The Heat Between Pages

The first rule of their wordless game was that none of them, no matter anything whatsoever, mention the charged voltage between them. The second rule was to pretend that rule number one did not exist whatsoever. Mara thought about those rules as she stood and stared while Jaxon shook out of his rain-soaked coat, the wet lining of his shirt beneath it clinging to the familiar, infuriating breadth of his shoulders. Outside, against the windows of the expensive suite, the storm that had canceled every flight from O'Hare pounded the Chicago skyline, but here, the air was thick and warm, thick with a stillness which wasn't climatic and had absolutely nothing to do with anything except the single king-sized bed which occupied the room. “One bed,” Mara said, her voice a little huskier than she intended. She tossed her purse onto a sleek, low-slung sofa. “Classic.” Jaxon’s grin was a slow, familiar curve that did things to her insides. “Don’t worry, I’ll try to control my primal urges. You’re not my type.” "Liar," she snapped, the response automatic, an established pattern in their ten-year-long friendship. "I'm totally your type. Clever, gorgeous, and able to out drink you anytime." "The concluding one is a defect, not a trait," he said, moving toward the minibar. He uncorked a small bottle of bourbon. "Truce?" They drank. The bourbon was peaty and rich, sending a wave of heat into her stomach. They talked, their banter breezy, but the distance between them grew smaller with each smile, each look they shared. The elephant in the room was a live wire stretched taut between them, buzzing louder than the wind. It was Jaxon who finally flipped the switch on. "You know," he said, stirring the golden drink in his glass, a spark of amusement in his black eyes. "I bet you couldn't resist staying here a full hour and not making an effort to touch me." Mara's eyebrow shot up, the challenge vibrating along her nerve endings. "Really? So arrogant, Jax? I'll bet you couldn't last thirty minutes before you'd try to come up with some reason to get your hands on me." There was a crackle of electricity in the air. The joke had been said, but it had fallen in a spot that was just as charged. "A bet, then," he said, his tone a little lower. His voice no longer sounded like he was best friend, but the voice of a man looking at a woman he wanted. "Whichever one of us gives in first, whichever one of us makes the first move, loses." "What’s the wager?" she whispered, already envisioning the order of their world changing. Winner gets to brag for life," he said to her, his stared at her with mischief in his eyes. "And the loser does whatever the winner desires. No exceptions." A silky, soothing shiver rushed through her spine. "No exceptions," she said to him. The game kicked off. It was simple the first ten minutes. They kept at arm's length, three feet of airspace between them as they pretended to be interested in the splatters on the walls or gusts of wind outside. But pretending was a form of touch, a push away, more intimate than an accidental brush of fingers. Mara acted first. She extended her limbs, stretching in a way that made her sweater move up slightly, revealing a flash of skin above the buckle of her jeans. She knew she could sense his sharp inhaled breath across the room. A tiny, wicked flash of light zigzagged on her lips. She was flirting to loosen him up. Jaxon fought against it. He fell into an armchair, sprawling in a predator's weariness, and began to roll up the cuffs of his shirts, the slow, deliberate way of making the ordinary, homey action the hottest thing she'd ever seen. Her mouth had gone dry. "Too hot in here," he said, his eyes snapping at hers. "Is it?" she whispered, her own body heating up. There was a silent battle going on between them. She stepped towards the window, knowing there were lights in the city outside that would cast shadows over them. He followed her quietly, his chest inches from her back, close enough to feel the heat emanating off him but not close enough to touch. His image in the glass was an unearthly pressure against her spine. Your turn to break, Mara, he said, his warm breath heating up the back of her neck. She spun back to him, mouths inches close. The air crackled. "You first." He broke the physical deadlock, but not as procedure would have demanded. He did not lay hands on her. He eased back and pulled up his own shirt cuff to put over his head, letting it fall to the ground. Mara's breath was tight. She had seen his body a couple of times, which was toned from beach days and gym trips, but this didn’t feel the same. This was offered. His chest was wide and angular, his skin stretched tightly over bony muscles. There was a smudge of hair that trailed from his belly down into the waistband of his jeans. This wasn’t just a body, in the physical sort of way, and he was offering it to her. Her turn, finally. Her fingers unbuttoned the buttons of her sweater, one apiece. She unhooked the soft cashmere off her shoulders, drawing herself in before it could fall. She stood before him, in her jeans, in a lacy wine-red bra. His eyes swept over her body, warm and weighted, tracing over her shoulders, the swell of her