by Jess Vonn
Winnie sighed. The woman was as flattering and persuasive as her son, despite their very different aims.
“I just don’t know…” she lied. She’d love nothing more than to go. To meet Cal’s sisters and see those cute little fairies once more. To eat as much of Rhonda and Cal’s food as she could possibly manage in one sitting. To revel in the pleasure of joining a big family for a special annual event. Even if she would be an interloper, she wanted to soak up those feelings of togetherness and warmth and affection so that they could sustain her during on the months ahead. Her least favorite time of the year was upon them, with its endless string of family holidays that she’d spend alone, given just how spread out her distant cousins were. Cost made the travel difficult, and if she were honest, she always loathed being the add-on orphan, even if she knew that’s not how her extended family felt about her. Her heart sank at the realization that this year she wouldn’t even have Bree by her side during the holidays.
“Plus, it’ll take over the whole yard.” Rhonda continued her pitch with the dedication of a car salesman. “You really can’t avoid it. The cottage is an intimate part of my outdoor space, and it would just feel wrong to cut you out of it.”
Yes. Yes. Yes. Winnie’s mind whirled. But what would Cal think about her presence there? It was a special family event, and she wouldn’t want to ruin it by her awkward presence. She concluded that her only option was to ask the man himself.
“For now can I say that I’ll think about it?” Winnie asked.
Rhonda reached over and pulled Winnie into a deep hug, squealing in delight. Winnie knew that Rhonda interpreted Winnie’s maybe as a yes. Only time would tell if she’d have to disappoint the woman again.
“Okay. I’ll take that for now.”
“I’ll try to let you know by tomorrow. I do appreciate the invitation. You’ve made me feel so welcome.”
“It’s impossible not to love you, Winnie. I do hope you realize that.”
She gave Winnie’s hand a squeeze and made her way back out the door before she could notice Winnie’s tears welling.
Chapter 17
Cal wasn’t sure how Winnie would respond to his suggested meet-up spot, but he felt more than pleased with the possibilities that Cosgrove Hill held, and not just because it was the town’s infamous make-out spot.
Ever since that first fantasy he’d had about Winnie, he’d been desperate to see the woman spread out on a soft blanket in the grass. Tonight seemed like an ideal opportunity, and what better way to help her acclimate to her new community than with a little bit of heavy petting on The Hill? The sky was already dark, the fall air was cool and the light breeze rustled the crisping leaves in the trees.
He was so grateful she’d texted him today. He told himself he’d let her make the next move. He arranged everything about their last meet up. Part of him wanted to see how long it would take her to reach out. Part of it felt like an act of self-preservation. Now that he equated Winnie’s breasts with the taste of chocolate, the woman—and her many compelling assets—became that much more difficult to stop thinking about.
His stomach dropped when her headlights pulled into the otherwise empty parking lot. He figured the place wouldn’t be too busy on a weeknight, and he was right. Their solitude and the opportunities it presented thrilled him.
Winnie stepped out of her car, practically bouncing her way over to him. Her jubilance was infectious. She threw her arms around his neck and pressed a soft kiss to his lips, sending all the important parts of his body into alert. As he wound his arms around her lower back and pulled her softness tightly against him, he couldn’t help but notice how good it felt to be connected to her in the crisp, cool fall air. Without the complications of a relationship, without the weight of expectations, they could just plain enjoy one another. It was damn refreshing.
“You showed up,” he teased, his hand pushing back a curl from where it fell on her face.
“You did what you were told.”
“Well, you were extorting me. I really had no choice.”
She grinned, her eyes shining with humor in the final minutes of twilight.
“And you were bribing me with promises of sexy time. I had no choice, either.”
“I guess we’re well matched.”
He offered her the hand that wasn’t holding a folded-up blanket and when her fingers curved into his, when he felt the warmth and softness of her skin on hers, his heart tightened.
“Hey, can I ask you something quick,” Winnie said, stopping in her tracks and turning her suddenly serious eyes up to his.
