by Caisey Quinn
Instead of being pissed, she smiles sweetly at me. “It’s okay. We’ll just get them a little wet. They’ll soften right back up.”
If she’d never said wet, I might’ve been okay.
She runs some water and I watch as she swipes her fingers beneath the stream. She touches the icing gently, and she’s right. It softens and her sprinkles stick.
Relief turns the tension in my chest loose. I didn’t completely ruin her project. Thank fuck.
I continue to watch her, participating when she tells me to. Placing globs of icing here and there, holding gum drops in place until they’re steady.
Apparently pleasing her does it for me. Each time she smiles, the way her eyes shine when she steps back to appraise our residential construction efforts, how she practically bounces on her toes with joy when we complete a house.
As much as I try to convince myself otherwise, I want her. Badly.
Tonight.
Tomorrow.
Every second until she runs screaming from me.
The magnetic pull I feel toward her isn’t just physical, though damn if she’s isn’t even more enticing than the sugary confections surrounding us.
Every foster home they sent me to as a kid, I fucked something up and they always sent me back to Miss Nancy.
Every single one.
Sometimes it was an accident and sometimes it was intentional because I felt safer at the group home.
But being rejected, being a repeated screw up, it messes with your mind. Probably why I started communicating primarily with my fists.
Hollis resumes decorating happily as I watch her work, but I can’t forget the way she treated those kids tonight, the way she handled my icing fuck up just now.
Hollis is kindness and love and compassion rolled into the sexiest possible package.
She would never send a kid back like a defective gift.
I don’t know where the thought comes from, but I can’t shake it.
Somewhere deep and isolated inside me, in a drawer I thought I’d locked forever, a small voice reminds me of little boy me.
I vowed to show them. All of the families that rejected me. I would have a big, fancy place to live some day. Nicer than any of their homes.
And here I am.
I told myself I’d find a beautiful wife and we’d adopt all the children no one wanted. We’d never ever send them back no matter what.
Maybe that’s why I adopt strays from the shelter or why I want to protect defenseless animals.
Because I used to be one.
12
HOLLIS
BABY, IT’S COLD OUTSIDE
Something is happening to Jonah.
I have no clue where he’s going in his mind while I’m busy decorating, but it’s somewhere dark.
His brow is furrowed, his hazel eyes are now flat black and he hasn’t commented once on my off-key singing of Baby It’s Cold Outside.
Lady Gaga I am not.
I desperately want to bring him back to the here and now. A silly and impulse comes over me and I act on it.
After swiping my finger through a large green blob that was almost a tree on the lawn of my latest house, I reach toward his handsome, distracted face.
“Um, Jonah? You got a little something right…” I smear the glob all across his chiseled cheekbone.
“What the hell, Hollis?” He growls at me, wiping the green goo off his cheek. But he only makes it worse.
I can’t help it. I laugh, nearly doubling over at the sight of him.
“Why so serious,” I say in my best Joker voice, adding a red streak to his mouth.
“You’re dead,” he says evenly, reaching for the giant white bag of royal icing. “Good luck getting this edible glue out of your hair.”
“No, Jonah,” I squeal, holding my hands up in surrender. “For real. That icing is not the same as the colored stuff. Please don’t—”
Too late.
He squishes a huge blob onto my head.
But at least his eyes are lighter now. And he’s almost sort of smiling.
I toss a handful of red hots at him.
One sticks to the icing on his face.
Overcome with a fit of giggles, I grab the tray and run around to the opposite end of the counter.
“You think you’re funny?”
I nod adamantly. “If only your former UFC opponents could see you now.”
He grabs the bowl of gum drops. “Let’s see how funny you are, you miniature elf, you.” He starts to run to the right so I do too, until we’re once again at opposite ends of the counter.
“Miniature elf? Them’s fightin’ words,” I declare, armed with a handful of sugar sprinkles. “These are like edible glitter. You’ll still be finding them everywhere months from now.”
Unfazed by my threat, he lunges at me.
Startled, I toss the sprinkles at his face.
“Oh, damn. My eyes,” he cries out.
I freeze where I stand. It’s just like Ma said when we were kids, It’s all fun and games til someone loses an eye.
My stomach tightens. I’ve blinded Jonah X with sugar sprinkles. Only me.
“Oh God, Jonah. I’m so sorry. Get to the sink, we’ll flush your eyes out with the spray-thingy.”
I run to him, like the gullible idiot that I am.
Jonah wraps an arm around me and empties the gumdrop bowl directly onto my head with the other.
Most of them stick to the icing glob in my hair.
His eyes are perfectly fine.
I shake my head. “I can’t believe I fell for that. My brothers would be so disappointed. I should know better.”
Jonah laughs wickedly. I retrieve a gumdrop from the gooey strands on my shoulder and throw it at his chest.
“Wait, wait. If you’re going to get hired on at the WDA, you need a professional headshot.”
He grabs his phone and snaps several photos of me trying to cover my face. I give up and stick my tongue out at him.
“Okay, but seriously, if we don’t rinse this icing out of my hair, we’re going to have to shave my head.”
