“I’m nice, Daniel. That’s not the same as patronizing. Plus, you’re already kind of an asshole.”
The tiniest laugh sparked in the dark room, and his muscles softened in her embrace.
“I never let myself really have a crush on you, because I assumed you hated me,” she said. “But I wanted you, like I’d never wanted a guy before. More than I probably have since.” And for a long time she’d assumed that attraction had been inflated in her memory, some trick of teenage hormones, or blown out of proportion in its one-sidedness, its impropriety, amid all that longing. But lying against him now, smelling his skin, feeling his voice vibrate through both their bodies... “I still feel it. As much as I did then.”
A long, reedy exhalation escaped him.
He doesn’t believe me. “You used to wear a gray sweatshirt,” she said. “Every day, practically.”
“Yeah.”
“It was a size medium from Old Navy. I know, because once, when you guys were practicing, I smelled it.”
He made a funny little noise, a flustered huff warmed by amusement.
“I felt stupid doing it,” she went on. “And scared, like someone would come up from the basement and catch me, and know. But nobody did. I sort of held it to my nose for a minute. I studied the tag, and how the cuffs were frayed. One of the grommets for the drawstring was missing.”
After a long pause, he said, “Your hair used to smell like strawberries. And you wore the same scarf every winter from maybe eighth grade until we graduated. Red and black stripes.”
She smiled. “I still have it. It’s in my suitcase. Shawn saved up his money and bought it for me. He must have been about eleven. It’s from Hot Topic.”
His ribs hitched in a little laugh.
“I dragged him in there while our parents were waiting in the RMV for something. I’d forgotten I’d even mentioned wanting that scarf until Christmas morning. He’d never done anything that thoughtful for me before that, not since he’d been really little, anyhow.”
“If it makes you feel like any less of a creeper, if I’d been alone in a room with that scarf, I probably would’ve smelled it,” Daniel said.
She splayed her fingers over his heart. It was beating fast beneath taut muscle and the skin she’d never imagined she would ever touch. Boldly, she slipped her palm under the hem of his shirt and up his hard belly and chest. His only response was a silent gasp that swelled his ribs. The heat of him took away her breath. She felt the chest hair he hadn’t had back when she’d first lusted for him, and the firm bulk that a physical job had put on his frame.
“Daniel.”
He swallowed audibly. “Yeah?”
She slid her palm back down, taking in the planes of his bare body before slipping her hand from under his shirt. “Turn over.”
He did. Carrie’s vision had adjusted to the ambient light, and she could see emotions in his eyes that she never had before. Vulnerable ones. Uncertainty and wonder. And fire. She did the thing she’d fantasized about so many times, so many years ago, and touched his face. His jaw was stubbly, and it felt good against her palm. As their noses brushed, his eyes closed, but not Carrie’s. She watched a furrow gather between his brows, watched his lashes quiver. With a final breath, she pressed her lips to his.
Warm, soft, smooth skin contrasted with his rough chin. She shivered.
His fingers slid through her hair to cup her head, and all at once, his hesitance was gone. His hold was needy and loaded. With a tiny moan, he angled his face and kissed her deeply. It could have been his fingertips between her legs for the way her body reacted. Her desire drew tight in her belly and her arousal demanded more, begged her to wrap her legs around him and feel the evidence of his excitement pressed against her. The blankets were as maddening as a straitjacket.
His tongue stroked hers with a boldness she wouldn’t have expected, and through the covers she sensed his hips moving. She let his face go to touch him, memorizing his shapes—the firm swell of his backside, the dip at the side, the hard bone of his hip. The touch only spurred him. His kisses and thrusts intensified, and the fingers in her hair slid down her back under the covers. Carrie eased her hand beneath his pajamas. No shorts. Just her palm on his bare ass. The kiss fell apart. Daniel’s lips fled hers to settle against her throat with a groan.
She touched his belly next, thrilled by the taut planes of him, and the sprinkling of hair from his navel to his waistband. His breaths steamed against her skin and he palmed her butt.
