10. Holy Smokes
Chapter 10
Holy Smokes
R ose
I woke up alone and disappointed that Jason hadn’t come to sleep beside me last night.
I cycled through the New Orleans news outlets. We couldn’t leave until after his meeting tomorrow at earliest anyway, but the interstate was still closed and the power back home was still down. Poor Jason must be a nervous wreck this morning. I smiled big. Or maybe I helped him relax last night.
I sat up, stretched my back. The condo was quiet. Maybe he didn’t come to bed because he regretted what we did last night. I bit my lip and pulled my knees under my chin, stretching my Deck Daddy T-shirt down over my legs till it covered my feet. Maybe I’d talked him into going too far. Although I wasn’t exactly responsible. I grinned. The whole thing had been so erotic, the dark look in his eyes as he watched me.
I didn’t regret last night, but I might if he was weird about it. Or, shit. If he apologized and distanced himself from me, I’d have to find another place to live. I rubbed my face and took a deep breath. If that’s the case, I’ll kick my own ass.
I blew a breath out. Only one way to see if we were cool or if things would be awkward.
I walked out into the living room in my T-shirt and panties to find him already at his laptop at the kitchen counter.
“Morning,” I said. “Are we still going to Seaside today?”
His eyes scanned down my body, and he smiled brightly before answering me. “Morning, beautiful. I want to if you want to.” He closed the lid on his laptop and walked up to me, pulling me into his arms and placing a kiss on the top of my head while he rubbed my back. “I made coffee.”
I smiled, wrapping my arms around his middle and breathing in his scent. Not only was it not awkward, he almost made me feel cherished . That was new.
“Do you still want to go to Seaside? I was looking for other things to do, and I found a state park nearby. They have a waterfall, and—”
“Are you trying to trick me into hiking?” I yawned, my words slurry and sleepy against his chest. “‘Cause it sounds like you’re trying to trick me into hiking.”
He pulled back and smiled at me. “I just thought it’d be cool to see a waterfall, that’s all.”
“I mean, if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. You’ve never seen a waterfall?”
“I’ve seen a couple. Have you?”
“A few. Niagara Falls, Ruby Falls, Bridal Veil Falls in Yosemite. I mean, with a name like that, I had to see it.”
“You’re waterfalled out. Duly noted. Seaside it is.” He leaned in to kiss me, but I put my hand over my mouth.
“Morning breath.”
A corner of his mouth tugged up. “As if that would stop me.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I stood on my tiptoes and met his lips, fell into deep kissing until my bladder started knocking on my brain. “Jason. I have to pee.”
He squeezed my ass with both hands. “Then go pee and get ready.”
Two hours later, Jason was fangirling around a housewares shop in Seaside, a nest of shops and activity in a horseshoe around a green space and an amphitheater.
“Do I really need these retro orange juice glasses?” he asked, carefully sitting a couple of them in his basket. “No. But they look just like the ones my grandma had when I was a kid, and I can’t pass them up.”
I smiled. This shop gave us the first five minutes out today that he wasn’t obsessing over his meeting with Big Dick Tools tomorrow morning. “As long as you’re enjoying your retail therapy.” I checked the price tag on a cute ceramic cheese and crackers tray I absolutely didn’t need. I was usually too rabid for cheese to make it look pretty first.
“Retail therapy?” he asked.
“Yes, and now I’ve broken the spell. How are you feeling about your meeting tomorrow?”
He eyed the glasses in his basket, then added two more from the display. “I’m really nervous. What if I get there, and they say, ‘No, we’ve made a horrible mistake’?”
“You’re looking at this the wrong way. Sure, maybe they just want to get eyes on you and make sure you are who you say you are and you’re not a psycho or anything. But I really think tomorrow’s meeting is for you to see if you want to work with them . They reached out to you , which to me means they’ve already done their research and it’s a done deal as far as they’re concerned. All you need to do is walk in, be your charming self—”
He interrupted me with a smile and a peck on the lips.
“—and get a feel for whether you want to work with them .” I shrugged. “That’s how I see it. And if you don’t like something, walk away.”
“No way would I walk away. This is everything I’ve been working toward. Without this, I’ll never be able to turn my community room into a house.”
“I don’t believe that. If this isn’t your way, then your way is coming.”
He nodded and looked around, as if taking my words in. “That’s a good way to look at it.”
