by Taryn Quinn
“Come to my room with me,” I said against her mouth. “We both need that fantasy.”
I’d been so wrapped up in my classes and stressing about a new project for my agent that there’d been little time for me to tend to my own needs.
Seeing her, tasting her, and wanting her had brought them back into such crisp focus, I literally ached. And maybe after one night, I could convince her for more. I had a feeling that once wouldn’t be nearly enough for either of us.
“A fantasy,” she said with a nod. “Yes.”
I brought my other hand up to cup her cool cheek. “I’m at The Hummingbird’s Nest.”
“Guess we need to go get your car. It’s a bit of walk, and I’m freaking cold.”
I laughed. “Then let’s get you warmed up.”
“I’m sure you have a few ideas for that.”
“You know what they say…”
“Skin on skin is the quickest way to warm up?”
“Damn, I like the way you think.”
Eight
The heater was blasting in Callum’s insanely bright car. Even in the dark of Dare’s parking garage, it was like a neon banana. However, when the engine purred, I couldn’t deny I enjoyed that bit of extra testosterone.
It was already thick in the air anyway. He’d practically dragged me over to the garage. Not that I could blame him. I’d been wishy washy in the extreme. Talk about hot and cold—even in my own mind.
Now that I’d given him the green light, he was going to run with it.
I wasn’t used to being impulsive. That was my mother. And watching her make the same mistakes over and over again with men made me so careful not to do the same.
I glanced over at him in the shadows of the car. The bright blue lights of the various dials and speedometer tossed his face into stark relief. The hollowed out cheekbones and square jawline gave him that classically handsome look that made women stupid.
Clearly, I wasn’t immune.
He curled his fingers around the shifter, and then he paused and directed all that ridiculous beauty my way. “This doesn’t have to go any further than our date night. I can drop you home and pick you up and take you out for a proper dinner tomorrow.”
I stuffed down the urge to laugh. “A proper dinner on Christmas Eve?”
He shrugged. “Or I can cook you dinner.”
“Is that right? At The Hummingbird’s Nest?”
“No, my place. Well-rounded, remember?”
I leaned into him, and he met me halfway. “Just take me to your room.” I said it against his mouth, the demand oddly reminiscent of how he’d been trying to convince me to go out with him all day.
He cupped the back of my head and kissed me hard before sitting straight again and fastening his seatbelt. I did the same and stared out the window at all the lights swaying in the increasing wind off the water.
There was a lot of pedestrian traffic, so our trip was slow going. We were a hearty bunch in the Cove, but most of the vendors were starting to pack it in. People had families to get to and holiday plans to finalize. And here I was with a stranger, feeling more at home with him than I did with most of my friends.
Not sure what that said about me—or maybe him.
He was so easy with everyone he met. I was polite and friendly, but not like him. He just instantly took to people. And to be truthful, they took to him. Dancing in the park like he’d choreographed it himself. Not missing a beat even when Mr. Phillips ended up in his arms. He was our town Santa and that dance had been the sweetest thing I’d ever seen.
And the sexiest.
Callum was so at ease within his own skin that he was able to be sweet, sexy, or funny in an instant.
I wanted to see all the other sides of him.
He gave me an absent smile as he turned up the radio. An old Creed song was on, and he exaggeratedly sang “Arms Wide Open” until I was laughing with him instead of overthinking everything.
The ride to The Hummingbird’s Nest was over before it started. He pulled into the winding road, and we sang along to the next song as he parked. An old Keith Urban song went through a few stages—from messing up lyrics, to laughing, to kissing.
I couldn’t get enough of his mouth. It was full and warm and oh so talented. He nipped at my lower lip until I practically climbed into his lap to get closer.
He opened his door, and the slap of cold air broke us apart. He quickly got out and came around to help me out of of the low slung car with more kisses and laughter.
“You’re so damn beautiful.” He threaded his fingers through my hair. “Unbelievably beautiful.”
I flushed and looked down. “You’ve got me here. You don’t have to pour it on.” I leaned back into his car to get my bag from the floor.
“Evidently, I do.” He circled my waist and hauled me against him. “It’s not just physical, Ellie. I keep catching these flashes of something under that serious face. When you let yourself enjoy the moment, you glow.”
“Stop.”
“I’m an artist. Do you know how hard I look for that glow? And it’s in the most random of people. A woman in her nineties I found at a park. She was feeding pigeons of all things. Greta Bloom. I’ll never forget her. She had that light. And here you are with the same one, but you also have so much more.”
He lowered his mouth to mine and I gave in. I didn’t even care if it was a line at this point. He made me feel like there was something warm and bright inside of me, and I was willing to believe to keep this feeling.
We stumbled our way up to the entrance, barely able to keep our hands off one another. There was a crush of people at the main desk, probably overflow from the festival. Because he was already settled in a room, we were able to sneak around and head for the stairs.
I wasn’t paying attention and nearly wiped out on the small caution sign.
“Shit.” He lifted me and hauled me over one of the signs that explained they were renovating.
The stairs were an old spiral style, and we kept bouncing off the railing and one another as we tripped our way upstairs and down the hallway to his room. He fumbled with his key and backed into the room, dragging me in with him. Coats hit the floor, and his sweater followed them before he went to work on his shirt buttons.
