Ch 23 ~ The Best Gift

Despite his well-meaning intentions, Jon must have shifted the bed a little too much when he plunked down on the edge of the mattress.  He was just settling the base of his wineglass on the nightstand when Rachel stirred with a sweet moan that punched him in the libido.  Looking over his shoulder, he saw that heavy eyelids fought to push themselves open and, when they did, she smiled the sultry little smile that never failed to kickstart his heart - and groin.  

“There you are,” she murmured sleepily, reaching toward him with an open hand. 

“Hey, baby.”  Jon twisted himself around and leaned over her, weight resting on his arms and mouth hovering a breath away from hers.  “You fell asleep on me.”

“So I did.”  That sultry smile of hers notched up higher on the right side as her fingers burrowed into his hair.  “You must be losing your touch, rockstar.”

“Oh-ho-ho,” he whispered, ever-so-slightly returning her smile while desperately wishing to close his eyes and drown in her taste. “Wanna bet?”

The response was nothing more than a subtle puff of air against her lips in the instant before his mouth slanted over hers, taking away her opportunity for retort.  Jon wanted her tongue engaged in much more pleasant activities than smart-mouthing him. 

The kiss was slow at first.  Lowering his weight onto her, Jon took his time in opening what he had come to think of as his birthday gift.  She was a gift, he thought, caressing her mouth tenderly and exploring all those sweet, secret places that he’d missed so much.  She was the best gift.

Her body was rendered immobile by the bulk of his chest and a heavy thigh draped across her legs, but she squirmed against him nonetheless, as eager to touch him as he was to be touched.  When her hand slid under his shirt, her palm seared the bare skin at the base of his spine.  As her hand clutched at his belt loop, the heat became electric, charging every single one of his nerve endings with a sizzle that was achingly familiar, yet intriguingly different. 

She had always made him come alive, but this was… something else.  Something more significant.  It was as if, by opening all of his emotional closets and letting the skeletons dance for her…  She was filling those closets with her presence.  Chasing the darkness out with her special light.

This wasn’t a mere melding of flesh.  Rachel now had full access to his soul and he marveled at both the experience and the woman.  He knew he and his soul were safe with her like they’d been with no one in more years than he cared to count. 

This.  This is what I screwed myself out of with my fuckin’ pride.  I could’ve had this - her - all along if I’d trusted her enough.  If I had appreciated her enough.

Jon pulled back from the hungry kiss to see that sleep-hazed eyes had become fogged with a passion that set him aflame all over again, but he had to tell her.  She had to know that he might have the same body, but this wasn’t going to be the same old, same old.  He owed her that. 

“Rach…  Baby…”  Lamplight caused the residual dampness from his kiss to glisten on her lips and he longed to blot it away with another kiss and another.  His thumbs traced the arches of her cheekbones as his heart swelled with…  Rachel.   “I took you for granted before.  Didn’t know it until just now, but I promise on everything I hold dear that I’ll never do it again.”

Impatient fingers pushed at the hem of Jon’s shirt, wriggling the cloth upward over his torso with an unhappy grunt until it had been shimmied up and over his head.  Rachel tossed it to the floor on her side of the bed, then wrapped one arm around his neck and the other around his waist. Contentment resonated in the soft purr that rattled his left earlobe as she nuzzled it. 

“All I need – all I’ll ever need – is to know I’ll never have to say goodbye again.”  She dusted his cheek with soft lips, then kissed the underside of his jaw.  “Promise me that, Jon, and we’ll leave the past in the past.”

His hand delved under the soft fabric of Rachel’s zippered hoodie and curled loving fingers around her ribcage before slicing his thumb upward to brush lightly around the satiny circumference of her breast.   Jon leaned into her touch, turning to press a tender kiss against her temple.

“I won’t let go this time, Rach,” he breathed into her hair.  “Swear to God.”

“Good.  Now love me.”

His fingers fumbled with the zipper of her hoodie and hers fumbled with the buckle on his belt, but both finally did what they were made to do and fell open.  Her hands trembled at the waistband of his jeans, but she managed to slide them down the ass every woman in Sacramento had been panting for tonight. 

Jon kicked them to the floor and slid his hand into the waistband of her sweat pants, pushing them and her panties down, and finally off. 

“There may be a day or two when you kick yourself for giving me another shot, but all the other days?  I’m gonna make sure you never doubt how much I love you.”

A flick of his wrist had her breasts beautifully free and… There they were.  Nothing between him and the woman who’d been gone from his life too long.  Skin on skin at long last.

Thank you, God.

Rachel’s body remembered the way his breath felt against her ear and she tingled from head to toe.  The way his hands felt on her skin was reminiscent of the many times he’d explored every sensitive inch of her flesh.  The memories that had tragically haunted her dreams were being now resurrected by the man who made them.  Each swipe of his expert thumb, each nip of his perfect teeth was just as aphrodisiacal as she recalled.

Only better, she amended as his hardness split her softness and found its home.  So much better. 

Not because he was doing anything outrageous.  Just like their “last” night together, there were no acrobatics or twisted sexual positions.  Positively mundane by most standards.   

