“Good.” His nostrils flared, his eyes darkened and then he was pounding into her with jackhammer thrusts. She had to bury her face into the crook of his neck to try to muffle the endless stream of moans and groans and gasps and sobs that were literally erupting from her throat. Minutes later a huge, lingering orgasm washed over her but he didn’t stop. He continued to surge into her in that masterful way of his, building the friction within her again.
Connor knew that the press of her nails into the flesh of his back was drawing blood but if anything, it only spurred him on. Like he needed spurring on! He was hanging by the thinnest thread but he didn’t want it to end. It had scared him that she had seemed to want time away from him. He needed this; needed to be inside her, needed to hear her moaning his name, clinging to him, coming apart around him.
“Connor, I’m going to come again.”
He pounded even harder, clutching her arse even tighter as he did. “Now, Jaxx.”
Her release ripped through her entire body, shattering her. She sank her teeth into the juncture between his neck and shoulder to muffle her scream.
“Christ, babe,” he growled as her muscles clenched around him and triggered his own forceful climax. When his brain eventually switched back on and he was finished gasping for breath and being rocked by reverberations, he kissed her gently. “Admit it, you missed me.”
She tried to hold back a smile but half of it surfaced. “Maybe a bit.” Though he’d confessed his weakness for her, Jaxxon couldn’t bring herself to do the same. It was worth noting that if she did he’d poop his pants thinking she wanted more. But that wasn’t her reason: she couldn’t do the same because whereas he’d walk away from this okay, she wouldn’t. He missed her because she was his addiction – addictions can be cured. He’d walked away from her once before and been just fine. She missed him because she cared about him too much for her liking. That wouldn’t go away. She knew that because she’d cared for him this much since she was twelve, even when he’d left. Still she was resolute that if her feelings ever evolved into something stronger she’d be gone faster than Houdini out of a knot.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
After a shower to wash away the after-effects of their food fight – a shower during which they savoured the joys of o**l s*x before having another shag for good measure – Jaxxon and Connor collapsed onto the luxurious bed in the challet. Jaxxon could only assume that they had been a little noisy because Anna was blasting one of her C.D.s ridiculously loud. Either that or she and Warren were using the music to disguise the sounds of their own fun.
She was glad that the couple was no longer in danger of arguing. After all, it wasn’t Warren’s fault that Connor was a lunatic. A lunatic who had gone striding from the restrooms with Jaxxon slung over his shoulder; he’d been too impatient to get her out of the restaurant and her legs had been too unsteady after their reunion in the ladies’ to match his pace. They had tried making a massive apology to the maître d' for the food fight but he actually thanked them for their dispute, suspecting it would get his restaurant new publicity.
“Ow,” whined Jaxxon as Connor sharply tugged her to him, snuggling her naked body into his. She was surprised when he did nothing more than hold her comfortably close and play with her wet ringlets. “How long are you staying?”
“I was thinking of leaving Monday, same as you.”
So this really isn’t just a stop off to get his jollies. Jaxxon couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing. The fourteen year old girl in her was absolutely thrilled and reading all kinds of crap into it. But twenty-two year old Jaxxon knew better: it was likely that even if he had missed her, something she wouldn’t have believed if she hadn’t seen it in his eyes, his main reason for coming was because he was too possessive to cope with the idea of other blokes being around her without him being there. And there was the fact that he was insatiable.
“How’s the holiday been going?”
“Me and Anna have had a right laugh. We’ve moved onto the intermediate slopes now.”
“Yeah? Do me a favour: don’t take it too hard when I beat your arse on those slopes tomorrow. You were always a bad loser.”
“You were the bad loser. I remember you swiped the board when I was winning at Monopoly. That time when I beat you on the go-karts you didn’t speak to me for about an hour.”
He chuckled, idly drawing circles on her back with his index finger and marveling at how soft her skin was. “You must be thinking of Roland.”
“I take it you’ve been skiing before.”
“Not in France, but yeah. I went with Dane and Warren a few times before Dane married Niki. I’ll begrudgingly admit that Warren’s the better skier. You ever been abroad before?”
“No. You know, I never pictured myself going skiing.”
A lot of things Jaxx said made Connor feel like he’d had a punch to the gut. He’d been abroad more times than he could count. To think that each time he’d been away having a ball with his mates Jaxx had been all alone, concentrating on nothing more than getting by. “I did very nearly come to see you once, you know.” His voice was low, full of regret. “It was your fifteenth – the first birthday I’d missed since meeting you.”
At the very mention of that birthday she stiffened. “It doesn’t matter.” She tried to think of a subject change but the memories of that day hit her too hard.
He felt her tense. Had he really hurt her that much? He hated himself right now. “I didn’t stay away because I didn’t care, Jaxx. It was just…I had this vision of going to see you and” – subconsciously he held her tighter – “you either laughing at the fact that I’d even turned up, or seeing you with someone. I’d have beaten them to a pulp, Jaxx, I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself. I figured you were better off without a person like me in your life.”
She was glad he hadn’t turned up that day. Even though she had come to terms with what had happened, it wasn’t something she enjoyed sharing, and there would have been no way of keeping it from him if he had come. But if he had just turned up even once before that day then so much may not have happened. She had never truly put any blame on Connor, especially because that would mean absolving others to some extent of their actions. But if he hadn’t done what he did to those blokes before leaving, if he hadn’t made them want revenge so badly then maybe…No. She wouldn’t dwell on the ‘what ifs’. Pain was just part of life.