CHAPTER ELEVEN
LINDY
I woke in a tangle of limbs and warmth and had never felt safer in my life. Covin’s heart beat steady and slow beneath my cheek. His fingers flexed against my back in a gentle rhythm that told me he was awake, if only dozing. The fire crackled merrily in the little firebox in my room.
“Did you get up and reset that?” I asked, playing with the fine smattering of hair on his chest. I hadn’t had time to explore him the night before in the flickering firelight but now the pale morning lit the room in a reflection of snow from outside and warmth in here, I had all the time in the world to learn everything I could about him. “Merry Christmas, by the way.” I yawned into his chest and plopped my head back down where it had been a moment before.
“Merry Christmas, love.” He pulled me up his body to kiss me soundly. “And no, I think we had a ghostly visitation who thankfully didn’t set the place alight while we slept.” He looked about the room, but nothing rattled.
“Merry Christmas, Al,” I called.
Silence met my call apart from the crackling logs in the firebox, and those didn’t count.
“I think he took me seriously when I told him not to interrupt us,” Covin murmured. His fingertips trailed along my spine in a leisurely movement that left me giggling and overly sensitive. Then I was on my back, breathless with Covin nudging my legs apart. “And I intend to use all the time I have with you.”
He reached down the side of the bed with his long arms, searching his clothing.
I stopped him. “I’m on the shot. And I haven’t had a partner for nearly a year. I got tested after we broke up and I’m clean, Covin.”
He stilled. “I haven’t been with anyone since Sarah.” His voice thickened on her name.
Fuck . “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
“Not your fault.” He leaned down to kiss me. “I tried but I hadn’t been interested. Not until I met you.” His kiss deepened as he pushed my legs apart with his knees, nudging his thick cock against me. “I just want you, Lindy.”
I wanted to cry for him. Sob at the unfairness of everything life had thrown his way. But also…I wanted this man in all the ways that counted right now.
“Yes, please,” I mumbled back before his kiss engulfed us both and he pushed inside me.
A scream built in my throat, pleasure blindsiding me too fast but Covin’s heavy lidded eyes filled with that dark intensity that promised me he wouldn’t yield to my begging him to slow until I caught my breath.
Part of me didn’t want him to slow.
Long fingers squeezed my hip. His thumb traced a searing path along the inside of the bone as I bucked up to meet him. Skin met skin as I struggled to wrap myself around him the way I wanted but he took over like I knew he would. The way some broken part of me craved. Needed, if only from him.
And so I…let go.
The growl that rumbled through his chest when I surrendered to him sent tiny shocks rippling over my body right through to my fingertips. I cried into his shoulder, digging my nails in as I held on and let him take us to the edge of bliss and beyond. His roar filled the room, overwhelming my cries. Tears blurred my vision as I fell back onto the pillow, aching and pulsing and panting.
“Love, tell me you can breathe.” Covin cupped my cheeks, peering into my face as he checked in with me. His thumbs brushed the tears away from the corners of my eyes. “I hurt you?” His brow creased as he swore softly.
“No.” I tried to shake my head but he held me too tightly. “You didn’t hurt me. I’m just— You’re a lot. In a good way. I’m not used to this yet.”
“Get used to it.” His gruff tone spoke of possession and defiance against a reality I knew would pull us in opposite directions in a few weeks.
He had a life to live. I had nothing to return to.
For now, wrapped in the arms of a man I wanted to open my heart to and give him everything the way we just did together, I could pretend that future would be alright.
Lie to myself for a little longer.
Merry Christmas, Lindy.
I turned my head into the pillow, facing away from him as he tucked his longer body around mine and let my tears fall silently into the downy pillow where he couldn’t see.
Though I thought he might understand anyway.
My body ached in places that never ached before. Clearly, having an older lover meant different things to my usual, nonexistent dating pool. Or maybe my dating pool simply lacked in all departments.
Even so, despite my earlier tears, a sense of peace pervaded me that hadn’t been present…ever. I never remembered feeling this way as I lay back in Covin’s arms where they draped around me. He pressed a salted mini pretzel to my lips that I nibbled at from beneath our blanket nest.
Snow continued its steady fall, whiting out the landscape beyond Witnot Castle through the lancet windows. I’d insisted on pulling on a flannel dress and tights, and Covin donned his rumpled slacks before wrapping us both in the blanket burrito where we currently resided on the long day bed recliner at one end of my bedroom. We hadn’t moved from the space in hours, though I got the impression he resented the articles of clothing between us and would have happily kept the skin on skin aspect of our earlier activities.
And something that had been bugging me since yesterday finally made a coherent appearance in my mind and stayed still long enough for me to ask a fully fledged question now my ovaries had settled down.
“You filled the castle with a veritable forest yesterday,” I murmured, stealing the rest of the pretzel before I ruined the moment without taking the required deep breath. “What are you, some sort of secret billionaire?”
“Yep.”
I choked on my pretzel. “You’re supposed to pretend to think about it.” He said nothing and I swiveled in his arms, lying on my stomach to face him, needing to see his eyes. Eyes I swore I could dream about for the next decade at least. “Are you being serious?”
