Chapter 9
NINE
5 Days til Christmas
She hadn’t been kidding about cheating at Uno. I had a handful of cards, and it was my turn to hit the button on the fucking launcher.
Ocean had a measly three cards. She’d gathered her wild curls on top of her head with the pencil she’d been wielding to count up our points.
I was losing.
Badly.
I shut one eye and slapped the button once then twice in response to the card she’d placed on the deck. The second one pummeled me with five more cards. This was after the five rounds of pressing the launch button, thanks to her evil cards.
“I don’t think cheating covers how you play.”
She stuck the tip of her tongue through her teeth as she wiggled her shoulders. “Luck of the draw, sir.”
The way she said sir with a playful yet husky edge was going to send me upstairs for another shower. Or maybe I’d just go out and shovel off another layer of snow.
Not that it made a difference. The wind off the lake kept drifting the snow right back onto the deck.
I flipped the launcher back her way when she played another double tap card. Lucky me, I actually had something to turn it around on her. She wrinkled her nose and stared me dead in the eye as she tapped, and no fucking cards came out.
“That’s it—you’re definitely rigging that thing?”
Her laugh was unrestrained and throaty, which didn’t help matters. But she couldn’t play a card, and I had another kill shot in my hand.
She pouted as she had to hit the button four times, and this time, the blasted thing went my way. She ended up with so many cards they fell into her lap.
“Don’t you hide any under your legs under there.” I put my fan of cards face down on the table and pushed it aside.
“I would never.” A mock haughty tone laced her voice.
“There is one.”
She shoved it farther under her thigh, and I crawled over to her as she giggled. “You didn’t see anything.”
“We are past cheating.” She yelped as I snaked my fingers under her leg. There were actually three cards.
The cards dropped around us as she giggled. “You don’t believe me?”
I pulled three out, and then I rolled her off the pillow and found another one.
She scrambled back and slapped her hand over it. “Nope!”
I wrapped my arm around her middle and lifted her up and she screeched, dissolving into laughter.
“Wait, wait!” She flailed, trying to get to the cards.
“Forfeit. I win.”
She gripped my forearm, her nails digging in and making my heart thud. “No! Wait—I’ll take a penalty. I’ll hit the button another ten times.”
“So, you can shove them down your shirt too?”
She twisted in my arms and her leg slid between mine as we tangled on the rug with me landing on my back and her on top of me. “No. I wouldn’t do that.” She was still smiling as her gaze dropped to my mouth then slid back up to my eyes. She pressed her palm to the floor beside my neck, her other hand still holding a few of the cards. “Do you have a penalty in mind?”
Her ocean scent was tinged with syrup from breakfast, and I wanted to see if she still tasted of butter and sweetness. “Just how badly do you want to win, Angel?”
Her lids slipped lower as she licked her lips. “I really like to win.”
I pulled the pencil out of the twist of her hair, and it fanned around us. “Is that right?”
She didn’t say a word. For a second, I thought maybe I’d gone too far, but then the cards fluttered to the floor around us. She pressed her hand to my chest, and I was well aware she could feel my heart pounding. She lowered until her lips were a breath away from mine. “I really do. What’s my penalty?”
I pushed her hair back. “That lush mouth on me.”
Her eyebrow arched. “Where?”
Fuck .
“Did you just Uno Reverse me?”
She coasted by my mouth and her hair slithered around my cheeks as her breath whispered over my throat. She drew her nose along the column of my neck then over to my Adam’s apple where she lightly kissed there.
Then she grinned up at me. “Does that work?”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
“Good.” She popped up off me and gathered the cards. “Let’s play.”
I closed my eyes and willed my dick to return to normal. Just as I was about to sit up and try not to beg her to let me touch every inch of her, she crawled back to me.
“Kidding.”
Then her mouth was on mine.
I reached up and gripped the back of her head, drawing her back down to straddle me. I rolled up to meet her, the kiss as wild as the storm outside.
“Don’t think less of me. I do really want to win,” she said against my mouth and tugged at my shirt. “But I want this more.”
