by Zoe York
They walked to the coffee shop, where he got a decaf latte and she got a hot chocolate, and then they strolled down to Ocean Boulevard.
“Have I ever seen you running up and down the beach?” Chelsea asked. The public beach was bracketed on either end by military access points.
Ben laughed. “Maybe. You’re the math teacher. What are the chances?”
“Depends how many recruits there are and how many times over the last six years I’ve sat here and watched them.” She gave him an innocent look. “Which is definitely not many. So pretty low.”
“You’re more likely to have seen me sitting down here on my down time. Especially now, except I was away until recently.”
“Overseas?”
“Yeah. A six-month tour.”
She had questions, but they were nosy, and it wasn’t her business. “You got back just in time for Christmas?”
“Yeah. I don’t have any plans, though.” He cleared his throat and looked back to the water. “I love the beach in the winter the most. It’s quiet, and the waves are…they help me think.”
“They never stop.”
“Exactly. They’re reliable.”
When so much in life is not. Chelsea could read between the lines, although she wasn’t sure how much of that was being thoughtful and how much was based on what she knew of military life from television.
A conversation for another time.
Ben hooked his arm around her waist and tugged her close. “What are you thinking?”
“That I don’t know much about military life, even though I’m surrounded by it.”
“What do you want to know?”
She shook her head. “Nothing right now. And…later? I dunno. Whatever you want to share. But if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine, too. We can always talk about math.”
He laughed out loud. “All right. What are the chances I would end up in your art class and living next to you at the same time?”
“Even rarer than the chances of me seeing you running on the beach,” she whispered.
He brushed a windblown strand of hair off her cheek. “One in a million?”
“At least.”
“And yet here we are.” He leaned in and captured her lips with his, a soft, questing kind of kiss that promised more to come.
seven
The instructor passed the towel to Ben, then returned the lights in the room to full brightness. Chelsea blinked to readjust her vision.
“That’s a wrap on part one, folks. Have a safe holiday, and I’ll see you back here on the twenty-seventh for our second intensive block with a new model. Ben, thank you so much for being a part of this learning.”
He waved the hand that wasn’t holding a towel over his private parts. “I’ll go get dressed, then come back to say goodbye.”
Chelsea smiled on the inside. He wasn’t saying goodbye to her, though.
She’d woken up to a note slipped under her door. His name and phone number scrawled on a piece of paper, with a single line message: See you after class tonight.
That note had carried her through the day, and now they were done. No longer artist and model, just next-door-neighbors who had shared a few toeing-the-line kisses.
This time, it was Chelsea who waited at the coffee shop, and Ben’s face split into an eager grin as soon as he spotted her.
He took her art case and offered her his hand. “Walk you home?”
Her breath caught in her throat, and heat pooled low in her belly. Yes.
When they climbed the steps to their side-by-side apartments, Ben handed back her portfolio case.
“Go inside.” He brushed his thumb against the swell of her lower lip. “I want to do something.”
Curious and confused, Chelsea let herself into her apartment.
He knocked as soon as the door closed between them.
Smiling in a dorky, I-love-this-weird-thing kind of way, she opened it back up again. “Yes?”
“Hey,” he said, leaning against the door frame. “My name is Ben, and I just moved in next door.”
“Nice to meet you.” She held out her hand. “I’m Chelsea.”
He wrapped his fingers around hers, a delicious warmth curling up her arm from the contact. “I don’t want to be presumptuous—”
“Please do,” she whispered.
He drew their hands to his mouth, twisting his hold on her so he could brush his lips against her knuckles. “I’m all alone for the holidays. I was wondering if you might like some company.”
“What a coincidence, I’m on my own for the next few days as well. What did you have in mind?”
He stepped inside and swept her into his arms. As the door closed, he pressed her into the wall, his mouth finding hers in a hungry display.
That was an excellent start.
This time, she wouldn’t be telling him to stop. When his hands found her bare waist under the loose hem of her shirt, she arched into his touch, and he lifted her up.
Her legs went around his waist as if they had done this a dozen times before. He fit just right against her body, his erection finding the vee of her legs with breathtaking accuracy. There. Oh, God, if she came from dry-humping just inside her front door, she might be mortified. But she’d also be so ridiculously happy it might not matter.
“Ben. Bed.”
He laughed and kissed her again. “Hold on tight.”
She squealed as he pivoted and navigated through her apartment, not letting go until he set her down on her mattress. He only let go long enough to kick off his boots, then he took care of her shoes, too, before crawling on top of her.
“I want you naked. You’ve already seen me. I need to catch up.” He pushed up her flowy blouse and lay a line of hot, open-mouthed kisses up her midsection. As he teased the swell of her breasts where her flesh met her bra, she undid the button on her jeans and wriggled them off.
Ben glanced down between their bodies once they were naked and groaned. “Look at you,” he said reverently. “So pretty.”
