by Cari Quinn
It was equally too bad he didn’t believe he could give it. If he even wanted to, and that was anyone’s guess.
But not hers. Mentally, she had to move on from Chase. That had been driven home to her on Thanksgiving, when they’d sat across from each other at Cass’s gorgeous antique dining table—one of Triple Scoop’s other family-less employees and Jax and his mom had also been in attendance—and pretended to be friends. And only friends.
They’d done their best to make the day festive. Chase’s dad was still in rehab, his mom spent the holiday in the company of her new family in Colorado and Summer’s mom was, at last check, in Sedona having her palm read, so Cass had been extra bubbly to cheer everyone up. At least until Jax tried to talk to her. Then she’d gone into super frost mode. Summer had attempted to eat her weight in turkey while trying not to smile at Chase and Jax’s mom getting to know each other again. Chase had ended the meal by giving her a butterscotch candy and she’d nearly sobbed in her hot cocoa.
It had been the strangest holiday of her life, and Christmas would be even worse, since she wouldn’t have Cass or even Chase’s glower to keep her warm. She’d probably still be on the road, which was all she wanted. Her time to seize the future had arrived, and she was happy as could be to be on the brink of seizing it. Alone.
Woo-freaking-hoo.
The doorbell rang and she rose, rubbing her damp palms on her floral peasant skirt. Lace-up boots and a frilly blouse completed the outfit. Since she’d also left her hair down, she probably looked more like an eighteenth century poet than a present day country-slash-pop-slash-rocker chick.
She crossed the foyer, her feet moving clumsily. This wasn’t a big deal. She and Chase weren’t anything but friends who’d seen each other naked. Partially naked in his case, since she’d never even seen all of him in the buff. He’d made her laugh and he’d made her come and he’d made her cry. End of story.
At least she’d gotten a couple of new songs out of it. She’d probably get more yet, when she was out on the road by herself with her guitar, a pen and a pad of paper. Always a bright side to every storm cloud. She knew that better than most. And this storm was only temporary. Being away from him would help. Eventually she’d forget.
She opened the door, her prepared speech at the forefront of her mind. I appreciate you stopping by. It’s been a real pleasure getting to know you better, and I’m grateful for your assistance with my security. Please accept this small payment for your services. Excuse me now, while I go fling myself off the balcony I don’t have.
Okay, so the last part was an impromptu addition.
“Hey.” Chase shook off the dusting of snow gathered on his ponytail and held out a tiny plastic bobblehead Christmas tree, a sheepish smile on his face. “Got this for you. For your car,” he added when she continued to stare. Her speech vanished from her brain.
Possibly her brain vanished too. Did they ever spontaneously disintegrate? She was almost positive she’d lost all functioning brain cells in one fell swoop.
Did his eyes have to look so…so green? His jaw so carved? His body, clad in tight jeans and a loose-tailed shirt under a bulky coat, so sinful?
Porn was definitely overrated. A hot guy in a white dress shirt and faded denim could do more havoc on her hormones than some dude sporting a massive penis.
Her gaze dropped to the obvious column in Chase’s jeans. He did all right on the massive penis score too, come to think of it. And she was. A lot.
“I know you like Christmas. Or you used to.” His Adam’s apple jerked. “Do you still?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“Oh. Good. I figured you probably hadn’t had much time to decorate, considering everything going on. Especially since you’re leaving. Who decorates a soon-to-be-empty house?”
“No one,” she echoed softly.
“So I got the tree.” He unfurled his fingers and it bounced maniacally on his palm. “You can stick it on your dashboard. As a reminder, you know, of home.”
“Home.” She stepped closer and leaned up on her toes, sliding her hands up his chest to frame his jaw. She pulled his face to hers, not expecting the torrent of heat that crashed through her from the brush of their lips. “God, I need you.”
She hadn’t meant to say it, to even think it. But once the words were out, he locked his arms around her waist and lifted her right off her feet. She let out a startled gasp that disappeared into his mouth, since he was currently kissing her like he’d die if he didn’t.
