“I’ve always noticed that you sort of look like you just stepped out of the 1950s, which, trust me, is great. But I’m curious why.”
I love that he’s asking. We’ve talked about so much over the years, at parties, at dinners, at the bowling alley. But here’s a new thing that we’re chatting about. “When we moved to the United States, one of the ways I practiced English was watching TV and movies. I loved Happy Days and Elvis Presley flicks—that whole vintage look. It felt very American to me. By the time I started making choices about what I wanted to wear, that was the time period I identified with.”
“That is one of the coolest stories I’ve ever heard.”
“It is?” A dose of delight zips through me. “Why?”
“Because it’s a reason. It’s not just ‘Oh, I think it’s cute.’ Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But you had a deeper reason. It says something about who you are.”
“I suppose it did. Maybe it still does.”
“Is that something you wanted when you first came here? To feel more American? I knew you then, but we were, what, six and seven? I don’t remember a ton.”
“We were young,” I say, recalling only bits and pieces of when my parents moved to California from Colombia so my scientist father could pursue better job opportunities. “I already knew enough English, but I wanted to fit in. I can seamlessly fit in now, and clearly I can speak without an accent. But here’s a little-known fact—I still dream in Spanish.”
He inches closer. It’s heady, his nearness. It makes the air crackle, and I’m thoroughly distracted once more. Especially when he asks in that low, smoky voice, “What else do you do in Spanish?”
My breath hitches, and my stomach flips. I try to think of Perri and how I’ve been lying to her for years by omission . . . but I’m also not thinking about Perri at all. I can’t keep her in my head when Shaw looks at me like he wants to be more than friends.
Like he wants to pass the time the same damn way I do. I decide to tango closer to the truth because I need to know if it’s time to break out Monopoly so I don’t jump him—or if it’s time to jump him. “Sometimes, when I’m really caught up in something, I’ll speak in Spanish.”
A naughty grin spreads on his face. “Is that so?”
“Yes.”
He seems to know what I mean and where I’m heading. He’s staring at me with fire in his eyes. With hunger in his expression. My whole body sizzles, and I want to back up and revise my answer about how I want to pass the time.
I want to tell him the truth now because my life is barreling toward a date with another man. A man who might very well be the real thing. But I don’t want to go anywhere with anyone else until I know what to do with this massive, overstuffed box of feelings for my best friend’s brother.
Maybe it’s time to open the box and get this man out of my system. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t found the one yet—because I’m hung up on this one I can’t have. And maybe, if I have him once, if we “pass the time,” I won’t think of him anymore. I’ll empty the box, fold it up, stuff it in the recycling bin, and walk away.
He nudges my knee with his. “Vanessa,” he says playfully. “What exactly do you mean when you say ‘caught up’?”
This is it. This is the chance the snowfall is giving me—to tell Shaw I need him to rid me of my desire for him. He’s the sickness and he’s the cure.
But how do I say I speak in Spanish when I’m thinking of you? I say your name in my native tongue when I slide my hand down my body at night. When you make me come in my fantasies. When I call out your name.
I take a deep breath.
You say it by saying it.
So I do, needing to crack open the box.
I say all of that in a rush of lightning-fast Spanish.
He blinks. “What?”
But I backpedal, because I want him to go first. I want him to want me so badly he dreams of me in Spanish, and he doesn’t even speak the language. “I said, when something tastes good, I say it in Spanish.”
He shakes his head as if he’s caught me. He leans closer, his eyes holding my gaze. “I don’t think that’s what you were saying.”
My stomach flips. A rush of heat zips through me. “What do you think I was saying?”
His eyes blaze. “I think you were saying something else.”
I glance at the fireplace, trying to find the courage but wanting him to find it too. I wrap my arms around my waist.
“Do you want me to build a fire?”
Sex and a fireplace? “Yes.”
He heads to the deck, grabs a few logs, and builds a fire. When it’s lit, he turns around and offers me his hand.
