Having It All

by Christi Barth

  “I think you’re right. I do feel like family with Summer and Riley and Madison and…” Her hand flew to her mouth. Mostly to hide a growing smile. Because they’d cleared the air enough, for now. Annabeth didn’t want to waste another minute not being with him. “Oh no. Does that make you my brother?”

  “Bite your tongue. Or better yet, let me do it for you.” Josh surged forward, drawing her into an embrace. “Because if you do agree to this being our third date? Sex is back on the table.”

  It was hard to keep a straight face when Annabeth wanted to push him down onto the nearest bench and go at it. “You think we should have sex.”

  “This is D.C. So I’ll say it should be just like voting—early and often.”

  He just cracked her up. “You’re funny. That’s one of the things that first drew me to you. Right after you wiped your hands on your shirt and flashed me your amazing abs. And before I saw what a kind, caring heart you have underneath those sexy pecs.”

  “I’m sorry I was an idiot, Annabeth. I can’t promise it won’t happen again. I can promise that I’ll always listen when you tell me I’ve screwed up, and I’ll figure out a way to fix it.”

  “What else?”

  “I promise I’ll work harder at believing in myself. Which started this morning, when the guys helped me create a business plan for ten more trucks over two years.”

  “Oh, Josh, that’s wonderful. I’m so proud of you.” Annabeth put her hands on his beard and tugged it to hang below his chin. She needed to see his handsome face. “I promise I’ll work harder at believing in myself. At knowing I’m as good as anyone else. At knowing that I fit in anywhere, but especially right here, tucked against you.”

  “See? You can have it all. We both can.”

  “I just want you, Josh. Being with you will feel like Christmas every day.”

  “Then Merry Christmas, Annabeth.” Josh tightened his arms and kissed her. It was slow and sweet and yet still enough to completely weaken her knees. His suit didn’t have pillows to fill it out, so she could feel all of his taut muscles lined up, pressing into her. She smelled the pine in the air around them mixing with the pine of his cologne. But mostly she felt his lips, full and firm and dragging over hers, again and again.

  “Merry Christmas, Josh. And you know what else?” Annabeth pulled back to smile at him. They’d weathered these stresses just fine. They crushed the being friends thing. And she knew they’d do even better at being lovers. “I have a feeling it’s going to be a very happy New Year.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Fourteen days later . . .

  Fourteen nights still without sex later…

  Annabeth unwound her scarf as she sock-footed it down the polished hardwood to Josh’s kitchen. They didn’t hang out at her place anymore. Privacy was the last thing the two of them needed. While the sex ban had been officially lifted, they maintained an unspoken agreement to wait as long as possible before taking that next step.

  Friends to lovers was a complicated, no-going-back switch to make. They’d done a poor job of it for the first month. These last few weeks since they’d cleared the air at the conservatory? Well, holding out seemed to be working for them. Very well. Everything was clicking.

  It also happened to be driving Annabeth slowly insane with need.

  Josh’s body was ripped. His face was handsome. He always made her smile. Not to mention that he was funny. Easy to be with. The man was a walking list of reasons to fall into bed with him.

  The biggest reason against giving in to lust? Annabeth cared too much. Neither of them wanted to screw this up with, well, just screwing.

  Or so she said to herself, like a mantra, about seven hundred times a day.

  The smell hit her first. A heavenly smell. But it was almost mitigated by the god-awful sounds coming from the kitchen. It…it must be Josh’s attempt to sing along with the Pentatonix holiday album blaring through the house.

  Wow. He was so terrible that it was…adorable.

  Crap. Even Josh’s horrific singing endeared him to her. Talk about proof that she was absolutely crazy about the man.

  Tiptoeing up behind him at the stove, Annabeth quickly pressed the thick layers of her scarf against his mouth. “You’re going to scare Santa away with that screeching. You’ve got to stop.”

  Eyes twinkling, Josh winked at her over his shoulder. Close enough to an agreement, right? Laughing, she dropped the scarf, wriggled in front of him and wound her arms around his neck instead.

