Naked Love(51)

“I’m going to go for a hike since you didn’t wait for me.” He slips one arm in his T-shirt.

I grab the shirt to stop him. His gaze homes in on my hand.

Everything feels so jumbled in my body.

So vulnerable.

So naked.

Yet so alive. “I don’t need another handbag.”

Jake lets his gaze slide up my body to meet my eyes. He’s unreadable for the longest few seconds. “What do you need?”

I drag my teeth over the corner of my bottom lip, narrowing my eyes into a tiny grimace. “I need you to turn around for ten seconds while I wrestle out of this sports bra. It’s the least sexy thing you’ll ever see in your life. So … let’s spare you of that.”

Jake’s white teeth peek out from his swelling grin as he drops his T-shirt to our feet. “Lift your arms.”

I shake my head.

He raises an expectant eyebrow.

I sigh and lift my arms, angling them toward the very center of the tent. Jake ghosts his fingers over my ribs, making me shiver. He smirks, sliding his fingers under the tight elastic and pushing it up over my breasts. My breath catches, and I hold it as his gaze makes a slow inspection of me before meeting mine again. He doesn’t look away until the bra is almost to my elbows, covering my face.

“Jake …” I seethe in a sharp breath when his warm mouth claims my left nipple. It shoots an immediate need right between my legs.

Even though I can’t see past my bra, I pinch my eyes shut, dizzy from the desire he’s ignited inside of me and equally horrified that he’s tasting the salty, dried sweat on my breasts just inches from my smelly armpits.

Jake Matthews strips me from the inside out, magnifying every self-perpetuating belief that I’ve ever had about my flawed body. I want to shrink. Vanish from his touch.

I want to cry, but I did that yesterday. Jake still called me beautiful.

“Jake …” My voice trembles along with the rest of my body as he sucks and drags his tongue over my other breast.

“Yes, Ave?”

I’m not going to cry today. I don’t need another handbag. Today, I need to be his perfection.

Folding my arms inward, I grab my bra and tear it the rest of the way off. The insecure part of me wants to stand here and wait for his approval, wait for him to tell me what he wants me to do next.

I don’t.

My mouth crashes to his. I don’t taste him. I devour him. My hands claw at his back and shoulders, even my injured fingers bend into his skin, feeling no pain.

“Is that the best you’ve got, Ave?”

He taunts my thoughts.

My tongue battles his. This is my kiss. This is me kissing him.

“You see … the art of sex is all about selfish pleasure.”

I don’t want him to want me. I just simply want him.

“You like what I’m doing … but I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it because I want to taste you … because I want to hear you whimper … because I want to feel you squirm. That gives me pleasure.”

Breaking our connection, I kiss my way down his neck as my fingers curl into his chest before I take his hand and guide it into the front of my exercise shorts. My fingers press over his, using him to give myself selfish pleasure.

“Fuck, Ave …” he rasps with a weakness that is not a Jake I’ve experienced before.

My other hand works the prominent muscles of his back, massaging him. This I know I can do as well as anyone else. I knead each muscle all the way to the inside of his shorts, where he’s not wearing anything underneath. My fingers find all the firm lines of his perfect ass, eliciting a deep groan from him.

My lips pull into another grin along his pec muscles for a brief moment before my teeth sink into them. This sets off a chain reaction. He rocks his erection into my stomach and slides his middle finger inside of me. I clench my hand over his, biting him harder on a soft moan.

“That’s my girl.” He bends his finger inside of me as I lift onto my toes to claim his mouth again because I crave him the way he craved me.

We kiss until neither one of us can stay standing for one more second. He slides his hand out of my pants and holds onto my head, keeping our mouths connected as we sink to the ground. It’s desperate but perfectly slow at the same time. We just kiss—him hovering above me, me rolled on top of him, and us intertwined on our sides.

Naked from the waist up, with his chest pressed to mine and our mouths insatiable, we make out. I have never—ever—just kissed a guy for this long, like we’re having sex with only our lips and our tongues. It’s sensual, erotic, and passionate.

Passion. At least that’s the word that comes to mind. I’ve never experienced anything like this before, but I have to believe this is passion—a completely uncontrollable emotion. The moment when mind and body collide into something indescribable.

Our heads tilt in every direction, my palms pressed to his stubbly face, his tangled in my hair. For the first time in the past twenty-four hours, I don’t miss my hair. Jake doesn’t just say I’m beautiful, he makes me feel beautiful with his whole body.

When passion explodes into undeniable need, I move my hands down his chest, letting my lips follow. Our lust-drunk gazes meet as I slide off his shorts, tasting him like he tasted me.

“Ave …” he tugs on my hair like he’s in pain. I glance up as I release him from my mouth.