I gaze at his big hand. This is a clear step, and that’s what I’ve wanted from him.
I take it, loving the feel of his fingers wrapped around mine.
He pulls me up from the couch. “Want to sit by the fire?”
I’m on fire. “Yes.”
He tugs me down to the carpet in front of the flames. We sit cross-legged, looking at each other. “We’re not drinking hot cocoa to pass the time,” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “We’re not playing board games to pass the time.”
Right here looking at me is the man I’ve been in love with for more than a decade. He’s the one I want to go to the wedding with. He’s the one I either need to get under or get over.
“I’m supposed to go to Perri’s wedding with Jamie Sullivan,” I say, ripping off part of the Band-Aid.
His jaw ticks. His eyes narrow. “I heard,” he mutters as he lets go of my hand.
My brow knits. “You heard? What, is it like a rumor going around?”
“Doesn’t sound like it’s a rumor. Sounds like the truth.” And he sounds annoyed. “Is it true?” His voice is harsher than I’ve ever heard it, but I like what that knife’s edge in it tells me.
“Perri and Arden want me to go with him. It was Miriam’s idea.”
He’s silent for a beat, then he studies me like he can find all my truths in my eyes. “Is that what you want?”
Now.
This moment.
It’s time.
I straighten my shoulders, returning to another question from before. “What do you think I said in Spanish?”
He stares at me, undressing me with his eyes, licking his lips. Then he rises on his knees, and the world slows.
It slides into this moment where he lifts his hand. Cups my cheek. Runs the pad of his thumb across my face.
I burn with longing.
And I melt from the terrifyingly wonderful awareness that this is happening.
He inches closer, his mouth on a fast track for mine, and whispers, “I think you said this.”
He captures my lips in a kiss.
9
Shaw
I have a favorite kiss.
It wasn’t a hot and heavy one. It wasn’t one that led to frenzied, fevered sex.
The one that tops my list was nearly innocent. A mere brush of lips as “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” played at my parents’ house one weekend when I was home from college.
Ten years ago, my friends gathered during break, drinking spiked eggnog, eating gingerbread cookies, and knocking back beer and wine.
I’d headed down the hallway to grab a bottle of wine, passing under the mistletoe that my parents—away in Mexico—had hung above a doorway.
When I turned around, Vanessa was walking toward me, wearing a red-and-white-checkered dress and a Mrs. Claus hat, looking like the hottest Santa’s helper I’d ever seen.
She’d had a few glasses of champagne. I’d had a few beers.
Was it the liquor? The music? The way the lights from the tree twinkled in her brown eyes?
Her gaze drifted upward to the sprig of mistletoe, and she stopped under it, wearing an inviting little grin. I walked to her, accepting her invitation on the spot. “Merry Christmas, Vanessa,” I’d said, then swept my lips over hers.
; She’d gasped, a sweet and delicious sound that wove through my entire body. On her lips I tasted gingerbread and champagne, and a little lip gloss too. I’d been buzzed from the drinks, but then it was from the possibilities, from the idea that I could wrap a hand around her waist, jerk her close, and kiss the breath out of her. I could take her upstairs and have her, like I’d always wanted to.
I pressed one more kiss to those fantastic lips. Before I spiraled into a haze of Nat King Cole and her, I forced myself to stop.
I had to get away, or I’d want more than one kiss.
“Merry Christmas,” I’d said, and walked off, the memory of one sweet kiss lingering with me for weeks.
Hell, for years.
But this?
Here in front of the fire? With my hand cupping her jaw, her lithe body warm, and her lips parted?
I’m not walking away. I’m seeing this through.
This is my new favorite kiss, and nothing will top it. I brush my lips over hers, and the taste of her—chocolate and sweetness and that hint of gloss—lights me up.
As our mouths collide, my thoughts go foggy. My body sparks. Electricity shoots through every damn vein, cell, and molecule.
This is the only way to kiss.
