Even so, it still felt good.

He lifted away and muttered, “Be back soon, babe.”

I nodded.

He dropped his hand and moved away.

Chace moved in. “Boys’ll keep working.”

“Okay,” I replied. “Thanks.”

Chace jerked up his chin and moved away.

I sighed, tipped my head back and called, “Anyone need anything?”

“Beer!” was shouted back in a deep voice I didn’t recognize. But then again, I’d only been briefly introduced before Jacob put them all to work.

“Fuck, Deke, it’s barely eleven,” another deep voice said.

So that was Deke.

“I sweat, anytime I sweat, I do it drinkin’ beer,” Deke returned.

“Beer it is!” I shouted, thinking that wasn’t a bad way to go about life.

I hustled downstairs, got a bunch of beers and a bunch of bottled waters.

Then I went back to the girls and hoped that Jacob was not soon going to wipe the floor with Dane in an interrogation room at the Gnaw Bone police station and thus be fingerprinted just like Dane.

The girls knew this was my fear and further proved their genuineness when they had a mind to it and a mind to taking my mind off it.

So yeah.

Girl posse.

Maybe not so bad.

Chapter Nine

Harvey

Nine and a half hours later…

Oh God, this was…

Oh God.

“Jacob,” I whimpered, taking my hand from between my legs where I’d split my fingers to feel where I was taking his big, wide, rock-hard c**k and darted it to lay my palm flat on the headboard to steady my jerking body that was on all fours, taking his thrusts.

This was extreme.

Too much.

But somehow, I wanted more.

“Hand back between your legs, Emme,” Jacob, powering in behind me, grunted.

“I can’t,” I panted.

A second later, I felt him bend over me.

He wrapped an arm around my ribs and hauled me up, impaled on his cock.

Oh God. Fabulous.

His forearm stayed around my ribs but he lifted a hand up to cup a breast, his finger and thumb found my nipple and rolled just as his other hand plunged between my legs. His middle finger found me, pressed hard and circled.

My head fell back to his shoulder. I turned it, pressed my forehead into his neck and moaned.

“Fuck. Strawberries,” Jacob murmured against my temple. His finger between my legs started twitching and his fingers at my nipple started pulling. My h*ps jerked, I felt my sex clench tight around his c**k and he groaned, “Hurry, honey, need to move in that pu**y.”

Oh God.

Too much.

“This is… this isn’t right…” I whispered.

“It is. Hurry, Emme.”

Another pull, more twitching.

Oh God!

“Hurry, Emme.”

“Jacob… I can’t… this is… I’m gonna—”

I didn’t finish when my hands flew to his as it ripped through me, huge, leaving me raw.

Jacob bent forward, pushing me down. I felt his hand between my shoulder blades so I was cheek to the pillow, both his hands went to my hips, hauling me back as he drove in and I took him, still coming, being devoured by a cl**ax.

I opened my eyes, hands clutching his pillow at the sides of my head and felt his thrusts, the power of his body, the fullness of his invasion, and it came back.

I slid my hand out under the pillow, pressing it against the headboard, rearing back.

“Fuck. Fuck,” Jacob growled and proved what I thought was impossible—his ability to f**k me harder than he already was, because he did it.

My head jerked back, my h*ps tipped up and I cried out as it tore through me yet again.

“Keep givin’ me that,” Jacob grunted, slamming in again and again. “Give me that, Emme.”

“Honey,” I breathed, still coming, then I listened as he grunted then groaned through thrusts that were no less powerful but no longer had rhythm. They were out of control—he was out of control—and it was fantastic.

He’d found it.

I’d given it to him at the same time he’d taken it.

I loved this. I loved that I gave that to Jacob.

I also loved knowing it wasn’t me who didn’t know what I was doing.

I’d just been with two guys who didn’t know what they were doing.

I knew it was leaving him when he planted himself inside and stayed there, not moving, hands gripping my hips, pads of his fingers digging in and there was something about being connected to him like that, held by him like that, no movement, just that.

