An Innocent Thanksgiving (Holiday Heat Book 2)

by Katy Kaylee

  Maggie sat down on the couch and I sat down across from her, fighting every urge in me that told me to sit next to her, to stay close to her. Maggie wasn’t quite looking at me—her gaze would dart to me and then away again, her blonde hair falling a little into her face, like she was trying to hide.

  “Take some deep breaths,” I counseled her, keeping my tone gentle.

  Maggie shot me a look of gratefulness, like she was startled into looking at me properly, and then she swallowed. “I’ve been thinking about what you said back at your place. About… about Fern and me moving in.”

  “I know that it’s fast,” I assured her. “I don’t think that this is normal, or anything. I’m aware this is… this isn’t my style, even. You know.”

  Maggie did know. She had grown up listening to me explain my failed marriage to her father, listened to me talk about not really being into relationships, being a free spirit. I’d traveled the world for years, and I’d told her that, God knew she had to be aware that I wasn’t really someone who put down roots.

  Or at least I didn’t used to be. But I was starting to feel like I did have roots—and they were Maggie and Fern.

  “I just feel like I’ve already lost so much time,” I explained. “Too much time. I missed so many stages of Fern’s life already. Her first words, her first steps. When she was so small I could fit her head in my hand, hold her in the crook of my arm.”

  Maggie’s eyes were soft, and she had a small, wistful smile on her face, like she was thinking about all that I had missed out on, too. Like she could see it in her mind’s eye, so vividly, the way that I could—in a way that made it almost seem real.

  “I don’t want to lose out on anything more with her,” I finished.

  Maggie’s smile shifted into something a little more present, less melancholy. “I’ve already decided that you can be in Fern’s life. She really likes you, and you really like her, and I—I trust you when you say you want to really be there. I don’t think you’re going to cut and run. I mean… you bought a house.” She laughed in delighted disbelief.

  I smiled, unable to help myself. She was just so damn delightful. And, hey, I had succeeded. I was going to get to be a father to Fern. Fuck, my heart felt so full it was like I could hardly contain it all.

  Then Maggie took a deep breath. “If you… you know that… Fern and I don’t have to be a package deal.”

  I stared at her. “What?”

  “If you’re trying to be close to me just so that I’ll let you see Fern,” Maggie clarified. “You—you don’t have to do that.”

  “Maggie.” Could she honestly think that our date, and all the rest, was just… letting off steam and trying to get on her good side for Fern? Of course I would have done whatever I could to impress Maggie in my commitment and skills as a father if I only wanted Fern in my life, but I never would’ve wined and dined her, never would’ve slept with her or talked about her moving in with me. “Maggie, no, that’s not it at all.”

  I reached out, taking her hand. Maggie squeezed it reflexively, like it was a buoy thrown to her as she drowned. “I’m not getting close to you just to get to Fern. I’d never play with your emotions like that.” Then I remembered our first night together and I grimaced. “I didn’t mean to play with your emotions back then. Our first time. I hurt you and it was wrong of me. Even if I did have good reasons for feeling the way that I did—I was callous. I would do anything I could to go back in time and undo that, fix it.

  “But if I just wanted Fern… you would know. There are plenty of parents who make it work for their kid without being together. They share the kid, you know, swap weekends and holidays. Or even share those days and just act as friends. I could settle for being your friend, Maggie, if that’s what you want. I can just be Fern’s father to you. But I’m not trying to get close to you to try and… fucking use you so that you’re convinced to let me be in Fern’s life. I’m getting close to you because I can’t fucking help myself.”

  Maggie’s breath caught and her eyes got a bit wide. She didn’t let go of my hand.

  “I’m head over heels in love with you. I think I was from the moment that we first had sex together. It was like stepping back and seeing you in a whole new light—and I wasn’t prepared for it then. I wasn’t, and I fucked up. I know that. And I will do whatever I have to so that I can keep making it up to you. But I know—the more time I spend with you the more I’m certain—that I’ve been in love with you since that night.

