by M. Robinson
The voices stopped just out of sight. She couldn’t focus on the words of their low conversation. She could only stare helplessly at the open doorway as Cael ate her pussy in full view of anyone who looked into the room. The shadows might mean they wouldn’t be seen at first sight, but they would be seen. He sucked her clit into her mouth, hard. That was all it took, she moaned as she came all over his face.
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Cael dragged his tongue through her folds, a challenge in his eyes. She shook her head desperately, but he only gave a dark grin and rose, still covering her mouth. She recognized his intent when he undid the front of his pants. He withdrew his cock and gave it a rough stroke. She whimpered a little at the sight, need overriding everything.
He leaned down until his lips brushed the shell of her ear. “Are you really my little slut, Eleanor? Are you going to take this cock while there are two people standing right outside the door?” His breath shuddered out. “Are you going to let me fill you up?”
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t reason through this. She’d never let him fuck her bare. Not once. It had nothing to do with a lack of trust and everything to do with her husband. Now? She was a widow. She answered to no one but herself. There would be consequences for being caught like this, but she suddenly didn’t give a damn. She needed him too desperately. She nodded.
He didn’t move except to lift his hand from her mouth. “I need your words, baby. Tell me.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Please, Cael. I need you.”
This time, he didn’t make her wait. He covered her mouth again, but it felt different this time. Gentle. Almost…cherishing. Cael wrapped a fist around his cock and guided it to her entrance. He eased into her slowly, feeding her inch by thick inch until they were sealed together. His exhale shuddered against her neck. “You broke my heart, Eleanor. Ripped it right out of my fucking chest.”
She made a sound of protest, but he nipped the spot where her neck met shoulder, silencing her. “It doesn’t matter. None of that shit matters when I’ve got this tight, wet pussy clamped around my cock.” He gave a hoarse, nearly soundless laugh. “You really are a good girl, aren’t you, Eleanor? Giving me what I want, no questions asked.”
He shifted his angle so that he hit exactly the spot she needed. She tried to writhe, tried to rise to meet each stroke, but he pressed her gently deeper into the couch, holding her immobile. Giving her what she needed. Just like he always had.
Distantly, Eleanor was aware of the voices retreating, of the distant sound of the ball, but she couldn’t focus on anything beyond Cael’s big body against hers. She tried to hold on, to hold out, to make this last forever. She knew better. Nothing lasted forever. Especially nothing good. This wouldn’t, either. Eventually it would end, and the harsh words would flow once more.
But not yet.
“Come for me, little slut. I want to feel it.”
His low words unraveled her as thoroughly as the pleasure his body delivered. She cried out against his palm as she orgasmed. His low moan made her clench. “God, I missed that. I missed you.”
He kept fucking her slowly. Except…it didn’t feel like fucking. Not with Cael’s rough voice in her ear, his big body covering her so completely, and his cock moving slowly in and out of her.
It felt like coming home.
Tears pricked her eyes, and she blinked rapidly, but it was too late. One slid down to wet his fingers. Cael went still. “Baby?” He lifted his hand from her mouth. “What’s wrong?”
His concern only made more tears flow. She pressed her own hand to her lips, trying to stifle how ragged her breathing had become. “It’s nothing.”
“Yeah, no, that shit might work with other people, but it doesn’t work with me.” He eased out of her and paused to right her dress before tucking himself back into his pants and fixing his clothing.
She tensed, thinking this would be the moment when he’d walk away from her for good. And why not? It was nothing more than she deserved after how harshly she’d cut things off before.
But Cael didn’t walk away.
He dropped onto the couch next to her and pulled her onto his lap. She tried to tense, but this felt like coming home in a different way. Eleanor rested her head against his shoulder and let him hold her. She couldn’t stop the tears. How ridiculous that she couldn’t stop the tears. She’d spent most of her life learning to lie with both words and expression, to keep the soft, unprotected heart of her hidden deep.
At least until she met Cael.
“I’m sorry.” She clutched his jacket, wrinkling it just as thoroughly as her dress. “I’m sorry, Cael. I’m sorry I hurt you. I missed you so much. I—”
“Shhh.” He held her tighter and pressed a light kiss to her temple. “You had your reasons.”
She had. They’d been very good reasons. “If I’d left him after that diagnosis…”
“I know, baby. You would have been ostracized and painted a villain. I get it. Trust me.”
She lifted her head to look into his handsome face. “If you understand, then why do you hate me?” It wasn’t a fair question, but Eleanor suddenly didn’t care.
“I don’t hate you, Eleanor.” He cupped her face with one hand, expression pained. “I love you.”
* * *
In all the time Cael had known Eleanor McKinley, he’d never seen her cry. Not when driven to frustration and fury by her husband and the politics, not when her father died unexpectedly, sure as fuck not when breaking things off with him. Thank fuck for that, because every tear that slipped from her eyes felt like a punch to the solar plexus. He couldn’t breathe properly. He couldn’t think properly, either. It was the only excuse for saying what he did.
I love you.
“Cael,” she whispered.