“You aren’t getting away from me now,” he mumbled between kisses, and hell if that statement didn’t send warmth spiraling through her body. More warmth, since every part of her was already heating up just fine.
He carried her inside and kicked the door shut so hard that the house shook. A laugh burst out of her, more than a little hysterically, but he didn’t pause in his tongue assault long enough to join in on the hilarity. After a minute or two of their wet, hot duel, she didn’t remember what she’d found funny. Ever, in the whole of her life.
“Bed,” he said, and she could only bob her head frantically like the bobblehead she was pretty sure he’d dropped. “Where?”
“I don’t know. I have to look for it.”
It took a minute, but he finally pulled back and cocked open one eye. “You don’t know where your bed is?”
“Huh?”
A smile crept across his lips, curling them up in that smug grin she loved best. “Your bedroom, Summer. Where is it?”
She blinked dazedly before taking a slow look around. Oh yeah, this was her foyer. Her house. She remembered this place, vaguely. “Upstairs. Second door on the right.”
He grabbed her hand and tugged her along, taking the stairs two at a time. At the top of them, he pushed her against the wall and gripped her wrists, pressing his groin into hers with an insistence that left no doubts about his intentions. She angled upward and nipped his chin hard enough to make him groan. “I can’t be gentle. I want to give you that tenderness, always,” he said into her hair, stirring the heavy curls. “But right now I can’t. I need to pin you down and fuck you like tomorrow isn’t going to come. And I need to know you can handle it.”
“No.” When he didn’t move back, she spoke more loudly to compensate for the thunderous beat of her heart. “No.”
He lifted his head and caught her in his hot, glittering gaze. “No?”
“No. Tomorrow is going to come, and we’re going to see it together. If we do this, it’s not some furtive quick thing in the dark. I’m going to climb on top of you and ride you slow. So slow you can’t imagine living one moment of your life without me by your side.”
His lips lifted on one side. “Baby, it’s daylight.” He stroked her cheek. “No dark.”
She blinked. Frowned. “Oh. Right.”
“And in case you forgot, we did it the first time in a well-lit dressing room. I saw every bit of you. The freckles here.” He rubbed her left shoulder, nudging aside the bra strap under her blouse. “The tiny mole here.” The thumb of his other hand caressed the strip of her belly below her navel. “Your beautiful breasts.” His lips claimed the tip of one and he pulled it wetly through the cotton.
A sigh slipped out against her will. Another tug of his mouth broke that will entirely. Her surrender to him was inevitable, each freaking time. And she loved every minute.
“Your pretty pink pussy,” he murmured, bringing up his knee to rub the apex of her thighs.
This time when she moaned, she craved the sound. She needed him to know what he did to her, to understand how she burned for him. She seized his ponytail, freeing the silky golden strands from their band. She’d never seen his hair that long. She wanted to pull on it while he entered her, fast and hard.
Screw slow. They’d save that for round two.
With her other hand, she grabbed the sizeable bulge in his jeans, stroking him without compunction. “I want this in my mouth.” She rubbed her kiss-swollen lips over
his, smiling at his rapid intake of breath. “I’m going to suck you until you scream my name.” She pushed him down the hall toward her bedroom. Over the threshold, across the carpeted floor. His legs bumped her bed and she went to work on his belt. “Until you’re so hoarse you can’t.”
“I’m supposed to refuse this,” he muttered, sounding as dazed as if he’d been hit by the business end of a hammer. “Right? Ladies first.”
“Good thing for you I ain’t no lady.” She grinned and pushed him back on the bed. He collapsed like she’d toppled him from a great height, and curiously enough, fell backward with his legs oh so slightly spread.
God, she adored this man.
She helped him tug off his shirt and took a minute to admire his ripped torso. Ripped everything. She unlaced his boots and dispatched them and his socks before tugging on his zipper and freeing him from his boxers and jeans. His cock curved into her grip, even harder and thicker than she remembered. “Tell me what you want. Leave no doubt in my mind,” she murmured against the damp head of him, her lips rubbing his flesh, her voice humming over his skin.
