Holiday Spice & Everything Nice

by Conn, Claudy

  “I’m addicted,” he increased the inner pressure until she bit her lip and closed her eyes with his next words. “I want to see you fall apart again and again. Tell me you will.”

  “Oh God, Riker. I—oh!” She tilted her head and buried her face against his neck. This orgasm went through her hard and fast, like thunder following lightening. And when her body melted and generously spilled hot desire once more, she was mortified until she heard his husky growl.

  “Perfect. Absolutely perfect, darlin’.”

  Chapter Six

  Riker examined Sidney’s Christmas tree from top to bottom and back again. Between the ornament burgeoning sight of it, the aroma of crispy rosemary-roasted chicken filling the room and Christmas tunes on the radio playing softly in the background, he felt a measure of inner peace for the first time in nearly two years. He never thought he’d feel this way about Christmas again. That he’d even like the holidays. But maybe it wasn’t his holiday spirit returning to him. After being banned from the jobsite maybe he was just unwinding. The more he thought about this option, the less convinced he became. And when he toyed with what was the likely cause of his good cheer?

  He shook his head.

  In the short span of less than a day Sidney had managed to remind him of the things in his life he’d been ignoring. Like having a leisurely lunch with a woman he wanted to spend time with. That got him thinking. Exactly when was the last time he’d really wanted to do that? After he and Brianna split he doubted there was a time. Oh, not that he’d sworn off women. Quite the opposite. It was just that he’d gotten really good at marshaling through what usually amounted to a boring time.

  “Do you like it? It’s a stubby one. My parent’s hate it, but you know, after so many years of living in their house where the tree was huge and every ornament was color coordinated and evenly spaced I thought, meh, let’s really kick it up a notch.”

  Riker spun around and smiled. Sidney had put her hair up when she started dinner and the sight of her in the kitchen, well, it did something to him. In a good way. Was this the warm and fuzzies Cosmo was always touting as a sensitive guy’s phenomenon? He’d been one once. The sensitive guy, but not anymore. Hot damn though, she looked terrific with her eyes sparkling as she waited expectantly for an answer.

  “Yes.” And he wasn’t lying when he said, “If given the choice, I prefer your kind of tree over any other. When my family and I…”

  She was still smiling with knife poised and ready to chop the potatoes while she politely waited for him to continue, but he couldn’t. He was shocked that he’d even brought up talk of his family. That was a whole other Christmas gone awry. No wonder he hated the holidays.

  “Hey? Are you okay?”

  She was staring at him and he couldn’t take it. Instead, he turned back around and studied the one strand of lights on her decked out tree that blinked. After his heart stopped pounding like a drum he took a deep breath and said, “Before my parents split we used to have this whole tree decorating party on Christmas Eve. We’d eat tacos and ribs and the guests had to bring an ornament each time. All us kids got to put the new items on every year. It was like Christmas tree Jenga.”

  Her chopping resumed and she called out, “That sounds like fun.” After a moment she added, “But I’m sorry to hear about your parents breaking up. That must have been tough.”

  He stared at a huge candy ornament that was made out of two paper plates with red colored cellophane gathered on each side and tied with shiny green and white striped ribbon. It was big. Too big to be on her small tree and yet it worked somehow. Maybe Sid was good at making things work because she just strung together two things that gave him perspective. His parents’ break up was an awful thing, but he suspected it was more painful as he’d also lost all those future times they could have spent together. There was no rhyme or reason to it. One moment he was having a blast and the next his whole world crumbled. And when his mother and father went on to pursue different lives for themselves with different partners, he and his brother were lost in the shuffle and left to fend for themselves for the most part. And all those future good times? Hell, even the past ones were obliterated.

  “Yeah, it was hard.” That’s the most he was going to say before he redirected the topic. “I like your big candy.”