He couldn’t tell if she was about to let him down easy or… What other option was there? He broke eye contact before she had to. Now that they were here, alone and in the dark, he felt vaguely sick to his stomach. “But I was never enough for you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Don’t lie to me, Eleanor.” He didn’t raise his voice, but she flinched at his harsh tone. He hated that she flinched. “If I was enough for you, you would have come to me after he died.” He hated that she’d broken things off last year, but he could understand it. What Cael didn’t get, what he couldn’t wrap his head around, was the fact that it had been six months since Eleanor buried her bastard of a husband and he hadn’t heard from her once during that time. It wasn’t like she didn’t have his number.
She wiped at her eyes. “There were…complications with the will. I only just got it figured out this week.” Eleanor looked up at him. Even with her makeup smudged and her eyes reddened from her tears, she’d never looked more beautiful. She gave a trembling smile. “I hoped you’d be here tonight. That’s dramatic of me, isn’t it? I suppose I could have simply called.”
Something strange and light unfurled in his chest. Something that felt a whole lot like hope. “What?”
“I’m a coward, Cael. I wanted to call you, but I was afraid after all this time you wouldn’t want to hear from me. I thought if I accepted the invitation to the Morellis’ Christmas ball… If we saw each other again where it all ended…” She pressed her lips together, and then powered on. “I thought it might be a new beginning. I’m sorry for all the harm I’ve caused. I…” She looked away.
“Say it.” His voice barely sounded like himself. “If you mean it, I need to hear you say it.”
“I love you,” she whispered. “I want to be with you, but properly this time. Not sneaking around in the shadows. I want to walk in the sunlight with you, Cael O’Malley.”
His heart raced, but he forced reality into this situation. As much as he wanted what she seemed to be offering, he couldn’t do it. Not until he had the full picture. “Your nonprofit with all your fancy donors.”
“What about it?�
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“If you date me publicly, they’re going to balk. Even if my family has cleaned up their image in the last thirty years, Boston’s memory is long. They’re going to have a lot to say about it.”
“Cael…” She covered his hand with hers, holding it to her face. “I don’t care. They’ll get over it or we’ll find new donors. Your aunt does just fine and she hasn’t distanced herself from your family or her past.”
It was the truth. Aunt Carrigan might have officially stepped away from the family business when she started her nonprofit, but Cael knew for a fact that she and Uncle James ran operations on the wrong side of the law. Sometimes all the money in the world couldn’t cut through the necessary red tape to save those who needed saving the most. They weren’t the type of people to let a little thing like something being illegal hold them back from their goals. They’d saved a shit ton of people that way.
He finally said, “I don’t want my presence to hurt you.”
“Oh, Cael.” Her smile wobbled a little. “Can I be honest about something?”
“Always.”
“I don’t want to date you, Cael.” She hesitated. “I don’t know how else to prove to you that I’m not ashamed of us. If you’ll give me a chance… I want to marry you. I want forever.”
The hopeful feeling in his chest only got stronger. She meant it. She had no fucking reason to say shit like this if she didn’t mean it. “Forever is a long fucking time.”
“I know.”
Just like that, all the shit he’d been carting around for the last twelve months dissipated. Cael wasn’t a fool. They didn’t have an easy road ahead of them. There would be pitfalls and family shit on both sides as they found the road that was theirs and theirs alone. But if he was with her? He didn’t give a shit what curveballs the world threw at them. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yeah. I want you, Eleanor. I’ve only ever wanted you.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her lips. “Now, take me home so I can show you just how much I love you properly without the threat of someone walking in.”
* * *
Thank you for reading LAST CHRISTMAS!
Want to read more O’Malleys?
Teague O’Malley hates pretty much everything associated with his family’s name. And when his father orders him to marry Callista Sheridan to create a “business” alliance, Teague’s ready to tell his dad exactly where he can stuff his millions. But then Teague actually meets his new fiancée, sees the bruises on her neck and the fight still left in her big blue eyes, and he decides he will do everything in his power to protect her.
READ THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT >
Little Drummer Boy
M. O’Keefe
Chapter One
Zilla
One year later
Hell of a party. If you were into open bars and caviar and Christmas. Which, come to find out, Zilla was. She really really was.
“Thank you,” she said to the server, plucking a flute from her tray of champagne. And from another server, she took a napkin and a little potato blini topped with caviar and crème fraiche.
When she was young, she was invited to the Constantine parties like this. Though admittedly, they were a bit more boring. All those people pretending to be good. Moral. Religious. There was something about a Morelli party that held a hint of danger. Anything could happen with this crowd. Beneath the veneer of piousness, there was a vicious undercurrent.
The air tasted…exciting.
These are my people, she thought. Dangerous. Slightly unhinged. Dressed in black and gold, surrounded by thick, lush pine boughs and red and green decorations, all the Morellis sparkled with menace. A threat barely controlled.
It was fucking delicious.
The music changed to another Christmas song. The one about the bells.
Her sister, Poppy, was around here somewhere with her husband, Ronan. The assassin and the widow. A love story no one saw coming, especially not Zilla and especially when everyone found out who and what Ronan actually was. The things he’d done to Poppy. But Poppy was full of surprises.