Jonah nods, setting his phone aside. “You could pull off the bald look. It’ll give you some street cred.”
I should concede defeat.
Half my head is covered in icing and gum drops. He barely has a tiny smear on his face.
He won. Fair and square.
But I grew up with brothers in a household that thrived on competition.
“Please, Jonah? Help me rinse this out? It’s like cement when it hardens.”
I lean over the sink, turn on the faucet and reach for the retractable nozzle.
Jonah comes closer with an apologetic look on his face. “Here, maybe if you—”
Sucker.
He doesn’t get a chance to finish before I nail him square in the chest with the high-powered spray. Then I get him in the face, just for good measure.
His hands come up in a useless defense as he turns his head away from the jet stream.
“Quit! Dammit, Hollis. Stop that.”
I would. But my brothers taught me one very important lesson.
Doesn’t matter who starts the fight, all that matters is who finishes it.
Once he’s sopping wet, literally dripping onto the floor, I ease off the trigger.
“Truce?”
Jonah just stares at me.
“Jonah? Truce? Or you want some more?” I give the trigger a light squeeze and release a weak taunting stream of water. “Thirsty?”
His eyes bore into mine and my nerves threaten to make me cave. Is he mad? Did I take it too far?
My teeth sink into my lower lip as he brings his soaked body so close our chests are touching. Like, full on, my boobs are smashed into his rock hard pectoral muscles.
He touches only my chin, but I feel it everywhere.
“You are so fucking beautiful, Hollis. I can’t figure out if you’re a gift from above or my punishment.”
I swall
ow thickly, air whooshing out of my lungs from the abrupt turn of events.
“Jonah,” I say, hearing the breathlessness in my voice. My hands lift to his shoulders and I don’t think. Lifting onto my tip toes, I crash my lips against his.
He pulls back looking like I’ve electrocuted him. I cover my lips as if I’m ashamed at how they’ve behaved. Before I can apologize, I’m airborne, in his arms, then on the counter. He presses into my personal space. I’m so hot for him I can’t stand it.
“You got a little something here,” he says, kissing me tenderly on the neck.
Jonah’s. Mouth. Is. On. Me.
My head leans heavily to the side, granting him better access. My skin is branded everywhere his lips touch. Another scorching kiss just below my ear. A fire trail blazing across my jawline.
“I knew you would taste so fucking good. Sweet, just like I imagined.”
He imagined how I would taste.
“It’s probably the icing.”
“It’s not. It’s you.”
My reflexes kick in before my brain catches up and I tug at his shirt, needing his mouth on mine again.
“I don’t usually kiss on the mouth,” Jonah says softly. An apology in his tone.
Say what?
I pull back to look at him. “Who are you, Julia Roberts?” It’s possible he’s never seen Pretty Woman judging from his expression.
Whatever.
I’m getting some mouth action. I love his lips and I’ve had to fantasize about that irresistible mouth for two solid years now.
“That’s too bad, because you have a little icing right…” I lean forward and kiss the sugary sweetness off the corner of his lips.
I use my tongue to swipe the icing from his lower lip then I suck it into my mouth, intentionally letting my teeth graze his skin.
His lips are tentative at first, gentle against mine. But when I open for him, he unleashes his tongue, gliding it against mine then pressing harder as if he has to explore every inch of my mouth. Thoroughly.
I moan and that spurs his efforts.
When we finally come up for air, he leans away from me long enough to yank his drenched T-shirt off his body. It lands somewhere in the floor with a loud, wet smacking sound.
“It’s a shame you don’t kiss on the mouth, because you’re really fucking good at it.”
My hands embrace his scorching hot skin, roaming and squeezing and gripping wherever they can find purchase as we resume our heavy make-out session.
“This dress is going to be the death of me,” he groans, pulling the front down below my breasts to expose my red lace bra. His mouth descends into my cleavage and I whimper as he lavishes attention upon one side and then the other.
When he yanks my bra down and takes my left nipple into his mouth, the prevalent ache between my thighs becomes unbearable. I wrap my legs around him, thrusting my hips and grinding against his Santa belt for some relief.
So wrong, so dirty. But too good to stop.
“Jonah,” I cry out when his teeth nip at my sensitive flesh.
“Hollis, if you need me to stop, now is the time. I’m approaching the point of no return here.”
That makes two of us.
“Please don’t stop,” I beg, too far gone to be ashamed of my plea.
I never want this to end. The intimate closeness to this man who keeps everyone at a distance is better than any drug. Having him like this is divine, indulgent bliss, sweeter than all of the icing in the world.
His hands bunch my dress around my waist then pull it over my head.
We work together to remove my bra, then my panties.
I’m stark naked on my boss’s kitchen countertop. Definitely going to leave Erma a note to sanitize thoroughly.
He kicks off his boots then his Santa pants until he’s standing before me in only black boxer briefs with a thick, gray waistband. Jonah’s eyes rake over my exposed flesh. My entire body heats to a dangerous degree.
We’re going somewhere I’ve never been before and the uncharted territory has me entering panic mode.
