Filthy Scrooge

by Taryn Quinn

  “Dick’s out of the bag?”

  “You are a terrible person.”

  “I know. Take care of you.”

  I smiled and said it back, just like always. “Take care of you.” I shoved my phone into my pocket and started back up the pier.

  Where the hell was Linc? I caught sight of him and waved.

  He was holding a white to-go bag from one of the restaurants we’d passed earlier. The half smile he’d been wearing was gone.

  “Hey.”

  A muscle flexed in his cheek. “Ready to get out of this cold?”

  I smiled and tried to hook my arm in his, but he switched the bag to that hand so it was impossible. “Um, yes. More than ready.”

  “Good. I found a spot a little closer now that most of the families have dispersed.”

  I tried to smile up at him, but he was looking straight ahead. “My feet thank you.” I stopped him. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  I frowned. “Right. Then lead on.”

  18

  Scrooge

  “I’ll be home on the twenty-sixth. Don’t worry.”

  “I don’t think we’re going there. There’s little hope on that front.”

  I heard her words again and again in my head as we walked to the truck. We’d made a deal, and I knew she was leaving, but after today…

  My fingers flexed on the bag’s handle.

  After today, I thought there’d been something else between us. So fucking stupid. Why would she want a pathetic guy who got jilted? Not just left at the altar, but left by a woman with another man’s baby in her belly.

  Yeah, that was exactly the kind of man a woman like Kay wanted for a future. But I was damn well good enough for a lay. Multiple days of sex to be exact.

  I was definitely capable of that. And I’d take it. Because if I couldn’t keep her, then I was going to get her out of my system one way or another. Maybe if I fucked her until neither one of us could move then I’d be able to breathe around the shards of glass in my chest.

  The ride back to the cabin was quiet. She tried to fill the space with chitchat, but I couldn’t streamline the rage building inside me. It was all I could do to keep the truck on the road.

  Lake effect blew through and the roads were quickly going from a mere dusting of snow to visibility of two feet. I channelled my anger and found the eerie silence at the eye of a storm. She was intuitive. At least to the fact that I needed quiet to concentrate.

  We’d made no promises to each other.

  How could we? It was two days since we’d met. It felt like years. It didn’t make sense, and I’d lost the fanciful part of me years ago—even before Sheridan. My father had cured me of the ideology that my mother had cultivated. He’d groomed me to take over the business, but a heart attack had moved the timetable up.

  Seemed that time was never quite on my side.

  Finally, I turned onto Everly Lane and engaged the four-wheel-drive to make the final incline. Kay reached into the back and rescued our food as well as the bag of her own purchases.

  She did a little twirl before we got to the stairs, her face tipped up to the sky. The sky held the opaque iridescence of a storm. “That sky is amazing. I can see why you want to be up here as much as possible.” She held her arms out, a bag in either hand as she opened her mouth. “The snow even tastes different from home.”

  “It’s minus the pollutants.”

  She closed her mouth with a sigh. “New York City’s pollutants keep me from getting sick, thanks.”

  “And how do you figure that?”

  “There’s so many terrible things in the city that my antibodies have no choice but to be overachievers.”

  “You have a very strange outlook on the world.”

  She shrugged. “Us city girls are made of sterner stuff.”

  “Good to know.”

  She lowered her bags. “Do I require sterner stuff tonight, Mr. Murdock?”

  Fuck, it was like a switch attached to my cock when she said my name like that. Even with snow swirling between us, my body half frozen from the damn festival, and the finality of her words echoing in my head, I still wanted her. I suspected it would take a damn long time for me to forget her.

  “Yes, you fucking do.” I erased the space between us and slanted my mouth over hers. She tasted of peppermint and chocolate with a dusting of icy snow. She tasted like every dream I hadn’t realized I’d wanted.

  She smelled like home.

  And she was standing right in front of the place I’d longed to turn into one.

  It seemed cruel to waste what she was offering, even if it broke me into two. She sagged in my arms, her bags forgotten in the need to have everything, to demand it all. I pulled back and took the bags, ushering her inside. Once the door was locked, I dropped the bags and swung her up into my arms.

  “Linc!”

  I ignored her surprised shout. I was raging enough to put her down on the stone tiles of the foyer, but I knew it wouldn’t be good for either of us. I needed her in my room, in my space, surrounded by my scents.

  God, I couldn’t deal with the fresh scent of Christmas on her skin.

  I set her on her feet the moment we got to the top of the stairs, and I stripped her of the sweater and my shirt. I groaned at her freed breasts. Knowing she’d been naked against my clothes sent me ever closer to the edge of my control.

  Mine.

  I pushed the possessive thought away.

  Not mine.

  Mine.

  I blocked out that voice and knelt at her feet. I reached under her skirt to find her panties, rolling them down her ass and hips. I left the tights.

  I didn’t know what it was about them—the solid silk-encased legs and thighs made me insane. Especially the little slice at the top of her thigh where the elastic dug into her flesh. I flicked my tongue over the fragile skin along her inner thigh.

  Salty and cool.

  Already wet.

  From before? From the idea of us together? Or the car ride that had been less than comfortable?

