Even though I had to do most of the talking, I never felt alone while we were at the police station. Jack was close to me through it all, giving me subtle touches or looks to show his support. It struck me that I felt so much stronger when he was with me. He’d worried that being with him would be bad for me, when really the opposite was true.
By the time we left the station, I was exhausted, but we still had to do the flyers. We started on a street with lots of little boutique-style shops. Most of them employed women, and most of those women practically wet themselves when they saw Jack. It began to grate on my nerves, having to suffer through them flirting with him, and in broken English at that. One blonde in her mid-twenties seemed to be fluent, though, and that was the most uncomfortable of all.
“Would you mind if we left some of these with you?” Jack asked, handing her a stack of flyers. “We’re with the circus just outside of town.”
She leaned across the counter and fluttered her eyelashes, her V-neck shirt showing a healthy dose of cleavage. I didn’t even think she realised I was there, standing by the door, uncomfortably holding my jealous/awkward girl of the year award.
“Of course not, mon cher, you look tired. Have you been on your feet all day? Come and sit down — I’ll make you some coffee.” When she reached for his arm, Jack moved out of the way.
“There’s no need. We can’t stop. We have more shops to visit, and it looks like the weather’s turning.”
The woman pursed her lips, and at his mention of “we,” she suddenly became aware of my presence. Her narrow-eyed look wasn’t too different from the ones Julie had been giving me of late, and I wondered if this was what I’d have to contend with from now on. Women hating me because I was with Jack.
Was I with him? It felt like we’d come to some sort of mutual understanding, but neither one of us had put into words what we were or what we were doing.
Jack was right about the weather. I glanced out the window to see some dark clouds forming, blocking out the sun, and I knew were in for some kind of storm, heavy rain at the very least.
After we finished visiting each shop on the street, we went to some of the local public spaces, and Jack stapled flyers to any free signage boards we could find. Man, he looked hot when he hammered a stapler into cork board. I think I might have drooled a little just from watching him.
The next time we stepped outside, I felt a drop of rain hit the top of my head. Moments later, it was pouring down. Jack took my hand in his and pulled me along, but we still got drenched. It was summer in France, and neither one of us was wearing a coat. Stupid unpredictable weather. Running didn’t stop us from getting soaked, and our clothes were saturated when Jack tugged me under a bus shelter with him, both our chests heaving as we tried to catch our breaths.
His long sleeved T-shirt was glued to his chest, and I had a hard time looking away. I glanced up at him for a second and caught him smirking. A small, nervous giggle escaped me, and he laughed softly, looking across the street and brushing his long, wet hair away from his face. I actually thought he looked a little bit shy for a second. It made him seem so young.
“How old are you?” I blurted, and he gave me a sideways glance.
“Twenty-six.” He must have seen the surprised look on my face as he continued, brow arching, “How old did you think I was?”
“You know what, I’m actually not sure. Sometimes you seem young, then other times you seem really wise and, I don’t know, sort of unreachable.”
He stared at me for a long time but didn’t say anything.
I shivered in my damp clothes as the rain continued to pound down on the roof of the shelter, and I knew, I just knew by the way Jack’s gaze was growing heated that my nipples were peeking through my top. I couldn’t even bring myself to look, so I simply folded my arms across my chest to hide my embarrassment. An old lady came and stood under the shelter, lowering her umbrella and shaking out the rain. She peered at us and muttered something in French about us catching our death with no coats on. Because she looked a little bit like my Gran, my mind wandered and I imagined her looking down on me, proudly watching my circus adventure unfold.
A moment later Jack was in front of me, his hands, which were surprisingly warm, cupping my neck, his thumbs massaging into my throat.
“Sorry you got wet,” he said, and his words dripped with sexual undertones.
I shrugged, trying to play off how his expression alone was practically drying all my clothes. His eyes scorched, and I couldn’t stop staring at his mouth, silently begging for his sensual lips to kiss me. An engine sounded to our left, and I turned to see a bus approach.
“Will this one take us back to the campsite?” I asked.
