This Crazy Love: Swoon Series Read online

The moment Jackson said that single word, he tugged lightly at the tie on my blouse. The top fell open, and he dipped his head, placing a kiss right between the valley of my breasts.

  That single kiss was so hot, it radiated through my entire body, pinwheels of sensation spinning wildly and sending tingles straight through me.

  When I came home tonight and saw him standing barefoot in the kitchen, in nothing but a pair of jeans, his glorious chest bare for me to see, I nearly melted on the spot. Perhaps the only thing that prevented it was the many lectures I’d given myself periodically over the last few days in his absence. I’d reminded myself of all the reasons why it probably wasn’t smart—in fact, it was incredibly stupid—to want him this much.

  Yet, my reminders were to no avail. Not when the attraction between us seemed to override every single ounce of common sense. My crazy impulses couldn’t be buttoned up and shut down.

  Maybe it wasn’t smart, but I wanted – oh, how I wanted—to lose myself in Jackson. To forget the baggage I carried with me, and to forget the scars, most of them hidden on my psyche and on my heart.

  I wasn’t looking for love—that was far too much to ask from the universe, as far as I was concerned. If all I took away from this was one crazy night, perhaps it would be a memory to replace the rest.

  The loose tie allowed my blouse to fall open a little, but not too much. Tremors ran through me and a sheen of perspiration bloomed on my skin. His lips pressed another kiss, incrementally lower.

  Compared to Jackson, I wasn’t very tall. With him seated, his head was just barely lower than mine. He looked up, his eyes assessing, measuring. I felt as if he could see right through me. The sensation gave me pause. Because I didn’t want anyone to see right through me.

  I tried not to think about it very much, but once you’ve experienced an abusive relationship, you question everything about yourself and feel slightly crazy most of the time. Wanting to shove that feeling away, I sifted my fingers in his hair, leaning down.

  “Kiss me.”

  “I’m busy trying to decide just how bad of an idea this is,” he replied.

  “I don’t have any expectations. This just feels good.”

  Emotion welled inside, and I tried to tamp it down, to ignore it. True desire was what drove me to this moment, but I couldn’t deny that Jackson wasn’t just some random man. I’d known him for years. I trusted him. Perhaps that was the most important factor. I decided abruptly I didn’t care to know why I was ignoring all the reasons why this was a bad idea.

  He studied me. I became acutely aware of the feel of his palm cupping the bottom of my ass, his fingers teasing right along the crease between my thighs. Though his mind might’ve been thinking this was a bad idea, his hands clearly had a different opinion.

  His other hand had fallen to the dip of my waist. He moved, sliding over the curve of my hip in a soothing pass. “I know,” he belatedly replied.

  “Then kiss me.”

  I leaned slightly forward as he angled up, and our lips collided. This time, it didn’t start slow. It started fierce and got even fiercer in a hot second. His tongue swept into my mouth as his hand slid up under my shirt, the calloused surface sending a prickle of goose bumps over my skin.

  He worked my mouth like magic. Dear God, Jackson could kiss, so good it was downright dangerous. Seductive bites, deep sweeps of his tongue as he worked my mouth with his, nearly devouring me. I loved every second of it. It was hot, wet, deep, and intense. I could forget everything when I was at the mercy of his mouth. His hand traveled slowly over the curve of my belly, cupping a breast and rolling his thumb across the tight, aching peak of my nipple. With a flick of his thumb at the clasp between my breasts, they tumbled loose, and I nearly cried out when he transferred his attention to my other breast, lightly pinching the nipple.

  All the while, we just kept kissing. Unlike the other day in the tack room, it wasn’t a rushed frenzy. Oh, it was hot, but Jackson seemed to be taking his sweet time.

  When I shifted my legs where I stood between his knees, my knee brushing across the hard evidence of his arousal, a flicker of fear danced along the edges of my mind. It startled me, and I stiffened up for a minute, suddenly becoming aware of where I was and what I was doing. The last time I had actual sex, Clint raped me. And nearly beat me to death in the aftermath.