I opened my eyes, racing my hand down her back to pull her hips even closer to me. “I can stop at any time.”
“Don’t you dare.” She hooked her arm around my neck and rubbed her breasts against my chest. “I mean, unless you want to watch The Holiday with me. That was the next movie I had queued up for my movie marathon.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s a very cute movie. Right now, I feel much like Amanda and her impulsive need to get naked with a near stranger.” She tunneled her fingers through my hair. “Do you want to be my Graham?”
“I’ll be your anything.”
She giggled then rolled her hips along my shaft. “Handily, we are strangers, and you can judge me later.”
“No judgment here.”
She leaned back and wriggled out of both her shirt and plaid, flipping them behind her.
I grinned at her cotton bra with Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeers all over it.
She shrugged. “You’re not the only one with fun underwear.”
I cupped her breasts together and swiped my thumb over each tight tip. I stared at her as she straightened enough for me to get my mouth on her. I bit her nipple lightly through the material and she shuddered.
“Again.”
I bit a little harder, letting the material snap back as I released her.
She hissed and tipped her head back. All the while she rocked against me until I was a little mad with it. I wasn’t sure if my head was spinning from my concussion or from her.
I didn’t much care either way.
I tunneled my fingers into the backs of her soft pants to find even softer skin underneath the flannel. I tipped her hips forward and rubbed against her warmth.
She pulled at my shirt, and I helped her, tossing mine over near hers.
“Good lord.”
The haze dissipated as I grinned. “I use my row machine when I can’t figure out an idea.”
“You must need to figure out a lot.” She trailed her finger over the hair on my pecs to the ridges of my abs to the waistband of my sweats then gave me a bit of return attention before she placed another kiss along my neck. “You smell like the woods had sex with a wood nymph.”
I laughed, then groaned when her fingers snuck under the waistband of my sweats to curl around my shaft. “Fuck.”
“We will definitely be doing that.”
“You want that? A fuck?”
“To start.” She grinned as she maneuvered me out of my sweats and dragged the tip of me against her soft belly. “It’s been a while. To say I’m pent up would be an understatement.”
Hissing, I pushed myself into her hand.
“So, don’t hate me for using your body for the first round.”
“Whatever you need, Angel.”
Her eyes flared a bit. “I like that.”
“And I really like that you tell me what you want. I’ll go slow and figure the rest out next time,” I said then took her mouth and groaned as she stroked me.
The elastic and angle had me grunting and lifting my hips for release. She got the hint and scrambled back so we could both get rid of our pants. I stood first and she crawled over to me.
“Oh, hell.”
She scraped her nails up my thighs. “No Santa gnomes this time?”
I hissed. “Don’t like the candy canes?”
She wiggled her fingers up the leg of my boxer briefs to tease my balls. “I am only interested in one candy cane at the moment.” Then she jerked my boxers down and curled her fingers around my shaft to push me up so she could lick the underside.
I kicked them aside and opened my legs against the onslaught of her mouth on me. Her angel bright hair fell down her shoulders. I pushed the strap of her bra off and groaned at the soft pink tip revealed. She moaned as I tugged at the tip, rolling it between my fingers gently then with more pressure as she panted over my cock.
“You wet for me, Angel?”
She hummed around my shaft, taking me deeper.
“Reach down and show me.”
Her eyes darkened as she used her other hand to dip into her scarlet panties. She worked herself as she worked me, and I resisted the urge to throw my head back and just drain myself down her throat.
I didn’t want this over.
Then she pulled her hand out of her underwear and brought it up to smear along my belly.
“Fuck.”
I sunk my fingers into her hair and pushed deeper into her mouth for a moment. She drew a long breath through her nose and took me so fucking deep that I nearly lost it right then and there.
I saw the power lighting her eyes.
She loved that I was drowning in her.
I gripped her hair and tipped her head back, dislodging my dick from her perfect mouth. She grinned up at me, her mouth wet and swollen from sucking on me.