Jack nodded and laced his fingers through mine, pulling me onto the bus. The driver seemed annoyed that we were dripping water everywhere, but Jack just stared at him, unconcerned, and paid both our fares. He tugged me down to sit on his lap, and his arms went around my waist, his face pressing into my shoulder as he exhaled. His breath was hot, warming up my skin through the fabric, and a pleasurable shiver danced along my spine. My wet jeans were starting to itch. Add that to my urgent need for Jack simmering between my thighs, and I was about ready to combust.
I reached up and began running my fingers through his wet hair, trying to get out some of the tangles. He seemed to melt into my touch, and I savoured the simple act of grooming him. When his eyes met mine again, they were full of affection, and I thought he liked me touching his hair. I made a mental note to do it often.
It was still raining when the bus dropped us off at the campsite. Startling me, Jack scooped me up and deftly swung me onto his back. I wrapped my arms tight around his neck as he ran fast, and even with me on his back, it felt effortless. The rain sailed past us, or was it us sailing past the rain? With Jack, I felt like even the laws of physics could be broken.
My heart beat wildly. There was something intoxicating about being so close to him, being cared for by him, because I got the feeling Jack had never been like this with a girl before. It made it all the more significant, made my heart feel sore and not sore all at once. I suspected Jack’s encounters with women in the past had been unemotional and quick. All about the sex. The shame he felt about the desires he held and what they arose from had kept him from getting too close to anyone.
I wanted to wash away that shame, show him that though things could be born of darkness, with the right person you could make them light.
When we reached his camper, he pushed open the door and stepped in, gently lowering his body so I could climb off his back. I looked around, unsure what my next move should be, when all of a sudden he bent to one knee and began carefully untying my laces. As I watched him, the air left my lungs and my heart felt fuller.
I was falling.
“There are towels in the bathroom that you can use. The water should be warm,” he said, and then stood once he’d relieved me of my shoes and socks. He wanted me to take a shower. Wordlessly, I went inside his bathroom, which was larger than the one in Violet’s camper. Well, it was still small, but at least here I didn’t keep knocking off the sink when I tried to get to the toilet. I could hear him moving around outside as I shut the door, and my pores tingled as I stripped out of my sodden jeans and top. Jack’s proximity to my naked skin made me clench my thighs together with longing. I yearned to see him totally bare so I could kiss and lick and suck every corner of his glorious body.
I turned the shower on and waited for the water to get hot, and when I stepped under the spray, my throat felt tight as I silently wished for him to come inside and join me. I felt like I’d been waiting forever, but the door never budged. Sighing in disappointment, I wrapped up in one of the clean, dry towels that hung from a rack and stepped out into the living area. Having used the shampoo and shower gel in his bathroom, I now smelled like him. I breathed it in, and it smelled like home.
I stopped when I saw him by the sink, using some paper towels to dry his fa
ce. God, even with the burn scar, his back was perfect, all broad and muscled, his skin deeply tanned. All he had on was his boxer shorts, his clothes discarded.
He turned when he heard my footsteps on the floor, and his eyelids grew hooded as he took me in.
“Feel better?”
I nodded and concentrated on the drops of rain trickling down the window, the beat of it as it hammered onto the roof of the camper.
“What’s wrong?”
I cleared my throat, my voice a self-conscious whisper. “I thought….it’s silly, but I thought you might join me.” Could I be blushing any more furiously right now? “In the shower, I mean.”
His lips twitched and a smile formed, and I knew he hadn’t expected me to say that. “Have you seen my shower?”
I frowned. “Uh, yeah.”
“And have you seen the size of me?” he went on. Some dirty part of my brain made my mind wander to things other than his height. “It’s painful to admit, but that is not a two-person shower, Lille,” he said, taking a step toward me until his hands were warming my shoulders. “If it were, I’d have been there, fucking you against the tiles with my tongue.”