  “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you all that time. I tried to put you out of my mind but you were always there. It felt like I was being haunted. Even if you turn me down now… and you’ve got every right to.” I squeezed her hand. “You do. You’ve got every right to turn me away, after how I hurt you. But it’s not going to make me stop wanting you. I’m never going to stop wanting you.”

  As she listened to me, Maggie’s face got more and more pale and shocked, her eyes wide and her soft lips dropping open, until I said that last part. Then she flushed and she gave a smile that I swore could’ve lit up the night sky.

  I couldn’t help myself. That didn’t look like a rejection to me. I grabbed her and pulled her in, kissing her furiously.

  Maggie gasped, going stiff with shock, and then she kissed me back, her hands smoothing over my shoulders and framing my face.

  Then she dropped to her knees.

  I stared down at her, in such shock that it actually took me a second to realize what was happening, what she was doing—what this meant. Then Maggie licked her lips and it all came rushing to me, and I swear I got so goddamn hard so fast it made me lightheaded.

  “You can’t laugh,” Maggie informed me, as if I would ever laugh at her about anything, “but I’ve been imagining doing this for years. Ever since our first time. When I first saw your cock… it was so big and hard and I just, I wanted it.” She was blushing adorably. “I felt so embarrassed.”

  She reached up, undoing my pants. “I’ve never done this before, so you’ll have to guide me, but…” She looked up at me through her lashes. “I want to.”

  Fuck. I exhaled shakily as she drew out my hardening cock. It jerked in her hand, precome leaking out of the tip. I could already imagine my cock inside of her mouth and Jesus, it was so hot, I could hardly stand it.

  “Go slow,” I warned her. I didn’t want her to choke or hurt herself. I wound my fingers through her hair and gently guided her forward.

  Maggie licked her lips again and then lapped at my cock like she was tasting it, getting a feel for it, just these teasing little kitten licks that practically had my eyes rolling back into my head. She ran her tongue up along the underside and my hips shook from the effort of holding still, not jerking them forward.

  “Oh, you like that,” she murmured, and did it again.

  I thought I might actually lose my damn mind.

  When she finally took me into her mouth, it felt like my eyes rolled back into my head. She worked her way up my cock, bit by bit, until she was able to slide up and down about half of it in a steady rhythm. Her mouth was slick and hot, like her pussy but also different, its own fantastic sensation, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before I came if she kept this up. Fuck. It had been years and years since I’d gotten a blowjob, and never had it been from Maggie. Perfect, gorgeous Maggie, who looked like the most sinful thing ever sitting on her knees for me.

  She couldn’t take quite all of my cock just yet, using her hand for the rest, but fuck, I couldn’t wait to work her up to it, to train her to take my entire cock down her throat. The thought had my balls tightening and I had to tighten my grip on her hair in warning. “Babe, babe, you gotta—I’m gonna come.” I pulled her off of me.

  Maggie pouted a little, and I laughed. She looked so put out. “I’ll come in your mouth next time,” I promised her. “But for now, I want to fuck you.”

  Specifically, I wanted to finally fuck her in my bed.

  22

  Maggie />
  Cal clearly had an idea in mind of what he wanted when he pulled me off his cock and then helped me to my feet. My mouth felt a bit sore and my lips were swollen, but it felt good. I felt powerful, proud, that I could make him feel so good. He had been close to coming when he’d pulled me off of him, and the triumph of that spiked my blood, made me hot and wet.

  “Come with me,” Cal growled, taking me by the hips and pulling me up against him so that he could kiss me as he led me down the hallway. Towards the bedroom.

  We hadn’t had sex in a bed yet. I realized this was what Cal intended and I shivered in delight.

  We yanked each other’s clothes off as we went, feeling a bit like teenagers. Maybe at some point we’d get around to doing this slowly, taking our time, but today definitely wasn’t that day. I laughed as Cal’s shirt got stuck up around his head, and then found him laughing at me as I nearly banged my head on the doorframe trying to undo my bra and not looking where I was going.

  We collapsed onto the bed together, kissing and laughing into each other’s mouths, our hands roaming. I wanted to feel every curve and divot in Cal’s body, all of the muscles bunching up underneath my hand, until I could map him out with my eyes closed, mold him in clay from memory if I had to.

