Chapter 13
13
M ACKENZIE
The building is quiet as I lock the door with him waiting next to me.
“After you,” he says, gesturing at the hallway when I shift my gaze to him.
We exit the corridor and take the stairs down, the muted, distant sound of a Christmas carol echoing between the walls.
My hand slides down the balustrade as I pay attention to my steps. His eyes latch onto mine when I look at him again. A smile clings to his lips.
Despite his reassurance, I’m still a little nervous.
I haven’t had company in a while, and overall, my experience with spending time with other people has been limited.
A door opens in the building, and his eyes snap to the upper floor.
“Is everything all right?” I ask, and he moves his stare to me.
“Yeah.”
His smile is tense now, but otherwise, he seems unfazed.
I can’t figure out what his deal is with the people upstairs, but he didn’t knock on my door for nothing.
Another noise travels to us, this time coming from the streets. The door to the ground floor flies open just as we are about to walk down the stairs and get there.
Noisy men enter the building, and in one swift motion, Callan takes my hand, shifts with me out of their way, and proactively locks lips with mine in front of a window, his back to them, my silhouette completely hidden.
My brain struggles to process what seems to happen at once. The heavy footfalls trailing up the stairs, the rumbling voices wafting through the air, and the unexpected kiss that makes my heart race.
His arm snakes around my waist while his fingers fan over my cheek. Instinctively, I loop my arms around his torso and tip my face up.
Of all the things he does to me––his hand on my back, his fingers across my cheeks, his lips on my lips––having his mouth pressed to mine is the one that disconnects me from what’s happening around us.
So many things should be in my mind right now, like who those men are and why he needs to hide from them.
My focus, though, is solely centered on how I feel about being wrapped in his hug.You’d think we’d stay like that until the danger passed.
Two actors pretending to kiss.
But no, no.
The kiss is real.
He locks my lips at first, getting a sense of where I am, and then swiftly pulls away and welcomes me when I follow his mouth, demanding more of him.
We end up locking lips again and getting a taste of each other, quickly letting our tongues touch and feeling the prickle of arousal.
I don’t know about him, but I’m hungry for more. As much as I’m trying to blame my reaction on not being with a man in a while, I can’t overlook how good this man feels pressed to me.
Oozing confidence has never tasted that good as he takes me on a journey of pleasure and exploration.
The loud men pay us no mind, zipping past us as if we were invisible.
They go straight to my neighbor’s place, which shouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.
Everything seems to be connected to her.
Once their voice fades, the kiss comes to an end, but his touch is still connected to my face as he tears his lips away.
“You’re good?” he asks quietly, searching my eyes.
My disappointment must be evident as he rubs his thumb over my cheekbone.
I nod.
“You?” I murmur.
“Never been better,” he says in a steady voice. “Let’s go now. I don’t want to kill anyone tonight,” he adds with humor, although my gut tells me he is serious about that.
He takes my hand, and I walk with him through the front door. We barely make it to the head of the stairs outside, and he looks up the street, brings his free hand to his mouth, and loudly whistles with his fingers.
The headlights of a car shine over the snowy road, quickly heading our way.
“Let’s go,” he says, not looking up or back, although I’m tempted to flick my eyes to my balcony.
There is no time for that.
A man steps out of the vehicle as Callan opens the passenger side door for me.
I tuck myself in while he rounds the car, exchanges a few words with the man, points over his shoulder in the direction of my building, and swiftly claims the driver’s seat.
“Ready?” he says as he adjusts the seat and the rearview mirror before setting the car in motion without waiting for my answer.
My eyes move over his face, his cheeks pinched by the cold outside.
Not growing up with a father has always made me swing from one end of the spectrum of emotions to the other in the presence of a man, vacillating between timidness and dauntlessness.But trying to be fearless has mostly had to do with my wanting to survive.
With him, though, something different happens.
I don’t need to behave in a certain way. And then, there’s something else.
Never in my life have I allowed someone else to make choices for me.
Since I was old enough to say what I liked or needed, I’ve always been in charge.And the older I got, the more I couldn’t rely on anyone else.
Not even when doing the simplest things.
Like going out on a snowy winter night.
Maybe that’s what has bothered Quinn. And others.
Never being able to break through that layer of protection I had wrapped myself in.
It feels good to step out of that mindset and just go with the flow, sitting next to the person in the driver’s seat.
Literally and metaphorically.
“What are you in the mood for?” he rasps, his eyes on the road.
I shift in my seat and look behind us.
The second I tear my gaze away and pivot back, I meet his eyes.
“No one is following us…” I say, relieved, speaking like we’re in an action movie.
He moves his eyes away from me.