Jesus, now there was a visual. All of a sudden, my head was full of his mouth between my legs, his tongue sliding inside me, all wet and warm and delicious. I trembled, and he growled as he backed me up until I was stepping over the threshold of his bedroom. My thighs hit the mattress before I fell backwards onto the thick navy blanket.
“Tonight, my bed is your bed. Get some rest. I’m going to clean up.”
I lay there, watching him leave and close the door behind him. Okay, that was not how I envisioned this playing out. My chest was still heaving with anticipation when I heard the shower come on. Frustrated, I turned over onto my belly and buried my face in his pillows. Of course, they’d have to smell of him, and of course that only functioned to raise my frustration levels even higher. I’d just washed, but I could feel that I was wet between my legs. My clit begged for his mouth, my nipples aching for him to do that thing with the match again.
Jack had said that was child’s play, and already I felt like I was ruined for sex with anyone else.
Despite my frustration, it had been a long day, and I began to grow drowsy, my heavy eyelids falling closed. I’d almost nodded off when I heard the door open and shut with a soft click. Suddenly, I was wide awake as I listened to Jack turn off the lamp, shrouding the room in darkness before I heard the scraping flick of a match, the sizzling blaze of the flame. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him light two expensive-looking candles that sat on the bedside dresser, and I swear every single muscle in my body tensed. All he wore was a pair of black lounge pants.
I pretended to be sleeping when he turned to look at me, and a low chuckle vibrated from his chest. That sound was going to be my undoing one of these days. “I can hear your breathing, Lille. I know you’re not asleep.” The mattress dipped down as he sat at the foot of the bed.
“I was about to be,” I mumbled into the pillow, “until your loud elephant feet clomped into the room and woke me.”
He continued laughing, low and quiet, and then I jumped a little when he took my bare foot into his hands. His fingers found just the right spot to rub, and I moaned involuntarily. God, that felt good.
“You’re wound up tight, flower,” Jack whispered as his hands slowly began to make their way to my ankle, then my calf. It was like he knew every muscle and chord intimately, knew just how to rub to turn me into a melting pile of hormones and need.
Before I knew it, he was kneeling between my legs and massaging my thigh as I made loud and very embarrassing noises that the pillows did nothing to muffle. His deft fingers were so close to my vagina that I had to bite down on said pillow just to keep from grabbing his hand and placing it where I wanted him to touch me the most.
“Your skin,” he said, and his voice sounded pained. “Your fucking skin.”
His fingers skimmed over the rise of my arse, then fluttered feather light less than a centimetre from my folds. Touch me, my mind begged, God, Jack, please touch me.
He emitted a long, agonised groan before he pushed the towel off me, and then his mouth was on my arse cheek, biting. I let out a strangled yelp as he nuzzled where he’d bitten with the tip of his nose. I felt his hand move, and then his fingers were trailing across my wet lips, giving no pressure at all. He was trying to torture me.
“Please,” I begged, and he grunted, nipping my cheek again with his sharp teeth, then rising up and pulling the towel off me completely. I was naked, and I could feel the soft cotton of his pants brush my skin as he bent over me and palmed my bottom.
“Seeing this every day kills me, do you know that?” he growled, and I shook with the pleasure of his deep voice and heated words.
“I need….”
“Tell me what you need, flower.”
“I need you to touch me.”
“I am touching you.”
“Somewhere else.”
A smirk. “In time.”
His hand went to my shoulder and lightly caressed the skin. My tattoo was almost healed, and his touch reminded me I had it. Since it was in a place I couldn’t easily see, I often forgot it was even there.
“Your ink is beautiful,” he murmured, and his fingers danced along a particular spot. “This is the part I filled in. I feel so fucking proud when I see it, like you have my name on you or something.”
I sighed, my every pore tingling with his possessive words. Then I felt his weight leave the bed, and a moment later he was back, straddling me as I lay on my stomach. I didn’t know what he was doing until I felt something hot and wet brand the base of my spine.
“Ahhh,” I cried out. “What was that?” My words were more air than sound as I felt him harden and lengthen against my bottom.