  Cal kissed down my neck, across my breasts, along my stomach, briefly licking the slick from between my legs in an awful tease before pulling away. I could still remember with vivid detail how he had eaten me out on our first night together and I wanted that, but not right now. Right now I wanted us to be connected, joined, like one person. Just as we were about to start joining our lives.

  I felt incredibly sappy but I also couldn’t deny it. I was just so happy. He wanted me, he didn’t just want to be Fern’s father. He wanted to be my partner as well. It filled me with complete giddiness.

  Feeling playful and adventurous, still, boldened by the blowjob, I rolled us over, pressing Cal down into the mattress. “I want to ride you,” I whispered.

  Cal flushed. “I dreamed about you doing that,” he replied, his voice low and rough.

  “Well, let’s see about making those dreams a reality.”

  Taking him was always a bit of a challenge at first. I still wasn’t used to regular sex, not after only getting it once and then going five years without, and Cal’s cock was thick. But it was getting easier each time, and I relished the day when I could just slide him into me without even thinking about it. He throbbed inside of me and I keened, loving this deep angle. It was similar to how we’d done doggy style before, scratching that deep itch inside of me.

  My mouth fell open on a silent gasp as I practically choked on the feeling of him so deep in me. Cal groaned, and I could feel him struggling to hold still and not thrust up into me. “You can move,” I promised him. I wiggled around, making sure I was comfortable, then rose up onto my knees, sliding up until only the tip of his cock was inside of me—and then sank down again.

  Oh, oh my God, that felt so incredibly good. I moaned, a stream of babbling curse words escaping me, my eyelids fluttering. I did that again, and again, and then Cal began to time it so that he thrust up as I sank down, giving it an even harder thrust.

  “God yes, Cal, yes!” I cried out. Anyone else, any other situation, I would feel so embarrassed for being so… so wanton. I didn’t like attention on me in general. I wasn’t the kind of person who wanted to show off their talents at a gallery and soak up all the praise. Nothing against it, of course. I admired how Cal would hold everyone’s attention at the gallery shows of his that I had attended as a teenager with my parents, soaking up his magnetism. But it wasn’t me.

  For Cal, though, here, like this… I liked it. I didn’t care how loud I was. Cal loved it when I was loud, he’d told me so, and I wanted to do what he liked. Wanted to drive him as wild as he drove me.

  “That’s it,” Cal encouraged. “Keep making those pretty noises for me, baby.” It was like he’d been reading my mind. Maybe he had been—I wouldn’t put it past him at this point.

  I felt oddly lighthearted and joyous, and so I teased him, slowing down and then speeding up, making my movements shorter so his thrusts were shallower, not going as far into me. Cal struggled to try and get into me more, but I didn’t let him, laughing breathlessly at the frustrated growl that he let out.

  “Something you want?” I asked.

  Cal laughed shortly. “You’re a menace.”

  He looked like he was about to say something else, but I wasn’t about to let him get the upper hand. Instead I sank down onto him all the way, and Cal groaned again, his eyes rolling back a bit.

  I bit my lip, trying and failing to stifle my smile. I loved this feeling of power that it gave me.

  But now, I was done with teasing. I wanted to come, and I wanted to feel Cal come inside me. I sank down on him all the way again, and began to work myself up and own, going as fast and hard as I could. My thighs were burning, but Cal started to thrust up into me, helping, his cock hitting that amazing spot deep inside of me. It was like being shot full of electricity, and before long I wasn’t able to thrust properly anymore, just writhing as Cal fucked me with abandon.

  “Yes, yes, yes, there!” I cried out. Fuck, yes, it felt so good, lighting me up, and I couldn’t—I felt so good, so amazing—oh, oh God—he was in me so deep—

  I felt Cal spill inside of me, hot and slick, and the feeling sent me over the edge. I felt claimed, a part of him, him a part of me, like we were joining together just like we’d be joining our lives. The pleasure was such a good shock, I didn’t want it to stop.