She was far too self-satisfied, and I liked winning just as much as she did.
I eased her to her feet and wrapped her hair around my hand to keep her staring at me as I stroked down her breast to her waist and into the top of her panties. I resisted the urge to groan at how soft she was.
But I wanted the upper hand here.
I wanted to see her go over first.
I gave her clit a slow, soft circle and she jerked under my hand. “So wet. From taking my cock?”
She bit her lip.
“From taking my cock?” I repeated.
“I told you it’s been a while.”
“So, any cock will do?”
Her chin lifted. “Guess we’ll see.”
I tunneled two fingers into her without warning and she shouted, then she tamped down the moan. “Hot and tight.”
She gave a strangled sound as I turned my fingers and dug deeper, my palm rocking over her clit until her legs shook and she clamped her fingers around my wrist. Instead of stopping me, she rocked against me harder.
“Is that what you need?”
When she didn’t answer, I retreated. In retaliation, she gripped my cock in a punishing grip and both groaned. I knew we’d be in a stalemate for the whole night if I didn’t get us past this moment.
I’d never been with a woman who was as strong-willed as I was, and it ramped me up faster than I was comfortable with. I wrapped an arm around her waist and hauled her up into my arms.
She yelped and hung onto my shoulders as I crossed to the couch and laid her out. I peeled off the last bit between us from the bottom and she took care of her bra. I lowered my mouth to her breast and sucked first one nipple then the other before I raced over her ribs to her hip, then slid over to where I really wanted to be.
Right between her hot thighs.
She was so damn soft and hot at the same time. The fire warmed the room enough that we weren’t cold. Between the soft wintery light that showed off every inch of her and the heat of the fire beside us, she was a damn goddess.
She lifted her hips as if I’d go anywhere else right now.
I threw her leg over my shoulder and covered her slit. The first hit of her taste left me reeling. Left me wanting more. I chased the little sounds she let free. Increased the pressure as her thighs quivered. When she dug her nails into my shoulders, I knew I’d found the secret.
She gripped my ears, and my head rang with the pain of the pressure, but I didn’t stop.
I would pass out before I missed the orgasm we’d been warring over.
The cry she let out was fucking fantastic, and I drank her down even as I demanded more with my fingers and tongue.
She rolled to the side, struggling against the drowning. “Fuck,” she said with a gasp.
I wanted inside her.
I wanted to feel all of it, all of her clasped around me.
“Basket!”
Confused, I came up for air long enough to look at her.
“Condoms in the basket.”
“Did I say you’re an angel?”
She giggled and shuddered when I gave her an extra-long lick before I scrambled up. My dick was so hard, it was a fucking flag.
She pointed near the tree, and I lunged for it. I dug around and found wrappers from cheese and crackers then a little pouch. Thank God. I always had an emergency two or three in my toiletry kit, but that was all the way upstairs.
I snagged one of them and hurried back to her. She was curled up on her side with her hair mussed around her face, her cheeks pink with exertion. She watched greedily as I rolled the latex down my shaft. I was going to climb over her again, but she shook her head and pulled me over to sit beside her.
Slowly, she straddled me, the firelight turning her hair an ethereal gold as she sank onto my cock. She closed her eyes, and her head lolled back as she rolled her hips to take me all the way inside of her.
I reached behind her neck to bring her back to watch me as I lifted my hips to meet her for each stroke. I couldn’t help but look down at where we were joined. My pulse rocketed at seeing her take me over and over.
Then I met her gaze again.
Her mouth dropped open a little in shock as I drove up into her and she tightened around me. I gripped her hips, driving into her until her teeth snapped and she was growling out my name.
Until she was as lost as I was.
I wrapped my arm around her back, my other hand twisting in her hair before I dragged her down to meld our mouths too.
Until I jerked inside of her, the orgasm hollowing me out.
The kiss was as riotous as our fucking, and she cried out her release against my lips before she collapsed on top of me. Her cheek pressed into my shoulder as our hearts galloped.
The snow still raged outside behind us. But I’d never been so warm.