“You were too smart for jail,” she argued around a bite of noodles.
He shrugged. “Maybe.” That she’d had so much faith in him felt confusing; why had she left then? If she’d known he’d take care of them. “I’m just mostly glad I don’t have to do that stuff anymore.”
Shoveling the lasagna into his mouth, he pushed back the surge of unwelcome emotions. Laura had deserved to find a secure home, not be subjected to the dicey years of his existence after she’d left where he’d had to scrape and crawl his way up from the gutter to survive at all.
Instead, he let himself settle back into the present. This must be how Christmas Eve was supposed to feel, cozy, safe, lazy. Normally, he might get some work done, and maybe he should do that now too. The hotel deal in Dubai needed his attention because he was getting snagged on the land-contract details. He should probably be trying to figure out loopholes or setting up meetings with hoteliers who had been through the same thing. But he didn’t want to, content to sit on the couch watching the cartoon about the reindeer and eating the best food of his life with the one person in the world who made even this empty penthouse feel like a home.
Maybe she had a point earlier with bringing up family. Maybe a wife was what he needed in his life, someone to be there who he could talk to, bounce ideas around with.
After he’d gone back to the kitchen for a second helping, he noticed as he bit into a piece of bread that Laura was watching him.
“What?” he asked around the hunk of bread still in his mouth.
She grinned. “Nothing. Just that this is nicer than I thought it would be.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “What? You weren’t looking forward to spending the biggest holiday of the year with a virtual stranger?”
Laughing, she set her plate on the coffee table and leaned back into the couch, tugging the fleece blanket they were sharing up to her chin. She looked cute as hell and he wondered just how long he could get her to stay, a thought which had him literally, but discreetly, checking his head for a fever. He’d never had a woman stay more than a night and as a rule, he used another hotel room to do it.
“I just miss being at home is all. I haven’t really seen my family since I took you on as a client and I was really looking forward to getting away from the city to decompress.”
“Before I knew who you were, I was actually hoping to hire you to decorate all my lobbies seasonally. People think that’s a thing we should be doing apparently.”
Laura’s eyes got larger. “You were?”
“Yeah, and when I open new hotels, I was hoping to bring on more designers to work on those interior designs.”
“Well, that sounds lovely,” she sighed, frowning. “But now that we’ve slept together it probably isn’t a good idea.”
He’d expected the argument. “If it makes you feel better, the plan to offer you the contract is in the last administration meeting’s minutes. That was way before I even knew who you really were. But even so, no one else is better. I’ve gotten more comments and buzz around town from what you created in my lobby than any of the other marketing campaigns we’ve done throughout the year. That’s remarkable, Laura.”
He nearly lost the battle to put his arm around her as her cheeks stained red. She was a hard-ass still, but she had that soft side that he’d always felt compelled to guard. “I appreciate that. It means a lot to me to do a good job.”
“It’s a fucking fantastic job, Laura—you could do anything you want with your business now. And if you ever need a sound bite from me to catch a new client, I’m happy to do it.”
“Thank you.” She smiled. You know, when I was in college I always knew I wanted to be in design because I liked the idea of making a place that was unfriendly friendly. The way we grew up, the idea of a real home was so foreign, like some kind of dream that would never actually ever happen. But then it did for me and I guess I felt like I could do that for someone else too. So I’m really glad that people got a sense of that even in your humongous lobby. It means I’m on the right track.”
He gave in, abandoning his empty plate on the side table and putting his arm around her. She hesitated, but then snuggled into the crook of his arm and the intimacy was like a drug, pulling him under into a warm cocoon of contentment. Had he ever done this with a woman? It felt like she was the thing that made him restful. He hadn’t put away his ambition for even a minute in years, but the work he should be doing didn’t seem important at all right now.
“Maybe on some weird subconscious level, that’s why you went into hotels,” she said. “You give people a home away from home.”
He raised an eyebrow at the fanciful notion so at odds with how he thought about the world in general and specifically his work. “I chose hotels because it was the first job I managed to get,” he explained baldly. “I was hungry and everybody knew it. If I’d gotten a job as a garbage man, I’d just be the king of trash right now instead.”
Laura laughed and that light sound caught him in the gut again.
“You would never be the king of trash,” she maintained, shaking her head.
He shrugged. He never thought about what could have happened to him—that was a scary-as-hell road to go down on the best of days. The only road he ever considered was the one ahead of him and for so long that was all he’d had, the destination, the goal. But now he was there. Even if he lost all his hotels today, he’d still be set for life; that was something he’d made sure to do early on with well-placed investments and real estate, but the fact was that he didn’t know that he could stop now even if he wanted to.
“I would have been completely content with a garbage empire,” he maintained. “I bet garbage contained in cans is far more palatable than the shit I found during my first years cleaning motels in the city anyway. People are pigs when someone else has to deal with their mess.”
Laura’s face looked stricken as she made a groaning sound of commiseration. “Please,” she begged, holding up a hand, “do not share any of those details.”
He grinned. “Well, there was this one time—”
“No!” she protested, jumping up from the couch, the blanket falling fully into his lap. “I won’t allow it!”