  But it did, at last, fade, and we collapsed together in the bed, both of us laughing breathlessly.

  “Mmm,” Cal teased, his fingertips skating lightly up and down my side. “Who knew there was such a naughty girl lurking behind all that straight edge attitude?”

  “You knew there was a naughty side,” I replied. “I seduced you when I was twenty, I wasn’t exactly going around losing my virginity to my high school sweetheart on prom night.”

  Cal barked out a laugh. “Neither of us are very conventional, are we?”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t think we are.”

  Cal was looking at me with this… this sort of soft look that I could only call adoring. It made me blush, made me squirm. I had never—okay, so I had imagined him looking at me like that, once upon a time. I had daydreamed about it plenty. But I hadn’t really let myself dwell on it. Not after that disastrous first night. And even if I had, nothing I’d come up with could’ve prepared me for the real thing.

  I felt myself blushing and I tugged Cal back down to me, kissing him with everything in me, coaxing his mouth open—not that he needed much coaxing—so that I could slide my tongue inside.

  God, I wished that we could go for round two. I wished that we could just keep kissing like this forever. Teasing each other. In our own little bubble.

  Cal pulled away with a groan, his mouth swollen, his lips slick. A shiver worked its way through me. I had done that. I was the only one who would be doing that from now on, if I had anything to say about it. “I want to do this all day,” he told me, a dark promise in his voice and his gaze. “I can’t wait for the day I can just have you in bed for hours and hours…” He kissed slowly along my jaw and I melted. “Maybe even an entire weekend.”

  Now that would be the dream. Have Fern stay with someone and just let myself fall into Cal, let myself be the ridiculous, in love fool that I could’ve been, that I’d wanted to be, five years ago.

  If only.

  “I hate that we have to get up,” Cal continued, gently seizing a bit of my neck in his teeth and nipping at it, not enough to leave a proper hickey but enough to sting and make me yelp in pleasure, “but your parents will be back soon, with Fern.”

  Ah, yes. I gently pushed Cal away and sat up, looking around for my clothes. I couldn’t let Fern see me like this. As upset as my parents would be, at least they understood the whole sex and adult thing. Fern would be
very confused, and the last thing I wanted to do with this was overwhelm or hurt her. We’d have to figure out a way to get Cal into her life that still felt natural and wasn’t too much, too soon.

  As I looked for my clothes—oh, there was my shirt, how did it end up all the way over there—Cal continued to speak. “I’ve made a decision.”

  “Hmm?” I asked, only half listening. I needed to find my bra…

  “I’m going to come clean about everything to your parents.”

  My heart froze in my chest and it felt like, for just a moment, the entire world stopped moving. I turned on the bed to stare at Cal directly, feeling my jaw drop open. Was he serious?

  He certainly looked serious. I had known Cal for years, and even though I hadn’t really seen him since our first night together, he hadn’t changed too much in the intervening time. I still knew when he was joking, when he was considering, and when he was dead serious. This was the latter.

  “You can’t—Cal.” I struggled to swallow, to speak. “We’ve just gotten our feet under ourselves. We’ve just… just figured this out. If you tell my parents, they’ll lose it. I mean really lose it, they will lose their minds. Can’t we have some breathing room first? Some time to… to adjust and get used to having this?”

  Honestly, this had been what I’d thought would be the difficult part all those years ago when Cal and I had first slept together. I had thought that we would have to discuss what to do about my parents, and I had been ready to advocate that we date secretly, privately, for a few months first so that when we told my parents they would see that we were serious about a relationship and not just having a disastrous fling.

  After how that night had really gone, I hadn’t even thought further about my initial fears. I was so certain, or had been until about ten seconds ago, that Cal and I were on the same page. How could he possibly tell my parents? This would ruin everything. I would have to admit that I had been lying to them, keeping this big truth a secret—they would feel betrayed, by both Cal and me. Their daughter and their best friend. And that wasn’t even counting about the age difference! It wasn’t like we’d had sex when I was twenty-eight, and it wasn’t like there was only five or so years between us. It was over twenty years, and I’d been a sophomore in college!