The burn hit me again, right on the cusp of too much and not enough. It stung, but, combined with my heady arousal, the sting was euphoric. In fact, I wanted more.
“It’s hot wax, Lille,” Jack said, and his voice sounded electric right then, full of pent-up desire that was slowly finding its relief. “How does it feel?”
Instead of answering his question, I simply pleaded in the tiniest voice, “Do it again.”
The deep, erotic sound of approval that followed melted my bones, and I felt the wax drip along my back and pool around my hip. I hissed in a breath and then let the air out in an audible groan. Jack began to move his hips against me, his erection rutting hard into my arse. His fingers found the wax near my spine and rubbed, and then his body was covering me completely as his face fell to my neck. His tongue snaked out and licked all along the shell of my ear.
“Fuck,” he swore, and the word had never sounded more carnal. A second later, his arm wrapped around my middle, and he was pulling me up onto all fours. He knelt behind me, his hands caressing my thighs as the head of his penis nudged against me. There was nothing between us, no condom, and in that moment I had a crazy wish that he wouldn’t put one on. The moment his bare erection touched me, an addictive surge ran through my body, indicative of the heaven it would be to have him inside me raw.
He took the back of my neck in his hand, twisting so that our eyes could meet. All in a matter of seconds, as his cock continued to nudge teasingly at my entrance, almost going in but then not quite, his eyes asked a question, and my eyes replied with the answer.
Yes.
Perhaps all that hot wax was making me crazy and reckless, but I wanted to feel all of him, and pregnancy wasn’t an issue because I was on the pill. His grip on my hair fell away for a second, and then it was back again, this time on my neck, holding on tight as he sank his thick length inside in one delicious thrust. The feel of him, the sensation, the connection, was overwhelming, and my vision blurred.
He withdrew, and I whimpered before he rammed himself back in. His fingers dug into my neck, erasing Julie’s bruises with his own, marking me as his. Never in my life had I wanted to be owned
so badly. His movements grew frenzied, his fucking hard and precise. Soon, his thrusts began to blur into one, and I was nothing but sensation. My brain shut off, words no longer held meaning, and I was only pleasure.
I was my senses and no more.
All I could hear was him.
All I could smell was him.
All I could taste was him.
All I could feel was him.
All I could see was him.
With his grip on my neck, he drew my body up, and pumped his hips sharp and quick. I shuddered and moaned as he reached around my body to palm my breast. His hand dug in hard as it travelled down my belly, over my mound and to my clit, where his fingers started to rub, not slow like the other night, but fast. This was all about making me come.
“I want to feel your muscles contract on my cock,” he rasped into my ear before biting down hard on my neck. A loud, strangled sound escaped me as his length slid in and out, the rhythm of his fingers coaxing me, raising me up into the sweetest possible release.
“You smell like me. Do you know how much that drives me crazy? God, you’re perfect, too perfect. You make me feel so wretched. I want to consume you, steal your light and make myself a little bit more. You’re more, Lille. I want to be more, too.”
His words came out harsh and ragged, his breathing filling my ears, and I wasn’t sure if this was the sex talking or if it was sheer, unrestrained, terrifying honesty. I felt my stomach tighten, and his pumps became harsher, his fingers more desperate.
“Come with me,” he grunted, and it was like the words in themselves were an aphrodisiac, because I shattered right there under his practiced touch and he came, his cock pulsing as he emptied himself inside me.
As one, our bodies collapsed onto the bed. His weight on top of me was almost crushing, but then he flipped us so that I lay stretched out on his chest. It was just like the other night, when we’d fallen asleep together under the stars. Now the storm raged on outside our peaceful, spent little bubble, rain pounding the roof. Jack stared at me like I was an apparition, a spectre about to disappear as I ran my fingers through his gorgeous hair, let my eyes memorise every inch of his face. His lids fell closed and his breathing evened out, his arms still clutching me tight. I knew he’d fallen asleep when his breaths grew deep, and I felt brave enough to utter the words that were trying to break their way out of my very soul.