Take Me to Bed: A Collection of Naughty Bedtime Stories

by Michelle Windsor

  “No, of course not. We’ll worry about that come Thanksgiving.”

  She squeaks and presses her hand to my chest, righting us from the dipped kiss I was about to give her.

  “What?” I frown as she takes a step back.

  “Nothing. I just want to not be making out while we have this conversation.”

  “What conversation?” My dick has taken over all major thought processes in my body, and he’s not ashamed of that fact.

  “The one where I ask you how serious we are, and not because I’m pushing for anything, but just to clear up some maybe mixed messages.”

  “I told you I want you to meet my friends.”

  “And bonding with your family over a turkey is the next step?”

  I laugh and reach for her. “No. Coming with me to the Hamptons in the summer is the next step. Then I’ll join your friends for Hallowe’en, we’ll pick one family for Thanksgiving, and the other for Christmas. But my mother never does a turkey.” I stop and take a good look at her face. “Are you freaked out about this? Am I going to fast?”

  She holds up her fingers half an inch apart and gives me an apologetic look. “A tiny bit fast?”

  “Okay.” I hold up my hands. “That’s totally fair. I’m excited to see you. And thinking with my dick.” I gesture at the now softening erection that had been driving the show there for a bit. “How about you tell me what the next step is in your mind.”

  She steps closer and wraps her arms around my neck. “Do you have wine at your place?”

  I have an entire wine cellar, perfectly temperature controlled, but something tells me that’s not the answer she’s looking for. “Yes.”

  “And food?”

  “Yes.”

  “Take me home, Jake. Cook with me, and tell me about your family Thanksgiving. Let’s do some more getting to know each other before we start planning our calendars a year out.”

  I kiss her sweet, smart mouth. “That’s a perfectly acceptable plan.”

  She laughs. “Your entire life is planned a year out, isn’t it?”

  I shrug. “Maybe.”

  She takes a deep breath. “Then I want to know about that, too.”

  Two hours later, I’ve fed her and plied her with wine, but the more we talk, the more she realizes just how different we are.

  We’re curled up on the rug in front of my fireplace. I changed into jeans when we got to my place, but I left the dress shirt on because Jana likes it.

  She does not like that I’ve never seen a reality TV show, or any other series she’s brought up, or the fact that I didn’t buy any of the groceries in my fridge.

  A point in my favor is that I made a perfectly acceptable dinner with what my housekeeper stocked, and I did it all while taking little breaks to kiss her.

  But now she’s found another serious point of difference between us.

  My phone chimes with an email notice, which I ignore. And then I tell her I’m ignoring it, hoping to gain some brownie points. “Good boyfriend point of order, I’m not checking that email.”

  “I wouldn’t mind if you did.” She sips her wine as she glances toward the offending device, still lit up on the side table. “Is that the default picture of pebbles background that came with the phone?”

  Note to self, any effort to gain brownie points will go sideways in a hurry in the least expected way. “Maybe.”

  She grins and reaches for the phone, her hand hovering just above it. “May I?”

  I groan. “Oh, God. What kind of weird litmus test is my phone going to be?”

  “I don’t know. I think it’s just like the modern version of looking in your boyfriend’s wallet. It says a lot about a man.”

  I gesture to the table in the hallway where I tossed my billfold. “Have at it.”

  She hands me the phone instead and bats her eyelashes. “Unlock this? Please? Unless there’s proprietary information, in which case I totally get it—”

  I snort and tap in my password. I’m not hiding anything on my phone. It’s completely boring.

  Which, it turns out, is the next thing we don’t have in common.

  “No apps?”

  I frown. “Sure, I use all sorts of apps. That one is for stocks, that’s the weather in all the cities where Aston Corp has offices—”

  “No games? You don’t play Pokemon Go, do you?”

  Time to lie, Aston. “Nope.” Fuck. I’m an awful liar.

  She sets her wine down and climbs into my lap. “Oh, Jake. We’re nothing alike.”