  Christ. This woman was going to kill me.

  My cock throbbed against my lower belly, insistent to find its way back into the perfection of this woman’s body. One more time wasn’t going to be enough, even if it had to be.

  I jerked at her skirt until the velvet floated around her ankles. She tried to kick off her boots, but I swung her up in my arms again, giving her no choice but to lock those luscious thighs around my waist.

  Her eyes widened. The sweet summer blue with a hint of wariness urged me to keep my shit in check, but I ignored it. My leash was off. Needing her made me a little insane and knowing she was going to leave had stripped me of the last of my reserves.

  I’d tried to be so careful with her. Her innocence and innate sensuality had been difficult to shore up against. I wanted to own all of it, to make it mine with marks and screams broken from her delicious throat.

  I wasn’t this guy.

  I didn’t leave bruises or teeth marks.

  Until her.

  I spread her out on the bed, raising her arms over her head. I urged her higher until she could reach the headboard. “Hold that and don’t move.”

  She bowed up, her tight nipples teasing me to lean forward and taste them. I only resisted because I wasn’t sure I could stop once I started.

  I grasped her knees and opened them wide enough to kneel between them. She shuddered under my touch, but there wasn’t fear in her eyes. Oh no, it was excitement. I reached behind my neck and pulled the sweater and shirt off together and tossed them across the room.

  Her pussy was on complete display for me. A tiny drop of liquid slid down her slit to her ass. I’d taste every bit of her tonight.

  I coasted my hand roughly over her breasts and down her waist. She dragged in a ragged breath and closed her eyes. Relief? Readiness?

  A bit of both?

  I shucked off my jeans and tossed them
to the floor as well. I stretched her as far as she would go and opened my thighs as well to hold her there. I used the head of my cock to test just how slick she was. I nearly slid into her right then and there. Her body tried to suck me in. The exquisite warmth and silky softness was worse than a siren’s call.

  I grasped the base of my dick to get back on track.

  Teasing her until she remembered this—us—for years to come. That was the goal. The only thing I could focus on.

  I felt her clit along the head of my cock and started there. Little circles as I tucked myself under her hood. Heaven and hell wrapped up in one warm glove.

  She reached for me.

  “Hands back up at the headboard,” I said. My voice was rough and deep. She obeyed immediately, her fingers gripping the leather and wood. “Good girl. Stay there, and don’t move.”

  She writhed under me. “I like touching you. I need to touch you.”

  I swiped the head of my cock through the moisture that had collected at the entrance of her pussy. “I’ll make it worth the wait.”

  “It’s always worth it with you,” she whispered.

  I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to hear her lies. She was still going to walk away as if this was just an exciting chapter in her memoir.

  Would I just be the man who offered up her first true orgasm?

  Or would I barely be a footnote at all?

  I reached for the box of condoms on the bedside table and slid a little deeper inside of her. She hissed out a breath and I groaned before tipping my head back. Her walls rippled around me and I was balls deep before I could stop myself.

  My name was a reverent whisper in the darkness of the room.

  My hips snapped forward in reaction. I’d only been inside one other woman without protection. But it hadn’t been like this. Nothing like her.

  No one would ever be like her.

  Before I could sink back into the heaven that was her body, I pulled out and sheathed myself with latex. The heat was familiar, but I missed the silky grasp of her already. I couldn’t be that careless. It was bad enough that I’d allowed myself even that much.

  Angry at myself and at her for making me so insane, I slammed inside of her again and again. The bed thumped in time with me as the mattress shifted higher. Her arms took every rocking thrust.

  The headboard knocked against the wall and her tits bounced with each measured invasion into her sweet body. I pushed her knees higher to go deeper, to own every part of her. My balls slapped her ass and her boots grazed my ear as I bore down on her.

  She thrashed her head on the bed. A dozen emotions flowed across her features. Her eyebrows wrinkled with the long stroke, then cleared and bliss slowly replaced the discomfort. She was made for me.

  I hated that it was true.

  But I exploited it. I leaned back and closed her legs to put her ankles over my shoulder. I hissed out a breath. Tighter still. My head fell forward. My lips met with deep green tights. I bent her farther back and groaned. Jesus, nothing should feel this good. Not if she wasn’t mine forever.

  She should be mine forever, dammit.

  The realization sliced me in two.

  She whimpered as I resumed the punishing strokes. Her knees were almost to the mattress anyway. I hauled her down to the middle of the bed and rolled her over, tucking her over her knees. “Hug them tightly,” I whispered into her ear.

  Her whole body shuddered under me. She was as lost as I was. I only prayed that I could take her the rest of the way without pushing her too far. I dragged my lips down her spine before I slowly filled her back up again.

  The pace was so much slower, but sweat flowed off me in rivulets.

  She rocked in place and a keening sob decimated what was left of my will to drag this out. She vised around me, her walls shuddering as much as her body under me. I grasped her hair and drew her back against my chest to drive up inside of her until I had no choice but to let go.

  There was nothing but her scent around me. Cinnamon, vanilla, and sex would never be the same. I grasped her hair so tight she cried out and pulsed harder around me. I bit down on the skin between her neck and shoulder, laving my tongue and lips along the pulse there as I emptied myself into the condom.

