Page 21 of Satisfied
My smile threatens to drop at the thought of how this thing with Jack is always hanging between us, but I push it down, unwilling to let the man ruin a good thing. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be here watching the stars and waiting for you.”
He nods, pecking my lips before pushing back. I follow him to the bedroom to watch him dress, because I like looking athim. I jump on the bed just as he whips off his T-shirt to reveal lean muscles I’ve felt move under my hands, tattoos I’ve traced with my fingers after making love. Need pushes through me, and despite the orgasm he drew from me less than an hour ago, I find that I want him. Ineedhim over me, his manhood pushing into me as I tug at those curls and kiss that mouth.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he rasps, and I look up to find those amber eyes heated as they stare at me.
“How am I looking at you?” I ask.
“Like you want me to flatten you on that bed and ride that pussy all night and well into the next day.”
My breath catches as heat floods my sex, the pulsing need between my legs growing unbearable. “When you put it like that…”
“That’s something to look forward to, sweetheart,” he says, pulling on a fresh shirt, and I nearly whine in protest. He shrugs on a jacket before walking over to me, and the goodbye kiss he gives me only works to fuel the need inside of me.
Long after he’s gone, I consider cooling the fire myself, but it never feels right when I attempt to do it. His hands just seem to know the right buttons to push and the right spots to touch that I can never figure out. Besides, waiting for him will only make it more intense when he finally comes back.
I move to the balcony and look out, expecting to see Kyle, the guy who’s been shadowing me at school for the last couple of days, but seated outside is an unfamiliar giant. He’s straddling a bike as large as the man himself. He looks up in my direction so I offer him a small wave before quickly ducking back inside.
It’s surprising that the Steel Rebels would provide protection for me when I have nothing to offer. Even stranger is reconciling these men who protect a women’s shelter with the horrible men the rest of the population thinks they are. Surely agroup that is willing to protect a woman they barely know can’t be that terrible.
I wander around the apartment, turn the TV on and then off before deciding I’m bored. With Ransom gone, I realize I have nothing to do but walk back to the living room and watch the stars by myself until I fall asleep or he gets back, whichever happens first.
The calm music and the slow movement of the stars slowly lull me to sleep, and my eyes are almost closed when a sound startles me awake. I sit up when I hear a key turn in the door, excitement flooding me when I realize that Ransom is back. The low hum ofwantreturns to my body, and I stand excitedly, waiting for him to come to me.
Except, it’s not Ransom who walks in.
Instead of Ransom’s handsome face and brown mop of curls, I find myself looking at the pretty face of a woman. She’s gorgeous, dressed in skintight jeans and a white tank top that highlights a perfect figure with gorgeous curves. For a second, I imagine that a neighbor probably walked into the wrong apartment, but that doesn’t make sense seeing that she let herself in. She has a key to the apartment—Ransom’s apartment.
“Um, hi,” I say tentatively. Her eyes shift to me, and in that moment, I notice two things. This stranger is stunningly beautiful, and she doesn’t seem surprised to see me.
“Hi!” she chirps, casually dropping her purse onto the sofa. “You must be Abby.”
Now I’m at a disadvantage. “I am, and you are?”
“Chelsea,” she offers with a smile, lifting a box I hadn’t noticed she was carrying. “I picked up some desserts on my way home and thought I’d drop some for Ransom. There’s apple pie from his favorite bakery, and the owner threw in some chocolate chip cookies too.”
I search my mind for a Chelsea but come back empty. I’m pretty good with names and would remember hers, or at the very least, a face as pretty as hers, and Christ, that hair. It’s so…full. There are no other words to describe the mountain of dark brown curls with blond highlights. They seem to have a life of their own, springing all over the place as she moves.
She’s…mesmerizing.
But who is she, and why does she have a key to Ransom’s apartment? The question is at the tip of my tongue, but I’m afraid of the answer. Why else would a stunning woman show up at Ransom’s apartment and act like she’s right at home?
“How do you know my name?” I ask instead.
“Oh, Ransom told me all about you,” she says, heading straight to the kitchen with such familiarity it makes my chest clench painfully. She moves with the ease of someone who’s been in and out of this place countless times. “I guess I got curious about you when he started spending so much time at the shelter, and I had to bully him into telling me about you. I can’t begin to imagine what you’ve been through.”
Her words stop me, and the pain in my chest spreads. “He told you about me?”
“Yeah,” she says, dropping the box on the counter, oblivious to the fire she’s just lit under me. “But I had to pry the information out of him. I mean, I had to know the girl I’ll be sharing his attention with.” She winks at me, her face amused.
My throat nearly closes up.
“I don’t mind, really.” She laughs, opening the smaller of the two boxes and taking out a cookie. I watch, paralyzed, as she bites into it. “You liked the flowers, didn’t you?”
“Flowers?”
She runs a hand through her long curly hair and smiles sheepishly. “When Ransom asked me to drop a bouquet of roses and baby’s breath here for the surprise he had prepared foryou, I got excited and might have gone a little overboard.” She looks around the room, smiling when she notes that most of the flowers are right where they were—wheresheleft them. “You liked them, didn’t you?”
“They’re beautiful,” I manage to choke out.