Then she was heading into the kitchen with both of their dirty plates.
“Don’t even think about washing those dishes, Laura,” he warned because this was a hotel and she’d already made him dinner.
“Too late,” she informed, “but you could be nice and help me make some cookies and our breakfast for tomorrow.”
Joining her at the island, he watched as she gathered the dishes from the stove and set them on the wide countertop near the sink. She clearly wasn’t listening to his warning so he lifted her up onto the counter, enjoying her squeal of surprise.
“What are you doing?”
“Returning the favor,” he murmured against her mouth as he made quick work of her flannel pajama pants, an item of clothing he’d never considered sexy and yet on Laura they seemed like the most erotic thing in the world.
His fingers went straight to her core, feeling the silken folds that were already damp. Lust shot through his body so quickly that he didn’t even know how it was happening. With just a touch of her he was as aroused as he’d been when their roles had been reversed earlier in this same kitchen.
Her soft sighs were in his ear as he licked and nuzzled down her neck. He moved a finger gently inside her, loving that she was so ready for him. There was no doubt that she wanted him and the assurance steadied his lust, made him want to keep this going until she was absolutely crazy, but he also wanted to prove a point. That she couldn’t resist him and that he was in charge of her body.
So he got to his knees, the scent of her mingling with the sweet scent of sugar and he breathed it all in like a dying man. Then he opened her, looking truly at the heart of her, his own heart pounding in his ch
est like a jackhammer as he revealed the loveliest flesh he’d ever seen. As he was running his tongue up the outer folds, she sighed in pleasure, her head dropping back and revealing a perfect white neck that he wanted to suck and bite and leave a mark. To finally claim her as his like he should have years ago.
He found the slick nub of her, licking gently at first, but then applying more pressure as his finger dipped inside her again. The taste of her was like magic, salty and honey sweet, slick and smoky and just Laura. He wanted all of her, the messy, the neat and everything in between. Her soft moans echoed in his kitchen, turning him from hard to painfully hard, but he wasn’t going to take them further. He was only going to return this favor and then maybe pick things up again tonight in bed.
Making Laura crazy was like watching a symphony and being part of it at the same time, playing her but enjoying the sounds, as well. She wrapped her legs around his head, her hands tunneling forcefully into his hair, pulling and urging him on. He slid two fingers inside her, his gaze going to the timer on his phone, knowing he was literally on the clock. Crooking his fingers to find that rough spot inside her right as his teeth grazed her clit and he felt and tasted her come apart under him.
It was glorious as her entire body vibrated against him as he licked her gently to come down from the high. Reaching up to caress her thighs as he gave her one last slow lick.
“Next time maybe you’ll listen to me,” he said with a grin as he pulled away.
Brushing back the hair from her eyes, he struggled against wanting to say more, to express in words the emotions he was already feeling for her. It would be dangerous for him to say anything, though, because he knew better than anyone that feelings never lasted. But in the meantime, he was going to enjoy their time together.
CHAPTER NINE
CHRISTMAS MORNING ARRIVED and Laura woke up to Will’s dark bedroom feeling blissfully sated and lazy. Sex with Will was drugging in a way it’d never been for her. One orgasm from Will and the entire world just felt infinitely better. Things that would have been problems were barely given second thoughts under the umbrella of pleasure she was currently below. Her eyes drifted closed again and she was ready to surrender once more to sleep, but a warm body snuggled in closer to her backside and Will began dropping kisses down her neck and across her shoulder, making her shiver at the anticipatory goose bumps rising up along the her arms.
“Merry Christmas,” Will murmured, his voice gravelly and rough. She could feel the long locks of his hair drag silkily along her skin as he traveled back up to her neck.
“Merry Christmas to you too,” she murmured, leaning into him, pressing against his warm, naked body. He was hard against her, the thick length of him nudging into her back and she knew she was becoming addicted to his touch.
Will gently brushed her hair aside as he slid featherlight kisses down her spine and a whimper of helpless pleasure escaped her. Her entire body felt weak, as if he could operate her arms and legs like a marionette. Unlike past relationships, she completely trusted Will. His hands caressed over her breasts, light and leisurely because they had all the time in the world, drawing random patterns across the mounded curves, his calloused fingertips pressing ever so slightly against the nipples. She crooked her leg, rubbing her foot along the coarse hair of his calf, exploring and teasing just as he was, reaching down to put her hand over his to caress her together.
His warm mouth plucked at her earlobe, teeth gently scoring the flesh sending more steady waves of slow-rising heat to her core. His other hand glided down her back, then dipped into the slit of her ass, playing there, toying with her. Anxious, she scooted against him and he chuckled low in his throat. “I’m trying to go slow here, Laura, not fast-forward.”
But then he poised himself at her entrance and she lifted her leg up on top of his to give him more room. “It would be so fucking easy to slide inside you right now,” he murmured low in her ear, his hot breath beading her nipples to an unbearable degree. “Bare and raw and us, I want to feel you all over me, Laura, more than anything.”