  “Give me something else to do with my mouth and I won’t sing another note,” he offered.

  Oh, the things she wanted to tell him to do with that mouth. Beg him to do, at this point. But there was no such thing as a single kiss between them. One became ten became twenty minutes lost in a flurry of kisses and panting and teasing hands streaking everywhere.

  Side-stepping away from six-feet plus of temptation, Annabeth said, “You did promise me dinner. I know I was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago. Aren’t we eating soon?”

  “Everything’s ready.” Josh waved a red spatula at her. “I planned for you to be half an hour late.”

  Understanding and supportive of her crazy schedule. This man totally deserved a blow job, at the very least. And there her mind went straight to sex again.

  Annabeth took a few more steps backward to put the safety of the wide table between them. Even curled her hands along the ladderback chair to anchor her in place. “So that makes me exactly on time?”

  “Babe, I’m just happy to see you. Glad that Congress finally broke and half of D.C. went home so you can finally catch your breath at the store.”

  “Me, too,” Annabeth said, with equal parts exhaustion and relief. Pointing at the steam coming off multiple pans, she asked, “So what’s all this? I figured when I showed up for dinner after nine, you’d hand me a sandwich. For which I’d be more than grateful.”

  With much exaggeration, Josh clasped his spatula to his heart and staggered, as though stabbed by her very words. “You wound me. Have you forgotten that you’re dating a CIA trained chef? When my lady desires dinner, I prepare for her a feast.”

  “You don’t have to work to impress me, Josh. I’m a sure thing at this point.” After twelve hours on her feet helping with last minute shoppers at Forever Summer, Annabeth wasn’t sure she had the energy to do a feast justice. Would it be wrong to ask for just a ham and swiss?

  “There you go again. Not giving yourself enough credit. I’m not trying to impress you. I’m simply expressing how I feel for you with what I’m best at—cooking. Take the gift, Annabeth.”

  Her knees weakened at his explanation. “Duly noted.”

  “For your dining pleasure this evening, I’ve prepared a Caribbean Christmas. To make up for whatever dry stuffing nightmare you and your brothers cobble together on the actual holiday.”

  In a near-whisper of shame, Annabeth said, “How did you know I planned to just add water to the Stove-Top cannister?”

  “We’ll start with posole, followed by shrimp stuffed peppers and a bread pudding with guava rum sauce for dessert.” Josh pointed at each pan in turn. Then he lifted a glass pitcher and poured into blue glass goblets. “Oh, and Coquito. Like a Puerto Rican eggnog, but with coconut milk to take it to a whole other level of delectability. And get you a little bit drunk.”

  Completely blown away by the time this all must’ve taken, the thought, the preparation, the care—well, Annabeth could practically hear the last shard of her self-control cracking. No woman in the world would be able to resist this man and his romantic gesture.

  No woman in her right mind would bother trying to resist him anymore.

  Holding that fiery blue stare he leveled at her, Annabeth unbuttoned her red sweater as she circled around the other end of the table. After shrugging out of it, she let it fall to the floor. Then she very deliberately took the goblet and sipped.

  “This is delicious.” Another sip—because wow, the rum and cream concocti
on knocked her socks off—before she set it back on the counter next to him. “But I'm already drunk on you, Josh.”

  His neck slowly ratcheted up as his gaze traveled from the red lace swirls over her breasts back to Annabeth’s face. “You’re putting a blowtorch to a reservoir full of gasoline here. Are you sure about this?”

  “Sure that I can’t wait another night to be with you? Yes. Absolutely. Very, very, very sure.” With a clarity that wasn’t surprising. It was simply right.

  “Thank God,” he said fervently.

  Josh was suddenly everywhere on her body. His hands squeezed her ass and somehow also kneaded her breasts. One thick thigh plunged between her legs, lifting her off the floor as he ground their hips together. And he nipped bites along her neck all the way down to the curve of her elbow that popped up goosebumps that had nothing to do with the temperature.

  It was overwhelming.

  Overwhelming awesomeness. Annabeth streaked her fingers through his hair. Hooked her calf behind his knee to lock them even closer together.

