Inked in the Steel City Series (31 page)

“Nope,” he said, trying not to tense as her breast pressed against his bicep, soft and warm. Damn it, how was he supposed to watch the movie like a normal person with her draped over his side?

It was a selfish question – he was supposed to be there to support her, however she needed him to do that, and instead he was sitting ramrod-straight against the back of the couch worrying about an impending hard-on.

There was nothing he could do about it, nothing he could say as the movie played, failing to elicit laughter from either of them. He let her lean on him, because that was what he was there for – figuratively and literally, apparently – and tried not to enjoy it too much.

When the movie ended, Jed resisted the urge to breathe a sigh of relief. An hour and twenty minutes had rarely gone by so slowly or so torturously. When Karen sat up straight and shut off the TV with the press of a button, he became hopeful that his half-hard cock would finally soften.

“Can I get you something, Jed? There’s not much ready to eat, but I could maybe whip something up, and there are drinks in the fridge. I just realized that you brought me that coffee, and I haven’t offered you a thing.”

“Don’t worry about it. And you’re not cooking.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’ll order something in – what do you like?”

“You don’t have to do that. I—”

“You need to eat.” He tried not to sound too domineering, but it was true, and no way was he going to let her lift a finger on his behalf.

She glanced toward the nearest window, as if thinking of the places beyond. “There’s this Japanese place that has great noodles. Sakura Sake House.” She frowned.

“Do you know the number?”

She recited it from memory, and he caught himself filing the fact that she liked Japanese food away for future use.

Hitting call, he attempted to wipe the information from his brain. Her favorite foods were none of his business because he wasn’t romancing her. He told himself that over and over as he remembered the feel of her body leaning against his, curled on the couch.

When the food arrived, they ate together at the kitchen table. There were prints hanging there too, and a couple of them were Jed’s work. He fought to stifle the sense of prideful pleasure that came from knowing she’d been admiring his work in her home all this time. It was foolish, anyway – after all, it was her work, too.

It was their work.

Laying down a pair of bamboo chopsticks, he met her eyes. “It’s starting to get late.” The sky was a dusky purple beyond the kitchen window. “I’m glad to keep you company, but I don’t want to keep you up, either. You have to be exhausted.”

She laid down her chopsticks, too. “I am tired. But I don’t want you to go, Jed. Not unless you need to – or want to.”

“Abby’s closing up the shop tonight. I don’t have anywhere else I need to be.” He never did. Hot Ink was his life. Often, when he was away from the studio, he felt a little like a fish out of water. In Karen’s presence, he felt like a fish caught in a riptide, swimming against a current that threatened to pull him into waters he knew he should avoid.

“Will you stay, Jed – for the night? If you want to, I mean.”

Hell yes, he wanted to. A very selfish, very powerful part of him wanted to. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” When she recoiled, it hurt physically to watch. “Not because I don’t want to,” he said, “because I do want to.”

She looked at him like she didn’t understand, and he couldn’t blame her. “When you spent the other night at my place, it was amazing,” he clarified. “So amazing I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t spend the night with you without thinking of what happened then, and that doesn’t seem right. I want to be here for you, but I don’t want to give my own selfish desires a chance to fuck everything up.”

To his surprise, one corner of her mouth twitched in a quick half-smile. “I don’t expect you to stop thinking of the other night. I haven’t stopped. When I said I wanted you to spend the night, I meant with me – in my bed.”

His chest suddenly felt too tight for his speeding heart.
Jesus
. “I can’t do that, Karen. You can’t— I mean, after last time…”

He summoned all of his willpower and forced out the truth. “The next morning, I realized how selfish I’d been, bringing you back to my place. After I told you about Alice and saw the way you held back around me – the way you were worried about hurting my feelings – I knew what I’d done was wrong. You deserve to be with someone that’s not like me. Someone you don’t feel the need to tone down your happiness around.”

There, it was all out – having said the words left him feeling as if a crushing weight had been lifted off his chest, leaving a flattened, hollow space in its wake. It was a strange sort of relief, but a relief none the less.

“You’re trying not to hurt my feelings right now.” She shot him a level look across the table.

What was he supposed to say to that?

“I am,” he replied eventually, having decided on undiluted honesty, “but that’s because you’ve just lost someone you loved. The pain is fresh, and I know what it feels like – I don’t want to make it any worse for you. But it’s been five years since I lost Alice. I’ve had time to heal as much as I can, and I am what I am. And you think I’m sad.”

She frowned and stood suddenly, pushing back her chair. “I don’t think you’re sad. I think what happened to you is sad – there’s a difference. I’m sorry if I offended you by trying to be sensitive, but I didn’t know how to act. I can only imagine what it’s like to lose a spouse, Jed. I was just trying to put myself in your shoes. I guess I did a crappy job, but are you really so upset with me that you don’t want to do this anymore?” She waved a hand between them.

“I just think you deserve someone different. You’re only twenty-five, and you’re so full of life. Hell, that’s the first thing people notice about you – how alive you are, how much of yourself you put into everything you do. I just don’t like the idea of being this person that burdens you with my sad history and makes you second-guess yourself.”

“Then we have something in common,” she said in an uncharacteristically even tone.

His heart sank even though he knew he should be glad he’d finally gotten her to see things his way.