As her own hand slid lower, she realized this moment was nothing like the one she’d lived a thousand times over in her teenage fantasies. She’d always imagined her fingertips brushing the cool metal of the buckle and the studs of that old belt Daniel had always worn back then, and the thick denim of his jeans. Not all this soft flannel closed only by a drawstring.
He was stiff already, kicking her pulse into overdrive as she kneaded him through the fabric. He grew harder. Longer. Thicker and heavier until his desire beat against her palm.
“Carrie.”
You don’t talk during sex, huh? Oh, she’d see about that. She rubbed him until he was panting and she was aching, and the hand on her butt was squeezing in a thoughtless, distracted rhythm.
She plucked the bow of his drawstring free and slipped her fingers under his bottoms, their tips met by soft hair, then hot skin. She was poised to take her time and draw out the teasing for the both of them, when Daniel’s hand covered hers, wrapping it around his erection with a curt moan.
She gasped, but Daniel mistook her excitement for alarm. He let go of her. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She gave him a squeeze to prove her hand was right where she wanted it.
“I can get kind of pushy,” he murmured. “When I’m...”
“I don’t mind. As long as you’re not too rough.” The thought of this cagey man losing control and turning gruff, proving that he had needs and desires... No, she didn’t mind at all. “I’d like to see you like that. Passionate.”
“That’s a nice way to put it.”
That was Carrie, always taking a highlighter to the positive. And Daniel was just the opposite, she imagined, underlining whatever disappointments affirmed his surly worldview. Well, she wouldn’t be leaving him disappointed tonight. She’d get him so hot all those storm clouds would burn away to nothing.
“There are condoms in the bathroom,” Daniel said between harsh breaths. “Should I get them?”
She nodded, releasing him. She kissed his forehead. “Yeah. Get them.”
He left the bed, hand cupped to his erection. The shyness of the gesture charmed her. The bathroom lit up, blinding after all that darkness. As Daniel was about to return, she called, “Leave the light on—but close the door partway.”
He eased it half-shut behind him, looking at her.
“A little more.”
He shut it another inch.
“Perfect.” The closest they’d get to mood lighting in this, the world’s least romantic honeymoon suite. “Now come to bed.”
7
DANIEL’S BLOOD WAS pumping so quickly it was as if he’d never taken a drink. The wine’s haze had burned away the second Carrie had rolled over and touched his shoulder. He’d waited too long for any kind of sensual contact with this woman. His body wouldn’t stand to dampen it.
As for whether Carrie was still feeling the wine...
What she’d said about his jacket, that couldn’t be made up. Only someone who’d suffered from the same infatuation Daniel had could’ve thought of such a thing. But no one had ever expressed those kinds of feelings to him before. He believed her, but he couldn’t begin to absorb it or own it or even trust it.
What his body wanted from hers, though, that was a fact he felt in every cell. He had no choice but to surrender to it.
>
He set the condom on the nightstand, barely believing what he was looking at. Carrie Baxter, in bed. She was sitting up, hugging her knees and the covers, waiting for him. He took a moment to simply study her.
She smiled. “Yes?”
“Just looking at you. Trying to figure out how this is happening.”
“Fate?” she offered. “Christmas miracle?”
“Like a really dirty made-for-TV movie?”
She nodded. “Let’s hope so.” She moved to her knees, reached for him. He still had one hand cupped over his crotch, and she took his wrist and gently moved it away. Hooking her fingers under his waistband, she drew him closer, and he stepped forward until his knees were touching the mattress. His breath fled as her hand closed around his hidden cock, the pleasure a bolt. The world spun and he put his hand on her shoulder, steadying himself.
With a tug, she exposed him, and that eager hand closed around his pounding erection.
“Carrie.”
