Afterburn

the anger simmer and blend with my lust into a raging desire. I focused on him. On us. On the feel of him beneath my hands, the beloved scent that was his alone, the way his breathing deepened and his heartbeat quickened as the hunger grew between us.
    I never noticed things like that with anyone else, which made it so much harder to accept that maybe Jax and I weren’t meant to be together.
    “Did you have this place when you came with me to Rossi’s?” I asked.
    We’d stayed in a hotel during that trip. If he’d had an apartment in town at the time, it shed a whole new light on his feelings for me. After all, how much could a guy care about his girl if he’d rather bang her in a hotel than his own bed?
    “No. I bought this place last year. Gia—” Standing there with his shirt open and parted, his golden torso on display, his body so beautifully hard and defined, his dark eyes so warm and tormented...
    I caught his hand and pulled him out of the kitchen. Anticipation thrummed through my veins, along with something darker. And more wicked.
    * * *
    J AX ’ S HAND CLAWED at the sheet, his stomach clenching as I mouthed the plush head of his cock. He was hard and thick, so aroused that precum streamed from the crest to coat my tongue. I fisted him at the root, milking him with my hands and mouth, relishing the curses and moans that spilled from him.
    “Jesus,” he gasped as I licked along a thick, pulsing vein. Running my parted lips up and down the side, I teased him, kept him on edge, driving him to the point of no return.
    “Don’t play, Gia,” he growled. “Suck me or fuck me. Make me come.”
    I smiled, my gaze lingering over the tight lacing of muscle that crossed his abdomen. He was sheened with sweat, his gorgeous face flushed and eyes bright. With his gaze on me, I wrapped my mouth around him and sucked, taking him to the back of my throat.
    “That’s it,” he said hoarsely, his neck arching to press his head into the pillow. “God, that’s good. Your mouth...”
    I owned him in that moment. Jackson Rutledge was mine.
    His fingers pushed into my hair, gliding over the damp roots, brushing the strands back from my face. “Ah, Gia. Keep sucking me like that, baby.”
    He throbbed against my tongue, his flavor and desire intoxicating me. I loved it. Loved giving him so much pleasure his body quaked with it.
    “Going to come so hard for you...” he groaned.
    Pulling off him, I sat up, then slid off the end of the bed.
    “Gia.” His heavy-lidded gaze caught mine. “Damn it. Finish me.”
    “It’s tough when you’re working toward something...when the excitement builds and you can almost taste it...then someone takes it away from you, isn’t it?”
    Snarling, he jackknifed upward. “Get back here.”
    I smiled and snatched his shirt up from the floor. “I think you need to cool off a bit first.”
    “I think you should get your gorgeous ass back in this bed first.” Jax rose from the bed like an orgasmic dream come to life, all hard rippling muscle and golden skin. His cock was thick and long, curved upward and so stiff it barely moved as he walked toward me. He was so perfectly proportioned, so boldly masculine.
    It was damned hard resisting jumping on the bed and letting him fuck the hell out of me.
    He reached for me, and I sidestepped quickly, laughter in my throat.
    The doorbell rang.
    Jax didn’t care. He stalked me with single-minded determination. I danced away, struggling to thrust my arms through his shirt. The fabric smelled like him. I liked that a lot.
    “You should get that,” I told him.
    “Gia,” he said, in a low warning tone. “If you want to be comfortable when I fuck you, you better get on the bed. Otherwise, I’m pinning you to the nearest flat surface.”
    The doorbell rang again as I darted out of his reach. “Someone’s at the door!”
    “They can wait.” He fisted his cock, stroking it. “This can’t.”
    I feinted to the right, then the left, using moves I’d perfected on basketball courts. It amazed me that he could be naked while chasing me and still look both tempting and formidable. His abs glistened with sweat; his gaze was avid and hot, his body taut with muscle.
    He caught me before I crossed the threshold of the bedroom door. His arms locked around me, hard as steel, his chest heaving against my back.
    “Jax—”
    “Say no if you mean it,” he breathed roughly. “Otherwise, I’ve got to have you, baby.”
    The note of