She felt it, too, under the burning inspection of his gaze. He dragged his hand down her body to cup her hip, his fingers curving around her bottom. She squirmed, wanting his touch even closer to her core.
“I need a taste.” He rubbed his nose against the outside of her panties, then growled deep in his throat. “God, Chels.”
She closed her eyes and tipped her head back as he tugged the soft cotton to the side, revealing her wet, swollen pussy.
Time stood still as he breathed her in, then raced forward as soon as he touched her bare skin. One sensation slammed into another as he stroked, then licked, exploring her sex with his fingers and tongue. His whole mouth.
She arched into his ministrations, dying inside from how good it felt, so damn good, like nothing she’d experienced before.
Ben took his time. He feasted.
And when she got close, and her legs started to shake, he doubled-down, doing exactly what had worked and not stopping until she shattered. Even as her orgasm rocketed through her body and she pushed his mouth off her sensitive bits, he kept kissing her, his face buried in the soft junction between her leg and her pussy.
When she peeled her eyes open and looked down at him, he was smiling up at her.
“That was so hot,” he whispered. “Want to do it again?”
“I’m a little sensitive,” she whispered back. “Maybe after I return the treat?”
His eyes lit up. “You want to?”
She nodded. “But I can’t move right now, so you’re going to have to come here.”
Slowly, carefully, he crawled up her body, tugging her sheet with him. “Don’t want you to get cold,” he murmured as he covered her. Then he sprawled out against the headboard, and she shifted around so her head was in his lap.
When she reached for his heavy erection, he covered her hand with his. “Take a minute to recover,” he said softly. She could get addicted to that look in his eyes, the one that said he had endles
s patience for her pleasure.
It was almost certainly a holiday spell, too good to be true in the long run, but Santa himself couldn’t have created anything better for her this year. “I need a taste, too,” she said softly, licking her lips. “Don’t make me wait.”
Ben groaned and fisted his cock. “I won’t. You want this?”
She nodded, her head rolling against his thigh, and opened her mouth.
He fed her just the tip, letting her lick the pearly pre-come off first, then explore the wide crown, before pushing more of his thick length against her tongue.
Chelsea squeezed her thighs together, already aching to have him inside her as well.
The clean, masculine scent of him swirled around her as she slowly pulsed her mouth up and down his length. She loved the way he felt against her tongue, the sounds he made as she reached her limit, then slicked back. Wet, sloppy, and yet gentle the whole time, it was the most tender blowjob she’d ever given.
And as his hand snuck under the sheet to cup her breast, and then lower, it turned into the most erotic one, too.
She was slippery for him, and she loved the way he groaned as he discovered that. He’d done that. He’d lapped up everything she had, and made her slick for him all over again.
She sucked harder, wanting to give him that same startling, perfect joy. She wanted him to come in her mouth, too, so when he warned her he was closed, she firmly sealed her lips around his girth and went as deep as she could.
With a shout, Ben spurted down her throat, one hand tangled in her hair, the other knuckle deep in her slit.
She held him in her mouth until he softened, then rolled onto her back and licked her lips. She grinned up at him. “We didn’t even get to have sex.”
“That was sex by any definition I’ve ever used.”
“Good point.”
He tugged the sheet off her body. “But I think you’re right, there’s more we can do in round two.”
Ben talked a good game about letting Chelsea rest, but inside his chest beat a terrifying need for more of her, all of her, immediately.
That intense, primal reaction wasn’t scary. Shocking, yes, but it felt right all the same. He couldn’t let it out, though. He wasn’t so far gone for her that he had lost sight of the fact they had just met, and only one day earlier she’d slammed the brakes out of a sense of being proper and ethical.
Nothing stood in their way now—this wasn’t wrong—but it was damn fast. He had never tumbled head over heels for anyone before.
“How do you want me?” asked the beautiful, naked woman sprawled on his lap, dragging him out of his complicated, secret feelings and back to the lucky task at hand.
Round two.
“Just like that,” he rasped, sliding out from beneath her. He didn’t go far, just grabbed his wallet from the floor. He’d bought a box of condoms that morning, in the spirit of Christmas hope, and made sure to slide a couple in next to his driver’s license.
He kissed his way back up Chelsea’s bare leg, nudging her thighs apart as he covered her body with his.
His cock lay heavy between them, nestled against her warm, slick pussy. She moved beneath him, rocking her hips up to rub against him in invitation.
His plans to slowly work her toward the main event flew out of his mind. “You want me already?”
“Mmm, yes please.”
Please. The sexy little teacher was so polite. It did things to his heart—and his cock. The blood flow increased, making him pulse in eager need to get inside her.
Her legs spread wider still, soft and pretty, as he looked down between their bodies and fit his cock against her pink entrance. Fuck, that was hot, watching the thick crown of his erection disappear inside her.
The tight, hot squeeze of her body made him see stars, magical Christmas stars, and with a groan, he pushed all the way inside, seating himself in her in one fluid thrust.