She touched him as though he mesmerized her. As he’d never been touched before—with patience and wonder. The contact warmed him through. She made him feel soft things, sensations Daniel didn’t tend to attract. And maybe for the first time ever, he didn’t want to rush past the polite pregame stuff to the sex itself. This felt so good. Not like usual.
Though he knew it made him a jerk, Daniel hated foreplay. It asked of him things he wasn’t good at giving—patience and finesse and attentiveness. He knew what he was good at, what he had to offer. It was rough and fast and intense, and usually blessedly impersonal. It wasn’t that he disliked the women he hooked up with. It wasn’t laziness, not even selfishness...not quite. It was fear of all that soft stuff. Fear of being bad at it. Or incapable of it. Fear of proving himself broken.
But this, he thought, eyes shutting as Carrie’s hand stroked and measured. This could go on forever. She made him helpless in a way that liberated him, as if his anxieties simply didn’t apply tonight.
The room was hot. The world was hot, the ice storm swallowed in the heat wave. Daniel let go of Carrie’s shoulder to peel off his shirt. Her gaze took him in. That, he was used to. There was something that certain women liked about how he looked that apparently trumped his sour personality enough for him to get laid. His job kept him fit, and the way Carrie’s eyes moved over him.... Yeah, the risk was worth it on a whole different level, just now.
The pressure was building in him, hot and maddening. He took her hand and moved it away, cool air enclosing his feverish flesh. He flung the covers wide and got to his knees between her legs. She welcomed his body as he lowered himself, her slim thighs wrapping around his hips. He braced himself on his arms, stroked his cock along her sex. His bottoms and her yoga pants were cruel, but the tease felt good. He didn’t want to rush tonight. Didn’t want to miss a second of this.
“You feel good,” she said, stroking him from the shoulders to the wrists.
“You, too. What do you like for...you know, foreplay.”
“I like this,” she said, thighs squeezing his hips. “And kissing. Touching. Anything. I just want to mess around with you.”
Mess around—yes, exactly. The clumsy, excited experimentation that typified teenage sex. He moved, drawing her against him, facing, on their sides. She brought her leg up, hugging it to his hip.
“Wait.” He eased her leg away and reached between them to push her stretchy bottoms down. His thumbs found no underwear, and his excitement surged.
She helped him get them all the way off, and Daniel studied her as she stripped away her tee. Between her legs, she was just as he’d always imagined. The girl who’d shunned makeup had grown into a woman who kept things natural. And her bra was simple, just tan cotton. Her sexuality was all in her body—a physical expression, not a trick of packaging. Her body fascinated him. It was lean and vital, probably boyish by popular standards, but she’d been shaped by her talents and her passion. Her hands weren’t soft. She had calluses, from climbing, he guessed. He loved things like this about her. All that imperfection and humanity and evidence of living. Her personality, perfectly translated to her physical being. He wished he felt so united himself. His body was the doing of his job, his disposition a thing to be endured.
“Here,” she whispered. Slender fingers slipped under his waistband, and together they pushed his pants down. Daniel eased her onto her back, ran his hands beneath her to undo her bra clasp. She stripped it away and rolled back onto her side, their naked bodies pressing flush.
“Oh.” He had to shut his eyes and just feel this. Every square inch of her naked skin against his. Her small, smooth breasts against his chest, the soft hair between her legs tickling the underside of his cock. Her mouth sought his, and Daniel let his kiss tell her everything he felt for her. He was aching, needy, a little unsure, utterly eager. Things he never expressed through sex—never expressed, period. She brought up her leg and he shifted his hips, his erection pressing along her lips. That changed things, transformed his excitement, making it dark and chaotic and as hot as a jungle. Fiercely biological. It got his hips moving, every instinct demanding he angle his cock and drive it deep. She was wet, their contact a mix of friction and slickness, the latter soon dominating. He moved faster with every breath and every tease of her tongue against his. His hands roamed hungrily over her body.
All at once she wasn’t kissing him anymore. Her breaths were heavy and harsh on his jaw, her fingers clutching at his hair, hips frantically mirroring his with every gliding stroke. Holy shit.