  I masked my sudden tension by flinging myself into our kiss, spearing my fingers through Jackson’s shaggy curls. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. I hadn’t expected this, but I should’ve known better. The other day in the tack room had been such an explosion, it overrode all of my defensive impulses.

  I was almost frantic now, desperate to capture that feeling of being lost in nothing but a tide of need, sensation, and desire, obliterating all the bad memories. I moved to straddle his lap, deliberately pushing myself up against the edges of my fear.

  Jackson was strong, most definitely stronger than me. His grip tightened on my hip, holding me in place.

  “If I’m gonna make a crazy decision,” he murmured as he drew away from my lips, “it won’t be a rushed fuck in the kitchen.”

  I was still reeling, shaky, twisted, and tossed asunder inside with sensation battling against a tiny flicker of a bad memory. It was a powerful one, though, and carried heavy shadows with it.

  “Okay,” I managed in reply, my voice a little ragged. I hoped against hope that if he picked up on it, he chalked it up to the desire leaving me rattled.

  He moved smoothly, pushing the chair back as he stood before lifting me in his arms. I was so startled, I laughed. “You’re carrying me?” I asked, angling my face to look at him.

  “I am.”

  Jackson held me easily, one hand under my bottom and the other under my knees. I didn’t mind the close encounter with his chest. Not one bit. I turned my head, unable to resist dusting a few kisses along the surface. His skin was warm and a rich amber. He was a man who spent most of his hours outdoors, the sun burnishing him all over.

  The incongruity of the moment nudged me out of the intrusion of fear. He moved quickly, striding up the stairs, carrying me as easily as if he were carrying a child.

  It was strange. His strength should’ve frightened me, but it was Jackson, and I knew I could trust him.

  When we reached the hallway upstairs, he shouldered through his bedroom door just as I began to wonder where he meant to take me. I hadn’t even been in here, so I looked around curiously as he eased me down at the foot of the bed. The upstairs of the farmhouse had angled ceilings, and all the walls were painted a soft gray. The hardwood floors gleamed. There was a door to one side that I presumed led to the master bathroom.

  A king-size bed sat in the center of the room with tables on either side. It was clearly an antique with rich mahogany posts at each corner. It had a lovely, stately quality to it.

  “White doesn’t really seem to be your color,” I observed as I took in the pristine white down quilt atop the bed, with matching pillows piled high against the wooden headboard.

  Jackson chuckled and lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Ash decorated the room. She decorated the whole house, but I bet you could’ve guessed that.”

  He moved smoothly, stepping to me and swiftly undoing the buttons below the open tie on my blouse. “Now, where were we?” he murmured as he leaned down, laving his tongue over my tight nipple.

  The sensation of pleasure was sharp and acute. It spun through me, swirling into the ache building between my thighs. I gasped when he shifted his attention, the suction gentle on my other nipple. This, this might make me forget.

  My blouse and bra fell to the floor when his hands swept over my shoulders. I barely noticed him smooth my skirt over my hips until it fell in a rumple around my feet. When he straightened, I could feel the searing heat of his gaze as his eyes traveled over me.

  “You’re so fucking gorgeous,” he said, his voice low, the gruff sound of it sending a prickle of awareness down my spine and goose bumps chasing over my sk
in.

  I didn’t know if any man had ever told me I was beautiful. If they had, I had forgotten it. It was buried under the mountains of self-recrimination in the aftermath of a man who took me apart piece by piece.

  I flushed all over. Blessedly, Jackson didn’t appear to expect me to say anything. Seeing as I couldn’t find words, that was a relief. Closing the distance between us, the backs of his fingers trailed over my breasts and down across my belly. I was drenched in arousal.

  “Hmm. All for me,” he murmured.

  His fingers teased over the damp silk between my thighs. He slipped a single finger under the edge of the silk, dragging it through my slick folds. I cried out. Just like he’d done in the tack room, he drew his hand away and tasted my arousal on his fingers.

  Jackson never once broke eye contact with me, and I had to fight to keep control. I didn’t know if it was possible to climax from a look alone, but I supposed I might be about to find out. In a flash, he lifted me again, laying me down on the bed. He stretched out beside me, propping himself up on an elbow.