She breathed his name and wrapped her legs around his waist.
Oh, fuck yes. He tangled his fingers in her hair and brought their mouths together. They kissed as they found a rhythm together, a rolling, thrusting twist of muscles and soft swells. She fit his body perfectly, her husky voice the music he didn’t know he’d been missing in his life, and when she dug her fingernails into his shoulder blades and cried out, he knew he was a goner.
He fucked her faster, carrying her through her orgasm, then he tumbled himself, a jerky, stuttering slam of his hips against her bottom. His climax made the edges of his vision go dark, and then those stars returned, but through it all, he never lost sight of her blissful expression.
Chelsea, his wild woman of abandon.
Heart thumping a mile a minute, he dragged his giant body off her, and fell to the side. He dealt with the condom, then he dragged her on top of him. “That’s better,” he muttered. “I was crushing you.”
“I liked it,” she whispered. “You on top of me. I liked it a lot.”
That made two of them.
eight
Chelsea’s bed was empty when she woke up, but the scent of coffee and the sound of happy whistling reassured her that Ben hadn’t gone far.
She dashed to the bathroom and fixed her frightful hair, and brushed her teeth. Then she joined him in the kitchen, where he was reading an article on his phone, wearing nothing but a low-slung pair of gray sweats. He must have gone next door for a change of clothes and come back to make her coffee.
A girl could get used to the way his gaze burned as soon as she appeared, the way he caught her in both arms and pulled her right up against him, like he’d missed the way she fit against his body.
The good morning kiss was long, and the hug even longer.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
“I get up pretty early. Hope you don’t mind I helped myself to some coffee.”
“What’s mine is yours.” She accepted the mug he handed her. “Especially when you have this ready for me when I get up.”
He grabbed a piece of note paper from the counter, but not before she read it.
* * *
Gone back to my place to shower
I’ll be back soon to make you coffee
* * *
She caught his hand, set down her mug, and pushed up on her toes to lay a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Are you really this sweet?”
He leaned back against the counter and plastered her against his front, his hands dropping to cup her ass. “I’m not sweet.”
“That was a thoughtful note.”
“Self-preservation.” He shrugged it off and kissed her, so she let it go. After a tingle-inducing mini-make-out session, they finished their coffee on the couch.
As she got up to refill her mug, Chelsea caught sight of her phone, abandoned the night before on the coffee table.
Three text messages from her sister waited once she typed in her passcode. Two were from the night before.
Hannah: Isn’t tonight the end of the class? Did you make your move?
Hannah: I hope you’re ignoring me because you’ve convinced him to go back to your place for a private session.
The third was from this morning.
Hannah: Happy Christmas Eve Eve.
Chelsea decided to reward the restraint and text her sister back.
Chelsea: How are the future in-laws?
Hannah: Enough about me, have you kissed the naked man yet?
Chelsea: Oh yes.
Hannah: WHAT. Can I call you?
Chelsea: I’m not alone.
Hannah: He slept over?
Chelsea: I don’t kiss and tell. But he had coffee waiting for me when I woke up.
Hannah: I knew it. I knew he liked you. I can’t wait to tell this story at your wedding.
Chelsea: Gotta go. Happy Christmas Eve Eve to you, too.
She put her phone on airplane mode to ensure no more text messages came in until she was emotionally prepared to read them, then went to t
he kitchen for more caffeine. When she returned to the living room, Ben was standing, looking at the collection of framed pictures over her craft nook. She joined him.
“Is this your family?” He ran his finger over a picture from a few Christmases ago. The whole gang in Santa hats and bathing suits in her parents’ backyard.
“Yep.”
“Do they live nearby?”
“My parents are in Carlsbad.”
“So close, but not too close.”
She laughed. “Pretty much. My sister’s in San Diego, and my brothers…” She trailed off. He hadn’t asked for the whole saga.
But maybe he wanted it. “Sounds like there’s a story there?”
She shrugged. “I’m the third of four kids. Two older brothers, and a younger sister—you met her briefly, Hannah. Both of my brothers moved away for work, and they’re both expecting babies this winter. My parents are over the moon, and have embarked on a massive road trip to see both expectant moms—and have a little holiday of their own, too. They haven’t even given a return date, which is fine.”
“And Hannah?”
“She went to her boyfriend’s family’s cabin in Lake Tahoe. She’s gone for two weeks, and I’m thrilled for her—they’re getting serious, and this is a big step. But I’m a little mopey going from…” She pointed to the pool picture. “That, to this.”
And then she realized how that sounded, and groaned. “Except this is a lot of fun, too.”
Ben just chuckled. He pointed to another photo, where Chelsea was posed in front of the Eiffel Tower. And she wasn’t alone. “Is this one of your brothers?”
She groaned and covered her face with her hands. “That’s an ex. Really ex, we broke up a year ago. I just really liked that trip, and it wasn’t a bad breakup. And now I’m rambling.”