Worth the Risk: A Contemporary Romance Bundle, page 54
She moved on him, putting her hands on his chest to support herself while she did. “It’s hot, isn’t it?”
He pumped inside her. “But it’s not soft.”
“Tastes sweet,” she whispered, bringing her mouth down to his ear. Bent forward like this, her clit rubbed tantalizingly on his stomach.
His hands gripped her hips, but he let her set the pace. She took it slowly, wanting it to last, teasing herself. She put her hands on his shoulders, her hair falling down around her face to tickle his. One hand left his hips to push the long strands over her shoulder, and his hand followed it, sliding down her arm and then her side, back to her hip.
His touch left electric tingles in its wake. Her nipples tightened further. Her clit swelled as she rubbed it against him. His cock stretched her.
“You’re so wet,” Jack murmured. “I love feeling how wet you get when I make love to you.”
She couldn’t answer. It was another game she usually lost—Jack could speak right up until the end, but Josie often lost her voice when swept away by pleasure. She moaned, instead, which made him smile.
He tightened his hands on her hips as her pace quickened. “I love hearing that noise.”
She did it again, partly to please him and partly because she couldn’t help it. His chuckle made her smile in return, but she didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. Jack knew just what to do for her.
Her focus narrowed, narrowed, to the spot between her legs. She sat back, her clit so engorged she no longer needed direct stimulation on it. The pressure of his cock inside her was enough to spiral her closer to the edge.
She looked down at him and lost herself in his dark eyes. It seemed like she’d been looking into Jack’s eyes for as long as she could remember. There was no emotion she hadn’t seen in his gaze: anger, sorrow…but best of all, love.
“Love you,” she gasped out, rocking with him as he thrust harder.
“Love you, too.” He shuddered and pulsed inside her.
Her entire world shrank to that one small spot between her legs. She cried out, fingernails digging into his shoulders. Her cunt spasmed, clenching his cock, and he said her name in a breathy half-gasp that sent another bolt of pure pleasure through her.
A moment later he gave a final thrust, signaling his release. She bent forward to kiss him, and another climax rippled through her, smaller and more diffuse but no less fantastic than the first.
“Again?” he whispered, and she laughed breathlessly into his ear.
“Yes. It’s not a contest, Jack.”
“Point of pride,” he answered. “If I could make you come ten times every time we made love, I would.”
“Only ten?” She laughed again and slid off him, mindful of how she positioned herself to prevent a wet spot on the sheets. She usually got up and went to the bathroom right away, but she was feeling so boneless she couldn’t quite convince herself to move.
“I’m not a machine, Josie.”
She ran her hand down his chest. “Yes, you are. You’re the Jackhammer, remember?”
He grimaced, this time at her mention of a past joke. “Don’t start.”
She giggled. “Isn’t that what she called you?”
“She” was Jack’s college girlfriend, Sheila Goode. Though she and Jack had only dated for a few months, the stories their relationship produced had become part of the Gold/Levine Canon. The stuff of legend almost. Sheila had been sexually insatiable, a Goth girl with multiple piercings and a penchant for wearing black.
“Don’t ask like you don’t know.”
Josie giggled again. “I bet you wouldn’t wear black eyeliner and fishnet shirts if I asked you to.”
“Shut up!”
She tickled him until he squirmed. “Too bad. I thought you looked hot.”
He flipped on his side to look at her. “Get the fuck out.”
She laughed harder at his use of shocked profanity. “Oh, yeah. All moody and stuff. All angsty and Robert Smith from The Cure. Back when you had hair.”
He rolled his eyes. “That girl used me up and wore me out. That was probably the worst six months of my life.”
She mimicked his expression. “Oh, yeah. Being fucked to death is every man’s nightmare.”
He frowned. “It wasn’t the fucking. It was the hot wax and razor blades. That girl was crazy.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I knew about the hot wax. You never told me about the razor blades.”
He slanted her a familiar grin. “You never asked.”
“That’s…kinky.”
