Page 46 of Last Breath (Blood Wine Dynasty #2)

Jett

The flood he’d held back for so long ripped through the attic. Floors caved in, boxes burst and every dark place illuminated with blinding, splintering light.

Everything he’d kept away, every memory he’d shoved in a corner, pushed distractions in front of, all crashed to the ground.

Her grin in the rearview mirror of his car.

Bare hips as her T-shirt rose up when she grabbed a mug from the top cupboard in Grey’s cottage.

Her legs tightening around his waist as he’d lifted her onto that desk.

The slit of cleavage as she reached across him to grab her water bottle from the driver’s side door.

The hypnotic swish of her hair as she pulled it into a ponytail.

Now her hair was in his fingers, silk, sweat, knots. Her sharp tongue – always with an answer, a snipe – now in his mouth, tasting, curious, hungry. Every part of her he’d locked away because it could never be his, all his secrets he thought he’d take to the grave, he now confessed.

You. I couldn’t leave. I stayed longer than I’ve ever stayed anywhere because of you.

She bit his lip like she could taste his thoughts.

And it doesn’t make sense. Because there can never be anything between us. But when I close my eyes, it’s always you.

It’s always been you.

She pulled him down on top of her, and thoughts became incoherent.

‘So. Beautiful.’ He kissed her neck, down her sternum to the cotton of her T-shirt.

‘So are you.’ Her fingers grazed his face again, her long nails against his scar.

He shivered and brought his face down to her neck again so she couldn’t see it. She didn’t mean that. ‘Are you sure about this?’ He could barely pull his lips away from her skin to ask.

‘Just shut up and kiss me.’

‘Nella.’

She glared in such a Nella way his heart constricted like she was squeezing it in her fist. ‘For fuck’s sake, Jett. Yes , I want you to fuck me. Do you want my signature or ...’

He caged her smart-ass lips with his and she moaned into him as they both lifted her shirt over her head.

The feel of her rough, lacy bra against his bare skin was enough to send him over the edge, and the way she gripped his shoulders to bring him closer, so she could feel exactly how much he wanted this – wanted her – was not helping.

‘You’re impossible,’ he said, his mouth moving down to the swell of her breasts. ‘Impossible.’

‘It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,’ she teased, fingers dragging through his hair.

‘I never looked.’

‘Never?’

‘Never.’

‘Yeah, right.’ She traced the outer line of his lips with her nail; her mouth not being on his skin was torture. ‘What about that night at the Perth apartment, when you didn’t knock?’

‘Oh, you mean when you were ... what was the phrase you used ... this close to an orgasm ?’

‘I was .’ But the certainty was gone from her voice, their old walls not completely fallen, but cracking.

‘Do you know what I was thinking, in that moment, when I came through the door and saw you on top of him?’

Her eyes burned. She dragged him back down, mouth hungrier than ever, before she released him and said hoarsely, ‘Tell me.’

‘The first thing,’ he said, tracing a finger around her mouth like she’d done to him, then slowly down her throat, over the lace of her bra, down the flat plain of her abdominals, over the swell of her stomach, lingering over the waistband of her shorts.

She tried to push him further down but he shook his head, splaying his hand over her stomach – he was so big compared to her, his fingers almost spanned her hip bones.

‘The first thought was I’m going to need to blow my brains out to get this image out of my mind – where is the closest gun? ’

‘This image ?’

‘You,’ he groaned into her stomach. ‘You in your fucking underwear. How was I meant to function after that, Nella? I don’t even remember what I said that night. It’s a bloody miracle I actually remembered what I was there for. You ... your body ... I’m a fucking mess whenever you ...’

‘Whenever I what?’ she said, cradling his face with her hands. ‘I don’t understand.’

He growled, hips flush against hers, their noses touching. ‘Do you understand now?’ He ground his hips into hers. ‘Do you understand what you do to me? Every. Fucking. Day?’

‘Every day?’

‘Every day.’

‘Since when?’

He should lie. He should say it was just since Friday night. Since the kiss. But somehow, he knew she’d know. He’d exposed too much.

‘Forever.’

‘And the second thing?’ Her words were calm but her chest was rising rapidly at his confession. ‘Your second thought, in the penthouse?’

‘Oh.’ He smiled into her neck. ‘My second thought was that I would never, ever, have you lying there with that expression on your face if we were in the same position.’

She bit her lip, her fingers again tracking perilously close to his scar. This time, he closed his eyes and let them.