“Of course.”
“Your mom stopped by tonight,” she said with reluctance. “She brought me some really delicious treats.”
That sounded like his mom.
“She was trying to butter me up,” Winnie continued.
And that sounded even more like his mom. “What for?” he asked.
He watched nervousness wash over her face.
“She wants me to come to her equinox celebration.”
Cal controlled his expression carefully. One wrong quirk of his brow, and Winnie might read far too much into it.
The bonfire. He’d nearly forgotten about it himself. It was one of his favorite annual events at his mom’s. Of course she’d think to include Winnie, if for no other reason than that the She Shed’s windows would be shining with the fire all evening. It’d be rude not to invite her over. Plus his mom was an inviter. Hospitality was her forte.
“Do you want to go?”
Winnie blinked up at him.
“Of course I want to go. It’s your mom. If she invited me over to help her clean out her chimney flue, I’d be there in a heartbeat.”
Cal chuckled. His mother did have that effect on people. He didn’t like that he was preventing Winnie from making another friend in town, especially a friend as loving and thoughtful as his mom. And despite his better senses, his mind and body were now motivated by one firm principle: the more Winnie, the better.
“So, what’s the problem?”
“You. Like usual.”
He snickered. “I’m okay with you being there.”
Her face lit up like a Christmas tree just plugged in. Damn it, it was easy to please the woman, and doing so made him feel like he’d won the prize.
“You mean it?” she asked, her hands clasping in front of her chest in delight, that signature Winnie reaction. “Because I’ll be on my best behavior. I’ll stay quiet. I’ll just eat the entire time. That’ll keep me happy and out of trouble.”
“Well, I don’t like all this talk of you being on your best behavior, but I suppose it makes sense for Friday evening.”
She threw her arms around his waist and gave him a tight squeeze. The depth of her affection, and how good it felt, threw him slightly off kilter.
“And only as long as you promise not to be on your best behavior tonight,” he said, moving his hands down to cup that ass that’d been torturing his mind for the past two days. It was just as round and soft as he remembered.
She giggled that infectious giggle she had and whispered, “Oh, that’s a guarantee.”
She laced her fingers in his once more and they began their slow ascent up the hill, making idle talk about their days. The ease of it, of every step of this connection with Winnie, floored him. He didn’t want to dwell on it too much out of fear that it might disappear.
By the time they made their way up to the clearing on the top of the hill, the moon had risen well up into the sky, its nearly full circle glowing white with faint swirls of grey. Its light flooded the clearing with a white-yellow aura, and shadowy trees framed the edges of the field.
Cal let go of Winnie’s hand to spread out the quilted blanket he’d carried from the car. He lay down first, looking up to Winnie and admiring the way the nearly-full moon framed her head like a halo. He could make out the spring of each curl in the moon’s silhouette. He wanted to run his fingers over every one, but that would require he
r to be closer. He extended an arm toward her and she closed the distance between them, crawling slowly toward him on the soft blanket. Instinctively, as if she needed it like he did, she pressed the length of her body against his, like two magnets attracted to one another on an atomic level. Her knee slid between his thighs and he tried not to think about just how good it felt to have her leg brushing up against his groin.
Her face nuzzled into his neck, the exact same spot her mouth had gravitated toward at his house. And earlier in the parking lot. A spot, Winnie helped him realize, that he’d never given enough credit to with regard to its erotic potential. When her lips, her breath, were on his neck, hot and damp and hungry, he knew he could deny the woman nothing.
“So, this is make-out hill, huh?” she asked, her lips pressing into him. Her tongue gently swiped across his collarbone.
“Mmmm,” he responded. Sure, he’d fumbled around up here with girls a few times in his youth, but he found himself suddenly unable to remember another moment here before Winnie. Another woman before her.
“So how much time do you suppose you’ve spent up here with your conquests over the years?” she asked, the puff of breath from her laugh tickling his neck.
