The Love Wager by Lynn Painter

            As Hallie ran her hands over Jack’s body and his mouth came down over hers, her dress slid to the floor. He wrapped his hands around her waist and led her to the bed, where he was lightning-fast at getting her stretched out on the big mattress, naked.

            It was every bit the wild storm of the kitchen and the infamous hotel night, but more intense because of the absolute thoroughness. Jack wasn’t just touching her, he was reaching every single nerve ending in her body with his hands and fingers and mouth. She writhed and arched and sighed and moaned as Jack explored every inch of her.

            “Jack,” she said, exhaling his name as his mouth traveled back up her body and hovered above her lips. His eyes were heavy-lidded and sensual, and he looked downright wicked as he traced her lower lip with his tongue and replied with a low growl.

            She didn’t want to beg, but she needed him inside her. She scratched her nails over his back and arched up, trying to get closer.

            “Hal. Shit.” His eyes closed for a split second and he looked pained, but when they opened, he gave her a dirty smile and then he was there, hot and hard, exactly where she wanted him.

            “Yes-yes-yes-yes,” she chanted in a whisper, losing herself in the sinful feel of Jack sliding deep into her body. She moved with him, digging her fingernails into his back as she attempted to hold him against her own body as tightly as she could.

            She felt like she was going to go into cardiac arrest from the heat. Not only was it impossibly good with them, physically—so good, holy shit—as he moved inside her, but every movement was enhanced by this overwhelming new emotion she felt for him.

            She didn’t know exactly what it was, but suddenly, he felt like more.

            His face was dark and full of intensity as he looked into her eyes and moved faster, deeper, and she was having a difficult time reconciling the fact that this fantasy lover was her one-night-stand-turned-best-friend.

            “Nothing has ever felt as good as you,” he said, his voice thick and low against her skin as he kissed her neck and his big hands gripped her hips. “As this.”

            Nothing in the world had ever felt that good, but she only managed to moan Jack’s name and bite his shoulder in response. She was too lost in him and what he was doing to her body to form actual words and coherent sentences.

            He groaned and gritted his teeth, looking slightly animalistic as he slid his hands underneath her, changing the angle and bringing her even closer. She wondered if it were possible to black out from pleasure too intense as he drove her toward that delicious edge between ecstasy and pain.

            She might’ve said his name, or screamed it, but the flash of the white-hot ending was blinding in a whirl that removed her from the room altogether.





Jack


            “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done in bed,” he said, watching Hallie cross the room in his dress shirt and her knee-high socks (as per his request).

            She grinned at him and brought the tray over, the combined light of the muted TV and the roaring fire in the fireplace illuminating her approach. “Somehow I doubt that, but I’m honored to introduce you to one of my bedding specialties.”

            He shook his head slowly. “This is just a terrible idea, TB.”

            “No, it’s not.” She laughed, setting down the room service tray on their bed. “As long as you pull the comforter tight, no crumbs get in the bed. You shake out the top layer when you’re done and you’re good to go.”

            He watched her sit down criss-cross-applesauce in front of the tray, and he realized that that was one of the things that made her so . . . whatever the fuck she was that he was obsessed with. Hallie never tried to be cool or anything other than what she was, which, at the moment, was a hungry sex goddess who’d ordered french fries from room service at three in the morning.

            “You have to be hungry, too,” she said, taking the heavy lid off the plate. “You’ve been working very hard for hours.”

            “As have you,” he said, and she gave him a stupidly huge smile.

            He messed up her hair and stole a fry, to which she responded by delivering a stinging hand slap.

            They turned up the volume on the TV and watched a rerun of New Girl while they consumed their french fries, arguing about who was the best character. He thought it was Winston, while she thought Nick, but they both teetered on the edge of making Schmidt their number one.