31 Days of Winter (31 Days #1)

by C. J. Fallowfield

  ‘Ellie,’ he sighed into me as his fingers dug into my thighs and his tongue parted my length, pausing to flick my clit. I clamped myself around his face and bucked as he repeated over and over, varying the speed and pressure of it until I was thrashing my head as I nearly cracked the granite with the pressure of my finger nails as I came again. I screamed as I felt myself coat his mouth with my pleasure, our eyes never leaving each other’s for a second. His hands moved to support my back as he dropped me from his shoulders onto his hips and lifted me up to meet him and I clutched his neck as I panted. ‘You were born to come for me, Ellie,’ he whispered and I nodded, lost for words.

  One of his arms snaked up my back and through my hair to cup the back of my head and he kissed me, so tenderly, my stomach did multiple back flips over and over. I suddenly felt myself falling, not from him, but for him. I knew I was in trouble, serious trouble, as deep down I just suspected that he wasn’t going to fall with me. As he continued kissing me while he climbed the stairs to the bedroom it was already too late, I’d just opened myself up to inevitable heartache, but in this moment it didn’t matter, it seemed a million miles away from the bliss that was currently coursing through my body. I moved my lips to run up and down the stubble of his jawline then around to nibble on his neck, delighting in the masculine taste of his skin as I felt him swell between my legs.

  He strode quickly across the bedroom, extinguishing the lights as he went and surprised me by passing the bed and walking up to the vast expanse of the window. He unhooked my legs and spun me around and pushed into the back of me, squashing me up against the freezing cold glass and I gasped as my nipples tried to peak even further, impeded by the window. He pinned my hands up above my head with one of his as he ground his pelvis against my lower back, and I tried to pace my breathing. His other fingers trailed down my arm, over my ribs, and cut in at my waist before taking a left and squeezing their way between my stomach and the glass and down to circle my clit as his lips worked on my neck.

  With my forehead against the window I couldn’t see my reflection, only the stunning scenery being pelted by huge flakes of white that were dropping at an alarming pace, but I wanted to see him, he was the sight that currently took my breath away. I pulled my head back, resting it on his shoulder and our reflections reappeared as two of his fingers worked their way up inside me and curved to massage my G-spot. I nearly laughed, nearly. Six years of sex and my two partners had continually focussed on the wrong spot, me being too naïve and embarrassed to know any better to tell Matt, and Zac was too cock sure and arrogant, ignoring my insistence that he had the wrong place, yet Dan … Dan just knew. He homed in on it with the skill of a fighter pilot zeroing in on his target. The knowledge of that had me clench around his fingers as I screamed and he pressed into my back even harder to hold me up as a quick succession of hard fast orgasms overtook me.

  ‘Shit,’ I whimpered. I think I’d just experienced my first ever multiple orgasm and it was … I didn’t have the words. Some bloody creative writer I’d be if I couldn’t even verbalise the most intense erotic experience of my life.

  ‘You come so easily for me, Ellie,’ he groaned into my ear and I just nodded as he pulled me back from the glass, scooped me up, lay me on the bed and climbed over me on all fours. I had to try really hard to focus my eyes on him, I was completely spaced out by so many orgasms in a row, but he wasn’t done with me. As I tried to reach down to unzip him, he caught my hand, lay down by my side and kissed each finger before working his way up my arm and kissing every inch of skin on my neck and chest. He moved down my stomach, circling my navel with his tongue, before parting my legs as he nestled between them. He used his tongue to make me come again before crawling back up my limp body and smothering me with his solid one. The weight of him was welcome, anchoring me down as I floated up with the stars on the high of it all. He swept my hair away from my face as he just gazed down at me. ‘Are you ok?’

  ‘I’m wonderful. You’re amazing,’ I sighed as I smiled up at him.

  ‘You’re so beautiful, Ellie,’ he sighed as his thumb caressed my cheek and he kissed me again, with the passion of someone who’d been told they were dying and had one last kiss left. Every nerve in my body was tingling as he finally broke away and smiled sadly down at me.

  ‘Dan. I want you inside me, I need you inside me, please make love to me,’ I begged. The need I had in my body was never going to be fully sated until he thrust into me and claimed me.

  ‘I can’t,’ he sighed, with a firm shake of his head.

  ‘Why?’ I groaned.

  ‘Because I told you from the start that I couldn’t, and I’ve already done so much more than I should because you’re so hard to resist. And it’s virtually midnight.’

  ‘What are you? Cinderella or something?’ I smiled.

  ‘Far from it. More like the ugly step sister.’

  ‘You, ugly?’ I shook my head as I reached up and ran my fingers over his soft full bottom lip and he kissed them.

  ‘I’m sorry, I have to go.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ I pleaded. If we couldn’t have sex I just wanted to sleep in his arms. He made me feel so safe.

  ‘You gave me two options Ellie, if I didn’t tell you why or leave you alone, you’d get on a plane …’ he sighed as he looked at his watch, ‘today.’

  ‘So tell me. Tell me and we can have another three weeks of this, though much as I’ve loved you making me come so expertly, I would actually like to make you come, to touch you, to feel you, God even to just see you properly naked.’