I’ve made out before. I’m familiar with second base. I’ve even ventured to third a few times. I live with my parents, not in a convent. I given a blow job or two. But other than fingers, I’ve never had a man inside me.
“You have a little icing right here,” Jonah remarks, tracing a finger across my inner thigh.
“We made a mess,” I say quietly.
Jonah nods, bending forward so that his face is level with mine. “Guess it’s time to clean up.”
He dips his head lower, licking the dried icing on my thigh, then moves higher. He places an open-mouthed kiss just inside my groin.
I might pass out.
“Breathe, Hollis,” he says softly. “Lean back.”
I do as I’m told, inhaling deeply and leaning back to prop on my elbows.
If this is happening, I am damn sure watching.
Jonah’s fingers tighten on my inner thighs as he trails kisses from my belly button to my mound of bundled nerves. When his tongue dips down to stroke my clit, I cry out and my head falls backward involuntarily.
My back is on fire as if someone has ignited my spine like a lit fuse.
“You like that?” His eyes flash to mine. I nod. “Fuck, you taste so good.”
Much like our kiss, his tongue is tentative at first, then aggressive, then relentless.
I writhe on the counter as he assaults my most sensitive flesh, simultaneously trying to escape the overwhelming sensations and get closer for more of his oral attention.
When one of his fingers plunges deep inside me, an animalistic noise comes from deep in my throat.
The tension building in my core unravels, tearing through me in one violent wave of ecstasy.
My hips thrust on their own accord, my hands pulling at his hair as I come.
Jonah is suddenly wild, no longer carefully controlling each stroke of his tongue. He’s a starving man, devouring me like his last meal all the way through my orgasm.
“I want to fuck you, Hollis,” he growls once I come back to Earth. “Tell me that’s okay. Tell me you want me inside you,” he pleads, a desperate burning man before me.
I do want him. But I’m also scared of disappointing him. He just made me come in two minutes for goodness sakes. I’m so far out of my depth here, it’s embarrassing. And slightly terrifying.
“I want you, Jonah. Inside me,” I admit.
“You’re shaking,” he observes, the first hint of hesitation on his face.
He’s right. I’m trembling noticeably.
“I’m nervous. I’ve never…”
“Had sex on a kitchen counter?”
I bite my lip and shift my gaze away from his intense one. “Had sex, um, anywhere. Ever.”
His eyes go wide. “Shut up.” He gives a slight shake of his head. “There’s no way. You’re fucking gorgeous and you’re twenty-four.”
“You’ve met my brothers. And I live with my parents. Between that, working for you and at the bar these past two years, there hasn’t exactly been a lot of time to get involved with anyone.”
Jonah’s chest expands with the effort he’s making to breathe normally. His ink distracts me momentarily.
I want to lick every inch of it.
And so I shall.
He stands completely still while I wrap myself around him, kissing and licking his chest and neck as I please.
His scent and the taste of his skin heats my blood, warming me all over once more.
When I reach his mouth, he pulls back.
“I’ve never been anyone’s first,” he tells me gently. “I don’t know that I should be yours.”
Rejection lands hard in my empty stomach. Like a boulder rolling down a mountain, pulling me inward.
His expression is as pained as I feel, mirroring my own remorse and hurt.
“I want it to be you,” I confess, the words exposing my raw nerves.
“Why?”
“Because you know what you’re doing. Because I know you don’t kiss and tell. Because I know you’ll make it worth remembering. A first time I’ll never forget.”
“No pressure, then,” he mumbles, still maintaining eye contact.
“I’ve always wanted it to be you. Since that first day, since the first time you looked at me the way you do.”
There’s always been a hunger in his eyes. A wolfish animal lurking inside of him. Like he wanted to devour me much like he just did.
That’s why there hasn’t been anyone else. All other men pale in comparison to Jonah. None of them have ever looked at me the way he does—have made me feel the way he does.
A fear creeps into my mind that I can’t control. No, not a fear. A universal truth.
All other men will always pale in comparison to Jonah.
So where do I go after this?
13
JONAH
LET IT SNOW
I’ve always wanted it to be you.
Her words imprint themselves onto my black soul.
Her first time isn’t about to happen on a cold granite countertop, so I lift her into my arms and carry her to my bedroom.
For two years I’ve waged a constant war inside myself. Half of me wanting Hollis Rossi more than anything and the other half not wanting to screw up what we have.
She’s my constant. The one person I trust completely. The one wholly good thing in my life.
But now the battle is won. Or lost. I don’t know. The lines are blurred and all I want is more of her.
All of her.
I’m about to make Hollis Rossi mine.
“I’m going to get your sheets all dirty,” she says, gesturing to the icing mess we made in her hair when I lower her to the middle of my bed.
“We’re going to get them dirty,” I correct her.
Her eyes still have a blissed out haze from when I made her come on my tongue in the kitchen.
I want to make her come again, harder than before. So hard she convulses in my arms. I want to make this a night she won’t forget, and hopefully one she’ll want to repeat as often as possible.