I chuckle. “Well… maybe a little. But”—I grab her by the waist just as she tries to slip away and finish packing—“you’re all the present I need. And anyway, we’ll be in Key West in a few hours and I can forget all about that stupid building.”
She cocks her head at me. “What?”
“Nothing. Never mind. Come on. Let’s finish packing. We’re officially on vacation. No more serious thoughts until the new year forces us back to reality. For the next nine days it’s nothing but the ocean, and sandy toes, and your crazy mother and her wedding plans.”
“Do not encourage her, Jesse. I’m telling you, if we give in an inch, she’ll take over the whole wedding. And the next thing you know we’ll be walking down an aisle called Dumas Street.”
Dumas Street is what the family affectionately calls their little cul-de-sac of cottages. “I don’t know. I think I could live with that.”
“Don’t!” Emma points to me, face serious. “We only get one wedding, Mr. Boston. I want it my way.”
I put my hands up, surrendering. “Of course. It’s your day and the bossy bride always gets her way. But”—I point to my eyebrows as I waggle them—“it’s not your day yet.”
Then I tackle her to the couch.
Chapter Four
I go crashing backwards, clothes flying off to the side, and internally I’m fuming. Because we’re on a schedule here. The car is probably downstairs, the jet is on the tarmac, and neither of us are packed or even dressed. My hair and makeup are done, but I’m still wearing my pink satin dressing robe. And Jesse hasn’t even taken a shower yet. He’s walking around in his red pajama pants and no shirt, his hair all tousled and messy, his jaw still scratchy, and—
“Oooo!” I squeal. Because he’s kissing me and his hands have found their way inside my robe. They’re cold and wandering all over my breasts.
He pulls my robe all the way open and starts kissing his way down my belly, his fingertips flitting down the side of my ribs as I grab his hair and decide he should maybe not shave today.
Because that scratchiness feels wonderful as his face settles between my legs.
“Jesse.” It’s kind of a half moan, half warning.
He looks up at me, but he continues to lick me. “What?” He whispers it in that husky I’m-about-to-fuck-you voice I love so much.
“We’re going to be late.”
“It’s your jet, Emma. It leaves when we’re on it.”
“I know, but Miles and Christopher are celebrating the holidays in Vegas this year—”
“I know. I bought them that trip.”
“—and they want to get there.”
“Their Bellagio reservation isn’t until tomorrow. They’re spending the night in Key West.”
“How do you know they’re spending the night in Key West?”
“Because your mom invited them to the street party tonight.”
“Oh, my God. My fuckin’ mom! She’s so in my business! Why can’t she just butt out?”
His hands slide up the inside of my legs and then his thumbs are gently pushing the lips open so his tongue can get better access to my sweet spot. He grins. His tongue does this little swirly thing that I love. “I guess I can stop. If you really want me to.”
Fuck it. It is my jet. “Well… if you’re going to insist, then keep going, Mr. Bossy.”
He chuckles and follows my order. And I forget about everything. I forget about my meddling mother and Jesse’s obvious weird mood this morning. I forget about the crew and their trip to Vegas. I forget about everything except this moment right here and the way Jesse’s tongue feels as he kisses me, and sucks me, and licks me in all the right places and all the right ways.
He hikes my knees up and can I just say? I love that. God, I love that. I love everything he does. There isn’t a single thing about this man I don’t adore.
Plus he’s talented in the sex department. I feel like a goddess when Jesse Boston is sexing me.
I let his attention wash over me like a warm ray of the Key West sun. I wriggle a little every time his tongue twists and swirls around my throbbing clit and I know it won’t take much more for Jesse to build me up and get my release.
But I don’t want to come on his face. Not this time. So I grab his hair and pull his head up. With force, but also gently.
“What?” He chuckles as he nuzzles his chin over my wet pussy. “What are you doing?”
“I want to climb in your lap. I want to ease down on your hard cock and let you fill me up. I want to—”
He grabs me before I can finish and a moment later, we’ve switched places. I’m squealing as he leans back into the couch cushions and grabs my hips as he innuendoes me with his eyebrows. “Done.”