“Yep.”
“Are you going to say anything else?”
He popped another pretzel in his mouth, made a show of chewing it and shook his head. “Nope.”
I didn’t point out that counted as something different just to be contrary. “Tell me something.”
“What, love?”
“About you.”
“Ah.”
I waited.
Covin stared at me.
A huff–a really big one—built in my chest. Just before it burst from me dragon style Covin finally cracked a small smile.
“What do you want to know?” He pulled me up for a salty kiss.
“Stop that. You’re far too good at it.” I batted him away. “Is this your best theme for distraction?”
“And if it is?” He raised his eyebrows.
I wondered if he had met Sarah on a job, and decided it was best not to ask.
“This might be an unconventional Christmas, so make it my present?” I offered, pairing the question—demand—with a quick grin when he watched me carefully.
If he had been a spy, an occupation that suited him far too perfectly the more I thought about it with his penchant for knowledge, his ability to blend and the apparently endless supply of energy he could call upon at any given moment, then he should understand my desire to understand what made him tick.
What made him become who the man who held me…how he got to this place where we were now.
And because I was nosy as fuck and we both knew it.
Covin’s arms tightened around me. “I went back to work after—” his voice strained.
I wished I hadn’t asked. My fingers found their way over his mouth. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry. I’m just nosy.”
“No.” The single word came out sharp, like a gun’s retort, then his hard eyes gentled. “You’re being you, and that’s a beautiful thing, love.” He kissed me again, sweeter this time and I didn’t fight him. “My line of work is… was …specific. I heard plenty of things and with no one to regulate me, I took risks. Lots of them, on many fronts. Some paid off. Others…” He slanted me a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “Not so much.”
One hand grabbed mine to pull my fingers to a spot just below his ribs. I touched a patch of roughened skin, then another. Small dots, round, like…
“Holy fuck, Covin. You couldn’t duck twice?”
He laughed at me, the sound bouncing off the warmed stone walls. “Only you, Lindy.” His arms wrapped back tight around me, holding me to him. “A deal went sideways in the worst conditions. That’s all.”
I had the sense he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say more and I had learned enough about this man that there were limits not to cross. That was okay. I could respect those, and was grateful for the glimpse into his past. Still…
“Are you really a SoCal professor?” I asked, holding my breath.
His fingers wound through my hair. “I always was. That started as a cover years ago. In between jobs I did actually hold classes, did mundane things like grade papers.”
“Must have been a change of pace,” I muttered.
His chest rumbled. “I never was the favorite cool teacher,” he agreed. “Far too strict on dates in the history department for kids who thought my course would be an easy pass.”
“Doom on them.”
“Indeed.” His knee pressed between my thighs. “I’ve had enough of this clothing, and my past isn’t something I enjoy. So now it’s your turn to distract me.” One hand wandered between us, squeezing my breast gently through my dress. I hadn’t worn a bra under it, opting for the choice of relative freedom over constricting garments. Today I didn’t feel the need.
Shedding my tights and dress beneath the blanket, I unbuckled Covin’s belt as his hands roamed over my skin, scooting lower. His breath hissed between his teeth as I dipped my head, licking his cock that sprang free the moment I unzipped him. His hands landed in my hair, tangling there in a gentle pressure but not pushing me down.
I hummed my appreciation at the freedom as I played, exploring his shape and size with lips and tongue, reveling in the musky sex-tinged scent of him. Strained groans filled my ears as I took him in my mouth all the way to the back of my throat, laving my tongue along his length, and hollowed my cheeks. The hands in my hair flexed as he pushed gently, his hips jerking up involuntarily.
The moan that left me, knowing I could make him react that way so fast sounded wanton to me, but he didn’t seem to mind, massaging my scalp as I sucked on his length.
“Fuck, that’s good, Lindy. Christ–” he swore liberally, gripping my hair and pulling me off him. “I need to be buried inside you.” His eyes glowed, dark and determined as he gripped my hips, gliding our bodies together until I rested over him.
Splitting my thighs apart, I straddled him, stroking my wetness along his straining length.
“That good?” I teased as he groaned into my shoulder.
Then his mouth found my nipple and I couldn't talk any more at all. His tongue twirled around the bud as I rubbed myself against him, and his thumb found my clit.
A few brushes was all it took for me to arch in his arms, his name tearing from my lips as I coated his cock before he even filled me. Not that I had a chance to recover. Before the pulses stopped, he notched at my entrance and pushed me down onto him. My wail etched into the stone castle walls as he set a punishing pace, slamming me down onto him, thrusting up from below.
My nails rent red marks along his chest as I scrambled for purchase, but I could barely think. “Too much,” I cried, my head tilting back as he sucked on my other nipple.
“No such thing,” he growled back before returning to his task.
My pussy gripped his cock tight, the overwhelming crash of my last orgasm buffeting into the next. Heat flushed me as I slumped against his body. I rode out my pleasure on his cock, rocking my hips to eke the last of my orgasm from my shaking body as he held me up.
“Damn, Lindy. We’re gonna do that again,” he promised me, sliding his tongue into my mouth before I could argue with him. “All the time I have with you.”
And we did.