One More Kiss (Affair Without End Book 2) (2 page)

His fingers run down my spine, my flesh quivering beneath the light touch of his calloused tips, and then they make a seductive circle at the base and lightly tease around my entry there. Oh crap. He kisses me there, his tongue making little pushes in and around, heating the lace of my panties, and though I’m starting to panic just a touch, my lower lips clench even tighter. He kisses my back cheeks. Then moves there again to trail down to the underside of my thighs.

He does another tantalizing kiss at my entry there. I gasp.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispers from behind me. “But always too eager.”

His fingers slip into my panties to stroke me where I pulse and it feels like I’m about to climax.

“I want to touch you. Kiss you. Taste you everywhere,” he breathes.

He gently inserts a finger, teasing the melting flesh inside me as his kisses work with the circle of his tongue at my other entry.

He brings me to the brink and then pulls back, over and over again. The entire surface of my flesh is feverish with heat, and I am helpless, lying helpless, in the burn of being touched by Jack. I don’t care what he does. I just want him in me now. I want this delicious torment over now.

“For god’s sake, Jack, hurry.”

He laughs. “This is my bet. I get to do with you what I want.”

My body starts to quiver more strongly. He withdraws his hand and mouth and moves off the bed. I listen… he’s undressing. The sound of his clothes being dropped on the floor. Then, my panties are carefully eased off me.

“How do you want me to make love to you?”

“I don’t care. Just do it,” I beseech.

“Anything I want?” His voice is husky and salaciously suggestive. I lift my cheek from the pillow and start to turn my head to see what’s taking him so long. He stops me. “No. Lie still. Keep those gorgeous eyes closed.”

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Staring at you. Touching myself.”

Fuck. How is it possible for
that
to get me so hot? My sexual want has just turned into a fierce ball of sexual need.

“If that’s true, you’re a cruel man. Touch me.”

He laughs. I can feel him staring down at me as his hand runs up the length of my back, measuring my need. He grabs me suddenly and turns me over. It takes me by surprise, his mouth closing over mine as he plunges into me. I cry out, the suddenness of our joining, his filling me so completely without warning.  His heated assault makes me come instantly. I am screaming and shuddering, my nails digging into his flesh, holding on as his body pounds on and on inside me.

Panting and struggling to catch my breath, my flesh slowly uncoils, relaxes into him, his kisses and the moves of his cock in me, gentle, in an agonizing, expert tempo of thrusts, kisses and touches. Tenderly, he consumes me, moving toward his own orgasm. Whispering raspy love words in my ear, his hands stroke my flesh in a manner so glorious my insides begin to shudder again.

“I love you,” he whispers. A quiet thrust. A gentle kiss on my neck.

He lifts up my backside, molding me into him, moving himself deeper within me without ever altering the slow and tender moves of his flesh. He turns us until I’m riding him. His hand lifts to my cheek.

“Open your eyes,” he whispers, his hand on my hips, his body still guiding mine.

The sight of his face beneath me makes everything come alive within me. The look in his eyes. His expression of loving pleasure. Knowing that both exist there only for me. Oh god, the way he looks at me…I am consumed by my want for him.

His thumb traces the line of my cheek and my lips. He stills. His hands gently take hold of my face. His glowing eyes are wide with arousal.

“I want no one else. I never will. I wish you’d start believing that.”

In that moment, I wish I could believe, and reach out and grab all the things I see in his eyes and face, and feel in his body. Before I can speak, his kiss traps my words inside of me and he is moving inside me in a building tempo. I rage again, meeting his rising want, and I come apart a second time as he lets go inside me. He continues to thrust, kissing me, his hands moving in comforting patterns on my back.

Our breathing slowly calms. I lift my chin and stare at him. “Why did you have me close my eyes? I thought you were going to do something wicked to me.”

Jack smiles. His beautiful blue gaze brightens. “I opted for loving. Are you disappointed?”

I shake my head. How could he even ask that?  I lightly kiss him on the lips and curl back onto his chest, wondering how I could have ever been so lucky for Jack to have enter my life and wanting never to let him go.