Poppy with power. It was a beautiful thing to see.
It was even better to see her so in love.
Zilla drained her champagne glass and set it down on a small table.
The goal tonight, however, was to not be seen by her at all.
She had work to do and she didn’t need Poppy getting in her way.
Zilla made her way into the kitchen and smiled brightly into the faces of servers who wanted to know if she needed help or what she was looking for, and took the servants’ staircase up to the second floor of the Morelli mansion.
Behind one of the closed doors she heard a couple arguing. Then silence. Then fucking.
This Morelli crowd was a horny bunch.
She heard the loud booming voice of Bryant Morelli coming up the main staircase and settled herself into the shadows of a doorway. Her heart pounding.
“I’m done bailing that kid out,” Bryant said to someone at his side. “How many checks do I have to write to that school?”
Bryant went into his office and Zilla stepped out of the shadows only to have a hand clap over her mouth and she was dragged into the bedroom behind her.
Yes! All her reflexes fired. Her brain lit up with adrenaline.
She fought the way Jacob had taught her. Dirty. Elbows to the solar plexus, fists to the throat. But whomever was behind her, knew the same rule book and evaded all her jabs. She twisted against him, only to be lifted up off her feet. One of her shoes fell off and she was thrown facedown on the bed.
It was a man who had her. His hard cock was pressed up against her ass.
Try it, asshole. See what happens.
She jerked her head back as hard as she could, hoping to break the guy’s nose, or at least make him see enough stars, but he loosened the hand he had over her mouth.
“Zilla. Stop.”
Her whole body went still and her heart broke wide open.
Jacob.
Chapter Two
Zilla went soft against the bed. She wasn’t interested in fighting Jacob. She’d done that enough and she never won. Not once.
“This is what’s going to happen—” he said.
“Fuck you.”
“We could do that.”
His hand slid from the back of her neck over her ass.
Zilla refused to react. Though it was hard. Nearly impossible. They had two years under their belt together. Maybe a little more. Though she couldn’t say what they were exactly. Student/teacher? Friends? Friends with rare and strange benefits? He showed up. He vanished. He kept her safe. They fought. He broke her heart. She swore never again. And then he came back and they did it all over again.
And now look at her. Wet and trembling on the bed because he offered to fuck her.
The one thing they hadn’t done.
So now, of course, just when she’d said no more and meant it. He showed up promising this. The one thing she’d give anything for. Him in her arms. Vulnerable and hers for as long as she could make it last.
“Get off me,” she said. Wishing she was even half as tired of him as she was pretending. An eighth. She’d settle for an eighth.
“You look beautiful. This dress…” His hand hit the very high hem of her red-sequined dress. It was short, with a scoop back and long sleeves. Sexy and a little classy. She bought it thinking of him. Because she did everything thinking of him.
“Get off me.”
“I don’t think I will.”
“How about if I make you?”
“You can’t, Zilla. And you know that. Right now, I can do whatever I want to you.”
His hand pushed up the hem, up over the edge of her ass. She felt the scrape of the sequins against her skin. She was very still.
“What should I do to you, Zilla?”
“Is this another game?”
“Does it feel like a game?” He pressed the hard length of his cock against her
thigh.
“Is this a lesson?”
There’d been a lot of those. Lessons on fighting. On control. On focus.
His hand stroked her skin, squeezed her ass and she could not help but shift on the bed. Arching into him and then pressing down into the mattress.
“No,” Jacob said. “Not a lesson. You’ve learned everything I can teach you.”
“Then what are you doing?” she whispered.
“Answer my question, Zilla. What should I do to you?”
There were a thousand answers in her mouth. A whole spectrum of dirty things. She swallowed them back down.
He shifted, straddling her legs, one hand still on her back, holding her down. Though that was just for show. She wasn’t fighting him anymore.
“I want to touch you,” he said. “I have wanted to touch you since the moment I met you.”
She closed her eyes, refusing to cry. “Don’t lie.”
“Oh, Zilla. It’s not a lie. I’m sorry I ever made you think it would be. I am…consumed by you.”
He pushed the dress up higher, the whole of her lower body naked. He slid a finger down the length of her spine. She held her breath. Dying and dying and dying.
“I would touch you here,” he said.
His finger went over the bunched-up hump of her dress down the top of her ass.
“Here.”
And then down between her legs. “Especially here.”
Oh my god. He was going to do it. He was actually…
They both made a sound as he touched her pussy. Relief. Excitement.
“Jacob,” she breathed, torn in half by wanting this and knowing it was only going to end in heartbreak.
“I told you not to come here,” he said and she stiffened.
A lesson. It was a lesson. Of course, it wasn’t real. It wasn’t desire for her. It was just another fucking lesson. Consumed. My ass.
“Get off me.”
“No.”
She tried fighting him again. Tried to buck him off, twisting. Using her teeth and nails and all she managed was to get flipped over on her back, her arms trapped by her sides, her hair all over her face.
