Page 45 of Haven

“I’m not—” I’m so shocked I can’t seem to keep up. None of this makes any sense at all. So naturally I say the most irrelevant thing first. “I’m not scared.”

“Of course you’re scared! You’re fucking terrified. And I get it. I do. But I’ve done everything I can to be what you need me to be, and I deserve better than to be dumped like this!”

I gape at him. I’ve never heard him sound so impassioned—so out of control. The feeling is coming off him in waves. I hug my arms to my chest and manage to get out a complete sentence. “I’m not dumping you!”

This is obviously not what he expects. He’s been leaning into me, but now he takes a half step back. “What?”

“I’m not dumping you, you big doofus! I was just slow getting ready for bed tonight.”

He frowns and leans forward again. “You were coming to bed with me?”

“Yes, I was coming.” I’m working through my surprise now, and I’m left with a strange, fiery indignation that is almost certainly too intense for the current circumstances. “So you and whatever self-righteous outrage you’d conjured up in your imagination about how badly I was treating you can go to hell!”

He doesn’t look as upset now, but he’s starting to look just as pissed as I’m feeling. “I didn’t conjure it all up. You’ve been on the verge of bailing on me for a while now, so you can hardly be surprised if I assume you’ve done it.”

“I’m not on the verge of bailing!”

“Yes, you fucking are. For weeks now you’ve been wanting to get away from me. And even now you want to go on another crazy hero’s quest because you can’t be happy with everything you have here.”

“Fuck you, Jackson! You have no idea how I’m feeling, and yet you’re always assuming the worst about me.”

“Thentellme,” he grits out, looming so close now I can reach out and touch him. “Tell me how you’re feeling. Tell me what you want. Because for a while I thought you wantedme, but now it feels like you’re always about to slip through my fingers, no matter how tightly I hold—”

I don’t know what gets into me. I genuinely don’t. My emotions are never a roller coaster this way, and even if they were, I wouldn’t let them guide my actions. But I can’t seem to help it right now. He sounds so real. So earnest. So utterly vulnerable. And somehow angry at the same time. I reach out and grab his face with both my hands and pull him down into a kiss.

It’s deep and hard and demanding and ravenous, and he meets it. Matches it. He swings me around until my back is against the door, and he holds me there as his tongue pushes into my mouth.

I’m not used to kissing him when he’s wearing his pants, and I don’t like it. I fumble with the button and zipper until I get them undone, and then I impatiently push them down his legs. He won’t let me break the kiss. He’s cupping the back of my head, holding it in place. But at least his cock is free now. And he’s hard. I can feel his erection pressing against my middle. I try to rub myself against it.

Arousal and so much more—so much that goes far deeper—is throbbing in my veins, pounding at my pulse points. There’s an ache of desire between my legs that came on so quickly it actually hurts.

I whimper when he lets me go at last because I don’t want him to stop kissing me. But it’s just for a few seconds as he steps out of his trousers and then gathers me up to carry me over to my bed.

It’s strange. Doing this on my bed instead of his. But I’m too overwhelmed by need and pure want to let it distract me for long. I pull him down on top of me and kiss him again. One of my thighs is between both of his so our legs are twined together as he holds his full weight off me with one arm. The other hand is spanning the side of my neck, and it feels so good there.

Oddly intimate.

When he finally pulls away from my mouth so he can kiss his way down my throat, I arch my neck and gasp, “Jackson.”

He makes a guttural humming sound and grabs the fabric of my gown in his fist so he can pull it off over my head. Then he sucks one of my nipples into his mouth.

“Jackson!” My voice is still soft. No more than a taken breath. But it’s also completely helpless. I need to say his name. I need to.

I need to know this is really him.

And really me.

“Say it again,” he mutters against my belly. His kissing his way down toward my pussy.

I mumble out his name again. And then again, louder now, when he nuzzles me intimately, teasing my clit and thrusting his tongue inside.

He brings me to a fast climax, and then I pull him back up into a kiss. I can taste myself in his mouth, but I don’t care about that. “Jackson, please. I need you inside me. Please!”

He makes a rumble of sound and parts my legs to make room for him. Then bends my knees up toward my shoulders and pushes his cock inside me.

I arch my spine at the tight, intense pleasure of the penetration. He holds himself still for a moment and gasps against my neck.

I wriggle. “Jackson. Jackson, please!”

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