  “I made a snow angel an hour ago.” Lips down at her bare belly, Josh looked up with a wry twist to those talented lips. “After I’d stripped down to my underwear. Because thinking about you coming over had me as hard as that cast-iron pot on the stove.”

  “Really? But you’ve been so good about sticking to our decision to hold off. You made it look easy. I thought I was the only one suffering.”

  Josh twisted off all the burners, tightened his grip on her ass, and lifted her higher to swing her in a half circle. Then he paused, head cocked, looking at the table, already set with forest green placemats, elaborately folded matching napkins and silverware. “Fuck it. Priorities.” He cleared the table with a wide sweep of his arm and laid Annabeth on it.

  He’d tugged the cable knit sweater that matched his eyes off before she managed to prop up on her elbows. Which gave her pause.

  While Annabeth wanted to get naked with him as soon as possible, she didn’t want an audience for it. Especially not in the one room where it was guaranteed a man would stroll through in search of a snack pretty much any time, day or night.

  Putting a hand on his bare chest—because, God, it was right there, pecs popping and pumping off heat and with this trail of dark blond hair that disappeared beneath into his jeans that made her drool—Annabeth said, “Wait. Aren’t at least some of your roommates here? Wasn’t that the point? That we’d have celibacy chaperones tonight?”

  “As soon as the snow started to stick, they all went to sled on Capitol Hill with their women.” Josh dazzled her with a wolfish grin. “We’ll call it another Christmas miracle. Don’t they always come in threes?”

  “I don’t need three. Right now, after all these weeks of holding out, I’ll settle for one solid orgasm tonight.”

  Those fast, nimble fingers unzipped her pants and stripped them off her legs along with the red lace panties in the space of two sentences. Josh planted his hands next to her shoulders and loomed over, his oh-so-handsome face mere inches from Annabeth’s. “I can’t promise you that we won’t still have stupid fights. Or that I won’t keep sneaking caviar into your eggs to try to get you to like it. But I can promise you that as long as we’re together, you’ll never feel like you settled for an orgasm. As far as tonight goes? I’m thinking I’ll give you at least four. Five if we utilize my steam shower.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t…oh!” Annabeth gave up finishing the sentence. Because Josh had dropped to his knees between her dangling legs. He’d peeled her apart with his thumbs and licked with the broad flatness of his tongue.

  Her hips undulated against his open mouth. Annabeth wore only thin socks and a bra but positively burned from the burst of heat he’d flared outward from her core.

  Then Josh slanted a heavy-lidded look up at her, tongue still buried inside. It was, hands-down, the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. It was a look full of promise and swagger that he knew he’d make that promise come true.

  That look, combined with another swipe of his tongue that finished with a flutter against her clit, pushed Annabeth over the edge.

  That fast.

  That phenomenally. The orgasm slammed through her with zero warning.

  Kind of like the first time that Josh had kissed her, out of the blue, on Halloween.

  Magnanimously, Josh said, while Annabeth finished gasping, “That didn’t even count toward the four. We’ll call it the equivalent of an amuse-bouche before dinner. The warm-up act.”

  “If we get any warmer, this table’s going up in flames.” Which gave Annabeth an idea. Because while she loved being the object of Josh’s attention, she liked to give as good as she got. Sex was best when it was interactive. “I’m guessing your chef’s kitchen pantry doesn’t extend to condoms?”

  “You’d guess wrong. We don’t have many house rules, but condoms in every room is one of them.” He stepped out of his jeans, jerking his chin at the hanging wine rack. “That Merlot on the end. We had it on a trip to Napa a couple of years ago. Just like in the movie Sideways, we discovered it really was undrinkable. The trip still rocked, though. So we brought it home as a souvenir.”

  Annabeth slid it out and felt the smooth seam in the middle of the bottle—along with the tiny gold hinge added to its back. Clever. And a laughable use of what had to be a pricey bottle of wine. A month ago she might have freaked out about it. Now she could just appreciate that Josh and his friends found a way to hold onto the vacation. She still couldn’t resist asking, “How much was this Merlot?”