He rolled onto her to better command their entwining. To take, rather than to receive. His mouth pressed into her temple. Her cheek bone. Her jawline. Her lips.
“In minutes? Hours? Days?” he asked, his lips spreading into a wolfish smile against hers before moving along to her jaw line and the side of her neck. “Couldn’t say. Though I’d estimate that I’ve sired at least four offspring on this very field.”
Winnie snorted, that ridiculously adorable sound, and longing throbbed in his chest. He hated the way he needed her laughter. It wasn’t enough that she desired his body, or found pleasure beneath it. That was physical. That was the biochemistry of the human species. But when she curled up in laughter next to him? Well, it didn’t get better than that.
“Well, I’m sure they’re all beautiful,” she joked about his fictitious children.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, that word, in its earnestness, shifting the mood to something more reverent. Her mouth opened to him, and the warm, sensual connection of their exploration sent lightning through his chest. The woman was electric.
His mouth traveled down to the soft crevice between her breasts where they peaked out from the hem of her shirt, that spot he could settle into for hours.
“You drive me mad, Briggs.” He heard her whimper. He could feel the erratic beat of her heart beneath the spot where his lips pressed into her soft flesh.
“Let me see you,” he pleaded.
Her breath caught. “Here?”
“Here. Now.”
“Cal, I don’t know…” She trailed off.
“Briggs, we’re alone in the woods. The sky and the trees won’t report us. I want to see you here, bathing in the moonlight.”
He wanted to see Winnie’s bare, voluptuous breasts in every possible context. Glowing beneath the night sky, sweating in the midday sun, shimmering in the rain, cooling in the shade, drowning beneath a shower’s hot torrent of water.
Before he had to beg, she began to unbutton the tiny pearl buttons of her blouse, one at a time in a brutally slow pace. Each flick of her fingers revealed another two inches of the treasure beneath—her satiny skin and the lacy texture of her bra in a shade he couldn’t quite determine in the moonlight. Maybe a soft grey or a baby blue. When her shirt fell open to both sides, her fingers clasped between her breasts and snapped open the bra’s front clasp, and then suddenly she was bared to him. Bared to the night.
He sighed at the beauty of this woman and the unprecedented strength of this physical connection with her.
Her breath still seemed shallow, nervous. But his hands on her seemed to create a calming effect, soothing her as he cupped her. She lay fully back, closing her eyes as his thumbs brushed across her nipples, followed quickly by his mouth, because it always wanted to further investigate what his hands discovered first.
“I need more of you,” he said. She groaned with desire, but it didn’t suffice. He couldn’t proceed without her permission.
“Please. Tell me to keep going.” His eyes looked up to see hers, darkened with pleasure and desire so deep that words failed them both. But she nodded. His heart and his dick thrilled at the permission.
He offered up a small prayer of thanks for the soft, stretchy skirt she wore, for the way his hand could slide beneath it so easily, for the way he could push it up and out of the way around her midsection, revealing the satiny silver panties that shimmered beneath. He marveled at the curve between her waist and the width of her full hips.
He kissed one hip bone, then the other, feeling Winnie’s hips buck ever so slightly. His name, soft as a feather, floated from her lips. He could smell that subtle scent of her arousal, and the knowledge of how wet she already was for him shot a bolt of desire straight to his dick. His need to taste her in the most intimate way nearly overwhelmed him. But it wasn’t time yet.
Moving his body between her legs, he gently spread them until her knees fell apart. He took her in like that, body open to him, breasts bared to him and his breathing became labored. Her eyes met his briefly, opening sleepily with pleasure, before quickly turning to her side with modesty. She probably prayed for a sheet to cover up with, but he’d campaign ardently against such a move. Her body was one to be feasted upon in any and all ways possible.
“Watch me, Briggs,” he said, his voice soft. Her gaze slowly returned to his, and he knew from memory the exact shade of pleasured pink that tinged her cheeks even if the subtle moon light made it impossible to detect. “Watch how I want you.”