“I mean about me putting so much of myself into everything I do,” she continued. “You’re the same way.” She motioned toward the nearest wall. “You’re passionate, Jed. You couldn’t create art like this if you weren’t. I don’t see you as some walking embodiment of tragedy. I see you as you are – as someone with a lot left to give. I want to be the person who…”

She paused and took a deep breath. “I want to be with you, Jed. I wanted you for months before I knew you were a widower, and I still want you just as much as I did then.” She took a step toward him. “More, even, after what happened the other night.”

He remained in his chair, the top of it digging into his vertebrae as he sat, struck dumb. It was hard to think past the whirling storm her words had turned his thoughts into. He struggled for a response, but nothing came to mind. And then she obliterated his concentration when she leaned down, wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth to his.

There was so much force in her kiss that her lips would’ve crushed his if they hadn’t been so soft. As it was, they exerted cock-stirring pressure, bringing him to life in a way he couldn’t resist, couldn’t regret. Pulling her into his lap, he kissed her back, slipping his tongue deep into her mouth.

“Let me show you where you’ll be sleeping,” she said when their lips parted minutes later.

He went to her bedroom with her and didn’t have time to so much as glance at the prints hanging on the walls there before they were on the bed, tangled in each other’s arms. The words she’d spoken in the kitchen still rang in his ears, filling his mind with disbelief and his body with a desire so potent that time seemed to stop as he stripped her clothing off of her, revealing all the perfectly milky skin he’d been remembering so vividly for the past two days.

The world started turning again when she slid her hands beneath the hem of his t-shirt and unbuckled his belt, pulling his jeans down and wrapping her hands around his shaft. He sucked in a breath and reached for her.

Before he could make contact, she slipped her other hand into his pushed-down jeans, cradling his balls. That combined with the way she moved her hand up and down, from the base to the head of his dick, was enough to make him swear. Fuck, it had been hard to resist her, hard to tell her he wasn’t right for her. And now here he was, despite his efforts. He didn’t regret it. Not yet.

Finally wrapping his arms around her again, he pulled her close and kissed her hard before pulling off his disheveled clothing and throwing it all aside. Sinking down onto the mattress and lying chest-to-chest with nothing between their skins sent shivers of memory and expectation down his spine. Remembering what they’d done two days ago while anticipating what was about to happen … it was a combination that made his heart speed and his head spin as he kissed her, keeping his lips firmly against hers as he rolled on top of her.

He hadn’t meant to stop there, with his hips between her thighs and his cock pressing up against the slick folds between them. When he’d lowered himself onto her, his head had been filled with vivid notions of sliding down and pushing her legs farther apart with his hands, opening her wide enough that no part of her would be hidden from his mouth. But before he could move a muscle, she reached down and pressed a hand against each of his ass cheeks, curling her fingers and letting her nails bite.

He couldn’t resist her pulling him in, insistent as she tightened her grip, breathing a sigh. Not when he could feel the heat and wetness of her pussy against the head of his dick. With a moan, he flexed his hips, pushing past her folds and into the tight embrace of her body.

In one split second, he noticed and reveled in everything – the pulsing hitch her internal muscles gave when he pushed in to the root, the way she gripped him even harder, nails digging into the crease between his ass cheeks and his thighs, making his skin sting, and the way she exhaled against him, her breath warming his shoulder. All of it was enough to push him instantly to the edge, but she was so irresistible that he was torn between the urges to come and to stay inside her forever.

She rolled her hips, pulling back a little and then sending him plunging deep into her. The motion sent the breath rushing out of his lungs and was almost enough to make him lose it completely, too. Instead, he clung to every last scrap of self-control he had and focused on the splay of her hair against the pillow.

There were a dozen different shades of red and brown, and as she moved, they rippled beneath the overhead light, changing. He studied the light and shadow, the brilliant reds, and even thought about how he’d translate the shades and texture into a tattoo. He stopped when he sensed himself pulling back from the edge, back into a state where it was safe to enjoy every blistering second spent inside her body, undistracted.

She kept rocking her hips as he thrust, gripping a fistful of sheet as they moved to the same rhythm. Even their breathing seemed to be in sync – she exhaled hard and fast, as he did, and the sounds of breath and breathlessness blended with the faint banging of the mattress against the headboard. The symphony sent bolts of heat down his spine and into his groin, but he craved more. He thrust harder and faster, until she lost her rhythm and arched beneath him instead, breathing several wordless cries and then his name.

His name. The sound of it on her lips had his balls tight against his body, his dick aching for release inside her. He kept rocking into her, refusing to ease his rhythm until she reached climax. She was close; that was evident in the way she kept arching and squeezed her eyes shut as her lips moved, soundless now.

Seconds later, she shattered the quiet with a cry that went through Jed like an arrow, hitting some feral place inside him. The headboard banged against the wall, loud enough that he was probably damaging the drywall. He didn’t care. He kept going, his hipbones pushing hard into her soft flesh with each stroke as her body pulsed around his cock, tightening with every fierce contraction.

Her pleasure rippled through her body and through his, leaving him feeling briefly as if every fiber of his being had been charged with electricity, left tingling and waiting – aching – for something to shatter. And then his climax hit him with crushing force, sending the air rushing out of his lungs as he thrust balls-deep inside her.