Falling for the Guy Next Door (11 page)

The beating
sun crested her other nipple, lavishing a different kind of heat
and twin threads of desire pulled tight all the way to her core.
She arched her spine, unable to keep still, her breasts reaching
for more of both.

Jack’s fingers
worked loose the bows on both sides of her bikini briefs. He didn’t
displace the material, but her body knew what was coming and heat
pooled low in her abdomen. Her blood steamed inside her veins and
each breath came out on a whimpered moan.

“Part your
thighs, baby.” His voice was husky, a groan of his own need, and
she obeyed willingly. He flipped the final triangle of her bikini
down, this time exposing her intimate core.

His mouth
moved off her breast. Her lids were so heavy, she couldn’t open her
eyes, but she knew instinctively that he’d lifted his gaze to the
apex of her spread thighs. Without his mouth sucking her, without
his body covering her, with only his gaze on her and the
anticipation of his next touch, every sensory nerve seemed to be
pulsing at her centre. The intensity grew with each passing second
that he didn’t touch her. The heat of the sun stroked her core,
hotter and hotter, until her lower folds were swollen masses of
aching desire.

“Jack,
please…” She couldn’t take much more. She bucked as the tip of a
finger stroked a line between the folds and rubbed lightly over her
pulsating pearl. Liquid heat rushed from her. That finger trailed
down to dip inside and massage her own juices into her throbbing
flesh.

“Jack, I
can’t…” A burning tremor started deep inside. She needed to
explode. Right now.

“Okay, baby,
let go.” His mouth crushed over her breast again, sucking her
nipple hard against the length of his tongue. Between her thighs,
his thumb swirled a point of hot pleasure into her pearl bud while
his palm rubbed hard against her swollen lower lips. Two fingers
speared her, touching an erogenous spot deep within her.

Her torso
lifted off the ground as she exploded in wave upon wave of burning
heat, grinding her core against his palm and the fingers thrusting
to the rhythm of her climax. Once she’d peaked and crashed, his
fingers stopped moving but remained buried deep so she could pulse
and clench against the thickness as she slowly floated down from
that staggering height of oblivion and brought her legs
together.

Megan felt
utterly boneless. Each breath was a gulp for air as tremors of
aftershock shuddered through her.

She opened her
eyes and saw the agony of unspent desire carved into Jack’s face
just before his head came down, his mouth crushing hers in an
unyielding kiss. His tongue pushed deep inside to mate with hers
and she met each stroke with a fresh surge of passion. His body
moved partially over hers as he inserted a leg between her thighs.
The length of his erection lay thick and heavy on her belly. Skin
roughened by chest hairs scraped a new level of sensitivity over
her breasts and her nipples hardened against his warm skin.

Her belly was
tightening again, demanding more, aching for the fullness of him
thrusting deep inside her, joining them with the same intimacy of
his darting, exploring tongue.

She hooked one
leg around him and arched her hips, rocking slightly, thrilling in
the sensation as he grew even harder against her belly.

His fingers
tangled in her hair, his body sliding over hers with a hot,
dragging friction. She slid her arms around him, her nails scraping
lightly down his back until she reached the ribbed waistband of his
trunks. She gave the wet material an impatient, ineffectual tug,
but it was enough to encourage Jack to roll off her and shrug out
of his trunks. He reached for his backpack and settled between her
thighs a few moments later, fully sheathed.

Supporting his
weight on his elbows, poised for entry at the juncture of her
thighs, he looked into her eyes. He didn’t say anything, didn’t
move as he looked at her.

His eyes held
a depth of emotion she’d never seen there before. Hunger, need, the
same raw desire that strained at his jaw, but so much more. He
hungered for her, not just a woman’s body. The urgency to bury
himself deep inside her was the culmination of building desire and
not merely the urge to sate an immediate need.

Every primal,
possessive instinct he’d shown along the way had returned to gather
in that look with a common theme:
You belong to me
.

Not forever.
She knew that. For one day at the most, perhaps even for only one
hour. She told herself it was enough.

