Desire: The Dark Christmases

by Z. L. Arkadie

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  My eyes grew wide. If only he had asked me that question ten seconds ago. Then I would’ve told him the truth, and we could’ve discussed how insecure I was about our relationship. He probably could’ve told me the truth as well. Even though he’d chosen to not marry Julia, his future wife would need to have a certain kind of breeding. I was a woman with an imprisoned father who was a con man, which meant I didn’t have the qualities to be Mrs. Jasper Christmas.

  However, I knew better than to waste an invitation like the one Jasper handed me when he asked to hear my thoughts. I was still the journalist who was in the middle of investigating his family. I had to be smart, sort of cunning, in order to squeeze him for all the information I could get.

  “I was wondering if you’re even slightly curious about what I’ll find in Chattanooga,” I said.

  He pulled me even closer. Another inch, and I would disappear into his body.

  I felt him shrug against me. “Not really.”

  “Why not?”

  “My father had relationships with many people all over the country. If there was something in his dealings that should’ve concerned me, I would know by now.” He sounded so sure of himself.

  “People have secrets, you know?”

  “Yes, I do know.”

  “Maybe your father was keeping a secret. The Greers are very poor, and your father was very rich.”

  He chuckled before flipping me on my back, spreading my legs, and stuffing a fresh erection inside me.

  I sighed at the first thrust, feeling every inch of his super-sized cock filling me. What a way to end an unwanted conversation. His cock continued rimming my pussy, letting me know he was focused on me. Jasper wanted me to come, hard, fast, and long. His wish was my command as I guided my hips toward his strokes. The first blooms of an orgasm filled my womanhood. I closed my eyes and concentrated on making the sensations flourish.

  “Is that good, baby?” he whispered huskily.

  “Mm-hmm.” My eyes squeezed tightly shut, and the back of my head pressed against the pillow.

  “Speak. Let me hear you tell me, baby.” He fucked me better, faster.

  “Ah,” I cried.

  “Say you fucking love it,” he demanded, riding me with more intensity.

  “I love it, baby,” I freely claimed.

  Then my eyes opened wide. Did I call him baby? Shit, I did.

  From the dazed look on Jasper’s face, he hadn’t heard me, or he didn’t care. Me referring to him as baby said I was claiming him as my own. He wasn’t mine. What the fuck am I doing?

  I pushed against his chest. “Jasper, stop.”

  He didn’t hesitate to do as I asked. “What is it?” He was breathing heavily, clearly alarmed by my sudden change of mood.

  “What are we doing?” I sounded way too vulnerable for my liking. But it was how my heart truly felt. I was risking a lot, lying there under Jasper Christmas as he pounded the hell out of me. All the variations of our fucking were making me fall deeper and deeper in love with him. And I couldn’t feel that way about a man who was not readily available.

  “You know what we’re doing,” he said, looking so very confused.

  I turned away from his beautiful yet confused blue-green eyes. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  Jasper eased his engorged cock out of me and flopped down on his back beside me. “What’s going on with you?”

  I pressed my forearm over my eyes. “I shouldn’t have let this happen between us, but I couldn’t stop it.”

  “Why shouldn’t you let me make love to you?”

  It was time to be brave. The moment had come to just say it.

  “Because this thing between us is too deep. One day you’ll marry someone else, and I’ll love another.”

  Suddenly, Jasper reached out and pulled me against him. “You belong to me, Holly. Got it?”

  I didn’t get it.

  “Got it?” he demanded.

  I sat up quickly, breaking free from his embrace. “I belong to you? Are you aware of how insane you sound?”

  “I’m very sound, Holly,” he said as though he were offended by my question.

  “You don’t get to be married to another woman while I belong to you,” I said, purposely laying it on thicker. I wanted him to do something wild and crazy like grab hold of me, squeeze me tightly, and declare his eternal love for me rather than Arthur Valentine’s daughter.

  “You’re a journalist,” he said.

  My frown intensified. “You can’t be with me because I’m a journalist?”

  “Stop twisting my words to suit your suppositions. Your profession makes you believe speaking truth to power is the most effective way to right wrongs.”

  I jerked my head back. “Talk about suppositions.”

  “All I’m saying is that you do what you do as a journalist, and let me do what I do.”

  “And what is it that you do?”

  The long silence was suddenly interrupted by two rings, the room phone and another that came from Jasper’s jacket. He jumped out of bed to answer his call while I answered mine. Talk about being saved by the bell.

  Chapter Four

  “Okay, thank you,” I said to the front-desk clerk, who was on the other end of the line. She had just informed me that the roads were closed, and because of it, the hotel was allowing me to stay an extra night at no charge.

  Jasper had put on his coat and taken his call in the hallway. My mind raced with reasons why he wanted his privacy. The one that stood out the most had to do with Julia. Maybe they were married and he was secretly cheating on his new wife. But that thought diminished almost as soon as it arose. Jasper wasn’t a cheater. He would tell me the truth if he were married to Julia then try to convince me to sleep with him regardless.

  My eyes shifted to the left and right as I thought about the fastest way to ease my suspicion. I couldn’t call Bryn and ask for the truth since she had fallen off the face of the earth. Even though Jasper had managed to keep just about all negativity about him off the Internet, maybe Julia Valentine hadn’t.