He stared at her through the tangle of his hair, not even taking the time to sweep it back. She was his entire focus. “I want you.”
Her mouth was around him before he’d said the last word.
His salty flavor hit her taste buds as the arousing weight of his length slid over her tongue. She wrapped her fingers around the base and kneaded his thigh with her other hand, digging into his taut muscles. When she had a better command on his size with her mouth, she let him go to tickle his balls. Playfully at first, using her nails. Gripping them in her palm when he groaned and reflexively thrust deeper. She could tell he was holding back, not wanting to push too hard. So she relaxed her throat and eased him farther, doing her level best not to choke. That would totally ruin the sexy moment.
She shifted from teasing his sac to caressing the base of his erection, finally taking hold of him in a firm, unyielding clasp. The untamed heave of his hips nearly made her come. Well, after she almost blacked out. The guy was huge. All over. But minus that pesky little detail, his urgency turned her on big-time. That he responded so aggressively to her touch made her want to blow his mind even more.
To give herself something else to focus on, she slipped her other hand under her skirt and into her panties. She didn’t mean to moan. Truly. But her clit needed more attention than she’d guessed and one press of her thumb was all it took to have her gasping around his cock.
Chase leaned up, his sleepy eyes going sharp. “You’re touching yourself?”
She bobbed her head, unintentionally forcing him deeper. Making him groan.
“Let me see.”
Gesturing at her voluminous skirt and seeing no way to get it off without releasing him—something she was not prepared to do—she pulled out her wet fingers, intending to stroke them over his cock. But he had other ideas. He jerked up to a sitting position and grabbed her hand, bringing it to his lips, sucking her with molten eyes while she sucked him. Even harder than before, because that intense do me stare of his drove her crazy.
“No more. Can’t,” he gritted out. “Get up here.”
When he nudged her back, she didn’t balk. Her well-used throat appreciated the break and besides, she wanted to be up there beside him. On top of him, beneath him, bent over with him at her back. Every frigging way he could take her.
But first, she needed to get naked.
She removed her blouse and slipped off her boots and skirt, taking her time on each task. It helped, inspiration-wise, to have a gigantic blond sex god watching her from her bed, cock standing straight up, seductive eyes set on stun. He just reclined and stared, tongue caught between razor-sharp teeth.
Her fingers went to the clasp of her bra and she fumbled it open, letting it fall. Her silk panties followed and flew through the air. Then she stalked toward Chase and stood between his spread legs, waiting for him to make the move.
Sitting up, he wound his arm around her waist, pulling her breast to his mouth. Using those teeth to torment something other than his own tongue. And speaking of his tongue…she felt its hot, rough sweep throughout every feverish molecule of her body. He switched from one breast to the other, giving them both the attention they craved. “I need another pair of lips,” he muttered, slipping his hand between her embarrassingly sticky thighs.
Judging from his grunt as he caressed her swollen clit, he didn’t mind how wet she was. Or how eagerly she ground against his palm. “You could always get one of your baseball buddies to help,” she teased, not expecting him to growl around her nipple and haul her off her feet, dumping her unceremoniously on her back on her mattress. He didn’t give her time to comment on the proceedings, however, since he shoved her legs toward the ceiling and latched his insistent mouth on her very appreciative pussy.
By then she was moaning in earnest and really didn’t care about conversation.
He pushed in his fingers—two, three, maybe a baker’s dozen. She had no idea. All she knew was that he drew so strongly on her clit that her entire body throbbed. He rubbed just right inside, hitting some spot that hadn’t ever been stimulated in quite that way before. Her nerves strung tight, to the point that she thrashed on her bed spasmodically and couldn’t seem to stop. She babbled things she knew she’d regret later. Something about giant baseball bats and love and loving giant baseball bats. Either he didn’t hear her or didn’t care enough to stop.