He saw her swallow nervously, the hollow of her neck jumping up and down, but she pushed herself onto her elbows to improve her vantage point. The shift in weight changed the shape of her breasts, and they sat fuller, heavier against her ribs. Jesus, he could while away the night with those breasts again. It felt like torture, his need to have his mouth and hands everywhere on the woman all at once.
His dark jeans did little to conceal the magnitude of his desire for her, and he leaned closer to rub his hardness against that soft patch of silver satin between her legs, the delicate fabric that separated him from the only thing he truly wanted in the world. He heard her breath catch in her throat. A groan ripped from his own throat. He felt amazed at how the heat of her, the rightness of the connection of their bodies, could penetrate him so thoroughly even between their layers of clothing.
He grabbed her hips, tightening their connection and shifting his angle so that the hard length of his bound erection could grind against the sweetest bud of her sex. However good it felt to him, and he was quite certain that nothing in his entire life had ever felt so good as stroking the cradle of this woman’s legs with his cock, nothing could compare to the privilege of watching Winnie Briggs’s face slowly unravel with pleasure. Her widened eyes expressing some mix of desire and disbelief. Her full ruby lips parted into the sweetest gape. Her chin titled ever so slightly to the sky, accentuating her sexy neck. Her breathlessness causing her breasts to bounce ever so slightly.
“Cal, please,” she whispered, not sure exactly what she requested, but knowing he’d gladly give it to her a dozen times over.
He thrust across her clit again and again, slowly and methodically, ensuring that the high, sensuous note he played on her with the bow of his body sang on and on without pause. Watching the slow buildup of her desire, watching the frantic need build in her eyes and on her lips and in the involuntary thrusts of her own hips and in the thoughts she couldn’t formulate so that they just fell out of her mouth in erotic moans and gasps, Cal knew he was playing with fire. He knew that his own release wanted to barrel down the door of his restraint. He could picture it so perfectly, unbuttoning his jeans, grabbing the length of his erection with one hand and pulling aside the wet satin of her panties with the other. Plunging himself into her hot, slick
depths. Watching her lush mouth drop open and her eyes close in pleasure as the thick length of his desire stretched them both to the brink.
He forced his breathing to slow down. Forced his mind to return to Winnie’s pleasure and to the other ways he needed to experience her before they both came right through their damn clothes.
“Cal, yes,” she said, her voice so quiet. Her pleasure nearly muted her and somehow, with this woman, it was sexier than if she screamed with desire. Her eyes suddenly turned to his, pleading, desperate, and the look alone was nearly enough to finish him off. “I need… Please,” she started, but couldn’t articulate the request.
He pushed her thighs together, grabbed the elastic of her panties and pulled them off her ankles before spreading her open again. A soft triangle of those most intimate curls framed her sex, and goddamn, he could see how wet she was without even touching her.
He wanted to taste her. To explore the innermost treasures of her body with his mouth. But he didn’t want it as much as he wanted to watch her shatter beneath his touch. There would only be one first chance to watch Winnie climax, and he intended to soak in every detail.
He steadied himself on his knees between the softness of her pale thighs in the moonlight.
“Like this, Briggs?” he asked, his fingers stroking in circles up and down her inner thighs.
She shook her head frantically, her face wild with need for him. For his touch.
“N-no. That’s…” she stammered, her curls cascading down her bare, moonlit chest. “It’s not enough.”
He grinned. He shouldn’t enjoy this sweet torture so much, but he did.
The fingers of one hand raked through the small, sweet patch of hair that framed her sex while another reached up to caress her heaving breast.
“Cal,” she cried in desperation, her voice getting tighter. “Please.”
“Please what?” He knew it, damn it, but he wanted to hear her desperate and dirty words. Just fuck me, she’d begged at his house, on his kitchen table. For the past two days his brain couldn’t stop replaying those three uncharacteristically naughty words that had fallen from Winnie’s tempting mouth.