Jack and Djinn (The Houri Legends, #1)(34)
Jack listened through it all, watching her attentively. When she finished her story and fell silent, Jack pulled her to him, and Miriam lay down next to him, placing her head on his shoulder, her hand over his heart, feeling it beat—thumpthump-thumpthump. She felt safe. Jack wasn’t as big or strong as Ben, and he wasn’t a combat-hardened badass like Ben, but somehow he made her feel safer than ever before in her life. Desire stirred in her stomach, and she slipped her hand under his shirt, tracing circles in the light coating of hair on his chest.
“I’d rather tell you all this now. Just have it out of the way. I’ve tried not telling guys about my history, but it never went well. I prefer honesty.”
“Are we dating now?” Jack had his face buried in her hair, muffling his voice.
“I don’t know, are we?” She craned her neck to look at him.
“Are you done with Ben? For good?” His tone was serious, and he propped himself up on an elbow, searching her face.
“I threatened to kill him if I saw him again, so I’d say, yeah, I’m done with him.”
“That was awesome, by the way.”
“What? The threatening to kill Ben, or the thing with the fire?”
“Both.” Jack lay back down, and Miriam cradled her head against his chest again, touching his skin, greedy for his warmth, for the comfort of his presence. Jack let the issue drop, and she was glad. She wasn’t ready to talk about that yet.
“So, I guess we are dating, yeah,” Miriam said. There were several minutes of comfortable silence, and then Miriam said, “Jack? I have a question.”
“What’s that?”
“How is it you were there, on that road at that exact time? I mean, it seems like a crazy coincidence. You keep turning up exactly when I need you.”
Jack didn’t answer right away. “You know Gramps’ second sight? He says I have it, too. I had a dream about you. I saw you walking in the rain, and I saw Ben show up in his car…and it wasn’t just a dream, it became real. I had intended to go to your apartment, but that just didn’t feel right, so I turned around and headed back to where I first met you, at the apartment complex. I assume that’s Ben’s apartment, right?
“Well, I knew I should’ve taken my Jeep, but I was in too much of a hurry. Something bad was going to happen if I didn’t stop it. I just knew it in my gut. Just after I left home, it started pouring, and then I saw this glow. At first I thought a building was on fire, but as I got closer I realized it was you—the glow was coming from you. But I was going too fast, and I lost control on the slippery road….” Jack trailed off, shrugging. Miriam traced lines on his chest, waiting for him to continue.
Jack looked down at her, a thousand unasked questions glittering in his gaze. He rolled slightly so he was leaning over her, then dipped his head down and kissed her, his lips soft and gentle and questing. Miriam couldn’t help her reaction. Any second thoughts she had were brushed away by the tenderness in his kiss, a gentility that was not at all lacking in passion or masculinity, but rife with affection and tenderness.
God, it was all so alien to her, but so wonderful. She couldn’t help pressing up into the kiss to deepen it, tangling her fingers in the hair at the back of his head, her other hand on the hard muscles of his stomach. His strong arms curled around her and fanned the coals of her passion into burning flames. She was so hot she worried she might burst alight once more.
Miriam skated her trembling fingers underneath Jack’s T-shirt, following the ridges of his spine, sliding the cotton upward with her touch. Jack broke their kiss briefly, tore the shirt over his head, and tossed it aside, and Miriam’s breath was snatched by the beauty of his body—the hard planes of his chest, the sculpted perfection of his abs. And then she was lost even more as he leaned in to kiss her, stealing her breath all over again, making her heart hammer and her soul swell with joy and belonging and comfort and need. He palmed her ribs, pushing her shirt up, moving his lips to her throat as she wiggled out of the shirt. He continued pressing kiss after kiss onto her skin, down between her breasts. Miriam arched her back, roaming the broad expanse of his shoulders as he tugged her bra cups down one at a time, flicking his tongue over her rigid, hypersensitive nipples. His fingers sneaked under the arched bridge of her spine and released her bra straps.
She was bare from the waist up, and his mouth was roving over her heated flesh, his palms cupping her tits and his thumbs scraping back and forth over her nipples. His jaw was stubbled, and she loved the feel of it as his face rasped over her skin. She could only hold onto his shoulders as he kissed her side, her ribs, and then just below her navel, his busy, dexterous fingers hooking into the elastic waistband of her yoga pants and her underwear, tugging them down to bare more skin, his lips sucking and his tongue laving.
Her gasp turned into a moan as his stubble brushed over the soft skin of her inner thighs, his hands roaming upward along her legs, caressing the outside first, palming her thighs, her hips, and then sliding between her body and the bed to cup her ass. Miriam tangled her fingers in his hair as Jack lifted her lower half off the mattress, bringing her core to his mouth, his tongue parting her folds, tasting her essence.
Fire and magic blasted through her, pleasure igniting them to nova intensity, and then Jack let her down to the bed, sliding his fingers inside her, finding her G-spot and rubbing it in time with his lapping, circling tongue. Miriam cried out, feeling the heat billow off her, hearing the crackle of flames.