I flipped my own sweater over my head, and he stopped in the middle of the room. “Sweet Zeus.”
I frowned. That seemed like an odd phrase, but I didn’t have time to think about it. I needed to help him out of his shirt. There were far too many buttons. We both fumbled with the tiny pearlescent disks. My fingers shook and his were too large.
My goodness, he was proportional. Finally, we got them all, and I pushed the gold and gray plaid shirt off his shoulders. Before I could get it down his wrists, they were caught. We’d forgotten the buttons at his cuffs.
He was at my mercy and I kinda liked it.
He kept trying to get his wrists free as I scraped my nails through the just-right amount of hair on his chest. It covered his extremely impressive pecs and arrowed down his lean torso with a lighter and silkier texture. I brushed my cheek along the softness and kissed my way down his abs.
“Ellie.”
My name was a strangled moan as I dropped to my knees. I flicked my tongue over the little divot of his navel. “It’s been a little while since I’ve done this, but I think I remember how this goes.” I jerked the tail of his belt free from the loops and loosened his buckle.
His cock curved up against his zipper, bulging for freedom. I flicked open the button of his jeans and slowly peeled down his zipper. The chili pepper boxers I revealed made me laugh.
“Better be the boxers you’re laughing at, woman.” He finally got his hands free from the shirt and tried to draw me up to my feet.
I shook my head then reached in for my prize. His stormy eyes went heavy and dark as I dragged the flat of my tongue along the underside of his length. A hint of that cedar scent hit me just before the salty, earthy flavor of him made my mo
uth water. I took more of him, swallowing down his taste and wanting more.
His head dropped back and his throat worked as he groaned my name. Spurred on by it, I took him again and again, coating him enough for me to palm his length and suck harder until he finally raked his fingers through my hair to stop me.
“God, that feels so good. I don’t want to come in your mouth first. I want you wrapped around me. Under me—fuck, even over me. Just not like this.”
I drew him deeper until the velvety head of his cock hit the back of my throat. I wanted to make him come. I could taste the power of it. As if he was a conduit to something bigger and more important. A freedom I’d been searching for all of my life.
Taking something for myself.
Taking him for myself.
He bent over to me and freed himself with a hiss. “I’ve never wanted a woman so badly. Please.”
I wiped my mouth, but he shook his head and lifted me, kissing me with wild abandon. Dirty and deep until I could scarcely breathe around it. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he turned enough to get us onto the bed.
I wiggled higher, and he dragged at the cups of my strapless bra. “I wondered if you had one of these female contraptions under that sweater.” His eyes were almost black as he inched it down my ribs then yanked it around to get to the hooks. “Off. Off.” I tried to shimmy higher on the mattress, but he was having none of that. He bore down on me as he tossed the scrap of satin over his shoulder. “There you are.” He tugged on one nipple and dragged his beardy chin over the other before licking it lightly. “My turn.”
“Turn?” I arched up off the bed as he twisted my nipple to just the edge of pain. The blood bloomed like fire under my skin, and warmth pooled in my belly. Pooled lower as I moved my hips restlessly. His cock was right there trapped between us.
He pressed it along my thigh as he shifted lower to get the button of my jeans undone. Again, he dragged his chin over my skin. Goosebumps rose and covered me from neck to toes. “Callum.”
“Say it again.” He traced the tip of his tongue along the lace edge of my panties, just under my bellybutton.
“Callum.”
He smiled against the light pink lace. “I’ll hear that in my dreams.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to think about him dreaming of me. I only wanted to think of the now—the pleasure from this ill-advised plan. Not the nebulous future I couldn’t control.
Then he tucked his tongue under the elastic and groaned at what he found there. Nothing but skin and me. “Ellie.”
He peeled my jeans and panties down and growled. Wasn’t sure I’d ever heard a guy growl about me. He fumbled with my stretchy boots and finally got them off. He shoved his shoulders between my thighs and opened me wide then dragged his chin over my flesh to the absolutely bare skin around my slit.
Working at a salon meant I had access to all sorts of personal grooming. And keeping our Brazilian techniques sharp in a small town meant sometimes we had to practice on each other.
“Beautiful.” He glanced up at me as he traced his tongue along my swollen center.
I lifted my hips to either help him along or push him away. I wasn’t sure which. It was too much and too invasive for a first time. And yet hadn’t I done the same? Here was my tit for tat. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be pushing him away in the final moment as he’d done to me.
Reaching up toward the headboard, I only found pillows. I couldn’t breathe around the rasping play of his tongue along every nerve ending inside me. When I couldn’t move away from the onslaught of his lips and then the pressure of his finger sliding inward, I gave up and cupped my breast to tug at my nipple.
I was on the edge and crazed with it. No self -induced orgasms were like this. They were perfunctory when my insomnia got too bad, and it was the only way to knock my ass out. This was all-consuming as he watched me flail.
His nostrils flared as he held onto me and spread me wider. I tried to buck him off me, afraid the entire floor would hear my sounds. Finally, I grabbed one of the pillows behind me and screamed into it. The broken sobs had me curling into myself, but he wouldn’t allow it.