“I think that’s how the universe works. It closes doors that aren’t for you, and opens ones when you least—ooh, look at that!” I made a beeline across the small store to look at a wooden wall shelf for sale. Whitewashed and slightly distressed, the back was pointed at the top with glass panes like a church window. They had it styled with tarot cards, incense holders, big hunks of amethyst, quartz, and other witchy knick-knacks. “It reminds me of your house.”
He nodded, studying it from all angles. I smiled. That must be how I looked when I tried to figure out if I could sew something I saw in a store. “That is cool.” He flipped the price tag. “Oof—that’s a lot for such a small shelf. I could totally make it for less than that.”
I chuckled. “You sound like me in a dress shop. I love how deep the shelves are, too. I could probably fit all my crystals on it and still have room to grow.”
“I wish I could get it for you, but maybe I can make—”
“Oh, absolutely not!” I turned away from the shelf. “I just thought it was cool.”
We drifted toward the checkout counter. In the line, Jason’s hand bumped mine, and my heart rate went up. One casual stretch of my fingers, and I’d be holding his hand. But that would be admitting I wanted more. And I didn’t want to admit that unless he felt that way too. We moved ahead once more in line.
My one-to-three scale for relationships started at having sex. So, with his desire to remain celibate, I didn’t know where to place him. I never held hands unless I was about to or was sleeping with someone. Would holding hands skip him ahead to a Two because it was more relationship-y? But if all my relationships were based on sex…
Two of his fingers hooked onto mine. And stayed there, his thumb rubbing circles. He didn’t look at me, didn’t speak. But casually, more of his fingers connected with mine, electricity shooting to my core as he gently played with my fingers. My heart pounded. I returned the gesture, all of my attention focused on the places where our fingers met. Just as he scooped up more of my fingers and ran his thumb softly over the back of my hand, it was his turn to check out. He clasped my whole hand as he took the step forward, pulling me gently with him, and then squeezed my hand once before placing his glasses on the counter.
I folded my arms, unsure of what to do with my hands now that we had held hands. My heart jittered as I did careful relationship math in my head. What were we? What was this? Because the idea that Jason Soniat could be interested in me, even if sex was off the table, was too ridiculous to be true.
But as soon as he signed his credit card receipt and took his bag, he gave me the loveliest smile, slipped his arm around my waist, and led me from the store.
Once on the sidewalk where we finally had breathing room from the crowds, I let my hand swing free as we walked toward the back of Seaside to where wooden shops clustered around an open courtyard. He pointed toward Rudolph’s Christmas Shoppe. “Can we go there? I’m so excited to get a big-ass tree this year, and I barely have any ornaments.” He smoothly slipped his hand into mine.
It was hard to form words, the way his thumb caressing my hand was waking up far more intimate parts of my body. Would I survive a sex-free relationship with Jason? Would he give in? How horrible was I that I wanted him to compromise his morals?
“Sure,” I said. “And then don’t forget you promised me a bookstore and a record store.” I risked a glance up at him. He was grinning down at me.
“Of course! I like making you smile.”
My smile got so much bigger.
Rudolph’s was a Christmas wonderland. They’d divided the shop into themed rooms, one filled with blown glass ornaments, a whole room of Santas, and a whole section for ornaments celebrating southeast states. Jason’s wide-eyed wonder was infectious. “Can we just stay here for the rest of the trip? Oh wow, look at this Santa.”
Within a few minutes he’d collected so many ornaments that I went to grab him a basket.
“Thank you. Can you tell I love Christmas?”
“No.” I kissed his cheek. “It was not at all apparent.”
I followed him around a corner, and he stopped short. “Girl. There’s an upstairs?”
I laughed. “Come on, you big kid. Let’s go see what they have.”
The upstairs was full of mini Christmas villages, Halloween decorations—where I immediately diverted to—and a whole section of Christmas greenery. Heather, Abby, and I used to put up a Halloween tree when I lived with them. We made cool crystal ornaments, hung up spell sachets and other witchy things. I missed those days. Maybe I’d put my own tree up this year.
“Hey Rose.” Jason’s voice was at my ear as I checked prices on two witch ornaments that I really, really wanted.
“Yeah?”
He cleared his throat, and I tore my eyes away to look at him, then at the mistletoe he held over his head.
