Christmas with the Single Dad (The Single Dads of Seattle Book 5)

by Whitley Cox

  “Zak?” His name felt smooth against her tongue, slightly cool. She licked her lips, as if savoring its sweetness. He definitely suited his name. Strong, powerful and sexy.

  He put his fork down and turned to face her, giving her his full and undivided attention. “Hmm?”

  She swallowed. “Thank you for rescuing me tonight.” She felt the heat of a blush warm her cheeks, and she dipped her eyes down to his now covered chest. “And for the other thing, too.”

  Once again, he lifted her chin with his knuckle. His dark blue eyes burned with an intensity that both excited and scared her, as if he already saw everything that she was … and everything that she wasn’t. “No need to thank me, darlin’. Got to keep the customers happy.”

  The customers. Right.

  A small piece of her heart chipped away from his words.

  She wasn’t sure it was possible, but his eyes darkened even more, and before she knew it, she found herself hauled off her stool, his plate pushed to the side and her butt firmly planted on the countertop. He wedged her knees apart and pushed his body into the V of her legs, his arms on either side of her thighs. “That was a joke, you know.”

  Her heart pounded hard in her chest as his need for her hit her in heated waves. His fingers bunched in the fabric of her pants, and he pulled her closer to him.

  “I feel like a complete ass for not having noticed you sooner. I mean, I knew who you were, have watched your progress, but I don’t date or sleep with members. Ever.”

  Ever.

  She hadn’t even been aware that she’d been biting her lip until his thumb landed on her bottom lip and gently tugged it free of her teeth.

  “My lip, remember?”

  Swallowing again, she nodded.

  “I haven’t been with a woman in a while. A long while. Kind of swore off them until my head cleared from the divorce. It was a rough one. I haven’t even been looking to date.” He ran the pad of his thumb over her lip, pushing it inside just a touch, then drawing it back out. “Maybe that’s why I didn’t notice you, because I wasn’t looking.” He removed his thumb, and she had to push down her whimper. The flash of lust behind his eyes said she hadn’t done a good enough job suppressing it though. He dipped his finger into his wineglass, then brought it back to her mouth, rubbing it along her lips before pushing it into her mouth. “Suck.”

  She did as she was told, loving the eroticism of his demand and the way the fire burned in the deep blue of his eyes as she swirled her tongue around his digit, savoring the excellent vintage and Zak.

  “I may not have noticed you before,” he began, regret in his tenor, “but I sure as hell notice you now. Stay the night in my bed. Stay the next few nights in my bed. Call in sick to work tomorrow and spend the day in bed with me. Let me make up for being a fool and not noticing you until now.”

  Not taking her eyes from his, she pinched her wrist, just to make sure she wasn’t passed out in a snowbank back in the gym parking lot or in the bed upstairs. Or even worse, back at her cold, tiny, lonely studio apartment with her dead cactus and dollar-store Christmas wreath.

  He pushed himself out of his stool and stood up, towering over her even though she sat on the kitchen island.

  Damn, he was tall.

  “Stay.” He pulled his finger from between her lips, cupped her face in both hands and slanted his mouth over hers, bringing their mouths within the same breathing space … and kissed her. His tongue pushed its way inside, demanding she open for him; she met it and gave it teasing laps with her own. He took that as a challenge and assumed control over not only her mouth, but her body, her muscles and every one of her senses. All she could see, all she could smell, all she could taste, touch and hear was Zak.

  Zak.

  She sank into his body instantly, the hard planes of his muscles enfolding her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her, feeling his arousal knock against her inner thigh as he drew her up off the counter and onto his waist.

  He took the stairs two at a time, she was pretty sure, collapsing them both onto his bed and stripping her naked with a speed that frightened her in the absolute best possible way.

  She’d never been wanted with such ferocity before. Never been craved or desired the way she could tell Zak craved her.

  He opened up his nightstand drawer and pulled out a condom, tearing the packet open and sheathing himself in seconds.