He gave a single almost imperceptible thrust that had her head falling back onto his shoulder with a moan of need. “I know I’m clean,” she told him, “but we shouldn’t.”
“I am too, but there’s no way in hell I would ever put you at risk,” he growled, pulling away from her which had her nearly sobbing in frustration when his fingers served as a poor replacement. “But one day soon and I’ll be so fucking close to you, feeling every inch of your skin, every sweet wet centimeter of heat. You’d like that?”
“Yes,” she breathed, her hips bucking against his fingers.
“Look down,” he directed, showing her that he was using three fingers to enter her, gently pressing them inside her, stretching and exploring and generally driving her mad. Her hips rocked against him and he bit her neck, the bit of pain eliciting a moan of true surrender. She needed more; more contact and more of him.
She reached down to stroke herself, so close to getting exactly what she wanted, but he caught her hand, pulling it above her head and locked it against the headboard with his. “You always were greedy, weren’t you?” he murmured against her neck.
But she had no words for him; her body was already a maelstrom of want, liquid and loose, as his fingers made space for him inside her. His thumb brushed over her clit and she bucked, yelping at the loaded sensation. Then he pulled out of her, adding the final fourth finger and pressing back in. The pressure was exquisite, the fullness of him too intense to comprehend as her hips rocked against him on their own volition, seeking more of what he was providing. He let go of her hand, giving it a final squeeze in warning so that she wouldn’t move it, then let his fingers drift down the underside of her arm, lighting cold goose bumps under her skin. Eventually, he returned to her breasts, his fingers still inside her, just there to remind her he was presently in control of her body, which her body had absolutely no issue with.
A hand covered her entire breast and she stared at the contrast of his large tanned hair-dusted hand, locked over her delicate skin, pale under the golden lamplight, her veins visible beneath the surface. He squeezed, then applied an increasing pressure to her nipple, his thumb and forefinger twisting as they pressed in.
“More,” she breathed, surprising herself, but also feeling more like herself than ever in bed with him.
“Not until I feel like it,” was his arrogant response as he continued to play her body like it was a cello and he was a world-renowned cellist with nothing more to do than practice all the ways to manipulate her strings.
That sweet bite on her nipple again, the difficult push as he buried his fingers deeper inside her. “You like the edge, don’t you, Laura?”
When she nodded, he sucked the skin of her neck into his mouth, biting just the slightest bit too hard. “Me too,” he said, his voice so low and dark she stopped breathing to hear him. “We always played on the edge together, didn’t we? One way or another we were always going to end up here, grasping at every little scrap of life we could get.”
He grabbed the hand he’d pinned and brought it down to his length so show her that sometime when she’d been moaning his name in pleasure, he’d slid on a condom.
“Never let some asshole like me take you ungloved, Laura,” he growled.
She wanted to roll her eyes at the obvious advice, but then he was slowly removing his fingers from her, the suction as they left catching her attention and leaving her feeling so empty and bereft that she whimpered again, rocking back against him recklessly, wanting him back inside her, wanting him to take her over, to be the only person she’d ever trust to do so.
But he was hell-bent on taking his time so she took charge, wrapping a hand around him and positioning it at her entrance. Thwarting her efforts, he instead rose to his knees and lifted her up to hers, her head still in the pillows, but she didn’t care, she just wanted him inside her again,
would give nearly anything to feel it.
And when he was, the thick slide of him against her abraded insides, it was like a conflagration, a deep yearning and sensation she’d never quite felt before. With his hands firmly gripping her hips, she felt taken over, leaving everything behind for Will Walker, the boy who had promised her the world and then still gone ahead and gotten it for himself even though she’d left him.
His first entrance wasn’t easy; he went in hard, taking her breath away, but his thumb stroked gently over her skin reminding her of his care, reminding her that she was the one truly in control here, but she didn’t need a reminder and didn’t need to be coddled. She was a grown-ass woman who liked what she liked and wasn’t ashamed of any of it. So when his hand came up to grip her hair as he rode her in a filthy fire of wetness and heat and sweat, she loved it, wanted every piece of sensation good or bad that they could experience together.
“More,” she breathed again, bucking her hips against him insistently, not at all pleased that he was holding back with her. She knew, she fucking knew, he was dirty and keeping it from her.
Her command had the opposite effect, however, because he immediately pulled out of her and his entire body, along with his warmth, left her. She lifted her head to see what was going on, and saw him lie on his back beneath her, drawing her hips down onto his head.
She cried out in mindless pleasure as his tongue entered where his cock had been, his nose nudging at her engorged bud. He ate her like he was a dying man, almost as if the pleasure he was giving out was a punishment for her demands because no matter how good this was, all she wanted was him inside her, needed that connection, the power; every one of her cells was dying for it. Her body was strung out, searing veins pistoning lust throughout her entire body.
“Will,” she choked, climax hovering dangerously close. But he ignored her, doubling down, dragging his tongue over her clit, licking and sucking and nibbling until a wave of numbing pleasure dragged through her body. Crying out her release she came slowly down expecting him to slowly bring her out of it like usual, but instead found her hips being pulled back up and his hard shaft slamming back into her.
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