  “We both work hard. We like cats.”

  “I like cats. Love them. You like my cats, and only one of them, really.”

  “I haven’t spent enough time with the others. The kitten and I have bonded.”

  “Do you want to adopt her?”

  “Well, I can’t—”

  “No. I get it, you can’t, and that’s probably for the best, but you and I aren’t on the same level of cat love if your first answer isn’t that you want to.”

  “I—”

  “I play six different addictive puzzle games on my phone. I watch television every single night unless I’m working on a deadline. I’m a certifiable cat lady and wouldn’t have it any other way. Plus I’m kind of obsessed with royal weddings.”

  Oh. This is one area where I might be able to play on a level field. “I know a thing or two about royal nuptials myself.”

  She gives me a skeptical look.

  I don’t get it. Is she trying to scare me off? Not going to work. I cross my arms. “Last year Princess Carolina got married on a very fine May morning at Leeds Castle.”

  “Uh…yes.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Wait, how do you know that?”

  “I’m a closet monarchist and a wedding fanatic?”

  She laughs. “Nice try.”

  “I have a subscription to Hello magazine was my alternate plan.”

  “I don’t believe that either.”

  I don’t want to tell her the truth, but she won’t believe anything else. “I was there.”

  “You were there.”

  “Yes.”

  “At a wedding with the Queen of England.”

  “Mmm. I didn’t meet her, personally. I was seated twelve rows back. But I definitely liked her hat.”

  “You were there.”

  She’s stuck on that, and that’s good for me, really. The longer it takes her to ask who I was with, the better.

  22

  Jana

  Jake went to a freaking royal wedding that I read about in tabloid magazines.

  I play with the top button of his shirt while I process this fact.

  His jaw flexes as he looks at me. “Are you okay?”

  I laugh under my breath. “Yes. I’m just being ridiculous because you’re like…a dream come true, and that just doesn’t happen. So I’m second-guessing how this is even possible.”

  He squeezes my hips. A physical reminder that this is very possible, because I’m in his lap.

  I reach for my wine and take a sip. It is, of course, the best wine I’ve ever had. I can’t imagine how much it cost.

  “I could go and put on the SwiftEx uniform if that would help,” he offers as he brushes a strand of hair off my cheek.

  He’s dead serious.

  I sigh. “No. But yes, later.”

  “What are you worried about?”

  “I don't know. I didn't… If you'd asked me earlier today, I'd have said everything was totally fine.” I put my wine down and touch him, because when my hands are on him, everything is great. “I did, in fact, say exactly that to my friend Nina. Don't worry, I swore her to secrecy. But I was blushing over you.”

  “Good. I like you blushing.” He catches my hand and kisses my fingertips. “Why did you swear her to secrecy?”

  “I…thought I should. That maybe we weren’t…” My head starts to spin as he moves his mouth to the inside of my wrist.

  “Jana. I want you. Exactly as you are and with all that enta
ils. Nosy family members and fabulous friends. Even weird TV shows. And especially your cats.”

  “I’m never going to be sophisticated about meeting the Queen,” I whisper.

  “Honestly, if I ever got close enough to say anything to her, the last thing I'd be is sophisticated.”

  I don’t believe him. As he rolls me onto my back and covers me with his body, I can’t believe he’s anything other than sure and smooth and devastatingly capable.

  I wake with a start in the middle of the night. Jake’s arm is heavy around me, and when I move, he mumbles something into my hair.

  I squeeze my fingers together, then force them to relax. I’d been dreaming. Something confusing and chaotic, and now my pulse is racing. I don’t normally—ever, actually—have nightmares. Not that it was necessarily that, but…it feels weird.

  “So glad you’re here,” Jake murmurs as he shifts against me. He’s still asleep, but his cock is hard and pressing into my bottom. “Need you, Jana.”

  I smile, warmth shifting in and crowding out the nerves. How am I not supposed to flex my hips and rub my ass against him when he says something like that in his sleep?