  She cupped her breasts and pulled at her already diamond-hard nipples, needing more to ease the ache she felt deep in her belly.

  “Stay,” he demanded again. It had never been a question.

  She reached for him, and he lowered himself to her, sinking into her body and stretching her, filling her, fulfilling her fantasies but only a million times better than she ever could have imagined.

  “I’ll stay,” she whispered, tracing her tongue over one of the tattoos on his shoulder. “I’ll stay.”

  His smile made everything inside her tighten and heat up. So this was what it felt like to finally have your fantasy come to life. To finally have the man of your dreams ask you to stay the night, the weekend with him.

  Would he ask her to stay for forever?

  He dipped his head and latched on to a nipple at the same time his hips began to move—and boy, did they know how to move. All that working out had not compromised his flexibility one iota. The man was like a contortionist.

  The closer he brought her to the edge, the closer Aurora felt herself on the verge of tears. Tears of joy, tears of disbelief, tears of pleasure. Tears of fear.

  Because true to form, she wasn’t able to just enjoy the moment. She was caught up with the thoughts in her head. Plagued by them. Worrying that even though he asked her to stay, he might one day ask her to leave. That she wasn’t enough for him. She was just a douse of rain after a drought. Anybody in their right mind would reach for the skies with their mouths open when the clouds finally turned dark and began to pour. Quenching their thirst, easing their parched tongue. It only made sense that he would take what she offered him. And then he would grow tired of her, and she would be asked to leave.

  They all eventually ended things with her. She was always the dumpee, never the dumper.

  Even with the most recent boyfriend.

  However, none of those past lovers could hold a candle to Zak. None of them had piqued her interest or made her fantasize about a future the way she did about Zak. And now that she’d finally had a taste of him, discovered how great he was—she knew that when he finally asked her to leave, it would probably destroy her.

  6

  Zak took the steps one at a time, careful not to drop the tray of plates and wineglasses that he carried. After their impromptu second round—and third round—he’d ducked back downstairs and reheated their dinner, deciding that dinner in bed with the incredible woman who’d just emptied his balls down her throat for the second time that night was WAY better than sitting in the kitchen with clothes on.

  He should crank the heat tomorrow and make it a no-clothing day. That way he could take her in every room of the house as often as Mother Nature would let him. So far, Mother Nature—or in this case Father Ballsack—hadn’t let him down, though he was also no longer a spring chicken and couldn’t get it up a dozen times a day like he used to. If he needed an hour or two to recharge, he always had his tongue and fingers to keep Aurora happy.

  On the steps of the landing, he paused and glanced at his shoulder. The ache from her bite as she came still stung a touch, and her teeth marks over his tattoo were plain as day.

  He liked a little teeth. He liked it a little rough.

  Did she?

  He had nipple clamps, a blindfold and handcuffs somewhere in the back of his closet, would they get to a point in their relationship where he could bring them out?

  Rounding the corner into his bedroom, he had to keep himself from dropping the tray. Aurora—Rory— was on his bed, naked, wearing glasses and reading a book. Her sandy-blonde hair tum
bled wildly down her shoulders, and her light brown eyes scanned the pages with pinched brows of concentration.

  Had he ever seen anything sexier in his entire life?

  Nope, he fucking hadn’t.

  “I was thinking to myself maybe we should make tomorrow a clothing-optional day,” he said, kneeling on the bed and resting the tray between them. Then he stood back up, shucked his pants and slipped naked beneath the covers. “But now, I’m thinking we need to not only make it clothing-optional but that you also have to wear those sexy-as-fuck black glasses all day.”

  She finished reading the page she was on, closed the novel and then turned to face him, a big smile on her face. She hummed. “Sorry, I always keep a book in my gym bag, but I haven’t read it in ages, figured I had time to start from the beginning this weekend.” She removed her glasses and folded them closed, placing them on the nightstand. “I only wear these for reading, so just close up.”

  He handed her a wineglass. “Don’t plan on getting too far away from me there, darlin’. Plan on staying pretty close.”