I grinned. “You’re an adorable dork. Do you know that?” A family of four passed us on their way down the stairs, and no one else was around. I set the ornaments down and reached my hand up to cup his face, and he leaned down to kiss me.
And oh, what a kiss. Tender, slow, so much yearning I was unsteady on my feet. I rocked softly into him, my hand on his chest, his hand on my lower back. The world was cinnamon, pine, soft jingling, and stardust.
“Eh-eh-ehm.”
We broke apart with a smack . An older woman stood with a fist on one hip, her other hand pointing at a sign on the wall that read, “you kiss under it, you buy it” in old timey red and green letters.
“Yes ma’am.” Jason smiled. “We were just trying it out to make sure it was legitimate, kissing-under mistletoe. It satisfied all my requirements. You, Rose?”
I gazed starrily up at him, only able to nod after a kiss like that.
The woman smiled indulgently at us. “As if I’d sell anything less.” She pointed to the basket at Jason’s feet, which was nearly full. “Would you like me to hold that at the counter for you?”
“Yes please.” He lifted the basket, dropped the mistletoe into it, and passed it to the woman. “Don’t let anybody else buy that mistletoe.” He turned the full force of his dimples on her. “I mean it. That particular one is the only one I’ll have.”
“Wouldn’t dream of letting another soul have it.” She winked at me before heading back down the stairs.
Dinner and less than ten minutes of a movie at the condo led directly into making out on the couch again, him half on top of me, but with his pelvis not touching me. I didn’t mean to be that person who couldn’t have a relationship without sex, but he had me desperate only with his lips on my mouth, my neck, my jawline. I dove my hand down the back of his shirt, stroking the hard muscles of his back and trying to shift my body more underneath him. I wanted this man. No, I needed this man, and I needed him now. Had I ever been so desperate to show a man with my body how crazy he made me?
But what satisfaction couldst I have tonight?
None, as long as he planned to remain celibate. I loved sex. I was good at sex. But maybe I needed to let a better person than me teach me how to be patient.
Or maybe he just didn’t like me enough.
His thumb’s circles on my bare thigh went up three more inches as he sucked kisses at the crook of my neck. I whimpered. “Just when I think you’ve hit my Achilles heel, you find a new spot for your magical mouth to tease me.”
He chuckled and kept at it.
Irredeemable, incorrigible, wanton. And still somehow defective. That was me. I’d throw out one last invitation.
“Jason, I respect your journey through celibacy, I really do, but when you’re ready, I want you to take me so hard and rough that neither of us can walk for days. Respectfully.”
He groaned, and his hand left my thigh to hover over my breast then fall to my stomach. “You’re the sweetest torture.”
My heart sank. My panties were soaked, all my blood was pooled between my legs, and my nipples were so peaked they stung. “Jason, I don’t want to stop kissing you, but I need to go take care of myself because wanting you is physically painful.”
I skirted out from under him and went toward the bedroom.
“Don’t leave me,” he begged, turning toward me with puppy dog eyes.
But I closed the door anyway and pulled out my new favorite vibrator. I threw everything off the bed, switched on the lamp and off the overhead light, eager to run my hands down my own skin since Jason wouldn’t.
Finally naked, I pulled back the covers, fighting the tears springing to my eyes. He didn’t like me enough. That had to be the reason, and it sucked. Sex was emotional for him, and he wasn’t about to give up his celibacy for someone he didn’t really care about.
I respected the hell out of that, and it was for the best. Because…I liked him a lot. He was such a cool person. Kind, talented, and smart. Not to mention funny and caring. Not that it mattered. I could enumerate all his wonderful qualities, and it still wouldn’t mean—
“Rose?” His voice came from just outside the door.
“Jason,” I replied, wiping under my eyes.
The door opened. I turned. Jason strode toward me.
Completely naked.
My eyes went down of their own accord. “Holy smokes, Deck Daddy is hung .”
He took my face in his hands, standing so close that his hefty, erect cock pressed hard and warm against my belly. My entire body short-circuited.
“Rose, I can’t wait.” His dark eyes soaked into my soul. “I don’t want to miss a minute of us.” He kissed me hard, possessively, and I grabbed his waist, kissing him just as fiercely.
Us ?
