Persuasion Skills (10 page)

“We’re on a romantic getaway, remember?
Any husband would expect to have sexy showers with his wife.”

If only his eyes didn’t twinkle when he
smiled and his damn dimple didn’t wink at her, she could muster up the energy
for a truly blood-curdling scowl.

“I think my terms were clearly stated.”
He reached around her to the shower sill.

When he straightened, he held a large
bath sponge and a bottle of soap gel.

“You agreed to stay here with me for a
week, to act like a real married couple, with all the petting and touching
involved with that.”

“But…”

She was distracted from her retort when
he began rubbing the now soapy sponge across his chest.

Long ropes of sudsy bubbles dripped
across his hard pecs, and not for the first time did she appreciate the fact
that he seemed to always do his best thinking in the gym.
God bless push-ups and weight lifting
.

She followed his meandering hand with her
gaze, her mouth watering.

“But what, Pep?”

His hand moved the sponge down his chest,
sliding onto his rigid abs.

“Hmm?”

Shiny suds slipped down his stomach to
his erect shaft.
Lucky bastards.

He moved his other hand down to his hard
length, pumping it once before cupping his balls.

Her moan mingled with his wicked laughter
in the air.

She flicked her gaze back up to his to
see the mischievous glint in his eyes.
This
is so not right
. No way was she going to let him keep sidetracking her.

Admittedly, his skills of persuasion were
inspiring. But if she was going to survive the week with her heart intact and
legs closed, she had to stop letting him distract her with sex, or lack
thereof.

Letting a slow smile spread across her
face, she stepped forward, stilling his movements with a lingering stroke down
the ridges of his belly.

“Let me help you,” she whispered, tilting
her head back to hold his gaze.

Her fingers tangled with his at the base
of his long shaft. His quick intake of breath had her lips twitching in
amusement.

She didn’t bother hiding her own
reaction, letting her moan float between them. Their gazes held in a heated
lock, which was fine with her. She wanted him to see the passion in her eyes.
She wanted him to burn as much as she did.

Leaning up on the tips of her toes, she
began to nip and tease at his lips as she curled her hands around his cock and
squeezed gently.

“Is this what a husband should expect?”
she asked softly, her eyes never leaving his.

“Yeah, somewhere along these lines.”

His words came out in a low scrape of
sound. He leaned his back against the wall, widening his stance and canting his
hips up.

“A real husband would expect some special
attention, wouldn’t he?” She moved her other hand up his chest.

She rubbed at the hardened nipple beneath
her palm as she slowly pumped his hard, slippery length with her fist.

At the quick nod of his head, she smiled.
His inability to speak pushed her arousal level even higher.

She slid her hand from his chest down the
bunched muscles of his arm and uncurled his fingers from the tight clench at
his side.

“A real husband would be nice enough to
return the favor, right?”

She guided his hand to her wet center,
not denying him the sound of her pleased groan. He rubbed at her clit, matching
the tempo she set stroking his cock, creating an erotic rhythm that threatened
to push her over the edge.

The dark look of arousal in his eyes held
her captive. He slipped a long finger into her pussy, and she sucked his bottom
lip into her mouth.

Her breaths came out in rough pants as
she circled her hips in a slow grind.

Through it all, she battled with her body
for control, when all she wanted to do was wrap her legs around Jax and impale
herself on his swollen cock.

His pulsing member jerked in her hand as
if knowing her thoughts.

She whimpered into his mouth before
wrenching her hips back. Her inner walls clenched at the loss, his answering
grunt of frustration small consolation for the aching retreat.

Pulling her lips away from his, she
smiled up at him.

“A real husband would want his shower to
end in a happy ending,” she said, taunting softly as she finally broke eye
contact and began placing long, unhurried kisses down his chest, making sure to
maintain the teasing pace of her pumping hand on his shaft.

She took a slight step back, giving
herself room to bend forward at the waist, never breaking her connection with
his pulsing flesh.

Her kisses turned to leisurely licks down
the planes of his stomach. When her tongue reached the base of his cock, she
finally flicked her gaze back up to his.

The desperate look in his eyes had her
womb tighten in want.

She doubted she would ever forget the
sight of him, body hard with arousal, nostrils flared and face flushed with
need, rivulets of water and bubbles sliding down his skin.

Switching her focus back to his dick, she
let her tongue slide slowly from the base of his long shaft to the large
mushroom tip.

A gruff grunt escaped from his mouth as
he jerked his hips forward.

She let her tongue circle the throbbing
head before engulfing it into her mouth, relaxing her lips and letting its tip
touch the front of her throat before tightening around him and making a slow
and deliberate swallow.

He let loose a strangled cry, before she
drew her tautened mouth up his shaft, releasing him with a low pop.

A thin trickle of clear liquid leaked
from his penis, and she couldn’t resist the urge to smooth the slick pre-cum
across the head of his shaft and lick it off.

The taste of him was as intoxicating as
she expected—hot, spicy, and completely addictive.

Only her need for payback kept her from
taking him back into her mouth and sucking him until he spilled down her
throat.

Giving him one last lick, she
straightened and drew her hands away from him.

“A real husband,” she said, breathing
heavily, “would know to expect a serious case of blue balls if he pissed off
his wife.”

She watched as a look of horrified
comprehension dawned on him, and then grudging respect spread across his face.