However, unlike that night, there was hope instead of hopelessness and promise instead of heartbreak.  This is what she’d longed for in place of goodbye all those months ago.  Tonight, they were two lovers relishing in the simplest flesh-pleasing acts while savoring the joining of their souls. 

Sex has never been this good, she thought as she found herself enveloped in the heat of his body.  The soft rug of his chest hair abraded her sensitive nipples, his sternum pressed against hers.  She felt his heart beat pull hers into a matching rhythm, a staccato beat that accelerated with the swiftness of his thrusts. 

Her head fell back as that exquisite sensation began vibrating in the tips of her toes. 

Feeling his teeth scrape across the exposed flesh of her throat, having the right to make crescent moon indentations in his backside with her fingernails, owning the privilege of wrapping her legs tighter around his waist…  Just slipping her palm inside of his and locking their fingers together whenever and wherever she wanted.  It filled her with an astounding dual sense of freedom and proprietorship.  He was hers, she was his.

His sweat-slicked skin beneath her fingertips was almost like a hyper-potent drug that found its way into her veins.  It was deliciously lethal and its effect was exponentially multiplied by every touch, kiss and swipe of his tongue.

“Jon.  Oh Jon.”

She couldn’t get close enough.  His mouth on hers wasn’t enough.  The passionate tongue that found every secret crevice of her mouth wasn’t enough.  Holding his night-grizzled face to her breast tightly enough to cause whisker-burn wasn’t enough. 

There IS no ‘enough’.  Not for me.  Not with him. 

Still she sought to encompass his body with her own, snugging her legs more firmly around his waist.  When that didn’t meld them into one being, she wrapped her arms in a crushing hug around his shoulders.  When that didn’t work, she buried her face in the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent and whispering his name as she nuzzled the musky flesh. 

Jon growled deep in his chest and gently unwound her ankles from where they rested at the small of his back.  Rachel actually cried out with despair when he slid himself free of her depths. 

“No,” she murmured, clutching at his shoulders even as he kissed his way down her torso.  Slow, wet, open-mouthed kisses had her nipples puckering and her inner muscles clenching with anticipation.  Still, she didn’t need the particular pleasure he now seemed intent to bestow upon her. 

“You don’t have to do that,” she mumbled, tugging at his shoulders to bring him back up.  “I don’t need it.”

Tonight, Rachel just needed him – chest to chest – as close as they could possibly be.  

“Yeah, but I do,” he declared, heated eyes locking with hers as his lips burrowed into the delicate crease between her thigh and…  When Jon’s mouth found the sweet spot between her legs, Rachel’s fingernails digging into the mattress were the only thing that kept her from coming off of it. 

“Ohhhhh…”

There was no thought beyond that point, only feeling.

The sensation of his wide tongue sweeping its way through a cradle of tender, aching flesh.  The feeling of his lips curling around the turgid little pebble that had her planting her heels into the bed with a strangled mewl of pleasure. 

He had uncanny intuition when it came to devouring the core of a woman.  There was never a moments’ uncertainty when he licked, suckled, nibbled and even slurped.  It was as if he had been gifted with the innate knowledge of the exact amount of pressure she needed, where she needed it and when to slide a finger or two inside for that extra pull…

Rachel’s mind melted into a helpless jumble of sensory eroticism.  She knew nothing more than the gentle rasp of his hair against her palms as she clasped his head.  Nothing beyond the all-consuming, uncontrollable waves of pleasure that crashed over her.

A sharp gasp pierced the air as her muscles spasmed, sending shockwaves from her center to the ends of her hair and fingernails. 

“Ohmyword…” she breathed, her lungs seizing as they took up air once again.

Purring like a satisfied lion, Jon kissed his way all the way back up her body.  His mouth delved into the hollow of her collar bone and he laved it with his tongue as he rocked himself back into her still-sensitive flesh.  The tendon in her neck was next and he suckled it as his hips pivoted into her, lifting her back to the place where only he could take her. 

“You have the best mouth EVER.”

“And you thought I’d lost my touch,” he rumbled softly into her jaw while lifting her leg higher onto his hip.  Sculptured shoulders grew tight under her touch as his thrusts became increasingly more powerful.  Rachel whimpered as she climbed right back to the heights of ecstasy with the man she loved.  “C’mon, Rach.  Come with me, baby…  I’m… right… there…..!”

All it took was a well-placed swivel of Rachel’s hips against his and his fingers dug into her with a roar of release that sent Rachel toppling after him.  The familiar guttural howl of satisfaction was sweeter music to her than any of his songs.  It was ‘their’ sound and, after he had settled at her side, she rolled over and wrapped him in her arms. 

“Jon?”

“Huh?”  His reply wasn’t much more than a contented sigh, but he changed the angle of his head to let her know he was listening.

“I just want you to know…  There may be days that you wonder why I was special enough to go chasing after again, but they’ll be few and far between.  The rest of the days… I’ll make sure you know how much I love you, and I won’t let go either.   Not ever again.”