  Regardless, I sat against the headboard and performed an Internet search on Jasper Walker Christmas, but this time I added the word “wife.” The results that came up had to do with him being one of the sexiest and richest bachelors in the world. There was also an article that mentioned why being single could hurt his chances at winning the presidency. Then there were rumors of him possibly being gay. I rolled my eyes. That was not even remotely true.

  I narrowed my eyes at the door. Where is he, and who is he talking to? The fact that he had been gone for so long gave me time to try another search. I tried Jasper Christmas girlfriend, and all the results were about his brothers. However, there was something else that captured my attention.

  Finally, the door opened, and I jumped, smashing my phone against the bed sheets. Jasper’s tall and manly frame walked into the room. He looked as pale as a ghost.

  I felt the corners of my mouth turn down. “What is it?”

  He shook his head, taking off his coat. “It’s nothing.”

  I could see it was clearly something.

  “What did the front desk want?” he asked. His tone was brisk.

  “We’re snowed in for the rest of the evening. She’ll let me know when the roads are clear, but it looks as though we won’t be able to travel tomorrow either.” I hadn’t considered until then how awkward it would be remaining trapped in a room with Jasper for God knew how long, especially while completely believing our fucking wouldn’t lead to anything serious.

  Jasper grunted thoughtfully as he laid his coat across the chair. “It does look pretty bad out there.”

  What to say next? I wondered if it was best to not pick up where we left off.

  He took his shirt off, and I was momentarily stunned by the sight of his smooth skin, rippled chest, waist, abs, and arms. The chorus of his bravura nearly took my breath away. I watched him as if
he were a bronze statue who required admiration as he walked into the bathroom.

  “So who called you?” I asked.

  “It was business,” he said from the other room.

  I frowned. His tone indicated that he didn’t want to say more than that. I didn’t want to push because I didn’t want to convince myself for another second that Jasper and I had more than fucking going on between us. A strong sexual connection pulled us together like kinetic energy. It was global in its scale. It was just one of those phenomena of life that happened to people sometimes. We had to get fucking each other out of our systems, and I was fine with doing that.

  “Hey,” he said in a consolatory voice as he came back into the room. His face lowered to mine, and he quickly kissed me on the lips. “I promise it was only business. And there’s nothing between Julia and me.”

  I looked him staunchly in the eyes. “Oh, there’s something.”

  He pressed his lips together in a slight grimace. We both held our expressions as though we were waiting for the other to speak first.

  “I don’t know what you mean when you say that,” he finally said. “In a way, she and I are linked, but I’m working to resolve that. I need your patience. I know whatever this is between us is new, but you must trust what I feel for you.” He slid a hand down the side of my face and cupped my chin. “Holly. Please?”

  I trusted him, and that scared me. Talk was cheap. That was what I’d always believed, which was one reason I had chosen to become a journalist. My profession gave me the opportunity to search until I discovered what was near an absolute truth. To do that, to keep going until no more questions needed to be asked, I had to maintain a certain level of doubt. But as true as the sun would rise in the morning, I believed Jasper, and yes, that scared the hell out of me.

  I faked a smile. “Okay.”

  Jasper took my affability as permission to kiss and nibble my neck. I closed my eyes and dropped my head back, giving him more space to make me feel good.

  “So how about we pick up where we left off,” he whispered thickly.

  I nodded. His eyes lit up as he mounted me. Our mouths melted, and I let go of all of my hang-ups.

  I was on my hands and knees, and Jasper was behind me, pounding the hell out of my pussy. Sweat glazed our skin. The room smelled like sex mingled with the fading scent of my perfume and his cologne. I had climaxed so many times that my entire body was sensitive to whatever Jasper wanted to do to it.

  “I’m coming, baby,” he said throatily.

  I jerked with his every thrust, feeling all of his thick, big cock inside me. I loved getting him to that point. My sex gripped his manhood to make him come faster.

  “Oh shit,” he cried. Then he pulled out of me and lay across my back, pinning me against the bed. “Shit,” he muttered again. Then he ran a hand through my hair and lifted my tresses to suck the sensitive part of my neck. “I can’t fucking get enough of you.”

  My eyes were heavy. I had no idea how long we’d been going at it, but it had been hours. It was as though we were making up for lost time.

  I yawned, and it oddly felt wrong. If only I had more energy to indulge his desire. Even though his cock had softened, he was grinding into my ass in what I believed was an attempt to force his manhood to bend to his will.

  I yawned again. “Jasper, we should sleep.”

  “Hold still, baby,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes. He was still referring to me as if I were someone he was in a lasting relationship with. But I let him clean his juices off my skin.

  “You have the sweetest ass,” he said then slapped me on it. “Turn around, baby.”

  I could hear his intentions in his tone. We’d done enough fucking for me to know that he wanted to eat my pussy and make me come some more.

  “Jasper,” I said as I flipped onto my back, keeping my legs together. “We should call it a night.”

  “Come on, baby, just let me taste you one last time, and then I swear we’ll sleep.”