  “As a condom holder? Priceless.” Then Josh threw back his head and laughed, a golden god at the heart of his realm. Naked. A chef in his kitchen. Radiating heat and sensuality and yet still with that ever present layer of good humor that made him so easy to be with.

  It was why Annabeth wasn’t at all nervous being so suddenly and completely naked with him for the first time. Why she didn’t wonder if it’d be weird after, or not so great during. Normally, she’d worry about those things. And she’d worried more about them with this whole slow slide from hands-off friends to lovers.

  But now? Here with him like this? Annabeth had a moment of clarity. She deserved to be with this sexy, wonderful, caring man. Nothing would be weird or difficult or less than fantastic. Because this wasn’t any guy. It was Josh. He was her Naked Man. They were crazy about each other. It didn’t get any better than that.

  Annabeth tore open the condom wrapper. Toed off her socks for better traction on the floor, and then crouched to roll it on him. “Are you ready to move straight to the entrée, Chef Hardwick?”

  “You bet I am.” Josh reached for her arms, as if to lift her back onto the table. Annabeth shook her head. Hand still wrapped around the steel rigidity of his penis, she propelled him back a few steps to more of an open space. It only took a soft touch on his shoulder for Josh to catch on and drop to the floor.

  Straddling him, Annabeth crossed her ankles, heels bumping against the epic tightness of his ass. The hair on his thighs tickled her butt in every good way. “We should probably be fast,” she warned. “Sledding doesn’t last all night. They’ll be back soon.”

  “Fast…for now,” he corrected her. “But what I intend to do with you after this round will definitely last all night.”

  Another promise that Annabeth had no doubt Josh would deliver. Palms rounded over those muscled shoulders, she hitched herself up to slide down over him.

  Wow.

  Wow.

  It was hard to focus on what felt the best. The dusting of chest hair that teased her nipples to tautness as she rose and fell. The warm strength beneath her clenched fingertips. The damp trail of kisses he left along her neck. Or the incredible way Josh filled her, rubbing against nerve endings inside and out that practically hummed with electric sparks of pleasure.

  He was thick. Hard. And so deep that it took a few strokes before she fully adjusted to his size.

  Josh splayed a hand in the small of her
back, tweaking her angle closer and higher up. It did the trick. Annabeth began to pulse in her core and picked up the pace. His breath in her ear was a harsh rasp, much like the late-night scruff on his jaw scraping her skin. That only added to her excitement, to being barraged by sensations.

  Now they were both frantic with need. Pants and gasps and grunts filled the air, along with the slap of skin against skin. Hands clutched and pinched and stroked so fast it was impossible to keep track. Annabeth sunk her teeth into the fleshy part of his ear lobe.

  “You’ll pay for that later,” Josh warned.

  “Looking forward to it.” And she was. There were so many different bedroom games for them to play together. Annabeth relished the idea of trying them all with Josh. “Don’t make me wait any longer now, though.”

  “You’re in charge,” he reminded her.

  While it was refreshing to hear a man cede control, it wasn’t quite right for them. “We’re in this together,” Annabeth corrected with a smile, loving everything about this first time with Josh.

  “Together,” he agreed. Hands once more on her ass, his hips pistoned faster. That small change was the extra friction needed to push Annabeth over the edge. Her legs trembled wildly around his body. As she let out a scream of satisfaction, Josh hunched closer, finishing with a deep moan that reverberated in her chest.

  She stayed on his lap while they caught their breath, a little sticky, a little sweaty, and completely happy. Worth the wait didn’t begin to describe what they’d just done.

  Josh pushed the hair off her cheek with his thumb. “You look so beautiful like this, babe.”

  Laughter burst out of her. “Naked?”

  He shook his head. After a slow, soft kiss that melted through her like butter into a cinnamon roll, Josh murmured, “Mine.”

  How had she gotten so lucky to deserve this man? “As long as you’re mine.” Awkwardly—because there was no graceful way to un-impale herself—Annabeth stood and pulled on her sweater. She tossed jeans—hopefully his—to Josh.