  “Yes,” he growls. “Love you. Fuck, yeah.”

  It’s just sex talk—and good sex talk, because now I’m on fire. But oh, I like that. A lot. He moves against me, his body hardening up as he wakes. His legs flex as he lifts my thigh on top of his, then notches against my entrance. Super hard.

  Big, and thick, and…bare.

  The flames inside me shoot higher. We’ve done a lot of skin-touching-stuff, but we haven’t talked about birth control yet and he’s always reached for a condom. I’ve got the former covered.

  I take a long, shaky breath and roll away from him and fumble for the drawer. He’s on me as I grab a foil packet, his fingers sliding over mine to take it.

  He’s awake now. I miss the ridiculous sleepy proclamations of love, but alert Jake is a talented Jake. His fingers deftly find my wetness, then he brings us together. Rough and fast, but not too deep. Shallow teases, rubbing all the right spots. Only when I rock back against him does he thrust all the way into me. I cry out, and he covers my mouth.

  There’s no need for that. I made plenty of noise before we fell asleep, when he convinced me to stop worrying and just enjoy the moment of being together.

  Now, though? Now he wants me to hush like a good girl. His breath is loud and fast in my ear as he takes me from behind, on our sides. Nothing polite and spoon-y about this position, though. It’s raw and sleepy and animalistic.

  I need you, too. I fill in the silence with my secret feelings. They grow and pulse in my mind until they tangle up with my physical response and I cry them out against the press of his fingers as I climax.

  “Jake, yes, need, unnnnn…” Love you, too. Please let this grow into that for real.

  He jerks hard against me, coming deep inside me, and as his mouth drops to my shoulder, he sighs. “I could get used to midnight wake-ups like this,” he murmurs.

  It’s the first thing he’s said since he woke up. My heart thumps hard against my ribcage. “Yeah,” I breathe. “Definitely.”

  Hardly declarations of love.

  He ditches the condom, then tugs me back against his side. “Why’d you wake up?”

  “Weird dream.”

  “Okay now?”

  “Mm-hmm. Bone-melting orgasms have a way of scaring boogeymen away.”

  “Are you scared of monsters in the night?”

  “Not usually.”

  “I didn’t think so.” He chuckles. “The first delivery I made to your place, you were on the phone when you answered the door. I don’t know what you were talking about, but you were fierce. And I thought…damn. I hope she gets packages regularly. I want to see that scowl again.”

  I push myself up on my elbow so I can sort-of look at him in the darkness. “My scowl?”

  “Yep. That’s what I fell for. Your hell-no-try-again face.”

  Fell for. Fancy wine, crazy penthouse, weddings with the Queen. There is a lot to be intimidated about with falling in love with Jake Aston. But the way he sees me like nobody else—that’s one hundred percent authentic.

  He keeps showing me over and over again he’s just an ordinary guy in extraordinary circumstances. At some point, it would be a good idea if I start trusting that he’s right.

  Now, for example.

  I lean in and kiss his jaw. “Tell me more about the Hamptons.”

  “The Hamptons?” He grins. “You're willing to admit we might still be dating in the summer?”

  I blush. Oh, he has no idea. I'm starting to think in dangerous terms like forever and always. “Like you say, these middle-of-the-night sexcapades are mighty addictive.”

  23

  Jake

  I wake up earlier than Jana usually does.

  A lot earlier.

  She makes a growling sound as I roll out of bed, and I kiss the top of her head. “Go back to sleep.”

  “What are you doing up?” she mumbles.

  “I’ll workout while I catch up on the markets out of Europe and Asia, then we can have breakfast before I head to the office.”

  “’Kay.”

  She’s back to dreamland before I’ve got my shorts on.

  I’ve got a workout room at the other end of my apartment. I turn on the TV, then put my Bluetooth headset on and use the voice commands to pull up my email and messenger apps on the second screen.