“That’s just scary.” He pulled her closer. “Anyway, I was only with her because you were going out with what’s-his-name.”
“Stuart.” Josie snuggled closer. “Don’t ask like you don’t know.”
He laughed, rubbing her shoulder. “We wasted too much time.”
“Nah.” She grinned up at him. “We would never have made it in college. Then what would’ve happened?”
“You don’t think so?”
He sounded so genuinely curious she pulled away to look up at him. She’d thought it had always been mutually understood that their relationship had grown from friendship to love through the years. She’d never guessed he might really have thought differently in college.
“I think so,” she replied matter-of-factly.
“Why not?”
“Because you were interested in partying and drinking and hooking up,” she told him. “And I was trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up.”
She’d changed majors three times in college. Jack, who’d excelled scholastically despite his social proclivities, had never wavered from the major he’d decided on his junior year of high school.
It was the way he’d always been, though. He set his sights on a goal and he reached it, no matter how long the road to get there or how many times he stopped along the side of it. Her path had been different, a winding garden lane instead of a mega-superhighway. Yet they’d both ended up in the same place.
She kissed his warm, bare shoulder. “We are the sum of our experiences. If we hadn’t lived our past, we wouldn’t be here now.”
“Tell me you couldn’t have done without Stuart.”
She laughed lightly, smoothing his chest under her fingertips. “But then I’d never have figured out I didn’t want to pursue medicine. I’d never have taken that course in catering management. I wouldn’t have the job I have today, and I love my job.”
“And if I hadn’t been Sheila’s Jackhammer?”
That one was harder. “Um….you wouldn’t have learned you’re not into kinky sex?”
He gave a mock growl and rolled over on top of her, holding her arms above her head. “Who says I’m not into kinky sex?”
She giggled. “Okay. How about this? You wouldn’t have started working out so much. You needed your strength to keep up with her, remember? If you hadn’t been with her, you’d still be a skinny, flabby mess.”
“With a tremendous ’fro,” Jack added.
“That, too. So you see? Thanks to her you became the buff, bald god I see before me.”
He laughed and kissed her thoroughly. “So the truth comes out. You only love me because of my body.”
“I love you because of your body,” she agreed. “And your mind. And your heart.”
He smiled. “But the body helps, right?” He let go of her arms to sit up and flex his muscles. “Makes you horny, right?”
She made a face. “Oh, yes.”
Jack lay down next to her and pulled the blankets up over them both. He turned on his side and pulled her close to him, his face serious.
“You’re the only person who knows all of me, Josie.”
His quiet words made her smile, and she touched his mouth with her fingertips. “Same here.”
He pulled her close, tucking her head beneath his chin. “I still don’t think you needed to go out with Stuart.”
She laughed, snuggling closer, her eyes already drooping. “Go to sleep, Jackhammer.”
His chuckle was the last thing she heard before she slipped into dreams.
Chapter 7
“I brought a few samples for you to look over,” said Mrs. Gold from across the table. Her bracelet clinked on her water glass as she reached to hand Josie a folder. “Daddy and I thought we’d go ahead and order the stationary now so you could get a head start on addressing your thank you card envelopes.”
Josie caught Jack’s glance and almost heard his words in her head. At least she was asking them before she ordered it.
Josie took the folder. She’d always thought Mrs. Gold was pretty mild-mannered, until the wedding plans began. She’d seen her and Jack in their share of arguments, but it wasn’t until the past few months she’d appreciated why.
She took a deep breath and put a smile on her face. “Actually, I was just going to pick up some plain cards from the store…” She pulled out the first set of samples. Creamy ivory paper with embossed letters of raised gold. She brushed it with her fingers. “This is really pretty. Oh, but this one wouldn’t work.”
She held up the card with the ornate ‘G’ on the front.
“No?” Mrs. Gold frowned and looked over her glasses. “Too fancy?”
“No.” Josie chuckled and sifted through the other samples. They were all ornate. “The letter. My last name starts with ‘L.’”
