I make another desperate, yet failed, attempt to get free.
“Jackson, please, come on,” I plead, trying to lean away from his lingering neck kisses which are melting my iron will.
I mentally snort. Iron will?
“I thought there were feelings involved,” Jackson says, between kisses, as his hands move to the hem of my shirt and lift.
I grab for his hands, but since he’s strong, I can picture all too clearly who’s going to win this little tug of war. “Friendly feelings.”
Jackson lifts his head. “You shoved Lara off the porch and threatened to chase her out of town because she didn’t deserve me.”
“Friends do things like that,” I say, widening my eyes.
His lips quirk and I know he’s not convinced. “Still too wide?” I ask.
He nods.
I throw myself back against the ground and sigh dramatically. “Fine. I like you, okay?” I tell the night sky.
A second later, Jackson’s face blocks my view of the stars twinkling overhead. “I think it’s a little more than like.”
I start to tell him no, but then I stop because words hurt. And because he’s right. My feelings for Jackson aren’t friendly. They can’t be after I laid my claim on him before I shoved Lara off the porch. “Maybe it’s more than like,” I concede.
He kisses me. And it’s such a sweet kiss that I slide my arms around his shoulders and kiss him back.
I feel the hem of my shirt rising, but I’m not in as much of a hurry to stop it as I curve my legs around Jackson’s hips.
Our kiss goes on without pause as he rolls us so I’m on top. He breaks the kiss only long enough to tug my t-shirt over my head and toss the material aside. Then he’s bringing my head down to continue exploring my mouth with his tongue.
As Jackson strokes his hands up and down my back, it gets harder to care about anything except having him inside me. But when his lips return to my throat, I remember what’s at stake and gently nudge him back so I can kiss his throat.
Although I feel his surprise as I kiss a path down his throat and over his chest, he tangles his hands in my hair but doesn’t stop me. Not that I was expecting him to when he realized where my kisses are leading me. I get closer to the throbbing length of him and dart a glance up at his face, finding his eyes closed in pleasure.
I kiss around his belly button and keep heading south.
As I shift further down, his hands slide free from my hair, which is exactly what I’m waiting for. And that’s when I scramble to my feet and take off.
“Regan!”
At the enraged roar that goes up behind me, I flinch but keep running. Right up until I’m tackled to the ground.
In the next second, I find myself pinned face down beneath Jackson, who has my wrists locked to the earth with one hand. “You know, that wasn’t very nice, darlin’.”
I turn my head to the side. “And neither was you chasing me through the forest to bite me.”
“Regan…”
I resume my struggle to get free, wriggling until Jackson lifts his body off mine. Thinking he’s letting me up, I get to my knees, but then immediately stop when he shifts forward, and I feel the blunt head of his erection brushing against me.
“Oh,” I breathe.
“You seem to be on your way somewhere, darlin’,” Jackson murmurs, pressing a soft kiss on my right shoulder. “Where might that be?”
Since I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be, I lower my front to the ground and rub against him. “I don’t know. Nowhere,” I moan. I widen my stance and the tip of him slips inside me.
Jackson’s needy groan has my arousal spiking. “Fuck, Regan. I had plans to bury my face between your legs.”
I sigh. “Later. I need you inside me now.”
He kisses me again as he thrusts a little, just enough for the tip of him to pierce me even deeper, making me gasp.
“Like this,” he groans.
I rock back as he thrusts again. “God, like this.”
He curves his body over mine, caging me in. “This won’t be an easy ride, darlin’.”
I rock back harder against him. “I don’t want easy. I want hard.”
Jackson’s hand tightens around my hip, stilling my restless rocking motions. “Baby, you have no idea what you’re asking for.” His voice is a harsh growl, tight with strain as he holds himself still against me.
“I want you, Jackson. All of you.”
He edges back, making me groan as my muscles tighten around him, trying to hold him inside me. “You can have all of me, Regan. But I want all of you in return. You hear me?”
I’m shaking my head even as I try to force Jackson to move, to fill me the way I need him to. “I can’t. I don’t want a mate… I don’t want-”
“You already have one. Me. You’re mine, just as you’ve always been mine since you took one look at me and ran. Why else would you if you didn’t know it?”
My breath pants out of me. “Jackson please, I can’t.”
He surges so deeply into me that I cry out and buck against him.
“You can’t what?” he groans in my ear. “You’re mine, just as I’m yours. Accept it. Accept me.”
I start to tell him no, that he isn’t, that I can just as easily go back to my life in Hardin and leave him and all of this behind me.
But I can’t.
There’s no future I can envision that his memory won’t haunt me. I’ll always wonder what could’ve been. I’ll compare every guy I ever meet to him, and I’ll torment myself with the fear he’ll go back to Lara, who’ll only hurt him again.
My eyes fill with tears, and I sob.
Instantly, Jackson’s hands unpin mine from the ground and he wraps his arms around me. “Baby, what is it?”
“I can’t let you go back to a woman who wheels around a suitcase filled with lingerie,” I cry.
Jackson stills against me for one second, and then I feel his body shaking.
“Are you laughing at me?” I gasp, wondering if we must be crazy to be laughing and crying during sex like this in the middle of a forest.
“No, darlin’. Just falling a little more in love with you by the second.”
When he turns my head to the side and his lips find mine, our kiss has me forgetting my tears, forgetting his laughter, forgetting everything but the feel of him deep inside me, and my desperate need for him.
His hips move against mine as I rock back to meet him. With each firm stroke, it gets harder to breathe. When Jackson breaks our kiss and leans me forward so my cheek is resting against the earth, I close my eyes and moan at the feel of him gripping my hips as he plunges so deep that he touches the end of me.
I whimper, I cry, I beg as he sends me hurtling into a climax that has me grabbing for something, anything, to hold on to as he increases his pace.
Sweat forms between my breasts and on my lower back as the heat of Jackson’s driving cock raises my temperature even higher. I gasp as another climax has me shuddering, knowing the only thing keeping me on my knees is Jackson’s hard grip on my hips.
The growls he makes at each thrust make me wetter as I cling to him, feeling myself climbing ever higher.
“Jackson,” I pant, wanting more as I lie pinned beneath his heavy weight, unable to do anything but accept his body hammering into mine. “Oh, God.”
With a desperate growl, I feel him growing harder inside me as he drapes himself over me. One hand brushes aside the hair on my neck.
I writhe against him, unable to keep still for a second as my need builds but never enough to give me what I need.
His lips touch my throat, and I gasp and clench around him.
“Ah, Regan.” He’s pounding into me now as I sense his release hovering tantalizingly close.
Again, his lips touch my throat and I whimper. “Please,” I breathe. “Please.”
He draws his hips back, and his teeth bite down on the hollow of my throat.
I shatter, screaming as, with a harsh growl, he thrusts into my climaxing body.
It’s too much, way too much. Jackson holds me flush against him as he strains to go deeper, filling me with the heat of his release.
My eyes close as I fight to breathe. Slowly, Jackson lowers us until we’re lying on the ground with his body covering mine. And through it all, I feel him twitching inside me as his tongue laps at his bite on my throat.
“Mate,” he breathes against my skin. “Mine.”