CHAPTER TWO

A phone ringing penetrates my scattered senses. I must have fallen asleep. My body is curled atop Jack’s and I lift my face to look at him. He doesn’t stir. I stare at the phone. Nope, not answering it. We don’t have that kind of relationship. I doubt anyone in Jack’s life even knows I exist.

Thinking of that dims a touch of the magic of being here with him, and sets me a little back into reality again and away from the delusional haze of his love words to me. Everything he says, he means. Jack never says a word he doesn’t mean. The problem is they are not always realistic. I’d be a foolish girl to make more of what he says to me than I should. Oh, he means them when he says those loving things to me, but even a guy as wonderful as Jack will eventually realize it might not be a smart move to bring someone like
me
into his world, where his daughter exists.

I am an ex-groupie from the wrong side of the tracks who has fucked more than her share of men, in vile and sometimes humiliating circumstances. I have a reputation, one I used to be proud of, one that made me on the A-list in the LA music scene, but now I wish I could run quickly away from it. Jack has a reputation too, though more of a flaxen glow kind rather than a punch-line of a joke told in a men’s locker-room. Jackson Parker is a beloved American icon. The entire world loves Jack; a living, breathing, and much adored music legend. Nope, Linda Cray from Reseda doesn’t fit long-term in that picture in any way.

I kiss him and his eyes open. He makes a lazy stretch, raking one hand through his tussled, golden waves, drops a light kiss on my lips and reaches for the phone.

“Talk to me,” he mumbles and then yawns.

I try to pull away from him on the bed. His arm behind me curls me into him, easing me back onto his chest. The voice on the other end gets loud enough I can hear it. A thick, gravelly Irish accent. “…where the fuck are you? You better not be in Santa Barbara surfing. You missed the fucking sound check, asshole.”

Jack laughs, his muscles shimmying beneath me. “Christ, you’re worse than having a wife, Liam.”

My eyes round. Liam Ferguson is Jack’s oldest friend and bass player. So, Jack blew off sound check before tonight’s concert to be with me.

Jack looks over top of me to the beside clock. “Crap, it’s seven. I’m in LA. Don’t know where. A car was supposed to pick me up. I’ll be there on time. I don’t know. Somewhere in the downtown area. I’m just where they dropped me.”

I whisper, “The Hyatt. West Hollywood.”

Jack laughs again. “I’ve been informed I’m at the Hyatt. I hit LA six hours ago. It’s all good.”

“Mind telling me why you jumped the coop again?”

The coop. Jack’s been on tour with the band nearly four months, and we’ve existed in an alternate universe. Meeting here and there in hotels apart from the band and the giant entourage that travels with him, when the tour dates make it possible to escape into our own private lairs. Stolen days of just us. It amazes me how well Jack keeps us a secret, and there is a hint of suspicion as to why he’s doing that. It’s not something we’ve discussed. I feel my mood dip. There’s a lot we don’t discuss.

I kiss him on the chest, lay my cheek against his heart, focusing on its steady beat rather than the rapid telephone conversation above my head and try to chase away that nagging negative voice of my inner-self I too rarely can control.
Shut up, Linda. Don’t ruin a good thing by over thinking. Enjoy it while you can. It will end soon enough.

It’s been a glorious ride loving Jack. When I walked out of his life in October, I never expected Jack to hold on and keep us going. But he did. First man in my life not to disappoint me.  I rub my cheek against him. Thank god he held on. One week—one miserably long week of second guessing my choice and regret was all I needed to know I’d made a mistake ending us— and that was all he waited before he let me know he wouldn’t let me walk away from him. He just showed up late one night at my apartment near USC, unannounced, and we’ve been together ever since.

Well, our version of together. Two people who share what time they can together, and nothing more. Simple. Defined. Uncomplicated.

Jack’s laughter pulls me from my thoughts. He says, “Spending a few days with my girlfriend away from you buggers, if you really must know. No worries, Liam.”

His girlfriend?
Jeez, it’s the first time Jack’s called me that. It’s sounds weird given what our relationship is.

“So when do I get to meet this bird you are always hopping the coop to see?”

“Tonight. Linda will be at the show,” Jack says. Without saying goodbye, he drops the phone back into the rest. He sighs. “Oh fuck. I wish I didn’t have a thing tonight.”