“Sure, it does now,” put in Mr. Gold. “But after you’re married it won’t.”
Josie shot a look at Jack, who gave the faintest of shoulder shrugs and the minutest of eye rolls. She frowned. He hadn’t told them.
“I’m not changing my name,” she said, figuring it was best to be upfront.
You’d have thought she’d said she was going to sacrifice a virgin by the expression on their faces. She bit her lip against a smile. It wasn’t funny, nor was it unexpected. It was just…melodramatic.
“Not? Why? What, what, what?” Mrs. Gold’s voice made the diners at the other tables turn to stare.
“Ma,” Jack said impatiently. “Calm down.”
“What, you don’t like the name Gold?” Mr. Gold’s tone was blustering and teasing, but Josie knew he was serious.
“I love the name Gold,” she said soothingly. “But my name is Levine. It’s the name I’ve had all my life. I like it.”
“It’s a fine name,” said Mrs. Gold in a wavering voice. “But you’re getting married, Josephine.”
Oh, shit, there it went with the Josephine thing again. “Francine,” she said gently, “lots of women keep their names after they get married.”
“Jack?” Mrs. Gold asked.
At least they hadn’t graduated to Jacob, which showed her they weren’t blaming him for her waywardness. At least, not yet.
“Josie is allowed to call herself by any name she wants,” Jack said firmly. His hand found hers under the table and squeezed. “It’s her name.”
“But what about the children?” Mrs. Gold cried.
“They’ll have Jack’s name,” Josie replied quickly. Not that they were thinking of kids any time soon. “No worries.”
Mrs. Gold’s fingers plucked at her napkin. “Well, then I suppose I’ll have to use that stationary for myself.”
“Ma!” Jack cried. “Why’d you order it without talking to us first?”
Her mouth thinned as she glared at him. “How was I supposed to know she wasn’t going to change her name?”
“You could’ve asked,” Jack shot back. His hand tightened on Josie’s, crushing her fingers together against the metal band of her engagement ring. She winced.
“Jacob,” said Mrs. Gold.
And that was it, Josie thought. It took a lot to make Jack mad, but when he got there, it wasn’t a pretty sight. She just sat back and kept her mouth shut, sharing a commiserating look with Mr. Gold, who’d certainly suffered through enough of the battles between his son and his wife to know what to expect.
“I only wanted to do something nice for the two of you,” Mrs. Gold was saying plaintively.
“No, Ma. You wanted us to send thank you notes on the cards you picked out. You had no intentions of finding out what we wanted to use.”
“What, it’s so wrong to want to buy you a gift?”
“Then you should’ve just given us the box, Ma, instead of pretending you cared what we liked.”
Mrs. Gold sniffed. “Well, it’s a good thing I did ask, isn’t it? Since you can’t use them anyway?”
“Then don’t complain about the fact you bought them,” Jack snapped. He let go of Josie’s hand and pushed his chair back, lacing his fingers behind his head. “God, Ma, you can be so sneaky sometimes.”
Even Josie gasped at that line. She bit down on her exclamation, not because she didn’t agree with him, but because saying it sounded so harsh. But it seemed Jack had been pushed to his limit. While Josie and Mr. Gold knew well enough to back away, Mrs. Gold had always seemed a bit blind to her son’s hot buttons.
“I can’t believe you’d say such a thing to me,” she said.
“I can’t believe you’d really think I was too dumb to figure out the truth,” Jack replied.
Josie and Mr. Gold shared another look. All of this over some stupid stationary? The news she meant to keep her name would have come out sooner or later, but the cards hadn’t been that big of a deal. She’d have used them if it meant keeping out of an argument.
“Jack,” Mr. Gold placated. “Francine, please. Both of you.”
Jack looked around the restaurant as if noticing their raised voices were attracting attention. “Never mind, Ma. Just forget it.”
“I will not—” Mrs. Gold began, but Mr. Gold stopped her.
It was the first time Josie had ever seen Jack’s father interrupt one of his wife’s tirades. Mrs. Gold seemed as surprised as Josie.
