Page 16 of Death is Familiar

Jack closed the sketchbook over, his hand on mine.

His breathing changed, coming in short and shallow huffs. He didn’t speak. Didn’t move.

Slowly, I turned to face him, my back arched against the shelving, the wood of the display shelf pressing into my waist.

“If you didn’t want me to see it, you should have hidden it better.” Something strange coursed through me, which felt an awful lot like desire. “You could have locked it in your office.”

Jack’s hand was still splayed over the book behind me. If he took one step forward his body would be flush with mine. And I couldn’t help but think that is what I wanted. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”

“It’s a memory. Not a fantasy.”

There was something about watching his chest heave that made me want to slip under his shirt and drag my teeth against his skin. To taste him.

“I thought of you, you know.” He leaned forward, not quite closing the gap between us. The familiar dark citrus scent brought a flutter to my chest. “Couldn’t get you out of my head.”

“Just thought?” I was very aware of how firm, how heavy, my breasts felt, rising and falling against the fabric of my dress.

“I have been working on my self-control.” Jack bit his lip. He noticed. Just like I noticed the sudden strain against his pants. “It just hasn’t been going very well.”

Every thought in my head melted away. Every piece of me replaced with flames and lust. There was tension in the air. Need pooling between my thighs.

“Fuck it?”

“Fuck it.” Jack closed the gap between us, pressing into me. The tension snapped like an elastic band, as our mouths met. Sweet and salty. Hungry. Real.

Jack’s tongue ran along of the seam of my lips. I opened readily, wanting to give. His tongue swirled around mine, then plunged deep. Like he was trying to reach my throat. Like it was territory he wanted to discover.

Holy hell.

Needing to hold onto something, part of him, I wrapped one of my hands into his hair, and slipped the other between us.

He was solid. So deliciously solid.

I ran the heel of my palm up his firm length. He moaned into my mouth before stealing his lips away from mine to breathe hot and heavy into my neck, “Fuck Delilah.” His knuckles turned white as he gripped the table, bucking against me, my hand.

He ran his open mouth along the slope of my neck. His teeth occasionally scraping against my skin, like it took everything he had to keep himself from biting. “I love the way you taste.”

My head was spinning with heady, delirious, pleasure. I needed more of him, needed to feel his hard lines against my softening frame, needed him between my legs to pierce through the throbbing ache of it all.

I stroked him harder. “If you keep saying things like that I⁠—”

“If you keep moving your hand like that, I’ll⁠—”

He jerked his hips away, hissing as he sucked air through his teeth. He swallowed down a handful of shuddering breaths, hands fisting on the table, as he tried to regain control. Something he’d told me more than once he wasn’t good at. Not when it came to sex.

But seeing him work, how much he had to fight how I made him feel, how close I had gotten him—it tasted like victory.

Jack’s pupils were dilated. “That was fucking close.”

“I’m more than happy to keep going.”

Jack tsked through his teeth, his breathing ragged. “This is a team sport, Delilah. Not a race.” He circled my waist, hoisting me to his chest. I fought the pain in my ribs, my back, wrapping my legs around his middle, my arms around his neck, as he shifted his hold to grab my thighs. “Because if this was a race, I'd come first.”

†

My pain all but forgotten, Jack guided us across the floor, lapping at my neck.

Whatever he was doing, I liked it. More than liked. Shivers of pleasure radiated up and down my spine. I tossed my head back, my throat an offering.