No one to find us, not a soul to stumble down the hall. And no one to remind us why we shouldn’t do this.
No one except us, and I’m not issuing that reminder tonight.
Because . . . we should do this.
I hold her tighter and deepen the kiss. My tongue skates over hers, and our lips devour each other.
I heat up everywhere, and it’s not from the flames in the fireplace. It’s from how she responds. From the way she loops her hands around my neck, tugging me closer. She kisses me with a ferocity I’ve dreamed of, with a passion that underscores years.
Like she’s wanted to kiss me for ages.
My God, that’s what I’ve wanted—to know how she feels under my touch. Our lips explore each other’s desperately, like we’re running out of time, running out of air. But we don’t care. We need this.
The temperature in me ratchets to the sky as I claim her mouth with mine. Her hands thread into the back of my hair. Like a desperate woman, she jerks me closer.
I’m a desperate man, and I want us to be as close as possible. But this position isn’t going to work much longer, me on my knees, her slinking under me—it’s good, but I’m about to topple over, so I slide her down to the floor.
She moans, opening her legs for me. I groan, a carnal growl. I don’t think I can stop groaning, because . . . holy fuck. Vanessa Marquez is arching her back and rocking her hips into me in front of the fireplace, and I’m in my perfect dirty heaven, even though we have clothes on.
Stupid clothes.
But hell if I’m breaking this connection. This mind-blowing, skin-sizzling connection as our bodies grind faster. Her fingers twist in my hair, tugging and pulling, and her noises—they grow louder, more insistent. Like desperate pleas.
I kiss harder. I can’t stop kissing her, can’t stop wanting her.
I rub against her, and my hard-as-stone dick announces all its plans. Get inside her. Feel her warm heat wrapping around my length.
With that image in mind, I press my hard-on right there, where she wants me. Instantly, she moans, swiveling her hips. Push, grind, press, groan. We’re dry-fucking.
Which is awesome, but also not the endgame.
I need real fucking, and this woman needs it too.
I pull back and look at her face, her hazy, sex-drunk eyes. Finally, at last, I say the words that have spun on my tongue for years. “I want you so fucking much, Vanessa. I want you now. I want to make you feel so good. That’s how I want to pass the time with you.”
Her lips part in a sensual yes, then she says something in Spanish, practically purring the foreign words.
I laugh. “You’re going to need to translate.”
She yanks me closer, gazes into my eyes, and whispers, “I said, ‘I’ve never wanted anyone like this.’”
Did I say nothing would top that kiss?
I was wrong. Because everything keeps getting better and better.
Like right now.
I kneel and tug off my sweater to find she’s the fastest undresser in the West. The second my T-shirt’s off, she’s tossed her sweater on the couch, and is unhooking her bra.
My brain short-circuits, but even as the wires fry, I retain some semblance of rational thought. And I need a moment.
I really fucking do.
Because . . . her bra.
It’s black lace with a pink bow between the cups, and it’s the most enticing piece of lingerie ever worn.
Then it’s . . . not worn. She throws it to the couch, and I’m like a pinball machine lighting up. The buzzers whir, the flippers flap, and I hit the high score.
Vanessa’s. Tits. Are. Exposed.
The beautiful vixen that she is—she knows they’re fantastic. She knows I’m in heaven. She smiles coyly at me, giving me a come and get ’em look.
“Thought you might enjoy,” she whispers, and my dick leaps up, like he could high-five me. He knows he’s getting what he wants tonight.
My hands dart out to cup the beauties.
Soft, alluring, perfect teardrops.
I must have been very good in a past life to get to hold this lushness.
It’s possible I am whimpering. But who could blame me? These tits are my kryptonite, and they can take me down anytime.
“Why, oh why, did you wait so long to take off your shirt for me?” I bury my face between the two gorgeous globes and worship them.
She laughs, and she moans at the same time.