His hands traveled down. His hand on my breast caressing, his hand on my bottom pulling me tighter to him even as he pushed me back against the wall. But I could never be close enough, no matter how my hands scrabbled at his broad shoulders, dug into the curls at the back of his neck, and pulled his face closer, his whiskers scritching my palms. His kisses claimed me, pulling me away from shore, but he was an ocean I wanted to drown in.
He pulled my arms over my head, threading the fingers of his one hand through both of mine and pinning them to the wall. “You want me to be in charge?” he asked with a cocky smile.
“Until I say so,” I dared.
He swept his tongue inside my mouth, then his lips and tongue ran hot down my neck. I arched my back, and he took the bait, capturing my breast in his mouth. So good. My whimper bloomed into a moan as his hand slipped between my legs, his fingers dipping in, stroking me, circling me with devastating gentleness. My knees went weak. Did my pussy write that book he was reading?
His thumb circled my clit, and his fingers slipped inside. With his tongue flickering fast across my nipple inside his suckling mouth, I was overwhelmed by the sensation of him . My orgasm came fast and hard.
He let my hands go, and I grabbed his face to bask in the onslaught of his claiming kisses on my mouth. Then his hands and tongue and teeth teased my nipples and skipped warm exclamation points down my belly.
Kneeling down, he pushed my legs apart and glanced up at me with a wicked smile. He tugged one of my thighs over his shoulder and split my sex open with his thumbs. And then he buried his face in with a lusty moan.
The hot, overwhelming pleasure of his mouth consumed me, and I whimpered his name. I dug my fingers in his curls and pulled his sucking, probing mouth closer. I ground against him, but he braced his free arm across my hips and pinned them to the wall. A couple minutes in, I stopped struggling for control. He wanted to take his damn time. What if I let him?
Slowing down as if he was savoring me, he edged me with a mind-numbing attentiveness, like he could do this all day and night. Like he wanted to. The long, flat licks inside the hot suction of his mouth and the slow, leisurely explorations of his lips and tongue had me gasping his name with every breath.
For long minutes, his mouth stroked and lapped me into languid ecstasy, warmth stealing through all my limbs until my whole body ached with the need for release. My every exhale was a whimper. But then his lips sucked against my clit, his tongue swirling unmitigated tension into my every cell. His thick fingers slipped inside me, and I cried out, an orgasm tremoring through my whole body.
While I struggled to stand, his tireless tongue traced all the way back up to my mouth, probing inside and making me taste myself. I grappled at his back, lifting my leg along his hip, rubbing every smooth expanse of his skin I could reach until my hand closed around his cock. I pumped him once and my feet left the ground.
“Do you want me inside you, Sweet Rose?” he murmured in my ear.
“Yes,” I gasped. “God, yes!” But guilt ate at me. “Jason, are you sure? I shouldn’t have rushed you.”
“I’m sure.” He leaned in to kiss me, but I pressed my hand against his chest to stop him.
“Okay, but if we’re doing this, I need you to be exclusive for as long as we’re, you know, doing this.”
His brows came down as his eyes burned into mine. “Absolutely. I’m only yours.” The heat of his gaze warned me he meant more than physically, but I needed him too badly to heed that now.
The fat tip of his cock pressed between my labia. “Are you sure you want me bare ?” His hoarse voice cracked on the word, gruff, full of need.
“Yes, please ,” I panted. “I’m sure. Give me everything .”
His first thrust filled me completely, so full, so good. We swallowed each other’s moans as he ground against me in a rhythm. “Talk to me, Jason, tell me—”
“You’re so hot, so tight. Christ, Rose, I’ve never…” he thrust deeply again, and paused, his words quivering out desperate, thoroughly undone. “So good. So… ah …so good.”
“Fuck me, baby, fuck me so good,” I begged.
He ground so deep, and I mewled against his mouth with my hands digging in his hair.
“Is this what you wanted? Is this what you imagined when you slipped that vibrator inside your pussy?” He pulled out a little, then thrust himself in to the hilt, filling me to the brim and staying there. Pivoting his hips in tight circles, he devoured my mouth.
“Yes,” I moaned. Completely overcome, I slapped softly at his shoulders and sucked at his lips, bucking my hips. “Just like that, just like that.”
He shifted his angle, growling at the back of his throat. “Tell me how you like it, baby. Tell me and I’ll give it to you. I’ll give you everything.”
“Deep and hard, so hard,” I whimpered. My fingernails were at his neck and down his back.
