“Baby.” He cupped my face in his hands and lowered his lips to mine. He brushed his mouth across mine, from one side to the other. Once, twice. Then his tongue licked across the seam, his breath warm and moist, his taste flavored by the liquor he’d been drinking.
I moaned and tilted my head, trying to deepen the kiss. One of his hands slid around to cup my nape, while the other moved downward to cup my hip. His touch was hot, sending goose bumps racing across my skin. He squeezed gently and my breasts swelled, growing heavy and tender.
Inhaling deeply, I breathed him in. Felt my body stir in response, recognizing Jax as the one thing it desperately wanted and couldn’t resist. I reached up and pushed my fingers into the thick silk of his dark hair, drawing him closer.
“You know me, Gia,” he whispered against my lips. “You love me.”
“Jax—” I pressed against him, leaning into all that hard, flexing muscle. “Have we made too many mistakes?”
“Probably.” His mouth moved along my jaw and down my throat, suckling softly. “But there’s something we’ve always gotten right.”
His arm wrapped around my waist and he rolled his hips, grinding the rigid length of his erection against my belly. My sex clenched, hungry for him.
“We can’t stay in bed all the time,” I pointed out, remembering the weekends in Vegas when we’d scarcely untangled ourselves from each other.
Jax scooped me up, cradling me as if I weighed nothing. “Two years apart and we’re still in love. It’s got to be easier when we’re together.”
“It’s not working that way so far.” Still, I kicked my shoes off.
He headed toward his bedroom. “Which is why I’m moving on to the part where I remind you why it’s all worth it.”
5
AN HOUR BEFORE, I would’ve said the chances of Jax getting laid were nonexistent. Right at that moment, however, with his gorgeous face taut with lust and his eyes soft with something far more tender, I wanted nothing more than to forget everything but the way he could make me feel. I wanted him to remind me of what we’d once had, what I’d clung so tightly to , what I hoped to have again.
He placed me on the bed and came over me, putting one knee on the comforter. He brushed a loose tendril of hair off my cheek, then his gaze drifted downward to where his other hand was gliding up my thigh and beneath the hem of my skirt.
“I want you naked,” I told him.
His mouth, that wickedly sexy mouth that could drive me insane, curved in a smug smile. “Do you, now?”
I stretched, knowing it would entice him. When he growled low in his throat, I returned a smug smile of my own.
Catching me behind the knee, he pushed my leg up and to the side, riding my skirt up and exposing my garters and matching panties.
He licked his lips. “Baby...I’m going to love watching you get ready for work every morning.”
It struck me then that we would be sharing everyday moments like that moving forward, and I wanted them. I wanted the man I’d had so briefly. “You’ve still got too many clothes on.”
Jax straightened and shrugged out of his vest, letting it drop to the floor. He yanked at the knot of his tie, then pulled the loosened silk down one side to fall to the carpet, as well. When he went to work on the buttons of his shirt, I pushed up onto my elbows to watch.
A low hum of pleasure escaped me.
Jax paused, his brow lifting. There was a gleam in his eye that made my legs shift restlessly. The man knew he was hot as hell, knew how much I liked looking at him.
“Don’t stop,” I told him.
“I love it when you look at me like that.” He freed another button.
I caught my lower lip between my teeth. He’d always been fit and leanly muscular, but he was harder now. More defined. Golden skin stretched over ridges and slabs of muscle. I wanted to run my fingertips over every inch of it...lick him like a favorite dessert...make him feel how much I loved him.
He shrugged off the shirt and I moved, rising up onto my knees to reach for him. He groaned when my hands smoothed over his shoulders then down his biceps, squeezing and caressing.
“How is it possible?” I wondered aloud. “You’re more delicious than you were before, and you were a god back then.”
“Baby.” He sealed his mouth over mine and stole my breath, his tongue licking and gliding.
Greedy, my hands ran all over his chest and abs, tracing every plane and groove. “You’re so hard,” I breathed, wanting to feel all that warm, silk-covered marble pressed against me.
“The sexual-frustration workout.” He caught me by the wrist and pressed my hand against his straining erection, grinding into my palm. “Pushing my body to exhaustion because I couldn’t have you, and the wet dreams were killing me.”
I cupped him, stroking from root to tip. “Not always frustrated,” I muttered, thinking of the women who’d had him, the women who’d had what was mine. “At least on two occasions.”
Fisting my ponytail, he pulled my head back to look up at him. “Always,” he said fiercely. “You’ve ruined me for other women, Gia.”
“Good.” I kissed his shoulder. “You’re still dressed.”
“You finish it.” He tugged the band out of my hair, his fingers sifting through it. My eyelids grew heavy, my senses drugged by the sexual hunger radiating off Jax. The feel of his fingertips kneading my scalp sent bliss radiating through me. Every word he spoke...every move he made...was designed to seduce me.