  “Aww, thanks. My little guys take care of me during the holidays. You should see the paper-mache Easter bunny one of my students made me last year. It looks pregnant and it’s missing a limb, but then I thought, hey, any good-looking lame bunny missing a limb in the wild would be pregnant more often than not, right?”

  He turned and watched as she quietly chuckled to herself and cut those potatoes. That was what was so great about her. She said things that were clever, smart and funny and she didn’t care if you got it because she did. She got a lot of things. She’d said something earlier about her own parents. How she wanted to measure up to be a part of their team. The irony was fucking fantastic, now that he thought about it. This was probably the initial draw between them. He couldn’t be a part of the team as his parents split and she couldn’t be a part of the team as her parents were too tight. It all boiled down to loneliness, he supposed, one way or another. And looking at Sidney now he saw it. She wanted him there for more than just the “messing around” they’d been doing, and he wanted to be there even with no messing around at all.

  “Hey, these shouldn’t take too long and all I have to do is slice the cucumber for the salad. You wanna set the table?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She was dead on with the timing. It was only twenty minutes later when she put a steaming plate of food in front of him and Riker learned something else about her. She could cook. The chicken was moist, the potato perfectly seasoned and the salad? “Did you make your own dressing?”

  “Yeah, do you like it?”

  “It’s really, really good. Everything’s good.” He took another bite of the chicken and closed his eyes. He wasn’t going to groan, but he sure did feel like he wanted to. The meat literally melted in his mouth. Damn.

  “I hope you don’t mind sitting at the table. With the extra bowls for salad I figured the couch was out.”

  “No, it’s nice.” He pointed to the chandelier with his knife and said, “I like your quirky angels.”

  “Thanks. I love those ornaments too.” She eyed them and then him. “I imagine if I had a group of girlfriends that’s what they’d look like.”

  “Quirky?”

  “No, just odd. Each one makes me smile for a different reason.” She chewed on a bite of food and he could tell she was thinking about this. After a moment she added, “Although, if I only had one special girlfriend from the group, mine would be the one hanging in the center, with the soft ice cream cone hair do.”

  When Riker scanned the group and spotted the angel with purple and white coiled hair, he smiled. “She looks like Lady GaGa.”

  Sidney squinted and tilted her head right then left before she nodded. “I can see that.”

  “Her wand’s a little messed up though.”

  “Actually it isn’t. Her wand is supposed to connect with her twin sister’s, but I haven’t gotten her yet.” She put her fork down and adjusted the napkin that was spread over her lap. “I came close two years ago, but I was out bid on eBay. Freaking last minute snipers.”

  He laughed. He couldn’t help it. She was really pissed about this.

  After spearing her next piece of chicken, she went all serious on him. “What about you? Do you have any favorite ornaments that are too special to go on the tree?”

  He finished his last bite, which was the very last morsel on his plate and held off sighing with pure pleasure to answer. “I don’t have any ornaments.”

  “No ornaments? That’s just sad.”

  “You think?” He wasn’t going to go into how he’d packed up all his shit in Denver two years ago and left it there. Those skeletons could stay buried in the heated and cooled storage unit he r
ented for now. “By the look of it,” he hiked a thumb over his shoulder toward her tree, “you have enough for both of us.”

  That thought bubble was over her head again and his heart ached a little as she perked right up and made the offer, “I’ll share…but you can’t have the candy one. Matthew was the first student to have a crush on me. So it’s special.”

  A wisp of bang had escaped her hair tie and Riker reached out to sweep it back behind her ear. He stared right into her eyes and whispered, “Matthew’s got great taste.”

  She didn’t say anything, but then she didn’t have to. He knew what she wanted. Her eyes darkened and her cheeks flushed with color and that was when he knew he’d be fucked, or they’d both be fucking, if he didn’t create some space. Now more than ever he didn’t want to screw things up with her by going too fast. This was the closest he’d ever been to normal and healthy as far as relationships went in a very long time.

  That was a sobering thought. “How about I do the dishes since you cooked?”