His tongue dove into my mouth. I wanted all of him inside me. His tongue, his cock, his fingers. I could be the goddess of taking him into me. I wanted him to fuck me into divinity. I squeezed his cock inside me and he cried out, never stopping the sublime grinding that had me barreling toward transcendence.
“Oh my God, you feel so fucking good, Rose.”
He shifted me lower on his hips, grinding against a new place no lover had ever tapped. I cried out.
He stopped moving. “Am I hurting you?”
I almost shouted. “No! Don’t stop! It’s perfect.” I gripped his shoulders as he committed hard to those deep-inside-me perfect grinds against that perfect spot and kissed me like he’d eat me alive. He brought me higher and higher, then I broke loose. Stars sparked behind my eyes as I embraced the cosmos, elevating to another plane of being. I came so hard, I squirted.
“Oh, Christ, Rose, I can feel you coming, so hard. Baby, you feel so fucking good.” He drove harder, rougher. My breasts bounced against his hard chest as he prolonged the divine contractions deep in my body. He became a primeval god of thrusting, crying out as his release throbbed inside me. He ground slowly and deeply until it ceased.
With his arms still tight around me, he pulled me away from the wall. My feet gently touched the ground. Our hungry kisses turned to smiles and searching gazes.
“Goddamn,” I panted. It was all I could manage. I laid my head against his sweaty chest and wrapped my arms around his middle, my legs trembling.
“Fuck, never in my life,” was all he could say, breathless as me. He pressed a kiss to my head and pulled me with him toward the bed.
“Wait,” I said, “I need to pee.”
His eyes focused on me, and he kind of laughed. “What?”
I pushed him toward the bed. “I’ll be back. I want to prevent a UTI.”
He chuckled and playfully slapped my ass as I went to take care of myself. When I came out, he was sprawled out across the bed, gloriously naked.
“Goddamn, you’re beautiful.” I ran my hands up his hard body before curling up in his arms, my blood pounding through my veins, the air conditioning cooling my skin even as it stuck to his. I felt powerful. Irresistible. Radiant. Desired.
“You’re a goddess.” His fingers caressed my side, and he chuckled. “Best sex of my whole life, and you’re going straight to pee right after.”
I laughed too, nuzzling his neck with my nose. “I’ll thank myself later when it doesn’t burn when I pee.” I fixed my eyes on his. “Jason, you were so goddamn good, you made me squirt. I’ve never done that with a partner.”
His eyebrows went up as if he was amused by my frankness, but he held my gaze and threaded his fingers through mine. “So…best sex of your life?”
I nodded, slipping my leg up over his thigh and running my hands across the glory of his skin over the drum of his heart. “No competition. Are you just naturally designed to pleasure me, or did you learn a lot from that book?”
He chuckled. “I’m only halfway through it.”
“Hoooooly smokes,” I whimpered.
He laughed, and we were silent for a long moment. Long enough for me to start questioning everything. What if he hated me for tempting him too hard to get physical?
“I’m sorry I made you break your celibacy,” I said softly.
“What?” He pulled back and took my face in his hand. “You didn’t make me do anything. I’m not sorry at all. I needed you, Rose.” His soft, sweet kiss on my bruised lips made sunshine beam through my body. “I think I was waiting for you.” His big brown eyes searched mine, filled to the brim with…emotion?
He pressed a long kiss to my forehead, then soft, indulgent kisses to my lips. I could kiss him forever, my hands traveling along his skin, grabbing his face, his arms. His eyes fluttered open, sparkling with the curve of his smile. Then he planted kisses in the crook of my neck, nudging his hips—and his erection—against me.
“Holy reset, Batman, are you ready to go again? Maybe we should break out the Bat Cuffs,” I joked.
He chuckled, nuzzling my breast with his nose. “You’re gonna tie me down? Sounds hot.” He lapped and sucked at my breast, and my whole body was lit again. It was like the last three orgasms hadn’t even happened. “Now you’ve given me the taste for it, it would definitely be a distraction from my meeting in the morning.”
“Don’t tempt me, Deck Daddy. I could distract the hell out of you.” I latched my mouth onto his and pushed him down to the bed, straddling him and nestling his cock along my sex. I ground against him, and he resumed his careful attention to my breasts. I couldn’t trust words any more than I could trust my heart. But sex with my ideal Level Two man? That I could do. All. Night. Long.