breasts, the curve of her waist. The rules vanished. The bet now a thing of the past. He leaned forward, and yet his fists remained balled at his sides. "I want to kiss you," he growled, the words raw and stripped bare. “That would be touching, Jaxon,” she breathed, tilting her head up to his. “You’d lose.” “f**k the bet,” he said, and his mouth crashed down on hers. It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was a hot one. It had been all the bottled-up passion over years releasing itself in one burning kiss. His lips firm, his tongue pressing hers with intensity that weakened her knees. Her fingers tight on his shoulders, her fingernails sinking deep into hard flesh, and he groaned in her mouth, the thud of the vibration pounding deep within herself. He pulled back from the kiss to tear her panties and jeans down in a wild curve, and his. He was against her back, his hands everywhere—clutching her breast, sliding down to encircle her bare thigh, jamming her back against the hump of hammering hardness that he was. They fell onto the new duvet, arms and hungry mouths wrapped about each other. He tore off her bra, and his mouth clamped over her n****e, sucking hard, his tongue tracing circles around the puckered tip until she cried out, her back arching away from the bed. Teasing had evolved into desperate hunger. He moved down her body, his hands spreading her thighs apart. His gaze was dark, possessive. “I’ve imagined this,” he said, his voice rough with need. “For years. How you’d taste.” His lips came down on hers, and Mara screamed. His famished tongue tongued, sucked, drove into the center of her with experience that drained her. He forced her hips against the bed as she gasped on his face, his beard a soft slap against her sensitive flesh. She shook violently, her climax torn out of her as abruptly as the storm outside, her shrieks echoing through the hollow space. Before the last tremor had even subsided, he was moving over her, his body aligning with hers. The blunt, hard head of his c**k pressed against her entrance, slick with her release and his own anticipation. “Look at me,” he commanded, and her eyes, glazed with pleasure, found his. “I’m not losing this bet. I’m claiming my prize.” He shoved into her in a single hard, wild thrust, and she was full. She cried out, her inner muscles clenching the hard, beautiful invasion. He was hard and enormous, and he filled her. He lingered for a moment, deep within her, forehead against hers, both of them panting. And then he began to shove. It wasn't just s*x. It was a claiming. Each thrust a violation of all those years of silence. He slammed into her with a frantic abandon, the headboard thudding against the wall with a furious, pounding rhythm. She fought blow for blow, legs around his waist, heels against the base of his spine, going deeper, harder. He moved, pulling her onto his lap as he sat up. She straddled him, hands on his chest, panting, falling into their tough rhythm. He looked up at her, fists clenched on her hips, holding her firmly, eyes burning with hunger. He leaned forward and sucked a n****e deep into his mouth, sucking harder as she rode him, seeking a second orgasm already forming in her core. They moved to the ground, the expensive rug scraping against her back. He held her in position against his back, his arm wrapped around her waist, pushing her butt down onto his c**k. The new position was more difficult, and she shouted his name out as he hit a spot within her that caused stars to dance before her eyes. He wasn't finished. He picked her up, his legs trembling, and brought her to the couch, leaning her back over its cushion. He took her again, his pace ungainly and smooth. The entire suite was their playground—the armchair, the vanity table, against the glass slick with rain, their own warm breath obscuring the glass. The final shattering came back on the broken bed. He towered above her, his flesh greased with sweat, glittering, his loins wild, mad. She was building her own climax again, a wave of growing power. "Come with me," he snarled, his voice hard. It was all she needed to hear. She came, her muscles holding him inside milking him, coining his own climax out of him. He uttered a gasp of her name, a raw rasping sound, as he climaxed inside her, his body shuddering at the ferocity of it. He lay by her, his breathing sawing in and out of his chest. The storm outside was raging, but the room itself was calm now, and all there was the slowing throbbing of their heartbeats. Later, he turned his head on the pillow to glance at her. A smug, slow, very male smile spread over his face. "You touched me first," he said. "When I kissed you," You touched my shoulders." Mara giggled, creaky and exhausted. She swept her finger down the center of his chest. "Technically, you started it. With your mouth." He curved her hand around his fingers and pushed his fingers into her mouth. "So I guess we both lost." Or, she rolled onto her side to gaze up at him, a naughty gleam in her eyes in the dark, "We both won." He bent and kissed her, and then again more softly this time, a promise of what was to come with all the rules forgotten. "Yeah," he affirmed, his mouth on hers. "We both won."