“Francine, enough. Let it go.”
“Fine,” Mrs. Gold said stiffly. “Fine, I’ll keep the stationary. You can buy your own, whatever kind you want. Forget I tried to do you a kindness.”
Josie had always seen Jack bend at this point, but apparently he hadn’t packed his suitcase for this particular guilt trip. He only stared at his mother for a moment so long and silently it made Josie want to say something just to cover up the awkwardness.
“It’s not about the cards,” he said finally and stood up. He tossed his napkin to his plate, then left the table.
Josie watched him go in stunned amazement, his tall, broad figure easy to follow as he wove his way through the crowded restaurant. She looked back at the Golds. She’d been witness to arguments before, even ones that had gotten more heated. At this point, she expected to see Mrs. Gold in tears. Jack’s mother stared at her plate, a stony look on her face.
Whoa. Supremely uncomfortable. Josie cleared her throat, trying to think of something to say.
“You should go after him,” said Mr. Gold, surprising her again. He jerked his head in the direction Jack had gone. “Go ahead, Josie. We’ll take care of the check.”
She didn’t argue. “Thanks, Ben.”
He smiled. “He’s just like his mother.”
Mrs. Gold sighed and frowned, not looking at Josie. “No, Ben, he’s not. He’s just like me.”
Jack’s adoption had never been a secret, but Josie had never heard Mrs. Gold reference it before. She didn’t know what to say. She gathered her coat and her purse and left the restaurant to find Jack.
She found him by the car, smoking a cigarette. That shocked her. Jack had smoked occasionally in college, more socially than anything else. He smoked when he drank. In the past few years, he’d stopped doing even that.
He took one last drag and pitched the butt to the ground, grinding it out with his foot. “Hey.”
“Hey.” She looked at the crushed cigarette. “Where’d you get that?”
“Bummed it off the waitress on the way out.”
She raised her brows but said nothing. Jack put his hands in his pockets. “Are they coming out, too?”
“I don’t think so.”
He sighed and ran his hand over his head. “Fuck it all, Josie. Why do I let her get to me that way?”
Josie laughed. “Oh, honey, your mom means well.”
He shook his head. “She thinks she does.”
“She does.” Josie took his hand. His mom drove her nuts, too, but Francine’s motives were usually good. “She just likes to have her own way. Like my mom. Hell, like me.”
“Nah.” Jack squeezed her fingers. “You’re not like them.”
That was reassuring to hear. She stood up on her toes to kiss him. “It’s cold out here. Let’s go.”
He nodded and unlocked the doors. When he started the car, he slipped in a disc of music Josie immediately recognized.
“Billy Idol?”
Jack cranked the volume as Rebel Yell poured from the speakers. “It used to drive my mom crazy when I listened to this.”
Josie liked Billy Idol, too, but even if she’d hated the peroxide-blond rocker, she’d have kept quiet. Jack was fighting some sort of personal battle. If listening to Billy Idol helped him get through it, she wasn’t going to judge.
Soon he was singing along and adding the sneer. Josie smiled, watching. By the time the song segued into White Wedding, she was singing, too.
They finished the song as they pulled into the driveway in front of their apartment. Jack turned off the car and looked at her. He curled his lip.
“Oy. Fancy me rocking the cradle of your love?”
“Flesh for fantasy,” Josie replied with a waggle of her eyebrows. “Don’t leave me dancing with myself.”
“Never,” replied Jack Idol with another sneer. “I fancy shagging the stuffing right out of you.”
She laughed, glad he seemed to be in a better mood. “Ah. we’ll see, won’t we?”
“First one inside gets to pick the position,” he said, reaching for the door handle.
He was fast, but Josie, faster. Before he could open the door she’d used the power lock button to lock him in. Then she manually unlocked her door, flung it open and jumped out of the car. Laughing at his shout, she slammed the door and dug in her purse for the keys as she ran for the stairs. They lived on the third floor. She’d never win running in heels, and she paused to shuck the shoes.
