nipple and then suckled, drawing her very essence into himself.
She planted her feet on the mattress and lifted her hips. “Touch me, Jack. Touch me.”
He did. Sweeping one hand down the length of her body, he cupped her center and used his thumb to brush across her most sensitive spot. She jerked beneath him and he smiled against her breast, relishing her reaction. He suckled harder, and then lifted his head to switch to her other breast and she went crazy in his arms. As if the need that had been building between them for weeks had finally reached a breaking point for both of them, she rocked her hips into his hand.
He pushed two fingers into her heat and groaned himself at the slick, tight feel of her. It had been too long. His body was ready to explode and so was hers. He couldn’t wait another minute to be inside her, to feel her body surrounding his.
Lifting his head, he looked down at her then kissed her briefly. “At least we don’t need a condom now.”
“Points for us,” she said, swallowing hard, breath coming in short, hard gasps. “Damn it, Jack, don’t drag this out. I need you inside me.”
“Just what I need, too,” he said, and shifted position to kneel between her thighs. He spread her legs wide and looked down at her. She was wanton, wild and everything he’d ever wanted in a woman. And for this one moment at least, she was his again—as she was always meant to be.
His mind whispered that this was temporary. That this marriage wasn’t real and he was nobody’s idea of husband material anyway. But he shut that nagging voice down and surrendered to the mating call trumpeting through his body.
He ran his hands over her hot, slick center, watching her twist and writhe in her own desperate need.
Her response pushed his own desires beyond what he could bear. Body throbbing, heart galloping, he leaned over her and pushed himself inside her. That first, glorious slide filled him with the kind of ease he hadn’t known in months. This was what had been missing in his life. This sense of rightness that claimed him when their bodies were joined.
She hooked her legs at his hips and pulled him in tighter, deeper. Tipping her head back into the mattress, she bit her lip and moved with him. Their bodies meshed, linked in the most intimate way possible, he felt the pounding of her heart. Saw the flash in her eyes, heard her gasping breaths and experienced her body quaking, quivering as he pushed her higher, faster than they’d ever gone before.
Her nails scored his back as he rocked in and out of her body, setting a rhythm she raced to meet. “Jack! Jack!”
“Come on, Rita,” He urged, barely able to frame the words as his breath sawed in and out of his lungs. “Go over. Go over so I can follow.”
She clung to him and shouted his name when the first tremors took her. He felt her body tighten around his in spasms of delight and when she’d reached her peak, Jack let go and found the peace that had been denied him for months.
* * *
Rita took some deep breaths and tried to ease the frantic beat of her heart at the same time. It had been six long months since he’d touched her like that. Time in which she’d almost convinced herself that her memory was making what they shared much better than it actually had been. Well, she told herself, that theory was just shot out of the sky.
Her whole body was so alight with sensation she thought she should glow in the dark. And even while she tried to regain control, she was thinking about doing it all again. She turned her head to look at Jack, lying beside her. One arm flung across his eyes, his chest heaved with every breath and she smiled, knowing that he was just as shaken as she. Had she finally broken through the wall he’d built around himself? Was her Jack finally back?
“You owe me twenty bucks,” he said softly.
She blinked at him, then laughed. “Seriously? You want a tip?”
He lowered his arm and turned his gaze on her. “Nope. A bet we made. Not only did you marry me when you said you wouldn’t, you just—”
She held up one hand. “I know what I just—” then she slapped both hands to her hips as if checking for a wallet “—I don’t seem to have any pockets at the moment so I’ll have to owe you.”
One corner of his mouth quirked. “I suppose I can live with that.”
Rolling to one side, he propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at her. “Rita—”
She stopped him by laying her fingers on his mouth. Disappointment welled in her chest. Looking into his eyes, she could see that her Jack was still buried behind a shutter of ice. Maybe there were a few cracks in that cold stillness, but it was a seductive stranger staring at her through Jack’s eyes. Her heart hurt for it, but she wouldn’t give up. Now more than ever, it was important to find a way to completely reach him.
“Don’t you dare apologize for this,” she said firmly. “Or tell me that it’ll never happen again—”
He tried to speak, but she hurried on. “We both wanted this, Jack. And I want it again right now.”
“Want isn’t the point,” he ground out as he laid one arm across her middle.
“Then what is?” She reached up and smoothed his hair back from his forehead, just because she wanted her fingers in that thick, wavy mass. Rita needed to touch him, to ground herself and hopefully him. To remind them both that the threads binding them were still there. They hadn’t been broken, only strained. She had to believe they could strengthen them again.
“Talk to me,” she said, locking her gaze on his so that he could see how much she wanted this. That when he told his story, whatever it was, he would still be safe with her. “Tell me what you were dreaming. Why were you shouting? What made you grab hold of me and hang on like I was a lifeboat in a tsunami?”
He scowled, but she was so used to that expression now, it didn’t even affect her. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Just dream about it then?” she countered, refusing to give up on him. Them. “Don’t you see that if you do tell me, maybe it will make the dreams fade?”
“Nothing can.”
Then the baby kicked and his features went blank with surprise. He glanced down to where his arm rested across her belly and then he sucked in a gulp of air when the baby kicked again, as if reminding its parents that they weren’t alone. His astonished gaze snapped to hers. “That was—”
“A good kick,” she finished for him. She knew what he was feeling, because she’d felt exactly the same the first time the baby’d moved. It was magic, she knew. Staggering. That tiny life making itself known. Taking his hand, she held it tightly to the mound of their child.
On cue, another kick came and Jack’s eyes went wide even as an unexpected grin lit his face. “Strong baby.”
That wide smile of his tugged at her heart. “Like its father.”
Just like that, his smile faded into memory. Pulling away from her grasp, he asked, “What is it? The baby, I mean. Do you know?”
If he hadn’t pulled away from her, Rita would have thought that she was making more progress with him. He hadn’t once asked