“No one will follow us. Rest easy.”
A strong hand goes through his hair.
And just in case, he looks in the rearview mirror.
I watch him, brimming with fascination.
“Mackenzie?”
“Huh?”
“Where do you want to go?”
His attention shifts back to the street while I shrug.
“I don’t know. I wanted to eat something and maybe go to the bookstore. Other than that, I wanted to see the park. It must be beautiful with the lights and fresh snow…”
My voice trails off while my gaze moves from his cheeks to his lips.
“But it’s too late for that. I bet no one is there, and it can be dangerous,” I monotonously say, my eyes still on his face.
A soft chuckle leaves his lips.
“Nothing is dangerous in New York as long as you’re with me.”
It sounds boastful, but it isn’t.
Humbleness is woven in his voice, and there is no trace of shallow bragging.
“So, it’s the park first?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say softly, leaning back in my seat.
A few moments pass while we wait for the lights to turn green at an intersection.
“The men back home…” I say, awaiting his reaction.
He glances at me before moving his eyes to the road as the lights flicker green.
“What about them?’
“They looked like bad people.”
“They are bad people,” he says, steering the wheel and entering a different street.
“What did they do to you?”
A few moments of silence pass while he ponders an answer.
“Nothing yet. I don’t think so,” he says, sounding sincere.
“They’re after you.”
“For some reason, yes. But I don’t know why.”
Again, his words have the zing of truth.
“The woman that you’re seeing…” I go on as he takes his foot off the gas, and the car rolls to a stop by the sidewalk.
“I’m not seeing her,” he says, throwing his car in park and moving his eyes to me.
“You were invited to her party.”
He nods a couple of times, displeased with where our conversation is going.
“It’s a long story, but I’m not seeing her.”
“She’s friends with those men.”
“I know that.”
“So she’s not to be trusted.”
A soft smile blossoms on his lips.
“I know that too.”
His eyes narrow, centered on my lips.
“You liked the kiss?” he changes the topic, and my cheeks burn with a blush.
“I thought it was a ploy to distract those men,” I say seriously.
He tilts his head to the side and studies my face with a smile in his eyes before wagging his finger at me.
“Nice try, Mackenzie.”
I fail to suppress a smile.
“Don’t get any ideas,” I say, struggling to keep my face straight.
He laughs knowingly, perfectly aware of my predicament.
I’m in such a big shit right now since it’s not wise to get smitten with how he kisses or looks at me.
There is no good reason to want more from him.
I can imagine how painful it is to have him and then lose him.
So, no.
I’m not entertaining the idea of him.
But his eyes say yes, though.Yes to kissing again.And maybe more.
Whispering moves catch the corner of my eye as snowflakes the size of my fist float in the air, circling the lampposts.
The wind blows kisses at us, and thedisplay of white and silver feels like a celebration as we hope to find a sanctuary amongst the immaculate ghosts of the park.
His eyes are still on me, simmering slowly like burning stars.
Mine float to him, timid and intrigued.
His smile comes with a sweet, frivolous warning filled with excitement.
A second dies, and he leans to me while I wait, holding my breath, not knowing what to expect.
When he knows what I know, he crashes his lips onto mine, and I welcome him without a doubt.
I fail the test within seconds as I’m submitting to his will.
My arms snake around his neck, my lips soft against his mouth.
We no longer need a fabricated reason to kiss.
He wants to prove me wrong, and I want to imagine this entire story belongs to us.
There aren’t other people.
There isn’t a backstory. And more importantly, he isn’t the man with a veiled history I know nothing about.
His kiss evolves from a sensual tease to being intrusive and domineering.
The thought that he takes over me turns me on.
My body responds with spiraling warmth and tension, both building faster than my deep-seated fear that I might not be able to pull back from him.
Awash with a delicious need for him, I enjoy the tingles romping down my legs and the soft pulsations in my core.
His hand splays over my neck while I hold my own, kissing him back with passion.
His other hand slides down, trailing past my collarbones and working its way to my chest.
My hand slides over his, and it kills me to stop him from cupping my breasts and kneading them, adding to the sensation of impending doom growing in my center.
If he touches as much as an inch of my skin, I’ll be out of my clothes in two seconds flat, straddle his hard-on, and ride him to exhaustion.
I’m so stirred up and hungry for sex and so convinced I will regret doing it with him, because, for sure, I will be hating myself when he drops me off at my place.
His lips tear away from mine, his eyes glimmering with questions, and all that arousing sensation traveling from our connected mouths to the throbbing flesh between my thighs all but vanishes , replaced by a mysterious and mortal sickness for not having him.
“It’s not that I don’t want you…” I say, sounding surprisingly resolute in the silence between us.
