Stop talking.
“In fact, stair climbing engages multiple muscles and improves balance. When I worked at a senior living center, we did stair climbing challenges all the time with the patients who could manage them.”
Please shut up.
I took a breath and spoke even faster when I realized the door to our shared room was right there at the top of the stairs. “And even the people who couldn’t manage the stairs saw benefits from something as simple as sitting calf raises. Did you know your calf muscles are considered a ‘second heart’ of sorts? So when those muscles fire, they help pump blood back toward the heart from your lower extremities. Keeping those muscles healthy is important, and people in sedentary—”
The moment I stepped through the door, Jack closed it and pressed me against it, stopping my idiotic babbling with his mouth. I whimpered against his lips and clutched at the front of his jacket to keep from tipping over in surprise.
His whiskers were a delicious combination of soft and sharp against my lips. He smelled like coffee and airplane and faint traces of some kind of magical male fragrance that made me want to climb him like a clingy koala and never let go.
Jack pulled off my jacket without stopping the kiss, and before I knew it, I was kicking off my own shoes in a desperate attempt to get as naked as humanly possible just on the off chance he’d reciprocate and let me rub my body all over his.
I knew from experience he was covered in the exact right amount of body hair and his muscles were firm, but his abs were hidden under the sweetest little layer of belly fat that probably drove him crazy in a bad way but drove me crazy in a good way. I remembered exploring his body with my hands and tongue after I’d finally gotten up the nerve to do more than take, take, take.
“Can we…?” I mumbled the words against his lips but couldn’t keep my tongue out of his mouth long enough to finish the question.
His hands yanked my shirt out of my pants, and his warm palms smoothed along my bare back, pulling me even closer to him.
“Naked,” I continued with a gasp.
Jack moved his mouth down to my neck and sucked on the skin under my ear. My skin erupted in goose bumps, and the oxygen level in the room dropped suddenly.
“Jack.” It was a plea for mercy maybe. “Jack.”
One of his hands plunged down the back of my pants and squeezed an ass cheek, pulling until I was on my tiptoes. My dick was hard and dripping, so I reached down to shove my pants and underwear off. Was that presumptuous? I wasn’t really well versed in hookup etiquette.
An image of Chris popped into my mind, but I wished it away. I was still angry at him for any number of things and didn’t want to think about him right now. I wanted to be touched and appreciated. If I could get Jack to act like he did that first night where he pretended to care about me… well, that would be even better.
Either way, I would take what I could get with him. Even a quick shared orgasm before sleep would be better than nothing. Way, way better than nothing.
Jack’s finger slid between my cheeks and made me squeak in surprise. I wasn’t used to being touched this way, intimately. He was the only person who’d ever had his hands on my body before, but he was still a stranger.
“You okay?” he asked, pulling back to check in with me. “Am I going too fast?”
His eyes were half-lidded and sexy as hell. His lips were plump and a deeper pink from the kissing, and I thought, once again, the sight of his late-night stubble might be enough to trigger my orgasm on its own.
“Uh-huh.” I nodded.
“Oh,” he said stepping back. “Sorry.”
I squinted at him. “What? Oh, no! I thought… never mind. I’m okay. I’m more than okay.”
His face softened into a smile, and he reached out to brush his fingers through my hair. “You’re so fucking beautiful. It killed me not to be able to tell you that night. Your dark hair and your bright eyes… your perfect body and all this gorgeous skin… god, I just wanted to tell you over and over how much you turned me on.”
My stomach flipped over. “Really?”
“Yeah,” he said, pulling me back in close. “I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but… it’s a relief to finally be able to say it out loud.”
I swallowed. “I’ve never heard it before.”
Jack tilted his head in confusion. “Your other boyfriends haven’t told you how sexy and beautiful you are?”
Oh, shit. The last thing I wanted to do was admit he was the only person I’d ever had sex with. That was a one-way ticket straight to loserville.