  Her cheeks pinked up a nice deep shade. “Where are you from? I detect a hint of an accent.” She took a sip of her wine. “A super-sexy accent.”

  He sipped his own wine and grinned. “South Carolina.”

  His brother Adam didn’t really have any twang left, though he’d been living on the west coast longer than Zak, and he’d made a point of losing it. Zak, on the other hand, didn’t mind the drawl, and women seemed to eat that shit up, so he often played it up when the fairer sex was around. Darlin’ this and darlin’ that. Made flirting easy, not that it’d been a challenge for him—not since puberty hit, that is.

  She thanked him when he handed her her plate of barely touched chicken and vegetables. “You still have family there in the South? Parents? Siblings?”

  Zak set his wineglass down on his nightstand. “My grandparents still live there. Parents died thirty-one years ago when I was four. My brother lives here.”

  “I’m so sorry about your parents.”

  He nodded, scratched the back of his neck, then picked up his utensils with one hand and hooked a thumb over his shoulder with the other, pointing to the tattoos on his shoulder blades and turning so she could see them. “Thanks. Those are their birth flowers. January for my mom on the right, August for my dad on the left. It’s like they’ve got my back.”

  She placed her plate on the nightstand and pushed up to her knees, tracing the tattoos lightly with her fingers. “They’re beautiful. All your tattoos are.” She ran her fingers over the footprints that ran down his arm. “I’m guessing these are your kids?”

  He nodded.

  “All your ink is gorgeous.”

  He grunted and thanked her. “You should eat. Get your strength back.”

  Her mouth wiggled in a little smile as she sat back down against the headboard and grabbed her plate. “How did your parents pass, if I might ask?”

  He swallowed hard but nodded. “It was a car accident. Dad was on his way home from night school. Car broke down. He called my mom to go and pick him up. She left Adam and me with the neighbors, and they were hit by an off-duty sheriff drunk off his ass.”

  She drew in a sharp breath. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, it was pretty awful. My parents were really young too. Had my brother Adam when they were still teenagers. My dad’s parents didn’t approve of my mom, so they cut them out of their lives. We were raised by my mom’s parents.”

  “And they’re still alive?”

  He nodded, forcing a tight smile. “And kicking.”

  “Is your brother coming over for Christmas dinner or something? Does he have a family?” She set her fork down and took another sip of her wine.

  “He does have a family. Has a daughter, Mira, and a new girlfriend, Violet, and she’s pregnant. They’re all in Hawaii for Christmas with Adam’s ex-wife, Paige, and her new boyfriend, Mitch, and his daughter, Jayda.”

  Her eyes went wide, and her adorable button nose wrinkled in confusion. Even perplexed, she was drop-dead gorgeous. His cock jerked beneath the covers and knocked the bottom of his plate.

  Chuckling, he reached over and wiped a droplet of wine from the corner of her mouth with his thumb. “I’ve seen that look before. But wait, here’s the kicker, just to baffle you even further—Mitch is Violet’s brother.” He slapped his thigh and tossed his head back with another laugh.

  Aurora blinked again. “Wait—your brother’s ex-wife is dating his current girlfriend’s brother? And they’re all okay with each other?”

  He sipped his wine, nodding. “They’re more than okay with it. Paige and Violet are great friends now, as are Mitch and Adam. They all share the girls, go on family trips together, have dinners with each other. Jayda and Mira are as close as two sisters can get. It’s a win-win for all of them.”

  She shook her head and took another, longer, bigger sip of her wine. “Never heard of a split that amicable in all the cases that have crossed my desk in the past while,” she said simply. “A rarity for sure.”

  Zak made a noise in his throat, picked up his fork and knife again and continued eating. “Mine certainly wasn’t a bed of roses. Still isn’t. Probably never will be.”

  He let his gaze slide her way only to find her staring directly at him, her eyes boring into his soul. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’ve seen a lot of ugly divorces, and I know that it’s not fun for either side. I hope that you at least got what you wanted with your children?”

