Behind Closed Doors (Behind Closed Doors #1)(63)

“How?”

He strokes a thumb over my cheek. “I want to make them go away.”

“You only just met me, Jason.”

“Which means I’ve only just gotten started learning about you and them. But I’m big on strategy.” He presses his hands on the wall beside me. “I’m going to overwhelm you with me.”

My lips curve. “Is this where I say ‘yes, please’? Because in this case, yes, please.”

“Ideally,” he continues, sounding intensely focused for a man who’s naked and in a shower, “we have sex in an elevator.”

I laugh. “We can’t have sex in an elevator. There are cameras.”

“I have a beach house in Rhode Island, with an elevator and cameras that only we can access.” He slides a hand behind me and molds my naked body to his, his erection at my hip, my hand on his chest. “But I think we should ensure the shower never becomes a problem, right here and now.”

His heart thunders beneath my palm, or maybe my heart is thundering so fiercely that I feel it for both of us. “That’s what I want from now on,” he says. “For you to be right here with me. Not there with whoever made you feel those things.”

I’m barely able to breathe, so very affected by how this man, this stranger, feels like someone I need this badly. It’s frightening. It’s right and wrong. It is here and now, I tell myself. This isn’t about forever. But I think now that it might be about healing. He’s like the balm to my wounds, which seem to be bleeding for him.

He kisses me, a long, deep, luxurious kiss, his fingers gently caressing my nipples, my breasts, my waist. And when his lips part from mine, he lingers there a moment, breathing with me, as if he’s ensuring I really am just with him. “And now,” he finally says, “I’m going to make sure the shower is always about good memories.”

“We don’t have a condom in here, so—”

“We don’t need one right now.” He leans in and presses his lips to my ear. “Remember how I said I like control?”

“Oh yes. I remember.” And I wonder how, after Greg’s demands and selfishness, this arouses me. And yet it does.

“That means for a tiny window that you allow me, you’re mine. Nothing else can have you.” He leans back to look at me. “For the tiny window that you do what I say, you trust me to give you an escape, it’s all about pleasure. It’s about freedom from everything else.”

My lashes lower as I feel the seduction of his promise, as if he’s peeling away some layer I’ve used as a shield, and again, I’m both frightened and excited.

He cups my face, forcing my gaze to his. “You’re mine right here and in this moment. And I take care of what’s mine.”

“I don’t need you—”

“Process things in the moment, baby.” He strokes my lip. “Stay right here with me.”

“Yes,” I whisper. “I am.”

“Not yet. But let’s get you there. And I really want you to need me.” He lowers to his knee, his hands on my hips, his handsome face tilted up to mine. “Do you need me now?” He presses his lips to my belly, flickering his tongue there, the velvety, rough sensation drawing a moan from my lips, and I can feel him smile against my skin. “Maybe not yet,” he says, his hand caressing my hip, his fingers sliding into the V of my body. “Now, though. Now you need me. Don’t you think?” He presses fingers inside me.

I breathe out and whisper, “Yes,” fairly certain I already need him way too much, but right now I can’t seem to see why that’s a problem, especially when his tongue is flickering over my clit. Most certainly when he suckles it, drawing deeply. Absolutely when that sweet ache of release rises, and I fight it, trying to stay in the moment, but it’s impossible. I am there, in that hot spot where he’s taken me, shaking, clenching around his fingers. Trembling all over, until my legs are weak.

He catches me, pressing his lips to my belly, slowly easing up my body to hold me close, and I don’t want him to let go. I don’t think he wants to, either. He holds me almost too tight, and I have this overwhelming sense that he’s afraid of losing me before he’s really found me. Like he needs me too. And it’s powerful, so very powerful, to realize that two people can be strangers one day, and fate, or some destiny, starts weaving bonds between them the moment they meet. But newly formed, they are fragile and without history to secure them, easily ripped apart and destroyed.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


WHILE JASON AND I DRESS, I try to contact Ella, to no avail, in between pulling on the dark denim jeans in my bag, a pink V-neck blouse, and expensive sleek black boots left over from my solvent days. I plug in my phone in the bathroom, keeping it close in case Ella calls, while I apply makeup in shades of pale pink and flat-iron my hair until it’s shining brown, and falling smoothly to my shoulders.

“Hey, baby,” Jason says, appearing in the doorway, looking sexy as hell, and like no man I’ve ever dated, in faded jeans, a light blue Children’s Diabetes Charity T-shirt, and biker-style boots. “We need to head out.”

“I’m ready,” I say, sliding my purse on cross-body style, but he doesn’t move. “What’s wrong?”