He wanted inside every part of me.
Quickly, he climbed up and took the pillow from me, replacing it with his mouth. The wildness of my own taste was a chain reaction. He slid two fingers inside me and rode out the scream. I tasted blood as our teeth clashed in the shuddering chatter of my overwhelmed system.
He was right there with me. He swore and scraped his teeth down my neck as I cried out his name over and over. There was no generic cry for God. There was only Callum and the maelstrom of pleasure. When he fumbled between us, I recognized the unmistakable feel of latex, and then it just didn’t matter. He was filling me, driving into me and chasing the end of my orgasm and demanding more. And I gave it. I gave him everything without thought to the aftermath.
I wrapped myself around him and accepted all of him. The sweat and the hardness, the power and the insanity. It shouldn’t be this good. It shouldn’t feel like everything.
But it was.
It did.
“Ellie. Come with me.” He slid one hand between us and the friction and the fullness were no match for self-preservation. I dug my nails into his back as he thrust into me again and again. And the one orgasm clawed into two.
He pinned me to the mattress and groaned against my neck then found my mouth as we held on to one another. I didn’t realize there were tears until he kissed them away and slowly, the room came back into focus.
The muscles I hadn’t used in well over a year shrieked even as I wanted to roll over and sleep for a lifetime. “Glorious,” I murmured into his skin.
He laughed and lightly kissed my shoulder. “You may not say the same when you see what I did to your neck.” He drew his thumb over an abrasion before he rolled off me with a wince.
We lay side by side, our breathing still labored. Eventually, he rolled off the bed and disappeared into the bathroom. The sound of water running and the flush of a toilet roused me from the near coma I’d slipped into.
He shifted me under the covers and kissed me. “I’m freaking famished.”
I cuddled into the cool white pillow and could have happily drifted off. “I should go.”
“No, stay. I’m going to go get us something to eat.”
I needed to go. Ties came with each minute I lingered in the afterglow. But the bed was so warm, and everything was so soft.
Including me.
He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I’ll be right back.”
“‘Kay,” I mumbled.
I should really go.
Nine
I resisted the urge to whistle my way down the stairs. Ending up in Crescent Cove had been a lucky break after all.
Now if I could just figure out how to keep Ellie in my life for more than a few more mind-blowing hours…
One thing at a time.
First, I would make sure the rest of the evening went as well as it had started.
I headed downstairs as soundlessly as possible. A few of the steps creaked, so I made sure not to make too much noise.
I wasn’t trying to hide exactly. I just didn’t want to be noticed.
Or questioned.
Or gossiped about.
The elegantly appointed foyer beckoned. Sconces high on the wall flickered as if lit by candles. Tasteful Christmas bells and garland dripped from the reservations counter, and cheerful holiday carols played from recessed speakers. The air was scented with cinnamon and nutmeg. All seemed perfectly welcoming.
Yet once I reached the bottom stair, I didn’t move.
It wasn’t terribly late, but the desk seemed deserted. That was good news for me. I’d grab some sodas and salty snacks from the vending machines off the foyer, and hopefully, a few condoms. Even a dignified establishment such as this should be prepared with typical vacation items, right?
Razors, pretzels, and rubbers. Seemed like a usual bed and b
reakfast shopping list.
I found the sodas. The salty treats. The sweet ones. And a discreet sign that said, “For personal care items, consult the desk.”
Inwardly, I groaned. Probably outwardly too.
We’d already had sex. Amazing, life-changing, jingle my balls off sex. I wanted more of it. I was pretty sure she did too. There were plenty of other ways to enjoy ourselves without the need for protection, but I couldn’t deny getting back into the sweet clasp of Ellie’s body was at the top of tonight’s agenda.
So, I was just going to go to the desk. They probably had other people manning it during the off-hours anyway. Sage Hamilton couldn’t be there all night long.
“Hi, there,” Sage said cheerfully when I rang the bell for service. She’d popped up from behind the counter.
I managed not to stumble backward but only narrowly. Did she hide behind there to surprise all the guests or was I just special?
“Hi, Sage. Late for you, isn’t it?”
“Oh, it’s almost Christmas, so we gave Alyce the night off. She’s usually the one who handles the desk after hours.”
“That must be hard on you.”
“Not so much, no. We’ll close early tomorrow, and Oliver—my husband—is watching our daughter. It gives me a night off, to tell you the truth.”
“But you’re working…?” I regretted asking as soon as the half-formed question was out.
“It gives me a night off from babymaking practice.”
“Oh. Um. Okay. Good luck with that.”
“We just kicked into high gear for our second kid, and the man is relentless. Give him a target, and he insists on shooting his gun over and over. But it’s fun for the most part. Just requires lots of stamina and hydration. Have you tried those vitamin waters? We have some in the vending machine. I recommend them for long sessions, if you know what I mean.” She waggled her brows, and I was fairly certain my kneecaps blushed.
But it also gave me a nice segue into what I needed. I would even extend this painful conversation if it led to more condoms. Preferably a few.
“That’s why I’m here actually.”