I place my hands on either side of his scratchy cheeks, lean down, and kiss him. Hard. Tasting myself on his lips and his tongue. Then I lift up my hips, reach down, grab his cock, and place it at my entrance.
He grins like a boy as he closes his eyes and lets his head fall to the side a little. And when I sit down on him, he sucks in a breath of air and grips my hips tighter in encouragement.
I love this man. He stole my heart thirteen years ago—no. No, that’s not quite right. I gave him my heart thirteen years ago. All he did was accept it.
It’s his now. All his and I never want to take it back.
We don’t fuck, per se. This isn’t fucking. Last night on my office desk? That was fucking. This right here? This is lovemaking. And that’s so corny, and silly, and cliché—but I don’t care.
This right here—the way we move together, slowly and perfectly, like we are two pieces that fit together in a way that can’t be forced or manufactured—this is the dictionary definition of lovemaking.
We kiss as I rock in his lap. And he says things like, “You’re beautiful,” and “I love you,” and “You are the sweetest, most adorable woman I’ve ever laid eyes on and we were meant to be together. And next spring, when I’m standing at that altar, waiting for you to walk down the aisle to me, I think my heart will explode with gratitude. Because you, Emma Dumas, are my world.”
It’s a lot of words. Probably more than needs to be said during lovemaking. But they do more for my sexual arousal than his tongue just did a minute ago.
These words of his… they are nourishment.
He is like food, and water, and air to me.
I feel the release building. I feel the excitement of being everything to him as his cock slides up and down inside me. I feel the rising tide of pleasure coming to a peak and then…
Climax.
If I were standing, it would knock me down. I’m sitting in his lap and I suddenly feel like I’m floating. Up, up, up—and then his arms wrap around me and pull me back to him. Anchor me in his embrace as our hearts frantically beat inside our bodies. Together, but separate.
I rest my head on his shoulder and sigh.
“Damn, woman,” he says. “Just… damn.” Then he’s grabbing my hair and pulling my mouth to his, and we’re kissing like two teenagers on a yacht down in Key West who just figured out they’re soulmates.
We stay like that for a little bit, neither of us ready to break the moment and pull ourselves back into reality.
We are flying to Key West. In a few hours we will be there. There will be a big street party tonight with lots of loud, boisterous laughing and talking. And lots of food. And lots of love.
But right now, this is all the love we need. It takes many more minutes before he slaps the sole of my foot and says, “OK. We can start our holiday now.”
I roll off him and settle into the couch with my eyes closed. “I could sleep for days right now. I could sleep right through Christmas.” I crack open one eye. “Maybe we should?”
Jesse is leaning back into the couch cushions with his eyes closed too, a broad, charming, satisfied grin on his face. “Should what?”
“Stay home.”
He opens both eyes. “What?”
“We could just ha
ve a quiet holiday all to ourselves. Never put clothes. No make-up, no suits, no parties. Just nine days of sex.”
“That’s a joke, right?”
I shrug. “We are grown-ups, right? We can do whatever we want.”
“Emma Dumas. Your mother would flip her lid if we didn’t show up for Christmas. Remember that weekend in September when we couldn’t make it for Saturday night dinner?”
“God, don’t remind me.” My mother forced the whole family to get in the fucking Suburban and drive up to the city to bring Saturday night dinner to us.
It took twelve hours. Twelve hours of my poor giant brothers and father stuffed into a Suburban with grocery bags and ice chests filled with food—because God knows she couldn’t shop for dinner when she got here, right?—and then when they got here they took over my apartment.
Don’t get me wrong, it was fun. And sorta amazing. That my mother would go to all that trouble just to have her precious dinner night with her family.
But Jesse is right. She would bring Christmas here. And I can’t in good conscience force my poor brothers to endure another twelve-hour drive with groceries and presents jammed between them, not to mention a Christmas tree strapped to the roof of the Suburban, just because we want to have a sex holiday.