‘I’m a lawyer, Randall,’ she whispered.

Some sort of sound came out of him that sounded like mmm?

‘I’m going to need evidence.’

Her words burned through him, flames dancing through his bloodstream as he pulled her into him, his whole body ignited by desire kept dormant for so long. A volcano, simmering for years, finally erupting.

‘You lied,’ he said into her mouth as she bit his bottom lip, arching against him when his fingers found the right rhythm.

The noise she made wasn’t coherent, but her eyes shot him daggers of understanding.

‘You said you weren’t turned on that night in the office. Were you lying, Nella?’

She closed her eyes. The sound that escaped her was so naked, so vulnerable. He wondered if anyone else had ever truly seen her lose control.

‘Yes.’

‘Ah.’ He kissed her deeply, electricity thrumming through his skin to hers. ‘I thought so.’

‘Arsehole,’ she hissed, nails digging into his back, pulling him down.

‘Already? Thought we’d take it slower.’

The sound she made was halfway between a scream and a laugh as she thumped him on the shoulder.

It was the same sound she’d made countless times, countless jokes, effortless banter.

Had it all been building up to this moment?

It was as familiar and as strange to him as her body now – vulnerable, strong, in the way only Nella could be.

Friends , he thought hazily as he licked the peak of her nipple through lace. Friends, he reminded himself as he inhaled the scent of her as she shuffled up towards the door.

Friends. It was a faint echo as her legs parted, knee against the gear stick, his mouth on her stomach.

‘Are you timing, or am I?’ she whispered.

‘Timing?’

‘Five minutes. In the back of your car, right?’

‘This is the front of the car. You’d know that if you renewed your licence.’

‘Sounds like you’re backtracking.’

He tightened his grip on her backside, her eyes widening as he pulled her closer, his erection straining against the jeans he didn’t remember throwing on as he’d run from the hotel room.

‘Go on.’ She cocked an eyebrow. ‘ Drive. ’

‘Start the timer.’

He kissed her through her underwear, the lace coarse and damp.

It was her – the taste, the scent – but everything he’d tasted of her before had just been an echo of this.

Her nails dug into the back of his skull and his head spun like he’d been drugged.

He would kill and slaughter and destroy a thousand worlds to get high like this again.

He ripped the lace aside with his thumb, telling himself to hold back, to go slow, but his desire to devour her, to mark her as his burned as she murmured something he’d never know.

The feel of her, the taste, the way she tightened against his tongue .

.. he was afraid he was going to be done and it hadn’t even started.

‘Jett.’ She arched against the seat. ‘Oh my god ...’

His name, breathless, from her mouth was more than he could take. He was bowing before the altar to the only thing he’d ever believed in, the only thing he’d ever worshipped. The only thing he’d give his life for. Her. It had always been her.

‘I don’t want you to stop, but I’m literally going to die if you don’t fuck me,’ she hissed as he drew himself up, licking the taste of her from his mouth.

‘I don’t want to hurt you.’ He held his body in a suspended plank above her, not wanting to crush her into the seat.

‘You can’t.’

It was those words that did it.

One minute fire was coursing through him and the next everything ran cold and drained away.

What the fuck was he doing? What the fuck were they doing?

He knew she’d meant he couldn’t physically hurt her. But her words had unlocked something that had been rolling around in the attic, hiding in some shadowed space while the rest exploded.

He was going to hurt her. If he went through with this, he’d have to hurt her. Because they couldn’t ever be anything real.

He couldn’t be her escape – her friend with benefits, her comfort fuck.

He was leaving. And she wanted to be friends, and he’d told her they couldn’t because of the way he felt about her.

But he couldn’t sleep with her and then leave.

He might be a lot of things, have had to fit into a lot of different lives that never truly belonged to him, but he’d never been that person.

And Nella was grieving. She’d said she wanted it, but how could he know he wasn’t just a way to forget, a distraction? Hell, a few minutes ago he would have been whatever the fuck she wanted him to be. But what if she woke up in a few hours and realised she’d made a huge mistake?

The whole point of never staying long enough to make a place home was so that he could be forgettable, but he knew this time would be different. He wanted Nella to remember him. And he couldn’t have this be that final memory. He couldn’t be another regret.

Sensing the entire world had shifted, Nella pulled his face to look into his eyes. ‘What is it?’ Her mouth curved in that wicked, giddy way of hers that drove a stake right through his heart.

‘I can’t do this.’