  ‘You gave me the choice, Ellie. I’ve made it. Please respect it.’

  ‘No, because you were supposed to make the right choice Dan, the other choice.’ I could feel him slipping away from me. He was right on top of me, but his eyes were clouding over and the happy look on his face was being replaced by that familiar frown and guarded look. He may as well have swam to the other side of the loch. This wasn’t the Dan I wanted on top of me, I wanted the other one back.

  ‘Trust me. This is the best thing for you.’

  ‘No,’ I spat angrily. ‘You don’t get to choose what’s right or wrong for me. You don’t know what I’m capable of handling, Dan. This is just a game to you, isn’t it? Play with my feelings and make me care for you then keep pulling away? Do you do this with every single vulnerable woman that comes to stay here?’

  ‘Please don’t be like this, Ellie,’ he sighed as he ran his knuckles down my cheek and I slapped them away.

  ‘Like what, Dan? Hurt? You got what you wanted, me naked beneath you begging for more. Does it get you off to have women plead with you to fuck them and then you walk away?’

  ‘You’re the first Ellie, the only that I’ve done this to, that I’ve wanted to do this to in three damn years, when I promised myself I wouldn’t ever again,’ he snapped with a raised voice. ‘Don’t make out like this means nothing to me, that it doesn’t hurt me either.’

  ‘Get off me,’ I shoved him, ineffectually. ‘Get. Off. Me,’ I yelled. That moment of heartache that had only just seemed a million miles away came rushing over and punched me straight in the chest.

  ‘As you wish,’ he replied and leapt up off the bed looking down at me naked below him. I scrambled up and pulled my knees to my chest suddenly feeling incredibly vulnerable.

  ‘As you wish,’ I mimicked. ‘This wasn’t what I wished. What the hell happened to you three years ago, Dan?’

  ‘Me,’ he responded simply, his face full of regret.

  ‘Talk to me,’ I implored, but he shook his head, turned and walked to the pole and slid out of view. I heard the front door open and waited for the slam which didn’t come, so I got up and pulled the duvet off the bed, wrapped it around me and looked over the bannister. He was holding the door open, his forehead on the edge of the oak frame holding the glass as his bare shoulders rose and fell, like he couldn’t make up his mind whether to step out, or close it and stay inside. ‘Please don’t go,’
I called. He looked back up at me, closed his eyes then hung his head and shook it.

  ‘Lock it behind me, and leave the key in,’ he sighed and walked out pulling it to behind him. He was close to breaking, I could sense it. I needed to know what the hell was holding him back. I dropped the duvet, grabbed my boots and ran downstairs, picking up my discarded shorts and top, pulled them on and loosely laced up my boots and ran outside. I ignored the freezing cold as I ran down towards the boathouse and just as I was nearing it, I slipped and fell on my backside. I sat there for a minute, slightly stunned from the drop and saw his veranda suddenly illuminated as he came out and stood gripping the edge of the wooden rail over the water and his shoulders slumped. He lifted his hand and rubbed it over his face then startled me by letting out an almighty roar as he punched his fist straight through the wooden bannister.

  I winced for him and he snapped his head around to look in my direction, but with the light shining through the open door onto his face, I knew that he couldn’t see me. I could see him though and what I saw scared me, he was in serious pain and not from his fist. I could see it inside him, eating him up. It seemed I’d just witnessed his true face, the one he tried to mask with his every day one, and having seen it, I realised how hard it must have been for him to let me see the happy one he’d shared with me for that whole hour and the other odd times since I’d arrived. I ignored the fact that my bottom, hands and legs were numb from the snow beneath them and watched as he glanced up at the house, an even more tortured look crossing his face. As he stepped inside and shut the door, it only strengthened my resolve to try and help him deal with whatever demon was festering inside him. Despite him seemingly jerking me around, for some bizarre reason I really cared for him, and it seemed that he wanted to care for me too.

  Day Nine

  Ellie

  I lay in bed for ages, immobile, my legs and stomach were aching like I’d done a marathon. Only it wasn’t from running, but the multiple orgasms Dan had given me last night. I’d hardly slept for tossing and turning, my mind flashing between the two sides of him I’d seen last night and the incredible high, then low, I’d got from just an hour in his presence. I gathered up the pillows to prop me up and look at the view out of the window in front, all the grey rocky outcrops were gone. All that remained was a thick blanket of white with the faintest hints of the green underbelly of the trees, the lake edges looked frozen and the snow was falling fast again, it was beautiful. I smiled wryly when I caught a glimpse of an imprint of my stomach and breasts on the window, where he’d squashed me up against it last night.

  I must have drifted off to sleep, as when I woke I was starving. I jumped out of bed and groaned at the ache, before walking over to the window, putting my palms on the glass and looking out in awe. I needed to get out and take more photos. I jumped back quickly when I realised Dan was fixing his veranda bannister and had just looked up at the house and I was standing there naked, framed like an Amsterdam lady of the night. I had a quick shower and left my hair to dry naturally and headed down wrapped in a bath towel and made myself sausage, bacon, mushrooms and eggs on toast and a piping hot black coffee, then rummaged in the utility room for some cleaning supplies. I busied myself for the rest of the morning cleaning the house and rubbing the offending smudges off the window. Anything to take my mind off how he’d made me feel last night, how he’d made me fall apart in his arms. That hour of bliss offset all the negatives that came with him.