  I frowned, wanting to ask why he sounded so desperate. It was as though he wanted to overindulge on me. “We’re snowed in, Jasper. We have all day tomorrow to…” I didn’t want to say make love because he could never love me forever.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said.

  “What’s not what I think?”

  He shook his head slightly.

  “You know what I’ve learned?” I asked.

  “What’s that?” He lowered his head to suck and bite the tip of my left nipple.

  I restrained a sigh. Damn, that felt good. “When someone’s cryptic, they’re trying to control someone or something,” I whispered.

  “Will you stop me if I…” Suddenly, his hands were pulling my knees apart. Before I could say another word, his tongue was on my clit and gently brushing one side of it. That was his style. He would stimulate one side of my clit and, after I climaxed, move to another, then another and another until he was back at square one. I clenched the sheets with both hands as orgasm sparked in my pussy. Jasper had won. It was too late for me to stop him now. I moaned, shuddered, and clenched the messy and sweat-dampened sheets.

  I called out to the Almighty as my sixth, maybe eighth, orgasm soared through my pussy. Goodness, Jasper knew how to make me come hard and fast. As long as I lived, I knew I would never find another man who could eat pussy the way he did.

  He crawled up the bed and lay beside me, gathering me in his arms.

  “Um.” I writhed, still feeling the aftereffects of climaxing.

  Jasper kissed, nibbled, and licked me on his favorite spot on my back.

  “Holly, I love being with you,” he said.

  I yawned. “I know.” Of course he loved fucking me. There was no way I could deny that.

  Then I remembered what I had seen during my second Internet search of him. “Hey, I read somewhere that Randolph Christmas died two days ago. We both know that’s not true. Why did you wait so long to announce his death?”

  He tensed against me. “You knew we had to keep it quiet for a while.”

  “Right, but two weeks? That’s a long time.”

  Again, he was quiet, and I was beginning to learn that silence for Jasper was caution. “I had to tie up some loose ends.”

  “What sort of loose ends?”

  “Listen, babe, we trusted you enough to let you in on our private family matters. Don’t make me regret it.”

  I scoffed. “I hope you’re not here managing me by fucking me.”

  “What? No,” he said as though he were insulted. “I don’t want the truth to surface in some fucking newspaper.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, and you know it.”

  “No, I did not.”

  I wanted to push him away from me while at the same time disappear into his body. “Well, Bryn did. I kept all of her secrets in college. I’m good at that—keeping secrets.”

  He held me tighter, and I let him, even though the body heat our closeness generated made me want to beg for a hit of coolness.

  “So, did those loose ends you had to tie up have anything to do with you marrying Julia Valentine?” I asked.

  He remained silent for a few beats. “Are you asking that as my lover or a reporter?”

  I felt my eyebrows crush into an intense frown. “Is that all I am to you, your lover?”

  He sighed forcefully. “Holly, come on.”

  “Come on, what?”

  “You mean a lot to me. How many times do I have to say it before you believe it?”

  “Talk is cheap.”

  “Then what do you want from me?”

  Ask me to marry you. Of course, that was silly. I’d only known Jasper for three weeks.

  “You could initiate a plan for our future together or something. Basically, I want you to make an effort that lets me know you want to be with me full-time.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I? This is a fucking huge effort.” He grinded against me with his blossoming erection.

  “Ja
sper, really? You’re doing that when we’re discussing this?”

  He chuckled. “Baby, just let me slide in when I’m ready. I have to be inside you.”

  “You’re fucking me like it’s your last time,” I blurted. Finally, I’d said what had been bothering me ever since he’d returned to the room after his phone call.

  He pushed his dick between my thighs, and I gasped as he entered my pussy from behind. “Whenever I fuck you, it feels like the last time,” he whispered as he thrust his cock in and out of my pussy.

  “Just wait.” I jutted my hips forward and away from his insatiable cock.

  His hips chased mine, and he slammed his dick deeper inside me. “Wait for what, baby?”

  I remained very still.

  Jasper kissed my earlobe. “Don’t go anywhere, please. How many times have I told you that I’m falling in love with you?”

  I sighed sharply. “Your actions nullify your words.”

  “Could you say that another way?” he asked, prodding me a few times with his cock.

  I sighed. “What?”

  “When you talk clever, that gets me excited. That’s one of a number of things I like about you.”

  Holy shit, I was pretty sure more wetness poured from my pussy. “What else do you like about me?” I whispered, feeling his engorged cock slide in and out of me.

  “You’re loyal, curious, and sweet, so fucking sweet,” he moaned.

  I took that he meant “sweet” as a double entendre.

  There was no more talking, only sighing, moaning, and whimpering until Jasper shook with orgasm. We were forced to let go of each other so our bodies could cool. We didn’t fall asleep, though. Jasper and I lay on our sides, facing each other. He asked me about growing up in northern California. I told him all about my father and mother and how they would move into a new community, scam all the neighbors out of as much money as they could, then disappear.

  “That’s why I never made friends when I was younger. I felt like a parasite. I wanted to knock on doors and warn everyone in the world to not trust my parents, especially my father. But I couldn’t do that. I felt so helpless. All I could do was watch.”