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FORTY-SEVEN

MARA

MARCH

I woke up to the bed quivering in the dead of the night. I’d gone to sleep alone, but now Jack was with me on the other side of the bed.

“Jack?” I put a gentle hand on his back and he jumped. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

He turned over and his eyes were wild.

“Did you have a nightmare?” I asked.

“It felt real.”

“Aw, come here.” I opened my arms and he scooted my way, resting his head on my chest. I stroked his hair. “It’s alright. Dreams aren’t real.”

I felt his nod in the dark and continued soothing him. In all the time we’d been together, Jack had never done this.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head. “No. It’s too awful.”

“Okay,” I said. “We can just be here.”

His palm scraped down my side, clutching my hip. “Mara, I’m not a good person. You should get out while you can.”

I struggled to focus on what he was saying since I was so disoriented. “Sure you are, Jack. What are you talking about?”

“No, I . . . Mara, I’m dangerous.” Jack let out a hysterical sob.

“What makes you say that?” I asked, my fingers massaging his scalp. He was clammy and sweaty.

“I . . . I did something.”

I stilled. “What did you do?”

His breathing grew more ragged again. “I’m not ready. You’ll leave me.”

I shushed him and threaded my fingers into his hair again. What Jack needed most was unconditional love, and I had to at least try to provide it. I can’t say I wasn’t highly curious what ‘something’ was. “I’m not going anywhere. You can tell me when you’re ready.”

Jack gripped me tighter, now burying his face in my neck. His face was wet and his quivering hadn’t stopped. “I think I need you,” he whimpered.

“What do you mean?” I asked, sitting up a little more. “Need me how?”

Jack answered by lifting himself up to kiss me and I got the idea. I noticed it was strange that his mouth didn’t taste sour like he’d been sleeping, more like he just brushed his teeth. His hand drifted between my legs. He pulled out of our kiss. “I need you to . . .”

“What, Jack? You can say it.”

He drew a ragged inhale. “Makelovetome.”

I sank my mouth to his and in the best way he could, Jack surrendered to me.

With gentle fingers, he lowered the strap of the silk nightie, another one he’d bought for me. Once he realized I liked and accepted his gifts, he kept them coming. A lot of the time, he’d send them when he was on the road and thinking of me. I loved picturing him in his hotel room, shopping from his phone in bed while he missed me.

For all his tough exterior, and brattiness for that matter, Jack knew how to be gooey tender. I slipped my fingers under the waistband of his underwear, meeting his hard length. I grazed my fingernails over his balls and up his shaft to his shiver and moan. There was nothing better than being able to get to him like that.

His mouth continued its journey, lavishing each breast with attention. He knew I’d lost some of the sensation in my nipples from a combination of breastfeeding and Raynaud’s syndrome, so he gave more attention to my areolas where I could feel more. Placing a tender kiss between my breasts, he eyed me for permission to go lower. I nodded and tossed his curls in my hand again, giving him all the affection he’d rightfully earned.

“I need to make you feel good,” he whispered against my stomach.

“You already are,” I assured him. “Doing such a good job.”

I rolled my hips as Jack sank his tongue into me. He continued that way for a minute or so, then kissed back up my stomach. “I need you on top of me,” he pleaded.

Together, we flipped so he was on his back and I was riding him. I went to face his feet, but he rubbed my ass. “I need your eyes.”

Guess he wasn’t kidding; he really did need me. I turned and straddling his hips, sank down on him. I lowered myself so we were chest to chest, giving him the contact he seemed to be craving. We were in the dark, but his eyes still shined below me, his eyebrows pinched in desperation.

“What happened to your face, baby?” I asked, running my thumb below a cut on his cheek.

“Just a cut,” he wheezed, his eyes closing as he matched his thrusts to my motions. When he opened them again, he whispered, “You make me feel safe.”

I held his face in both hands and kissed his forehead, all the while maintaining my rhythm on his cock. “You are safe.”

Jack’s hands were almost bruising sinking into the flesh of my hips. “Mara,” he breathed. “I’d do anything for you.”

It must have been a hell of a nightmare for him to be so shaken up.

He let out a strangled whimper. “Am I allowed to come?”

“Yes.” He seemed too fragile for me to withhold an orgasm, so I let him have it. His mouth grasped one of my breasts, sucking intensely as he moaned through his climax. “So good, Jack.”

He panted, coming down. “What can I do for you, sweetheart?”

“Give me a color.”

“Green. Definitely green,” he sighed.

I leaned down to his ear, kissing all around it to his gasps before saying, “Get down there and clean me up with your tongue.”

His breathing quickened again. “Yes, ma’am.”

And like the good boy he was, Jack licked me clean until I was commending him for a job well done.

We went back to sleep with him clutching me so tight, I wondered if it was really just a dream.