  Aston Corp systems and Starfish Instrumentation hardware. Toby and I make some pretty slick stuff these days. Well, us, a thousand engineers, and ten thousand skilled manufacturing workers.

  It’s too early to see Toby on our private message chain, because he’s on the West Coast, but Ben comes online as I’m racing into my third mile.

  Ben: Morning

  Jake: What’s up?

  Ben: I’m having breakfast with my sister

  He has two sisters, but he means Elana, who also lives in New York. She owns a cosmetics company, but also sits on the board of their family company, Gladiator Inc, where Ben is now the CEO.

  Their baby sister, Cara, lives in Canada and does her best to ignore the family business.

  Jake: Tell Elana I might want two tickets to the Met this year.

  Ben: You know what she’ll say

  Jake: Pay up or don’t bother showing up

  Ben: Exactly

  Jake: It’s a good cause

  Ben: That’s never been reason enough in the past

  Jake: True enough

  Ben: So you’re doing this for a chick

  No reason to hide that.

  Jake: A woman. Her name is Jana.

  Ben: When did this happen?

  Jake: Before the holidays. When I was in Baltimore. We’ve been taking things slow.

  Ben: But come May, you’ll want her on your arm on Page Six?

  Jake: It might take me that long to convince her I’m serious about us.

  Ben: Whoa. Really?

  Jake: Is that so hard to believe?

  Ben: ….Yes

  Jake: Fuck you

  Ben: Love you, too, brother

  Jake: Tell your sister!

  Ben: I will. Damn. Jake’s a goner.

  And how.

  From down the hall, I hear Jana moving around.

  Jake: She’s up now. Gotta go make her breakfast.

  She spends all day in meetings with her editorial and production team, then she has dinner with her agent, so I work late. When she texts me that she’s done, I meet her at the Starbucks next to the restaurant they were at. We walk back to my place, holding steaming lattes in our outside hands, the fingers of our near hands entwined.

  “Did you have a good day?” I ask her.

  “I did. I like going into the office. Most of the time my work is so solitary. And then getting to spend another night with you is a sweet treat, too, even if we don’t get much sleep.”

  “You can sleep in tomorrow.”

 
“But not with you.”

  “I could be convinced to come back to bed after I check the markets.” I give her an easy, broad grin as my doorman welcomes us to my building. “Thanks, Pierre.”

  She waits until we’re on the elevator before responding. “I don’t want to drag you away from work.”

  I crowd against her, unbuttoning her coat. “Please drag me. I can work after you leave again.”

  We kiss, her pressing up on her toes and me curling down to meet her. I tangle my free hand in her hair as our lips brush, then press closer. Her tongue slides against mine, and suddenly we’re exchanging a lot more than passion. Her lips tremble against mine as I lick her skin and taste her fear, her regret.

  “I’m starting to realize a long distance relationship comes with a lot of negotiation and compromise,” I whisper as the elevator stops on the top floor. I swipe my key access so the doors open, revealing my private foyer. “Come on.”

  We set our lattes down and strip each other out of our winter clothes.

  It’s an hour before we wander back to fetch our now-cold coffees. I drink mine, making a face, and Jana laughs. “We could go out and get another one. Or use that fancy machine in your kitchen.”

  “I’ll do that, too.” I grab her hand and drag her into the kitchen. “Two nights in a row using this space. It’s a record.”

  “I’ll have to visit more often.” She says it in a teasing way, but yes, I want that. I pull her close and rub my hand up and down her back. She’s wearing my shirt and nothing else, and I want her again.

  But just as I’m about to suggest a counter orgasm, her phone chimes, and she regretfully spins away.

  I make a coffee for myself and a hot chocolate for her, then meet her in the living room. She’s furiously typing an email, so I grab my tablet and get into some work myself.

  After a while, she sets her phone down and starts pacing.

  I glance up. “Everything okay?”

  “Yes. Great.” Her face is tight, though.

  “Really?”