Then, finally,
he brought his mouth down to brush kisses over the column of her
throat and he slid into her an exquisite inch by inch until he’d
buried himself to the hilt. He filled her completely, his heat
pulsing thick and heavy inside her, and she threw her head back on
a soft moan at the overwhelming sensation. His kisses had trailed
to one breast and he took the peak into his mouth, his tongue
flicking her nipple to an erect nub. He cupped her other breast and
teased that nipple with his thumb. Fire licked her veins and spread
a web of aching heat throughout.

He withdrew a
couple of inches and then thrust hard with a force that pounded a
wall of red-hot desire straight to her core. She cried out on the
wave of pleasure-pain. Her fingers tore through his hair and
clutched in a desperate need to anchor herself as he withdrew
slowly and plunged hard and fast again, and again, taking her to a
new, burning height with each thrust. His mouth clenched on her
breast around a hoarse grunt.

Her body
bucked off the ground as he tensed deep inside her and then, on an
almost savage roar that rumbled in his throat, he found his release
and swept her over the black edge of her own climax. Her muscles
clamped his pulsing length, milking every last drop of his release
as she rode wave upon wave of blinding heat.

He stayed
seated deep inside her until the last shudder left her body, then
he rolled off her and reached for his trunks.

Feeling
suddenly abandoned and confused, Megan popped her breasts back
inside her bikini top and looked around for her bottoms. Her
fingers were trembling—damn, her heart was trembling and where the
hell was—Oh! She went onto her knees, grabbed the scrap of material
and concentrated on sliding it between her legs and tying the
bows.

“Megan.” His
voice was butter soft, a balm to her splintered nerves. “Come here,
baby.” His arm came around her waist, pulling her down firmly into
the cradle of his embrace as he sprawled out over his towel, her
cheek pressed to the thudding beat of his heart.

“That was
amazing.” His fingers curled in her hair, brushing her fringe
aside, and his lips pressed gently to her forehead. “You’re
amazing.”

A knot formed
in her throat at his tenderness. The sexual energy consuming her
had been drained, the anxiety attack squelched, and emotion rushed
in to fill the gap.

At least half
of the ache of longing she’d kept suppressed for so many months had
been for this…to be folded in his warmth and to be cherished, to
feel complete and at peace instead of like a live wire that had
been abruptly severed.

She’d lied to
herself. She couldn’t do the not-a-single-string-attached night—or
afternoon—of passion without letting her feelings get in the way.
Not with Jack. But he need never know.

She slanted
one leg over his and folded her arms across his chest to prop her
chin on. She gave him a playful smile. “Tell me something I don’t
know.”

“It’s always
been different with you, Megan. Special.” His grin came on slow and
sexy as he linked his arms around her, his hands resting on the
small of her back. “That’s why I resisted for so long.”

Spread over
him, satin soft skin flush with rock hard abs and rippled chest,
appreciation for his animal maleness soaked into her pores and kept
her blood simmering. Lost in the intensity of his gaze, her muscles
growing languid beneath his exploration, her heart opened to his
words and demanded answers.

Why
resist?

What are you
so afraid of?

Because she
knew this wasn’t Jack yielding to compelling forces beyond his
control. This was his version of a goodbye speech.

Thankfully her
mind sharpened against the lull of too much Jack, too much sex and
possibly too much sun, and she kept her mouth shout.

She’d already
asked those questions in various forms, long before they’d crossed
the line from friendship into lovers, and his stubborn answers
never changed and didn’t actually answer anything at all. He wasn’t
afraid. He didn’t do long-term relationships. The world was too big
and exciting and life was too short to cram into one corner of
it.

Pain stabbed
at the edge of her subconscious, but she couldn’t allow it to
pierce. That he’d be gone by morning was a certainty grafted to her
bones and she was determined nothing would ruin these precious few
hours. If she pushed him, he’d back off so quickly, he’d topple
over into that abyss of secret fears and God knew what else and she
didn’t want them to end in that particular manner again.

