. Inhaling deeply, she reached down and exposed her pussy . . . and so much more of herself than he could possibly know.

five

“Very pretty.”

The admiration in Jack’s voice flowed through Rachel in a warm rush of pleasure. He blew a gentle stream of air over her and she whimpered.

“And so sensitive,” he murmured. “Your clit is peeping out at me, greedy thing.”

“Tease,” she accused.

“Teases don’t deliver.” Licking his lips, he leaned in. “I’m going to make you come so hard the neighbors will hear you.”

He paused for an endless second, making her wait. When she was about to scream, he stroked the flat of his tongue across her. Biting back a cry, Rachel fought to remain standing. Her hands shook as she kept herself spread for him, her knees threatening to buckle.

“You better hold on to me,” he warned darkly, then he dove full force for the aching flesh between her thighs.

Wielding the point of his tongue like a lash, Jack caught the tip of her distended clitoris and fluttered over it with lightning quickness. She climaxed with a low moan, the orgasm tearing through her senses with a force she never knew she could withstand. Her body was wracked by violent shudders, her toes curling painfully into the hardwood floor.

And he didn’t let up. His grip on her ass tightened and he tongued her like a man possessed, his hungry growls throwing her headlong into a second climax directly on the heels of the first. Incited by his wildness, she caught his head by the sweat-dampened roots of his hair and rode his working mouth. She took what she needed, grinding against his wickedly skilled tongue. Shameless in her pleasure, she didn’t care who heard or saw her. The only thing that mattered was Jack and what he was doing to her.

When the rush ebbed, it took all of her energy with it. She sagged into the wall, gasping for air and trembling.

Jack stood and lifted her over his shoulder, then turned back toward the couch. When she regained the ability to speak, she was going to tell him again how hot his caveman tendencies were to her. Or maybe she’d just show him . . .

He sat her down on the armrest of the couch and stepped between her knees. With a hand behind her head, he urged her backward, balancing her so that her torso hung suspended over the cushions.

With no leverage whatsoever, Rachel could only accept what he gave her—the teasing glide of his tongue along the seam of her lips . . . the nip of his teeth at her jaw . . . the questing of his fingers as they parted her again and pushed through oversensitive tissues . . .

“Jack.” Rachel caught him by the belt loops, arching helplessly into his grip.

His fingers curved upward inside her, stroking, searching. She writhed, her abdominal muscles so tense they cramped. The anticipation was a torment all its own, as was the illicitness of their location. The couch was set in front of the sliding glass doors to take advantage of the ocean view. The slanting moonlight ended at the base of the sofa, only an inch or two away from the shadows where Jack fucked his fingers into her.

“There.” His mouth curved wickedly as he tapped against her G-spot. “Let’s see what happens first: I make you come, or you get into my pants.”

Rachel really wanted to win. She wanted to see what he looked like, what he felt like. But she was a mess. Emotionally. Physically. And he had a head start. As she fumbled to rip open his button fly, he pressed and rubbed with his roughened fingertips. Fingertips that were strong enough to hold his entire body weight while rock climbing, yet were achingly gentle with her.

She’d barely freed his cock from the restrictive denim when the orgasm hit her. Moaning, she instinctively tried to pull away from the overload of sensation, but he held her immobile and made her take it. He leaned over her as she quaked, pressing his lips to her ear and crooning words she could barely hear over the rushing of blood in her ears. Let go . . . I have you . . . You’re safe with me . . . His hand thrust and twisted between her legs, the relentlessness so at odds with the gentle tone of his voice. It felt so much like a feral sort of claiming, a branding, a demand that she surrender to him completely.

That man will never accept anything less than one hundred percent of a woman’s soul, her much wiser mother-in-law once said. Rachel used to wonder what kind of woman would be strong enough to share so much of herself. Now, she knew. She went slack in his arms, embracing her newfound fortitude and turning herself over to the passionate side of Jack she’d fantasized about.

“Rachel,” he murmured, the one word filled with an aching tenderness. His fingers left her.

She exhaled audibly. “I want to feel you. Inside me.”

“I don’t have any condoms.”

“It’s okay. I got back on the pill two months ago, the day after you made plans to come out here.”

His breath hissed out between his teeth.

Rachel cupped his cheek. “You never stood a chance.”

The kiss he gave her was fierce and passionate, relaying so much more than lust and desire. She clung to him, soaking up the flood of emotion from a man known for his reserve and austerity. This was why she could blossom for him, why she felt fearless and audacious. They were so much alike in that way, their still waters running deeper than most.

Jack broke the kiss, breathing heavily. He moved her with unsteady hands, turning her so she draped bonelessly over the couch arm, her back to his front.

She’d never felt more emotionally raw or physically vulnerable. When she heard the rustle of his jeans, her hands fisted beside her head. She stared sightlessly out the open patio door, feeling the cool evening air flowing over her damp skin. There was no longer any tension in her, no resistance, no aggression. When Jack cupped her inner thigh, she widened the spread of her legs of her own volition, needing a deeper physical connection to him.