  His eyes were intent, sweeping over my body as he began to drive me to madness with his lips, teeth, and tongue.

  My body was humming, restless and near frantic, with need spreading through me like fire. I didn’t know if I could bear Jackson’s slow, teasing exploration of my body.

  In a distant corner of my mind was also that tiny flicker of fear, a fear I hadn’t even known was still holding onto me. I thought maybe if I could lasso this wild, thrumming attraction between us, I could barrel through it and get to the other side.

  Jackson’s palm slid over my belly, his touch sure, smooth and languid. He was in no hurry. His lips dusted hot kisses along my collarbone, dipping down to capture one of my nipples. I cried out, the pleasure sharp with an incremental edge of pain to it that fed into the desire storming through me.

  I was slick with need, shifting my legs restlessly as his hand slid down to cup my mound, his fingers pressing against the damp silk. My hips bucked into his touch, and I gasped his name.

  He hooked his fingers over the edge of my panties and dragged them off swiftly before proceeding to make me forget everything but the hot, dark, delicious feel of his touch. His fingers teased over my folds. One finger slid inside me, my channel clenching around him instantly. He murmured something against my skin as he shifted, moving down my body, his lips blazing a fiery trail over my belly, my entire body rippling with hot shivers. Tremors rocked me when he slid another finger inside me, pumping lightly.

  “Jackson, I need…” I gasped, my words becoming incoherent as he stretched me with a deep stroke.

  “Oh, we’re not rushing this,” he murmured as his weight shifted, and I felt the bulk of his shoulders press my knees apart. With the weight of my prior sexual experiences bearing down upon me—not counting what had happened with Jackson within the last week, which was the most intense sexual experience of my life, even though it hadn’t been the full act—I felt suddenly vulnerable and exposed.

  A sound of protest escaped. Not because I wanted him to stop. Rather because, somehow, I’d gotten this far in life without ever having a man pleasure me this way. I fell back into the pillows, and I felt him lift his head.

  “Yes?” he asked, the word coming out slowly as my sex clenched, and I felt the juices of my arousal on the insides of my thighs.

  Dragging my eyes open, I tried to catch my breath, but all I could manage was a shallow gasp. “I’ve never…” My words ran out as a flush heated my cheeks. He was quiet, waiting and watching, making me nearly frantic with his fingers as he stroked through my slick folds.

  “Never what?” he prompted as he sank a finger inside me again, my hips reflexively arching into his touch.

  “Had anyone do…that,” I mumbled, biting back a moan.

  With my sexual experiences limited to one man, a man entirely uninterested in my pleasure, I’d never experienced oral sex beyond being the one giving it. I didn’t want to explain any of that and hoped Jackson would just drop it.

  He dropped it all right, just not quite how I expected. “Well then, you have to try it,” he murmured, a sly grin curling the corner of his mouth.

  “Jackson, I…”

  Just as I was fighting my anxiety, he licked into my core, the sensation so acute and so gentle at once that I almost came instantly. With his skillful fingers sliding in and out and his tongue teasing me languidly, I was nearly incoherent with need, chasing after a sweet release.

  I lost sense of time, place, everything—everything but the feel of Jackson’s mouth, tongue, and fingers pushing me closer and closer to the edge. A wave of pressure gathered inside. When I cried out, he caught my clit with his lips, giving it the slightest bit of suction. Pleasure shot through me, the wave cresting and crashing through my body in ripples.

  Dragging my eyes open with my breath coming in ragged rasps, I watched Jackson rise up. With the soft glow of the lamp, his muscled form was cast in shadow. He tugged his jeans and briefs down, his cock springing free.

  Although I was boneless from pleasure, the tremors of my climax still pinging through me, I tensed when I saw him. He was quite well-endowed, his cock long and thick. I fought against the sense of tension mingling with the aftershocks. I didn’t need sex to be forever ruined by my ex.

  Jackson abruptly turned, striding to the bathroom. “Hey…” I began to say.

  “Condom,” came his one-word reply tossed over his shoulder.