“You going to come?” he whispered, his palm riding the restless muscles of her lower back.
“Yeah. I am.”
“From this?” He made it quicker, their bodies practically quarreling.
“Don’t stop.”
Not for a billion dollars. Not if the motel was burning to the ground around them.
His heart was pounding, pulse thumping everywhere in his body. Cock throbbing and begging to be quenched.
Then she touched him in a way that transcended sex—stroked him in some pleasurable place suspended between his dick and his brain and his heart. She said, “Daniel.”
Her body went stiff, her fingers grasping his hair nearly hard enough to hurt.
He kissed her forehead as she rode her orgasm, urging her hips with his palm. “Good.” When she stilled, he slipped his hand between them, fingertips seeking her clit. She jerked at the contact, then eased. He held still, wanting to feel the pulsations and record the rhythm of her excitement. Wanting so much more. To make it happen again against his fingers or his tongue.
He was good at giving women head, but not for reasons he was proud of. Jerk or not, he believed the woman came first, and oral kept the intimacy contained. As deeply personal as the act was, it felt safe to him. It demanded no eye contact, precluded the dirty talking he found so deeply awkward. And it was a giving act, feeling like it earned him the fast, urgent sex he favored.
But with Carrie, he wanted the contact only. Not the safety. He wanted to know what she tasted like and smelled like, wanted her hands on his head, and her moans and sighs filling the room.
When her breathing slowed, he began to move his fingertips against her softening clit. Her palm had grown hot and damp on his neck, and she squeezed him there.
“You want to...?”
“Not yet,” he murmured and kissed her temple. “Lie back.”
* * *
CARRIE FELT DRUNK on the orgasm. Wine had nothing on infatuation. She did as Daniel urged, her head finding the pillow, her back the rumpled covers. As he moved, she admired all that lean muscle. His body matched the intensity of his face and his personality perfectly. She was excited to watch those muscles really work, braced above her, but no—he moved down on the bed.
Oh.
He got positioned on his elbows and she stroked his hai
r. “You’re full of surprises.”
He met her eyes, his face in shadow. “You like this, right?”
She nodded. “I’ll miss your voice, though.”
“I promise you won’t be thinking about that in a minute.”
Her smile fled the second his tongue glanced her clit. Her short nails raked his scalp and the breath left her in a gasp. She was still sensitized there, though the too-much shock of it was good. Everything with Daniel felt saturated, hyperreal.
He was amazing with his mouth. Every slick, firm stroke wound her tighter. But it wasn’t right. Not quite. He felt too far away with Carrie on her back and his face obscured.
“Wait,” she whispered, tracing his ear.
He pulled back, looking expectant.
“Would you mind kneeling on the floor? Or is that too—”
It wasn’t. He was on the carpet in a breath.
“This side,” she said, swinging her legs over the edge. “I want to see you.”
He came around to kneel before her. So much better with that handsome face lit dramatically on one side. She didn’t lie back, but instead curled in a bit, cupping his head as he brought his talented mouth back to her sex. Her heels rubbed at his shoulder blades as his tongue slid deep, and his hands gripped her hips, rough and possessive. He felt close now that she could hold him this way. He felt like hers.
“That’s amazing,” she murmured.
His lids were shut and she traced his brows, willing his eyes to open. But he seemed lost in concentration. She hoped this felt as wonderful to him as it did to her. Was he tasting the evidence of how badly she wanted him, of how good he’d made her feel?
As the pleasure grew, her hands moved to his neck and shoulders, rubbing, grasping, kneading.
“I want you,” she said, eyes shutting. “So much.” He could stand right now, sink deep with a single push and let her feel his excitement pulsing, hugged by her own. She tugged at his shoulders. “Daniel.”
He paused for only a beat—just long enough to say, “Yeah?”
Wild Holiday Nights: Holiday RushPlaying GamesAll Night Long Page 12