Thing.
Only Jackson Parker would call seventeen thousand people at the LA Forum waiting for him to come on stage a
thing
. From another man it would come off as false modesty, but that’s not Jack. His life is neatly organized into parts with meaning and
things
, and there is rarely any logic as to what falls into each category. And I’m definitely not sure which category I fall into. Not even after the girlfriend remark.

I make a face. “Girlfriend?”

“What am I supposed to call you? Besides, I like the sound of that.” He smiles and brushes the hair back from my face. “I’ve got ninety minutes. What do you say to a quickie?”

His eyes are gleaming in that way he has. All man, with a spark of boy peeking out. I’m not completely passed the girlfriend remark or his assumption that I’m going to the concert tonight. I never do. Why would Jack think tonight would be any different?

He starts kissing his way down by body. My flesh reminds me of our six weeks apart by responding with lightning speed to each touch and kiss. I try not to surrender, but I do anyway as my body arches up into the play of his lips. “Quickie, huh? If you start there it definitely won’t be quick. And you are trying to divert me. You don’t want to talk. I’m on to you.”

He lifts his face enough from my navel to peek up at me. “I hope not. I’d like to think I keep you guessing a little from time to time.”

He balances himself between my legs and runs his tongue up the inside of my thigh, making little darts and flicks between the kisses, stopping near, but not there. My body tightens in delicious anticipation.

“Do you want to talk? Do you want me to stop?” he whispers and drops a kiss on my perfectly shaved mound.

I take in a quick breath and shake my head. I arch upward into his mouth as my fingers curl around the sheets. His tongue flicks on the inside of my labia and dances across my clit.

The phone rings again and I groan, thrashing my head on the pillow, this time in frustration. Countdown to show time interruptions. I try to lose myself in the tantalizing play of his mouth and can’t. Ring.

I lift my head up from the pillow and look down at him. Jack is oblivious to everything but me. That alone should get me into the moment. Damn, why doesn’t it?  Why do I tense the second the outside world knocks at our door?

“Are you going to get that?” I whisper, half panting and half groaning.

Jack’s hands slide up my hips and his face tilts so he can see me.

“Just ignore it. They’ll go away.”

Another kiss. Another ring. Another groan.

Jack laughs and moves up my body to kiss me. “OK. You are too impatient and definitely too easily distracted. A man could take that as an insult, Linda.”

I roll my eyes. “A man
should
take it that I want to focus only him.”

He drops a peck on my nose. “Good answer.”

He reclines on his side beside me and reaches for the phone. “Jack,” he says, almost as a growl, as he makes a silly face at me.

I pout slightly and smile, but the smile slips from my face. Jack is suddenly tense and the light in his eyes has changed and he’s eased away from me.

He sits on the edge of the bed, raking a hand through his waves. “Do we have to discuss this now? All right. Hold on.”

He punches the hold button on the phone and takes his jeans from the floor. He pulls them up onto his hips but doesn’t button them. I frown, wondering what this is about.

He kisses my curls. “I’ll make this quick. I promise.” And then he’s into the suite’s living room and he’s back on the phone again.

I sit up in bed, hugging my knees. It’s not like Jack to take a call away from me, and that ugly thing called suspicion destroys my emotional calm with a machete.

The minutes tick by and his voice gets louder, more agitated, in a manner not like him. I can’t make sense of the conversation, but whatever is going on is not good. Crap, we only a have few days together each time we are together, and I know it’s petty, but I’m suddenly peeved by the interruption.

I climb from the sheets and pad across the room, pausing at the closet to take out the cottony-soft long white complimentary robe. I jerk it into place and tie it once.

I hang back at the bedroom doorway, watching. Jack is sitting on the couch, hunched over the phone, elbows on knees, and while I can’t see his face, he looks like a man who’s just been kicked in the gut really hard.

He wanted privacy for this and I’m invading, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let whatever this is get between us without being between us. I know I’m just his back street lover—god I hate that term— but Jack is everything to me, and while the personal boundaries, the no-invasion zones of our lives outside of our affair are more than understood by me, no power on earth could keep me from stepping in when he needs me in his no-invasion zones.