So no
questions, no probing, not even a casual reference to when she
might see or hear from Jack again. She’d bargained this deal
between her body and her heart and reneging was not an option. She
got Jack this one last time and then she moved on swiftly.

M
egan couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned until her
covers strangled her and then she kicked them off with a burst of
frustrated energy. She tried emptying her head of all thought, but
that just left a blank canvas for a fresh slew of mind games. She
should have stayed; could have spent the night in his arms.

They’d shared
the bottle of wine on the beach and talked for hours, swum in the
frigid ocean and warmed up afterwards with slow, lingering kisses
and entwined limbs. Talked some more and watched the oranges and
pinks bleed into inky blue as the sun met the horizon with
spectacular grace. They’d stopped in town for calamari takeaways
and eaten on the pier while Jack told her all about his upcoming
exhibition at a London gallery, his eyes lit with passion as he
delved into technical aspects she didn’t quite understand. It
didn’t matter. With a breeze cooling the muggy evening, his thigh
brushing hers as their legs dangled off the end of the pier, his
enthusiasm rumbled out on a sexy baritone that washed her senses
with pure pleasure. And then he’d brought her home and taken his
sweet time adoring every inch of her body.

Dragging
herself away from his warmth, her limbs drugged with his lovemaking
and the heaviness of sleep invading her muscles, had felt like the
hardest thing she’d ever had to do.

It wasn’t.

Waking up in
Jack’s bed, watching his eyes shut down as he back-pedalled from
the night before, tripping over his own feet in his haste to
leave…a repeat performance of the last time she’d woken up beside
him would have been much, much worse.

Sleep must
have claimed her eventually, because next thing she was drifting
awake, her head groggy but her senses seeking out the disturbance
that had roused her. She lay perfectly still and held her breath.
Nothing to hear, except the familiar echo of the churning ocean.
She released that breath, was just relaxing into the long descent
back to sleep, when her body jerked and she was instantly wide
awake.

Something
wasn’t right.

She scrambled
out of bed and padded across the room to peek through the drapes.
The view from her window was the sloping meadow and the town
nestled in the crook of the battered limestone headland that
reached deep into the ocean. The sun wasn’t up yet, but the black
of night had lifted and the winding pattern of streetlights far
below was a dim yellow against the creeping dawn.

She let the
drapes fall back into place with a sigh.

The only thing
that was wrong was also the one thing that felt a hundred percent
balanced, whether she liked it or not. Jack was leaving. Assuming
she’d been the unfinished business keeping him here, well, he’d
definitely taken care of that yesterday. Twice over. She rolled her
shoulders and took a deep, calming breath.
No regrets.

She went
through to her office and switched her computer on so it could boot
up while she brewed her morning coffee. Her inbox would be bulging
and there was always admin stuff to catch up. Plenty to keep her
too busy to…her thoughts flat-lined as her gaze strayed out the
window.

It wasn’t the
knowledge that Jack was leaving today that had unsettled her enough
to rouse her from sleep.

It was Jack
actually leaving. Sneaking away at the crack of dawn.

He tossed a
bag onto the backseat of his Land Rover and then slid his camera
bag from his shoulder and leaned further inside.

It’s for the
best, she told herself. The sooner he left, the sooner she could
prove to herself that she’d be just fine.

I don’t
have to watch this.
But her legs refused to obey. Thankfully
she hadn’t turned the light on. He wouldn’t see her framed in the
window unless he looked directly up at her office.

Jack pulled
out of the backseat, pushed the door closed and turned. His head
came up and she was busted. He came forward a few steps, flapping a
hand at her. She answered with a small goodbye wave of her own.

He rounded the
hedge onto her side, still flapping that hand. Oh! Megan flipped
the latch and pushed the window open.

He grinned up
at her. “This is early for you.”

No
regrets.
She dug deep and found a smile. “I don’t always sleep
till noon.” Only when she wrote through the night.

“There goes my
theory.”

“What theory?”
And speaking of theories, shouldn’t he be halfway down Bluff Drive
by now?