Thank God.
Sliding farther down, wedging her thighs open with his huge shoulders, he forced her up off the bed until her ass was in the air. Did she mind? Oh no, she surely did not. Because one of his lubed fingers had found a new target between her ass cheeks, and something about the pressure there shot tendrils of pure ecstasy through her core. It fanned out until he owned her with his mouth and fingers and those simmering green eyes that hungrily watched her splinter apart.
That whole courtesy coming warning flitted through her head and was ruthlessly dismissed. She didn’t have breath to speak. Even gasping through the spasms taxed her immeasurably. Her belly seized up, cramping from the almost violent contractions that shook her from shoulders to toes while he extended them with his thrusting tongue. And other thrusting things that made her nearly delirious.
She flung her arms up and braced her hands on the wall behind her bed, her gaze riveted on his blond head moving between her legs. His absolute dedication to his task was so freaking hot she couldn’t drag her gaze away.
Which, of course, made her come again. Or still. By that point she couldn’t be sure.
“Stop. Please. Dying.” She arched her hips as the heated pressure in her ass spread even deeper. “Already dead.”
His laughter against her all too sensitive flesh caused her to whimper. Especially since that finger in a place no finger had ever gone did not stop moving. It forged on, twisting slightly, reigniting sparks that hadn’t yet fully burnt themselves out. He didn’t do anything else but touch her there, slowly, sinuously, until he sealed his warm lips around her clit. One pull and the enormous ball of tension that had built up inside her broke apart in a fiery, all-consuming rush.
If she screamed, her hearing shorted out so she couldn’t hear it. All she could do was shake and pant and thrust her body up to seek more of his ceaselessly inventive tongue.
When she could take no more, she curled into herself, whimpering. Chase laughed and rubbed her ass, his amusement reaching her even in her delirium.
She never wanted to leave.
“Worn out, baby?” he said near her ear. She’d tucked herself into the fetal position and he loomed over her back, kissing her shoulder.
Another whimper was his answer.
“I should let you get some sleep.”
“Mmm.” She wasn’t capable of more.
Then she felt his fingers between her legs again, probing gently, and she couldn’t stop from arching into the touch. He laughed again, pressing his mouth to her
neck so the vibrations traveled through her skin. “You lie there. I’ll do all the work.”
She mumbled again and hid her smile against her pillow. What did he think she was, ninety-five? She wasn’t nearly done yet.
But let him think she was down for the count. It’d be more fun to show him otherwise.
After a few minutes, the bed dipped as he rolled off it, presumably to get a condom. When he returned, he wasted no time slipping his cock between her thighs. Oh hellfire and damnation. Forget it. Oh hell, he was so frigging hard. With one push of the tip into her core, she clenched, drawing another growl from him. “Don’t keep me out.” His big hand wrapped around her upper thigh, forcing her more open. “You can take me.”
Oh yeah, she’d take him, all right.
Biting on the inside of her arm, she tightened up again, making him have to work for it. He grunted and forced more of himself inside, dragging over swollen, sensitive tissues. Then rubbing over that pleasure center that made her teeth scissor over her own skin. Still, she bore down, not relaxing around him, wanting him to claim what he wanted. She wasn’t some breakable glass doll, and she ached for him to work her rough and hard—to drive him to that point he didn’t have any rationality left.
Another inch, then two, and he bit her shoulder in frustration, reaching around to circle her clit. The action had her bowing up, giving him the access he needed. He sank in deep and let out a glorious groan, barely giving her time to accede to his invasion before he retreated and returned twice as hard. Slamming into her, shoving her across the bed until she was half on her stomach with her face buried in the pillow. She drew herself up on one hand and he pushed her back down, his hand spanning her spine and keeping her locked in place. Trapped beneath him, she moaned, twitching around his cock. Begging without words for him to finish what he’d started, to command her that completely.
To prove to them both that she was his.
“Fuck me,” she snarled, nearly vicious in her urgency.