  I wished it was gone. I wished for a moment that something of us would forever live inside her.

  Mine.

  Ours.

  And hated myself for the errant thought.

  I pulled out of her and left her curled into herself as I stumbled to the bathroom and slammed the door.

  19

  Kay

  “Linc?”

  Confusion dented my overloaded brain. I struggled to sit up. Beard-burn made everything overly sensitive. My thighs, my neck, my breasts—everything was like a live wire.

  I rolled onto my back and slowly uncurled from the fetal position he’d left me in. Honestly, I felt like I got hit by a bus.

  A bus full of orgasms, perhaps. And that part had been amazing. Beyond amazing to be truthful. The Linc who had been with me tonight was the same guy from the first night. A little crazy, a lot sexy as fuck, and he’d made me feel amazing.

  Until…

  I turned to the door and caught sight of the clock on the bedside table.

  12:04 A.M.

  Christmas.

  I rolled to a seated position and groaned as I pushed my wrecked hair away from my face. He’d brought Christmas in with a bang, all right.

  I would’ve laughed except a lump kept trying to take over my throat. With shaking fingers, I picked up his sweater off the floor and tugged it on. It was a scratchier wool than the one he’d gifted me and made my skin go haywire.

  It was just enough to push away the lump in my throat. We hadn’t been exactly the poster children for afterglow since we’d been together. Both of us shut down in different ways, but this felt worse. Crueler.

  Like I’d been a receptacle.

  I padded to the bathroom door and knocked lightly. “Lincoln? Is something wrong?”

  He didn’t answer.

  In fact, he turned on the taps in the shower. After I’d asked him.

  He’d heard me, I have no doubt. The confusion turned to something far more insidious. I crossed my arms over my chest and padded over to the window. The town was still lit up. At midnight, the tree had switched over from the classic white lights to the multi-colored strands. Skaters were on the rink and I could feel the merriment expanding from the town.

  It made the room feel even darker.

  Nothing in this room to show any sense of light and laughter. Even the twisted sheets and pillows on the floor seemed crude compared to the sweetness of the scene down the mountain.

  I tucked my hair behind my ear and padded over to the door when I heard the shower go off. He opened the door with a towel tucked at his hip. Gone was the intense man who’d been on a mission to get me off. Now he was a blank mask.

  Even the first day we’d officially met, there hadn’t been this level of coolness. He’d been amused, and snarky maybe, but not this. Not so remote.

  It’s Christmas.

  I shook my head. I knew it meant bad memories for him, but we’d made good ones, hadn’t we?

  “Excuse me,” he said with a low voice and went around me.

  “Excuse you?” I whirled around, my fingers lost in the long sleeves of his sweater. I pushed the sleeves up and put my hands on my hips. “That’s all you have to say?”

  “What else is there? We had an enjoyable interlude.”

  I took a step back, bumping into the large chair in front of his window. I swallowed down the lump that now had to be the size of a golf ball. “Interlude?”

  He pulled on a white T-shirt and a pair of sleep pants. The bastardized sort of domesticity left me even more unbalanced. “I’m hungry. Are you hungry? I’m going to go make something. Eggs good?”

  My mouth dropped open. Seriously, the catching flies, dumbfounded kind of dropped open.

  “Well, if you do
, come on downstairs.”

  I slowly sank into the chair and clutched my shaking fingers together. I knew there was a level of casualness to this. At least there was supposed to be. From the first night, I’d felt more—he’d felt more. I was convinced of it.

  I rushed out after him and down the stairs. He was in the kitchen at the griddle again, a huge batch of fluffy scrambled eggs taking form with bacon popping along the side.

  “So you are hungry.” He reached up and grabbed two plates. “There’s juice in the fridge if you want to do it up as a proper early breakfast.”

  I didn’t know what to think. It was like he was two different men. “Did I do something wrong?”

  His shoulders tensed a little, but it was the only outward sign that I was right to feel so out of sorts. “Of course not. You’re an amazing lay, Kay.”

  “I beg your pardon?” I couldn’t have heard that right.

  He turned to me with the spatula in one hand and a piece of bacon in the other. “You had me fooled.”

  “About what?” I fisted my hands at my sides.

  He crunched on the bacon, then licked his lips. “Surely your lack of experience was only a technicality.”

  A red haze that had nothing do with Christmas lights or a Santa suit blinded me for a full thirty seconds. I couldn’t remember picking up the bowl from the kitchen island but suddenly it was flying across the room at his head. “How dare you!”

  He ducked and pushed the food down the counter. “Get a hold of yourself.”

  “A hold of—” I picked up a tea kettle and launched it at his head. He moved again and it hit him squarely in the middle of his back. Water splashed up from the open spout when it landed on the tile.

  He crossed the room in two strides and grabbed my arm when I went for the fruit bowl. “Miss Kane, control yourself.”

  “No. You don’t get to call me Miss Kane now. You don’t get to say these ugly words on this day just because you’re a miserable son of a bitch! How dare you be so cruel.” I didn’t know the tears were coming until I was blinded by them. “You’re a hateful person. How could I have been so stupid?”