Somehow, neither seemed worth it as she
turned her aching body away from his, grabbed a towel, and left him standing
within the rapidly cooling water.

Stupid, stupid
feminists.

Chapter Ten

Sitting under the blankets on the lush
four-poster bed with her back propped up against the head board, Pepper waited
for Jax to emerge from the bathroom. It had been a while since she left him
alone and in serious need of release, and with every minute that ticked by, her
imagination grew more and more lurid.

What was taking him so long?

Several guesses floated through her mind
in vivid detail, each one keeping her in a heightened state of arousal. She
wanted to jump up and pace across the room to disperse some of her nervous
energy, but didn’t want to leave the protection of the bed.

She’d already dressed for sleep, refusing
to wear any of the lingerie Jax purchased for her. She rolled her eyes at the
thought. The man really was thorough. Scarily so. It had taken her several
moments of rummaging around in the large closet chest to realize he’d omitted
underwear from his shopping spree, and her one piece of luggage was
mysteriously missing.

She ended up settling on one of his
shirts in lieu of a nightgown. The garment hung to almost her knees, and for
the first time, she was glad of her short stature. With the multiple layers of
blankets and long shirt, she needed as much fabric between herself and Jax as
she could manage.

Taking a moment to plait her damp hair
into two long braids on either side of her head, she tried to distract herself
from the image of Jax hard and straining under the falling spray of water. Was
he touching himself even now? The idea of him masturbating, finishing off the
arousal she’d left behind, was an intoxicating thought.

Shifting uncomfortably on the bed, she
tried to ignore the bare dampness between her legs.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t deserved to be
teased. She’d spent most of the day in a sensual haze of his making, and the
sexy bastard knew it. He wasn’t even trying to hide this knowledge.

She shook her head. To be fair, he had
been rather to the point when she agreed to his wild request to stay with him
for the week. But since, she wasn’t particularly in the mood to give him any
brownie points at the moment, she refused to dwell on that truth.

In the end, his honesty wouldn’t change
anything. She was still determined to resist him at every turn.

What other choice did she have? If she
went along with his plans, there was no way she would be able to marry him and
not keep her love a secret. She had no doubt he would repeat words of love back
to her, but she would know that while she loved him soul deep, he would never
love her more than with just strong affection. The thought of it caused her
stomach to clench with unease.

She wished her heart hadn’t made the
ludicrous decision to fall in love with him. She rubbed her hand on her chest,
massaging the foolish organ.

Eventually, her heart would forget that
Jax always made her smile. It would forget how much his brain turned her on and
how his drive for success never outweighed his honor, integrity, or compassion.
How his touch made her soul sigh. The fact that he was the only man who ever
made her yearn for an always and forever would become a distant memory. She
swallowed down the sob trembling up her throat.

People had been falling in and out of
love since the beginning of time. With the exception of a few dramatic
examples, most people survived it.
They
had to, right?
Despite the sharp pain in her heart, she tried to convince
herself that she would be one of the survivors.

No matter how she felt, or as she was
quickly realizing, perhaps because of it, she wanted Jax to be happy, and if that
meant humoring his fancy for the week then that was what she would do. She
sincerely hoped that it was only a matter of time before he came to his senses.

Besides, according to some of her married
friends, what she had done would pale in comparison to some of the “lessons”
they had taught their husbands. She grinned weakly into the empty room. He had
definitely gotten off easy—or not depending on how you looked at it.

Her grin turned into a full-blown giggle.
She seriously doubted Jax thought any of that was easy.

She sobered quickly as silence abruptly
blanketed the room. The white noise of water sprinkling on marble had finally
stopped. Her shoulders tensed, waiting for the door to open.

It wasn’t long before Jax strolled into
the room wearing a sly smile and nothing else. He held a towel to his head,
rubbing absently at his damp hair.

She bit back a groan. His long shaft was
still erect and proud, bobbing against his lower stomach as he approached her.

He paused at the foot of the bed, draping
the towel around his neck and leaning his shoulder onto the tall wooden bed
post.

Not bothering to hide the direction of
her gaze, she pointed her finger at his straining length.

“Shouldn’t you have poured cold water on
that?”

“There isn’t enough ice in
Antarctica
to get rid of my need for you, Pep. I thought
that was already established.”

His chuckle softly flowed through the
room, yet she still couldn’t take her eyes away from the pulsing center of
conversation. She crossed her arms at her chest and licked her suddenly dry
lips.

“I’m not going to apologize, you know.
You deserved every second of that cold shower,” she said. “It could have been
much worse.”

“Of that, I have absolutely no doubt.”

“So, what are the odds that you plan on
putting on some PJs?”

“Hmm, I’d say about slim to none.”

His body shifted as he bent his knee and
climbed onto the mattress.

“Yeah. I’d thought that’d be your
answer.” She sighed heavily.

Of course not, that would be too easy.

She wasn’t sure if the prickle down her
back was relief or dread at his confirmation.

She finally moved her gaze away from the
distraction of his swollen cock and took in every sinew of his flesh as he
crawled toward her.

Danger! Danger,
Will Robin—uh, Pepper Holts!

The mental warning came just as he
whipped the blankets from her lap and straddled her hips.

He placed his palms on her cheeks and tilted
her head up to meet his gaze. The heat and determination in his expression
didn’t scare her half as much as the calm sincerity in his eyes.