  He wanted to gather her in for a squeeze the moment he saw her struggling to hide her disappointment. And then he really wanted to hug the hell out of her when she shrugged, as if his pushing back was no biggie. “I could help.”

  “No, you cooked. It’s only fair.” He stood and gathered their plates.

  “But you don’t know where everything is or where it goes.”

  “I’m sure I can figure it out.”

  He heard her quietly snort as she grumbled something about how that was a miracle as he couldn’t seem to figure out how much she wanted to fu—

  “Sidney Capp.” He put the dishes beside the sink and folded his arms across his chest, leveling a mock disapproving glare her way. “Such language.”

  She laughed before she collapsed on couch and made herself comfortable. With her hands behind her head and one ankle stacked over the other so she was in a position to lie back and leisurely watch him, she said, “Funny thing about language. Take that word for instance. You constantly use it as an adjective while I’d rather be using it in terms of a verb.”

  Water filled the sink as he eyed her over the steam. “I’ll give you a verb.”

  Her deep grin was so cheeky he had all he could do not to dump the dishes to go and dive on her. This little role reversal was proving to be interesting. “I was thinking about backpedaling.”

  “Yeah, you do that a lot.”

  He dunked a plate into the suds as he made a silent note to self. She was going to pay for that one.

  Sidney was in a wonderful place. Right after Riker finished the dishes he joined her on the couch. And after a half hour of her trying to push him to go further, she gave up and just enjoyed the experience. She didn’t know how long they’d been tamely messing around, all she knew was that she was so hot and yet, so relaxed at the same time it was a miracle.

  Every nerve and fiber in her being was awake and ready. Teetering on the edge and yet there was no urgency. Just a deep and steady need that hovered. She didn’t fight it, or push it. She just stayed in the moment, which happened to be great until…

  “What are you doing?” She put her hand over his when he tried to tug up her T-shirt.

  “I’m lifting your top. I want to taste your skin.”

  Gah! She wanted him to taste her skin too, but one look as his smoldering well-after-five-o-clock shadow and gorgeous sex-rumpled hair and she knew why she couldn’t. At least not yet. “Wait. Let me get the lights.”

  Freaking halogen lighting. By it, she saw every pore in his skin, as he hadn’t turned the kitchen lights off, so she knew he’d be able to see her just as clearly. “Please.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She wanted to melt and forget all her imperfections. She never felt this exposed when she’d been with Ken. Although, she’d barely been awake so maybe that didn’t count. Staring up at the ceiling, she saw every pop of the popcorn there. Every dip and shadow in a bad place… and dread built. This was the downside to being with the best looking guy of your dreams. If you weren’t careful he’d see what a naked nightmare you were. After all, there was owning one’s faults and then owning one’s faults under hard white light. “I don’t—there’s too much—” she finally let go of the bottom of her shirt and growled, “—light.”

  The fact that he swooped down and took hold of her T-shirt between his teeth, pulling back and stretching it taut, as he eyed her should have made her smile. Or at least helped to ease the tension somewhat as he looked like the cutest puppy with a chew toy.

  And as he was acting like one she stared down. “Riker.”

  Silence. Stillness. More silence and then, snap, he let go. “Don’t be crazy.”

  She dropped her head back on the couch cushion and sighed, “I’m not. I’d just feel better if we had some mood lighting. Maybe turn off everything but the tree?”

  “You didn’t need mood lighting at my place earlier.”

  “It was a better angle.”

  “A better—? Hey, look at me.”

  She really didn’t want to. At the moment she wanted to slink away, right after she finished the swearing she was silently doing about getting to the gym more often. But seriously, this was one emergency she never counted on having to cover. Riker Mitchell. Her dreamy playboy. Hot and ready to feel her up on her own couch and her squishy ass was worried about it? Hell yeah.

  You better fix this.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve wrecked everything. I have, haven’t I?” Thank God he smiled.

  “No.”