“OK.” I sigh. “Let’s do this.”
As much as I complain about my bossy mother, being on the jet and on our way to Key West is exciting. I don’t care how many times I have made this trip in the past, or how many times I’ll make it in the future, the moment I see the jet waiting for us on the tarmac the only thing I can think about is that one-up date I took Jesse on last summer and how my family fell in love with him immediately.
Well, maybe not Alonzo. And Tony has fantasy fights in some MMA game he plays with a guy who looks suspiciously like Jesse. But Luke loves him.
That date, though.
I had just spent ten million dollars to buy Jesse in a bachelor auction, drugged him with roofies, kidnapped him with my three best friends, tied him up in our lake house basement, and then hate-fucked him. Sorta. I let him eat me out, then I walked out, flashing him the finger as I squealed my tires.
The whole day was a plan of revenge. Both on his part, and mine. And since he technically was in control that day—holding a fake blood test over my head that proved he’d been drugged the night before—I was fuming when he insisted I had to spend the day with him.
So I came up with the one-up date out of anger, and hate, and schemes of revenge.
How could such a perfect day come out of these emotions?
It still makes my head spin. Also makes me question the sanity of the universe. Like… who was the insane god-thing that decided “Hey, we can totally turn this hate-date into a love connection,” once he/she/it got wind of my plan?
But then… then I realize it was me.
I did that, not the universe god-thing. I’m the one who planned the day from top to bottom. And it was perfect. Jesse Boston fell in love with me the moment I started banging my head to Smells Like Teen Spirit in that matte-black Lamborghini outside my building. And then he slipped on a rock or something, a patch of mud on the hillside called Emma Dumas Gets Revenge, and the rest is history, baby. Or maybe herstory?
Ha.
I make my own future. I’m totally in charge of the whole thing.
So I’m smiling big with this realization when Miles comes at me with the jet’s satellite phone on a silver tray. I sorta love that Miles takes his jet-butler duties so seriously. He and his partner—our pilot, Christopher—they both totally deserve this holiday trip to Vegas that Jesse bought them.
“What’s this?” I ask Miles, pointing to the tray.
“Your mother, Miss Dumas. She just called. Says it’s urgent that she speak to you.”
“My God.” I sigh, but pick up the phone.
Jesse is waggling his eyebrows at me from across the table as he stuffs mini-rolls into his mouth. I hold up a finger. We had sex like forty-five minutes ago, but hey, if he wants to punch a hole in our mile-high frequent-flyer card, I’m up for another round.
But my mother. I know how she is. She only calls me on the jet when she’s manic about something. So I get up and go into the bedroom, sliding the pocket door closed behind me, before I say, “Yes, Mom. What’s up?”
“Oh, my stars,” she starts. “Do you know who I just bumped into?”
“What? Who? What are we talking about?”
“Your best friend! Can you believe it?”
“You bumped into—Natalie?” I choose Natalie over Hannah and Mila because she’s the only one I can picture being in Key West this morning without me knowing about it, not because I consider her my number one bestie. They are all equally best in my mind. Nat is a little bit crazy though, and a whole lot spontaneous. So she actually could’ve been in Key West talking to my mom this morning.
“Natalie? No. Karen. You remember Karen, right?”
I should, since my mother is insisting she’s my bestie. But—“No. Mom. Who the hell is Karen?”
“Language, Emma. Why must you use those curse words?”
I sigh and roll my eyes.
“I heard that,” my mother says. “And don’t roll your eyes at me.”
“Mom. I’m thirty thousand feet in the air. On a jet. Flying to you at this very moment. I will literally be in your house in less than three hours. Why are you calling me on a satellite phone about some stranger named Karen?”
“Stranger? Karen, Emma! Karen Krakken! She used to live behind us, and sorta kitty-wonkus diagonally? Remember?”
Oh. My. God. Karen fucking Krakken.
