Page 29 of Blue-Eyed Jacks
His eyes went wild for a moment.The agony in his guttural cry was one of victory and surrender rolled into one.In it, he cried one word, “Kate.”
A trembling took over.I felt it in where he seated between my legs, and in his arms, and all the way down where I’d wrapped my legs around his thighs and locked us together.
He was so beautiful in this moment.Despite the stretched, open-mouthed, stupefied wonder on his face, despite the sweat on his brow or his disheveled hair, he was almost angelic in majestic masculinity.
Then he smiled.
It was easy to love that smile.There was no pain twisting it sideways or artifice crooking his expressive brows.This was the smile of a man who had nothing to hide.I wiped away a trickle of sweat from his brow.“Who needs a safe word?”
Instantly, the smile changed.Some of the pain inside him seeped out and his brow turned crooked again.“There’s always round two for that.”
“Really?”
“What?You think I’m a one-and-done guy?”
I shrugged.The motion jogged him loose, and a trickle of fluid seeped out in its wake.I froze.“You didn’t wear a condom.”
His eyes darted between us and back to mine.“Pill?”
“Implant.”
That single-word exchange was a small relief.
“I’m clean.”Two years and two rounds of antibiotics and I could safely say I was.Or had been up until ten minutes ago.
“Kate, I can see where your mind is going and I swear this is the very first time I’ve ever forgotten.”His face turned red.
I traced the color from his chest to his cheeks.“Are you embarrassed?”
“No.”
“You sure about that?”I tapped his warm cheeks.
He rolled off me.“Kate, I’ll answer when I get back, don’t get mad, okay?”
Don’t get mad?I wasn’t that much of a novice to know those words usually meant Ishouldget angry.I searched for something to clean up with, but he beat me to it, bringing back a dampened towel.Instead of handing it off or letting me fend for myself, he held onto it.
“Let me.”
“No.”
“Kate.”There was a soft warning in the way he spoke my name.
I acquiesced by letting my legs fall open.“How am I supposed to stay angry at you if you have your hand between my legs?”
“You’re not supposed to be angry.”
“Really?”Sarcasm dripped from the word.
He paused, putting a little pressure on the towel.“Since fourteen, I’ve only been with hookers.They bring their own condoms.I forgot.”
There was too much to unpack in his confession for me to handle.“Fourteen?”I hadn’t even kissed a boy yet at that age.
“Fourteen.”
“How did you pay her?”
Jackson smiled.“I didn’t.Dad did.”The smile fell.