All that he had was his. My sex. My hips. My body on its knees before him. Just his.

I was Jacob’s.

I shivered.

Jacob pulled out. I felt his lips trail across the small of my back as his fingertips drifted down the side of my thigh before he leaned over me.

“Now, baby, you curl up under the covers,” he said gently in my ear. “But, want you to know, there’ll come a time, later, when you’re used to me, I’ll leave you like this. You’ll stay like this. So when I come back, I can get under you and eat that wet you give me.”

That sounded decadent and thrilling and it kind of scared me, but I wanted to do it now.

“Drop and curl up for me, Emme.”

I fell to my side and curled up.

Jacob yanked the covers out from under me and pulled them over me. He slid my hair off my neck, kissed my jaw and I felt the bed move as he exited it.

When he disappeared in his bathroom (that would be fabulous bathroom, massive sunken Jacuzzi tub, the room also decorated in creams and blacks with the rich addition of midnight blues), I tore my eyes from their avid contemplation of watching his muscles move while he walked and spied the kaleidoscope sitting on the carved wooden box on his nightstand.

Even as this sight warmed me, knowing and seeing the proof Jacob kept me close, I didn’t want my mind to go where I felt right then it was taking me. I was sated. I’d come twice. Hard. And I was na**d in Jacob Decker’s bed, he was Jacob and he was also a man who could make me come while making love to me (twice).

But seeing the kaleidoscope I gave Jacob so close at hand, my mind went there.

I was happy to live my life disconnected.

Until that day I handed that kaleidoscope to Jacob.

I’d seen it in a shop and thought it was stunning.

I didn’t know what drove me to go back and get it when I heard what happened with Jacob and Elsbeth. I just went, found out from a mutual acquaintance where he was staying and took it to him.

Once I knocked on that hotel room door, he didn’t make me wait. I knew he saw me through the peephole and didn’t have to think about it before opening it to me.

It hurt he didn’t let me in but I understood. So I handed him the box, watched him open it, pull out the kaleidoscope and handle it with care, turning it in his big hands.

I also remember thinking, as I watched him handle that stained glass, it felt almost like he was touching me with that kind of care.

You think you lost beauty, Jacob, but you didn’t. I’d said and I’d smiled what I was sure was a sad but stupid smile. Just turn the dial.

I’d wanted him to know she wasn’t good enough for him. I’d wanted him to know I understood she made a bad mistake and he was worth taking any way he’d want to give himself. I’d wanted him to know he could, and should, find better.

I’d wanted to take his pain away.

I’d failed in that.

What I didn’t see was what neither of us saw but what Elsbeth did. Right under her nose, he’d found better.

Me.

But when he kissed my cheek, said sweet words to me and closed the door, I walked away.

I didn’t try to go back.

I wasn’t happy living my life disconnected, especially not disconnected from Jacob. I just didn’t realize it and went about my life like I’d been doing before, burying the fact that I’d found the man who was meant for me, and let him go.

Of course, he was my ex–best friend’s boyfriend.

But then he wasn’t.

And I let him go.

Just then, looking at that kaleidoscope, I knew why.

Harvey did that to me.

Jacob sauntered out of the bathroom, taking my attention again, giving me the opportunity to debate if his front was better than his back (front won because it included his face, which had a hank of hair that had fallen over his eye).

It also gave me a brief but happy moment to study all that was him.

My first viewing was that first night we made love, so turned on, I didn’t know a person could get that turned on, watching him at the foot of the bed taking his clothes off, exposing the power that he hid underneath that I thought was only barely hidden.

But seeing it all, he was hiding a lot.

What seemed like miles of defined muscle, broad shoulders, ridged abs, thick thighs, expansive smooth chest, bulky arms and how he was endowed, the biggest I’d ever seen, and also the most beautiful.

Watching him expose it to me, I got even more turned on.

And even just coming twice, watching him walk that power to me right then, I again got turned on.