Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 108165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
She let Archer touch her like this. She let him push her into her back seat.
She let him stroke his dick in front of her.
Jackson knows she would have let him go further; he just doesn’t know why, like he doesn’t understand why she needs him this way.
To erase Archer’s touch?
To get off because some asshole set off a car alarm and interrupted them?
“What do you need?” he whispers next to her ear.
Her head lulls back, and her spine arches, pressing her breast into his hand. He loses the battle and squeezes it.
“I … don’t know,” she moans, digging her fingernails into his other hand until he cups her harder between her legs.
“Why did you fuck the dean’s husband?” His lips skate down her neck, but he doesn’t kiss her.
“I d-didn’t …” She encourages him to squeeze her breast a little more.
His thumb brushes her nipple. No bra. Just a thin crop-top tee. He could easily slip his hand under her shirt, but there’s a good chance his dick would break in half behind the zipper of his jeans with zero-way stretch.
“I fucked a guy…” she releases his hand over her breast and stabs her fingers through his hair as he nibbles the skin along her collarbone “…who happened to be married to the dean. Married men…” Frankie rocks her pelvis over his hand “…should wear their wedding bands.” Her finger slides along the platinum band on his left ring finger between her legs. “Like you.”
Jackson stills, and so does Frankie. Their labored breaths fill the bubble of space around them.
He’s not married.
She knows it.
Jackson’s hands fall to his sides as he inserts a few feet of space between them.
Frankie punches the bag once without glancing back at him. “Teach me to box.”
“No.”
She turns, eyes narrowed. “Why not?”
His thumb slides along his wedding band before he repeatedly pumps his fists. Any other man would ask her about this game they’re playing, but Jackson doesn’t because he knows it. He’s distracting her from the guilt of her intentions, and she’s doing the same for him.
The rules are simple: it means nothing; therefore, it changes nothing. That’s why they don’t talk about it. He knows if he fucked her right now, she would piece her clothes back in place, sleep at Eloise’s house, and never speak of it again.
It’s an awful life, one that Jackson’s accepted. But he doesn’t wish it upon anyone, definitely not a woman with a Ph.D. who can play Ravel and recently lost three family members and every last remembrance of their existence.
“You’ve had three years of self-defense. What can I possibly teach you?” He can barely ask it with a straight face.
“Self-control.”
“Jesus …” He shakes his head.
“What?” Frankie parks her fists on her hips.
“You remind me of someone.”
She frowns, dropping her gaze. “Your wife.”
“No.”
She looks at him.
“Someone else. My wife was far more submissive.” Jackson sits on his piano bench, folding his hands between his spread legs.
Frankie hesitates before acknowledging him with an easy nod. “Did you pluck her little cherry before she had the chance to get a backbone?”
Jackson shakes his head, ignoring just how wrong she is about Ryn.
“The cross tattoo … were you the guy who valued a woman’s virginity?”
He smirks because the story behind the cross tattooed on his arm is not that biblical.
“Many, many years ago … a girl who happened to be a virgin—of legal age—said if I got a cross tattoo, she’d give me said virginity. In my defense, I didn’t do it because she was a virgin. I did it because…”
Frankie giggles, shaking her head. “You just wanted to have sex with her. And why not? You knew a holy cross might also be useful for future expeditions.”
Jackson’s lips twist. “Mmm … something like that.”
“Does the cross still work for you to pop cherries?”
“Fuck … stop.” He rubs his hands down his face. “I’m too damn old for that.”
“I’d let you pop mine.”
His hands drop from his face to his lap while his grin simmers into a contemplative straight line.
“Well, years ago, I would have let you pop mine. The dean’s husband popped it last year, so I no longer bear the forbidden fruit.” She squares her body and punches the bag several times.
He doesn’t buy that story, but Jackson likes it nonetheless. “Pivot the ball of your back foot,” he says.
With her hands fisted by her face, she glances back at him.
“Control it through your core, or you’ll be off balance. Let your lower body push your arm forward, and let your hips turn as your arm straightens toward the target.”
She does it in slow motion. She does it all wrong, so he steps behind her, molding her body to his, one hand on her left hip and his other hand making a fist with hers.
“Pivot, push, strike.”
“Pivot, push, strike,” she repeats while their bodies move as one, repeating the motion until she gets it.