  In a matter of seconds, he was stepping back into the bedroom. There was something so damn sexy about the way he looked at me—his gaze dark and intent, a searing tenderness contained within. Although that tiny fear was hanging on in the background, desire was too. Because I wanted to feel him against me, to feel him filling me.

  The mattress dipped with his weight as he stretched out beside me. I had expected him to instantly chase after his own pleasure. When he didn’t, I was flummoxed, thrown off. The moment I rolled my head to the side, his lips descended over mine. His kiss was lazy, seductive bites, hungry and sweet.

  I felt suspended in a hazy, searing hot, sensual exploration. Once again, that old fear rattled when I felt the brush of his arousal against my thigh. I told myself I could ignore it, that Jackson could make me forget everything.

  Then, he shifted his weight, and I felt the hard, heavy length of his cock pressing insistently against my hip, and my body reacted. I flinched and tensed instantly. He froze.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Shay

  “Don’t stop,” I blurted out, rolling toward him. Unfortunately, that brought me into contact with his cock all over again. All of my muscles tensed. It was clear my body had a hold on what was happening. Seeing as this was the very first time I tried to have sex since I’d been raped, and I’d only had sex with one man—a violent, abusive man—I didn’t have a roadmap for this.

  I couldn’t have known the mere attempt to have sex would trigger me. In no way was what was happening with Jackson anything like sex with Clint, beyond the basic mechanics of it.

  There had been no kissing and no foreplay with Clint. Plain old sex with Clint was a constant letdown for him where he berated me for not being experienced enough, for not relaxing, and so on. Even discounting the time he raped me, I didn’t have a reservoir of good sexual experiences to override those memories. It all ended with raw power shoving me down and forcing me to endure a rough assault.

  I swallowed, holding still and praying for Jackson to just ignore this.

  “Shay?”

  Jackson’s hand stilled, although he didn’t pull away. The feel of it was warm on my skin. I opened my eyes to find his gaze waiting. The heat was still banked in his eyes, but the air around us had shifted. I could feel questions tumbling through his mind.

  “What?”

  “You’re tense,” he answered, his tone level.

  Emotion was thick in my throat and tears pressed hot in my eyes. To my mortification, I was afraid I was about
to burst into tears in front of Jackson at the absolute worst time I could imagine. I tried to swallow through it. I managed to not cry, but when he shifted slightly, and I felt the length of him against my leg, my body went rigid once again.

  Unfortunately, Jackson knew me well. He drew away slightly. “What the hell is going on, Shay?”

  I shook my head wildly. “It’s just been a while.”

  He was quiet, his gaze assessing. “Maybe it’s been a while, but something’s up. You’re tense as hell. You flinched three times. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I’m not an idiot. We can stop this now. If you’re having second thoughts, maybe that’s for the best. This is crazy anyway.”

  I was suddenly frantic, almost desperate to not let my past tangle into my present like this and ruin my one attempt to replace the bad memories.

  “It’s not that! It’s just, well, the last time I had sex, Clint raped me,” I blurted out.

  Oh fuck. Of all the things I meant to say, that definitely wasn’t something I wanted Jackson to know. Even Remy didn’t know this part of the whole mess.

  Jackson’s eyes widened, his breath drawing in sharply. The air around us felt heavy. “I’ll fucking kill him,” he said savagely.

  “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you. I guess I didn’t think it mattered. Everything felt so good. I thought…”

  Jackson started to shake his head, clearly concerned with my response. “What the hell are you apologizing for? It’s not your fault.”

  His words stopped as he looked at me. I wished I could read into what he was thinking. I couldn’t. “I think maybe we should give this a rain check,” he finally said.

  “No!” I shifted toward him again. “I don’t want to stop. I want you. Don’t even try to pretend you don’t want me,” I murmured.

  Jackson had started to move away from me, and as I moved quickly in his direction, I ending up sitting astride him. I hadn’t planned it that way, but I landed right over his hips, my wet, highly-sensitized core sliding over his hard, hot length. I felt his arousal pulse, and he gripped my hips tightly, an expression bordering on pain crossing his face.