“She’s in town! In fact, she bought her old house last month. She and her family—the new family—she has two kids, Chauncey and Chance, and her husband, Chad—not the old family—they’re back! Isn’t that wonderful? She just moved in last week and came over this morning to say hi! I told her you were coming and that you’d be so excited to see her again! Oh, this is going to be the best Christmas ever. All the old friends back. The street party will be so wonderful with Karen and her family there, don’t you think?”
I am… at a loss for words at the moment. Because Karen fucking Krakken is… well, you know, sometimes people get a last name that totally fits them? Kraken Karen, which is what we all used to call her back in junior high when she did live kitty-wonkus diagonally behind us, she was a fuckin’ kraken. I get it, the spelling is slightly off, but trust me. If ever there was a person who ascended out of the depths of the ocean to terrorize and trap you in her sticky tentacles, it’s Karen fucking Krakken.
And seriously? Who marries a man called Chad and names their kids Chauncey and Chance? I bet she drives a minivan and is already campaigning to be the PTA president, just like her kraken mother back in the day.
“No.”
“Yes!” my mother exclaims. “Yes. It’s her! I promise you. She looks the same and everything. You won’t believe how great she looks, Emma. I’ve invited her to our street party tonight. She’s bringing a casserole for the family and friends potluck. I think she said mac and cheese flaky-bake. Have you ever heard of that? I’m not sure what it is exactly, but I’m confident I’m going to love it. We loved her and her family so much, remember? She was always...”
I tune my mother out. Because I certainly do remember Karen Krakken. She was a nightmare bully in junior high. And her family was the worst. The worst. Her brother used to spit on me when I was jumping rope. And her little sister used to pee in the backyard. Not their backyard. Our backyard. That was before we bought the whole cul-de-sac and put up privacy fences.
But that was nothing compared to the kind of monster treatment I got from Karen. Every time a boy took interest in me she swooped in and stole him. Or even if she didn’t steal him, she ruined the connection we were about to make.
Fuckin’ Karen.
That internet meme—Look, Karen… yeah. That’s her. She’s that Karen.
“Mom,” I say, because she�
��s still talking about how much we love, love, love the Krakken family. “She is not invited to the street party. No way. Take it back.”
“Take it back? Why?”
Oh, my God. How does my mother not know how much I hate Karen? “We were never best friends. We weren’t even frienemies. She cannot come to our street party!”
“Of course she can! It’s open to everyone, Emma. And you know, it’s bad manners to take back a party invitation. I don’t even think that’s a thing. Jack? JACK!”
“What?” I hear my father say in Key West.
“It’s not a thing, right?”
“Mom. Listen.”
“No,” my father says, which he’s only doing to agree with my bossy mom. He probably doesn’t even know what we’re talking about.
“See!” She’s beaming a smile. I just know it.
“Mom. Listen.”
“What time will you get here? You’re not going to be late, right? I told Karen the street party starts at three o’clock sharp.”
“I’m on the jet, Mom. It’s nine AM. There is no possible way I won’t be there by three.”
But maybe there should be a way? Maybe we should break down in like… Gainesville? And spend a nice time in some two-star hotel’s dirty pool? That has to be better than spending an evening with Kraken Karen and her alliteratively-named family, right?
“Great! Then we’ll see you soon! I can’t wait for you and Karen to reconnect. I told her all about Jesse too. She’s swooning over him already!”
“I bet she is. But listen—”
“Byeeeeee!”
The call drops and I just stare at the phone for a moment. Then I open the pocket door and say, “Turn the plane around!”
Chapter Five
Let me explain all the ways that Miles is a very cool dude.
One. When he found me passed-out half-naked on the jet portion of the now infamous one-up date between Emma and I, dude didn’t even blink. Just picked up my soiled shirt with a pair of sterling-silver tongs and asked me if I’d like him to have it cleaned. And not only did he do that, it was pressed and inside a little plastic package with a satin bow on the zipper when it was returned to me.
A Billionaire for Christmas Page 33