  I noticed that the boat had been pulled up onto the shore, which meant Dan wasn’t risking going out for his afternoon excursions. When I went to vacuum around the pool table area, I spotted my engagement ring on the floor. I’d completely forgotten I’d tossed it the other night. I picked it up and sighed. I’d already been ninety-nine percent convinced that Zac and I were over, but after those brief moments with Dan last night, that had made up the other undecided one percent. I wasn’t under any illusions that Dan and I would make any sort of relationship work, but what I’d felt when I’d been in his arms last night had made me realise that my other relationships were founded on lies, that I didn’t feel for them the way I should have, the way that I could do. And they certainly didn’t make me feel the way I wanted to moving forward. I went and tucked the ring in the bottom of my toiletries case, resolved to sell it when I got back to London.

  After putting in a load of washing and dressing in my lounging pants and jumper, I headed up to the office, fired up my laptop and stuck my iPhone and iPad on charge. I couldn’t wait to see and speak to Brooke later, I needed to offload and try and make sense of what had happened in the last few days. I spent an hour or two browsing Rightmove, looking for a property to rent in London, to tide me over until I’d raised enough money for a deposit to buy a place of my own and bookmarked a few. I needed to review that contract John had sent me too, and realised that Dan hadn’t set up the printer for me. I bit my lip as I looked at the phone, really not wanting to speak to him yet, but I couldn’t read that contract without his help. I sighed and dialled him.

  ‘Miss Baxter,’ he answered, as if I were a complete stranger, like he hadn’t had those suddenly formal lips between my thighs last night making me scream with joy.

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, I really didn’t want to bother you but I need access to a printer and you said you’d set one up for me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When could you do that?’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘Now? O God, I just … I mean … I wasn’t expecting to have to see you so soon. Not after … well, after we … you know.’ Damn it, I’d wanted to remain professional and detached and I was coming over like a bumbling idiot. Again. I noticed he hadn’t said a word. ‘I could hide in the guest room until you’re gone.’

  ‘Hide?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because I’m an arsehole?’

  ‘I haven’t made up my mind on that yet.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I know you are,’ I sighed. ‘But it doesn’t help. The printer?’

  ‘Give me ten minutes.’

  ‘I also need to know where the spare linen is.’

  ‘Spare linen?’

  ‘Yes, bedding, towels etc., for when I’m washing and drying the ones I’m using now.’

  ‘O, right.’

  ‘You know he’s really not properly set up here for tenants, who unlike me will probably be paying a premium to stay here.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Well, they’ll expect certain things that you aren’t offering or he doesn’t seem to have thought about.’

  ‘Create me a list and print it. I’ll look into it.’

  ‘Ok, when I have the printer, I will.’ There was a silence as both of us just hung on. I could hear his steady breathing down the phone and it reminded me of hearing him breathing down my ear last night. We both started speaking at once, then there was another awkward pause. ‘You go first.’

  ‘No you.’

  ‘I was just going to say I made a chilli con carne yesterday and plated you some up. I’ll leave it on the island for you. You can heat it up in your microwave.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome. I told you I enjoy cooking. I don’t think I can sit and eat with you again yet, but I’ll still make you dinner and let you know when you can collect it.’

  ‘You’re too nice to me,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I care.’

  ‘Don’t,’ came the quick firm response.

  ‘Please don’t start again. What were you going to say before?’

  ‘I was going to ask if you’re ok, but obviously not if you can’t face me.’

  ‘I will be. It’s just hard after last night, it was … incredible and then … then you just closed off on me and ran.’

  ‘I know.’ I heard a heavy sigh and the sound of him running his hand over the stubble on his face.

  ‘The incredible or closing off?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘You
’re not short on confidence are you?’ I laughed.

  ‘No,’ he replied, deadpan.

  ‘I’d better go so you can come and sort the printer, I have things to do.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I have my new contract to read over and I’m looking at rental properties in London.’

  ‘Where will you stay until you find one?’

  ‘My best friend Brooke has a spare room which is mine as long as I need it, but I think I need to spend some time on my own. I’ve never been very good without people around me and I need to learn to be self-sufficient and toughen up.’

  ‘You’re the bravest woman I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Don’t be nice, I can’t handle this if you’re going to be nice again.’

  ‘As you wish. My friend has contacts in London, I can reach out and see if they have anything suitable for rental.’

  ‘That’s really kind but I don’t think I’d be able to afford the sort of places that your friend’s used to staying in.’

  ‘He’s not one for showing off, besides, it’s only his estate agency contacts, they’ll have access to varying price brackets. He’s a good enough client for them to let him know before something comes on the market.’

  ‘Well, if it’s no trouble, that would be amazing.’