I mean. Can I just overdose or lick mustard off a spoon or … what are the rules to this dying thing, because I know there has to be rules and you can damn well bet I’m going to get it right.”
“Oh my god. expression on his facesvg.” It was all he could think of to say. He knew he was staring at her, knew he was looking like an ass because he couldn’t form a single coherent thought in his head about what to do next. He couldn’t because his heart was racing with fear and excitement. Fear that he was dreaming, excitement that he wasn’t.
“Jackson,” she said dryly, “when a woman offers to kill herself for you she kind of expects a little more than ‘Oh my god.’ ”
“Oh my fucking god,” he shouted at her right before letting every single impulse flowing through him loose. He grabbed for her with both hands, dragged her up against his chest, wrapping her in a suffocating hug while crushing her mouth under his. He kissed her as hard and as deep as he dared, overjoyed to feel her whole body softening and relaxing, her lips parting to allow him to do ravishing things to her mouth. He kissed her so long and so intensely that he thought he was getting light-headed from lack of oxygen. When he finally pulled back from her it was to her smiling eyes, watching her lick her lips clean of their mutual flavors.
“Max, you can go now,” she said, dismissing the man with a wave but never once looking away from Jackson. “Back at the house, not on a plane. Understood?”
“Yup.” Max chuckled and headed off with Sargent in tow.
“I can’t believe,” Jackson stammered, still not knowing what to say. “Are you one hundred percent …?”
“Are you ever going to finish your sentences?” she teased him.
“My god, I’m going to kill you,” he said fiercely, wanting to shake her for taking delight in his flabbergasted state.
“Well, that’s kind of the idea, right?”
In lieu of shaking the hell out of her he yanked her back up against himself. This time it was she who leapt for the kiss, meshing her mouth to his as if they were a single being, then breaking again and again as each successive contact grew hotter and hotter and faster. Before he knew it she was climbing up his body, arms wrapping around his head and neck and legs wrapping around his waist. It took four blind, heated steps before he found the side of the house and slammed her up against it, following hard with the press of his body. God. Oh god, what was it about her that made him want to forget every nicety he’d ever learned as a lover and just … fuck her crazy. And then take her slower, sweeter, afterward. But it was always this first. This hunger. This rapacious need to just be inside her however he could manage it and as soon as was humanly possible.
Together they pulled up her skirt, his hands running hot beneath it and letting her fill them with soft, sleek flesh. Her backside was curvy enough to earn the title “booty,” but it was always played down with the sharp lines of professional clothing. Sexy yet conservative. The kind of conservative sexy that made you want to un-conservative her. Unwrap her. Undo her. Just as he was coming undone, he realized. Not just the way she was feverishly working to open his jeans and push them down off his hips, but just undone. If she knew how devastated he had been when she’d said those things to him earlier … even now it choked him to think of her wishing he’d actually died. Because that was what it had been. If not for Menes, he would have died. Of course, if not for Tameri saving his sister he wouldn’t have even been in that place and time, but that was splitting hairs.
And that didn’t matter now. With one hand on her backside he reached to take himself in hand and aimed himself in the direction he desired to go. He notched himself against her and, gripping her hard to keep her still, he lunged up into her in a single, stunning thrust. She broke from his mouth to cry out, her hands reaching for his hair, grabbing it up into her fists and doing everything but pulling. He didn’t pause, didn’t wait. He had no time for that.