Breathing was overrated.
“Fuck forty.” He teased his teeth along her shoulder.
She chuckled between labored breaths. “I think you just did.”
*
Jude Day wasn’t used to fucking women in a bed. He wasn’t familiar with words beyond “goodnight” after zipping his fly and walking away from a random act of selfish pleasure. Taking Ryn against her refrigerator felt familiar to Jackson. It had a spontaneous feel to it, even though he stayed for dinner and he did see her again—very un-Jude. However, lying next to Ryn in her bed with the entire night ahead of them left Jackson in uncharted territory.
“I should go.” He kissed his way down her neck, palming her ass with one hand and squeezing her breast with his other.
“Okay,” she answered in a breathy voice.
An out. She gave him an easy out.
No begging. No pouting. No clinging.
The woman proved to be nothing short of a dream. The perfect mixture of maturity and vulnerability. She gave him the option to leave without a guilt trip, and the sultry way her eyes moved over his body felt like an open invitation to come back and do it again and again. The perfect situation. So why didn’t he want to leave? What the hell was wrong with him?
“Or … I could stay.” Sucking her nipple into his mouth, he tugged at it with his teeth until her back arched off the bed.
“Oh God …”
Ryn’s soft moan had him hard again. His bout of celibacy left him uncharacteristically needy for sex, or maybe it was her. No woman had ever made him feel so insatiable. Every inch of her tasted divine. He couldn’t stop sucking and lapping his tongue over her breasts as two of his fingers slid between her slick folds.
A distant voice from his past reprimanded him for being such a pussy as he fingered her to another orgasm, aiming only to pleasure her. She clawed at his back then tugged his hair, another foreign sensation. Jude sported a shaved head. He never knew a woman’s death grip on his hair could make his dick pulse. Jackson would keep his pain-in-the-ass hair because his dick rather liked the connection.
Ryn’s body writhed beneath his. “Jackson!”
After he removed his fingers, her eyes fluttered open and he released her nipple. She looked down at the teeth marks he left as a souvenir. “That’s a first.”
“Yeah?” He kissed the bite marks and grinned. “Well it won’t be the last.”
Ryn pulled the sheet up over her chest and bit her lips together. “So … I’ll see you Tuesday?”
That old voice told him to get his pathetic ass up and say something to ensure he’d leave with both balls intact.
“Tuesday.” He nodded then rolled out of bed and dressed without making eye contact. Tuesday, next week, next month … it should not have mattered. Yet, it did matter. It mattered like a sucker punch to his junk.
*
Ryn made it to her 6:00 a.m. barre class the next morning. The sexiest man alive groping her body—her soft parts that needed to be firmed up—served as the greatest incentive ever to feel the burn. Being with Jackson flooded her brain with a mind-fuck of emotions. Every time he touched her it brought on a war between unfathomable desire—the incredible feeling of being desired—and the insecurities that had been ingrained in her about her body, her age, her ability to please a man. Did he think she needed to lose weight, exercise more, get that boob job she’d thought about for years?
After class she went for coffee with her instructor, Val. She was a year older than Ryn, recently divorced. Val was the closest thing Ryn had to a female friend, who also qualified as a confidant.
“You seemed possessed during class today.” Val gave her a Cheshire cat grin over the rim of her coffee cup.
Ryn couldn’t hide her guilty smile. “I’ve been seeing a guy.”
“Go on.” Val rested her arms on the table and leaned in giving Ryn her full attention.
“He’s ten years younger than me.”
Val’s eyes bugged out. “Ryn! Oh my God. Do tell. Who? What? Where? When?”
“I work for him. I’m sure I should have some rule against that, huh? But I’m self-employed and it’s never been an issue or even a possibility before now. He’s kind, and funny, and he plays the piano … like he can seriously play the piano. But he’s also a god, Val. I’m talking celebrity-sports star-fitness model god. It’s not that I have some awful self-esteem, but if you saw this guy you’d understand. I have no idea why he’s interested in me … in that way. I feel like I’m having my own Shallow Hal moment. You know, like he’s looking at me but seeing what he wants to see and it’s just an illusion.”
“Ryn—”
“Don’t.” She shook her head. “I need you to be my forty-something friend. I don’t need you to give me a self-esteem boost. I’m not saying I think I’m ugly or lacking in all sex appeal. I’m just being realistic. I love ice skating and I’m pretty good at it, but I’m never going to make the Olympic team. Do you get what I’m saying?”