  His hair was such a sexy mess she couldn’t help herself, she reached out and petted it down as she explained. “You know how having junk in the trunk is the in thing today? My junk is kind of scattered. Actually, it’s all over the vehicle. It looks good in certain T-shirts, baggy pants and an A-lined skirt occasionally, but Casper-white naked? I’d be taking a real big risk and I’d probably scare the hell out of you.”

  He didn’t even blink. “Stop it, you’re turning me on.”

  “Riker!” She hadn’t meant to, but she bunched her fist in his hair and tugged. That’s when she saw it. His eyes darkened and his hand at her hip curled like a cat’s does when it’s purring. “Riker?”

  “Seriously, you’re turning me on.”

  “But—”

  “Fuck the buts.”

  Now he used both hands instead of his teeth to lift her shirt. “I love your curves. I love all your softness.”

  He bent and ran his tongue along her exposed abdomen and the most she could do was suck in a breath. “I—”

  “You’re perfect.” He kissed and nipped her belly and hip, dragging his chin over her navel, but that’s where he stopped and pressed in until she tingled right down to her toes. “Once I got my hands on you. When I was spreading that sun cream earlier?” He laid the side of his cheek fully against her belly. His warm breath, skating like an echo over her skin, was heaven. Hell. Paradise. “I thought life didn’t get better than that moment, but now I want another one.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  She didn’t look down. She was trying so hard to forget about the lights. Attempting to push past the images she had in her head of what she’d look like to him once exposed. None of which would be his favorite word, “perfect.” But then he played with the button on her jeans. Plucking on it in a teasing motion. Pulling without undoing it and yes, she wanted him to undo it. She really did. More than she wanted to hide from the light.

  “Riker?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Take your moment.”

  She knew she’d made the right choice, the second she was naked and stretched out on the couch. When he was devouring her with his gorgeous eyes and whispered, “You’re beautiful.”

  She expected so many things then. Him to come over her. Cuddle with her a tiny bit more before he made his move, but his move never came. Instead he stroked and talked to her. He denied her his touch until she panted and begged, and when she’d b
egged enough, he moved down and wedged his broad shoulders between her legs and whispered, “Now I’ll take my moment.”

  And when his hot mouth opened over her, his warm tongue slid against her, his hard muscled arms kept her spread and at his mercy, she gave up. She gave in. It was too much and not enough.

  “Oh, yeah, God…that’s…” She turned her face into the couch cushion and bit her lip. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the idea came to her that she must look a cliché with those words and her actions, but it was true what they say. It felt too good and she was owning it, so fuck them. “Yes! Ohhh…”

  She buried her hands in his hair and pulled him in tight. Screw the light and what she looked like in it. Right now she was taking her moment. She drew him in close and ground herself against his mouth. Pivoting and pushing. She’d never had a guy go down on her before and the sensation was awesome. Unique. The pressure. The silken, velvet pressure. “Riker…”

  God love him he didn’t answer. All he did was suck in a part of her that caused her eyes to roll back in her head, her toes to curl and her whole body to shake like she was leaning up against a sellout concert speaker.

  “Riker.” That was the last word she breathed before her inner muscle turned to jelly while the best parts of her melted. Flowed. And her desire slid right into his mouth.

  After a time her breathing returned to normal and when she stopped shaking, she heard his husky words.

  “Damn, darlin’, you’re absolutely perfect.”

  Chapter Seven

  Riker braced himself as he moved away from her as gently as he could. Unfortunately, she didn’t take any notice of his uncomfortable state. She tossed one way and turned another. All while he kept his could-shatter-at-any-moment appendage out of her fussing range. He was like a slow loris, inching his way up the couch, determined to lie next to her if she’d only stay still. Almost there.

  “You don’t mind if I wear your shirt, do you?”

  She bounced up and the ensuing wave-like movement hit him like a kick to the balls. “No,” he groaned and blew through a series of breaths he’d seen a Lamaze instructor use at the natal clinic he’d remodeled.