Then she stops laughing as I kiss her soft flesh, drawing one rosy nipple into my mouth. She tastes heavenly. I savor every lick as I lavish all the attention I can on these lovelies, until she’s panting so fast she might actually come this way. Which would be fine by me.
But she pushes me away from her chest, holding my face hard in her hands. She stares at me with a wild intensity. “That’s why. Because I knew you’re a junkie. Now, have you had your fix?”
I quirk up my lips. “You think that’s all I need of these perfect tits, snow bunny?”
She smiles devilishly. “I think that’s all you’re getting right now. I want you someplace else.” Rocking her hips up against me, she lets me know exactly where that is.
I fucking love that she’s direct. That she’s no shrinking violet. She’s telling me what she needs, and I intend to satisfy every last requirement.
I slide a hand between her legs, cupping her through the denim. She’s so fucking warm. “Mmm. I have a feeling this is where you want me.”
Her eyes float closed, and she lets herself fall back on her elbows on the rug, arching up into my touch. My God, she’s so stunning like that, sensual and sexy, shirtless and asking me to please her.
It would be my pleasure indeed.
“Stay there,” I tell her.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I stand, grab a pillow from the couch, and bring it back to her, tucking it under her head. “There you go.”
“Aren’t you sweet?”
“Woman, I simply don’t want you to hurt your head, since I’m going to be fucking you hard.”
She shudders, biting her lip. “You are?”
I grab my wallet from my back pocket, flip it open, and snag a condom. “I’d like to. That work for you?”
“I told you, Shaw. I’ve never wanted anyone like this,” she says, her voice steady and confident. That certainty is a hook, latching right on to my heart.
Gazing down at her, half naked and waiting for me, sharpens the lens on my mission to figure this out.
To figure us out.
Right now, I’ve unearthed a key detail—we want each other the same way.
I kneel next to her, hold her cheek, and meet her gaze. “Vanessa.” My voice is stripped bare. “I’ve never, not once in my whole l
ife, wanted anyone even one-tenth as much as I want you.”
She lets out a deep exhale, as if she’s relieved.
Maybe happy too.
So am I.
For a second, maybe more, I feel like I’m living in a dream. Because this is everything I’ve fantasized about. For years.
“It’s the same for me,” she murmurs, as she lifts her hips and unzips her jeans. Like a statue, I’m frozen, absorbing the moment. Vanessa undressing for me—that’s one hell of an answer.
I unfreeze and go from zero to sixty in seconds, shucking off my jeans.
“Come on. Hurry. I’m dying here,” she urges.
“I’m getting naked, woman. Give me a hot minute.”
She sits up, pulling on the cuffs of my jeans. “Faster, faster.”
I laugh as I tear them off, nearly tripping. She chuckles too, and it occurs to me that this could have been a supremely awkward moment. Or a weighty, silent one. It might also have been darkly clandestine. But it feels like us. Like two people who’ve known each other a long time, and who are doing the next natural thing.
I tug off my briefs, and when my dick is free, she stares hungrily, taking a deep breath. Then she murmurs something in her native tongue.
“Are you caught up in the moment?” I kneel in front of her, peeling off her black lace panties.
Then I’m the one caught up, because she’s fucking beautiful. One chestnut landing strip—otherwise, she’s bare. God, I want to taste her, eat her, devour her pussy. She’s so damn wet and slick.
“I’m so caught up in the moment,” she says, then eyes the condom. “Please.”
I roll it on then settle between her legs. And that’s when it hits me. Yes, we are still us, laughing, joking, teasing. But right now, we’re also something new entirely.
We’re lovers.
We’re not just friends, two people who’ve been in each other’s lives forever.
We’re a man and a woman, naked in the dark, and we’re going to be coming together. All that laughter and teasing slinks away as I place my hands on her thighs, spreading her open. “V,” I say, husky and low.
“Shaw.”
A groan echoes in my throat. “God, I want you so fucking much. I’m dying for you, baby. Just dying.”
The Lucky in Love Collection Page 43