  With a stiff smile, he grunted, nodded once and continued eating. “I did. Had one hell of a good lawyer. She tried to take them from me, render me down to nothing more than an every-other-weekend dad who paid a butt-load in child support and alimony. She lied about who I was, the type of father and husband that I was. She claimed I was an alcoholic.” He cleared his throat for the umpteenth time, spotted his nearly empty wineglass on the nightstand, reached for it but didn’t drink a drop.

  A cool, delicate hand landed on his heated shoulder. “I hardly know you,” she whispered, “but I can already tell you’re none of the things she claimed you to be. I have a sixth sense about people, and I don’t get any of those vibes from you.”

  Zak clenched his jaw tight until a dull but not altogether unwelcome throb pulsed just below his ears. He continued to stare at the wineglass. If he squeezed the stem any tighter, it would probably snap.

  She tugged on the glass to remove it from his grip, and he slowly released it, his knuckles aching from how hard he’d been holding it.

  “I’ve only ever drunk alcohol on the weekends,” he said, more to himself than anybody else. “I’ve always maintained control over my life, over my body and what I put into it. That’s how I’ve stayed so healthy, how I overcame … ” He licked his lips, then turned to her. Her eyes were wide, inviting, welcoming him to share with her. “I was a sick kid,” he started. “Really sick. Every allergy on the planet, diet and otherwise. Hay fever, eczema, nosebleeds—I had it all. I was in and out of the hospital for years with one ailment or another. My grandma had a tough time getting enough food into me so that I didn’t look like a skeleton. I was anemic, had thyroid issues, insomnia … ” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I wet the fucking bed until I was nine.”

  He lifted his head from where he’d been staring at his lap, waiting for the flash of judgment to flit through her gaze, but it didn’t. Not at all. She set his wineglass down on her nightstand and reached for his hands, linking them through hers, encouraging him to continue.

  “I was this weak little fucker. Forty pounds soaking wet when I was eleven. I was short too. Constantly bullied. Adam defended me as best he could, but if there was anything our grandparents instilled in us, it was not to fight. No scrapping.”

  “Sometimes a good punch to the face does a world of good for a bully though. A taste of their own medicine.” She ran her thumb over the back of his hand and lifted her eyes back up to his, a small, reassuring smile co
asting across her lips.

  He breathed out a laugh. “I couldn’t have said it better myself, actually.”

  “Then what happened?”

  He exhaled deeply, moving his gaze to blink up at the ceiling for a few silent moments and leaning his head against the headboard. “By grace and by God, puberty hit. And it hit me like a tsunami. Only instead of devastating everything in its path and fucking me up even more than I already was, it was more like when Spiderman got bit by the radioactive spider. Puberty kicked ninety-nine percent of my allergies to the curb, my thyroid levels evened out, and I started sleeping better. I also shot up like eight inches in one summer, gained nearly a hundred pounds in like six months, too. And I just kept growing. Went from a size seven shoe to a size thirteen in less than a year. Was over six feet tall by the time I was fourteen. Started working out every day at the gym for two hours. Made friends with some of the bodybuilders there, and they took me under their wings, showed me how to train, how to bulk up. Nobody recognized me when I entered my freshman year at a new school. It was like a rebirth. A second chance at life.”

  “The phoenix rising from the ashes, burned but never broken. Your wings might have been singed, but your spirit was strong and determined.”

  Zak’s bottom lip dropped open. “Again, I couldn’t have said it better myself.” He tilted his body a bit and untwined their hands so he could point to the tattoo on his side running from beneath his armpit nearly down to his hipbone. “That’s exactly how I felt. Like a phoenix.”

  Her smile was demure and almost bashful as she traced her cool fingers over the red and orange tattoo of a phoenix he’d gotten when he was eighteen. It embodied who he was. Burned, but not broken. Weakened but not vanquished.

  Only now, he was stronger than ever. In control and determined to keep it that way.

  “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “I take it you dealt with your bullies, then?”