He tilts an eyebrow at me, wanting me to continue.
“It’s that I want you to be a good memory for me,” I say, still holding his hand against the top of my chest. “And right now, that’s not possible,” I add, convinced this would put an end to his interest in me.
He slides his hand away from under my touch and looks in the distance as if the most important aspect of our trip is the snow, the trees, and the benches.
“I’m not Carmen,” I say when his silence prolongs and I ponder whether he is upset or not.
He turns his eyes to me and studies me like a wolf would study a puppy.
With wonder and amusement in his eyes.
“I know that… That’s why we’re here,” he says, his eyes dipping to my mouth, a smile sliding across his lips.
Relief flows through me, and the corners of my lips lift into a smile.
“Are you testing me?” I ask.
He slightly shakes his head while his grinning eyes say otherwise.
“I can’t have sex like that,” I say, chiding myself in my head for not quitting while ahead.
“Who said we were having sex?” he tosses at me, amused by how clumsily I’ve painted myself into a corner.
A few seconds pass, and out of the blue, I move my hand to his crotch and palm his bulge.
He’s still hard, twitching under my touch.
My gesture catches him completely unprepared, drawing him still for a moment before he laughs.
“You didn’t just do that. You fear nothing, woman,” he says, still chuckling and gently removing my hand from his fly.
“You don’t know how much I fear you,” I say as if delivering a nice play of words when, in fact, I’ve never been more honest in my life.
I take his hand, surprising him for the second time this evening, and lower the waistband of my pants and panties before pressing his fingers into my folds.
A sweet, warm smell of wet arousal fills the air, and his smile gets wiped off his face.
“We were having sex,” I say. “And I was moments ago from getting naked and straddling you to see how it feels to be filled by you.”
His eyes go through a fast sequence of emotions.
He seems to ponder, crush his impulse, and then ponder again before looking at my lips while I feed on these few moments of painful teasing.
His mouth comes to me so fast that I almost fall backward when he crashes it onto mine.
I didn’t see that coming.
I scream against his lips, but only for a second before he plunges his tongue into my mouth and dips his fingers between my legs.
Wet arousal coats his fingers, and my whole plan goes up in flames.
“No. Please, no,” I uselessly protest between kissing him back and struggling with mixed emotions. “Everything I said was true,” I say before he sinks his teeth into my lip and moves his fingers.
I push him back again, and he breaks the kiss.
“Listen,” he says, his eyes heavy and his voice deep and hoarse like he’s slept with his window open. “This is not us having sex. You haven’t had sex in a while. So you are not thinking straight,” he says, a pang of humor in his voice. “We’ll fix this first, and then we’re doing it your way. You have nothing to fear,” he says, moving his fingers slowly, driving me insane. “You need to get it out of your system. And I need to get it out of my system, too. Don’t let your fears run your life.”
Holding my neck with one hand, he strokes my center with the other, his lips and tongue rolling with mine again as I take him back, hungrier than before.
He breaks the kiss again.
“I won’t enter you tonight, but I need to taste you, all right? And no more touching my dick. It’s off-limits until you’re ready to let me fuck you.”
I don’t have much to say as he tilts the back of my seat, rolls my pants and panties down, leans to me, and opens my legs against his face.
A flurry of pulsations settles in my core when he presses his mouth against me. He surely knows how to soothe my fears and dismiss my objections.
By not entering me, he has free rein to deliciously mistreat my body until it sings like a violin.
“We’re not fucking,” he says, tapping my legs so I relax them.
I smile, defeated, trying not to dwell over the fact that I knew I’d be in trouble with him since that night on the balcony.
But having his lips between my thighs, the tip of his tongue moving around my clit, and his fingers going in and out of me at the same time is more than I could’ve ever imagined.
The more he pushes me to the top, the more I blame myself for not taking care of my needs and not being so easy in his hands.
On a different note, this is just a way of fooling myself into believing that this is a matter of me not having enough sex and not being obsessed with him.
Oh, wait a minute.
What did he mean about getting it out of his system?
Oh, no. Oh, yes.
My mind goes blank, moans flying out of my throat, inching higher and higher, mirroring the sensation of pleasure growing in my body.
He truly likes to eat me out, his teeth sinking into my sensitive parts without hurting me, showing me how much he loves it.
“Callan…” I push out, and it’s about the only word that makes sense before he drags me across the finish line, not minding my feverish fingers weaving through his hair, and that I instinctively close my thighs around his neck.
He strokes me harder, and my climax is sublime. Just about the best experience I have ever had.
I can’t be mad at him.
And I can’t be mad with myself.
I’ll have to deal with the aftermath.
For now, everything seems perfect.