Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
QUINTON
Snow explodes all over my face. If it wasn’t for the giggle that came from its point of origin, I’d think it was Maise. Except this particular voice, the sunshine lilt and tone, sends electricity through my veins.
Spark after delicious fucking spark.
Run, baby . . .
Maise intercepts me, a snowball flying at my head, which I only just duck and miss. I can see whose side she’s picked. Little traitor.
I ball up another shot and send it flying into her back.
She spins around. “Hey, not fair!”
“Oh yeah? Two against one isn’t fair, either, kiddo. But here we are.”
She knows I’m joking but sticks her tongue out at me, anyway.
Something moves behind me, but I’m too slow. A hand tugs at the back of my coat and ice slides down my back. “Jesus Christ, Mary, and Jose—”
CC runs across the snow, desperate to put space between us.
“Daddy! Language!” Maise screeches but topples over laughing as she and CC try to get away but slip and slide in a tangle of legs and hit the cold snow together.
I stalk to where they are lying in a heaving pile of giggles and feigned fear.
“Please have mercy on us! In our defense, it’s more like almost one whole adult against . . . well, you.” CC’s eyes don’t waver from my gaze.
I guess she has a point.
I extend a hand to help her up. Maise is already on her feet, hands loaded with snowballs.
When Maise narrows her eyes at me, I reach down to CC.
Her hand slides into mine. It’s cold.
I haul her upward, but she drops her weight. I lose my footing, crashing onto the snowy ground beside her.
“That’s better. Down here with me,” she whispers into my ear.
Maise tilts her head, giving us an odd look before something like anticipation claims her expression.
CC jumps to her feet, and Maisey’s look fades.
She was waiting for us to . . . ?
I grab CC’s hand and haul her back down. This time, she lands in my lap.
Where she fucking belongs.
“What are you—”
I cup her face with my hands. “Think the cat is outta the bag, baby. But it’s up to you.”
Her gaze studies my face for a beat, then she glances at Maisey. “Are we putting it back in?”
I swallow hard. I don’t fucking want to, but . . .
“It’s up to you.”
“Kiss her already, Daddy!”
We both burst out laughing as Maisey drops her snowballs to the ground, arms folding over her chest. Yep, that’ll make us cooperate, kiddo.
“I don’t want to start something we can’t finish,” CC mutters, gaze dropping to where our fingers are still laced together. “I can’t do that to her, Quin.”
That right there is the whole reason I know she is the woman I want in my life. Permanently.
“We’ll just start small, hey?” I say, tucking a rogue strand of hair behind her ear.
“Small?”
“Yeah, small, slow. At least when we’re in company.”
“Okay, I can do that.”
My hand brushes over her cheek, my thumb dragging on her bottom lip. Maise stands behind CC, still waiting, her hands now on her hips, looking like we’re the petulant children and she’s the not-so-patient parent.
“We should probably do as she asks,” I rasp.
CC moves on my lap, and I can’t wait a second longer. I palm her face, pull her mouth down to mine, and kiss her.
“Yes!” Maise whoops, dancing around in the snow. “I knew it!”
CC puffs a laugh against my lips before breaking away. “What have we done, Quin?”
I chuckle. “Get ready for the most intrusive relationship you’ve ever had, baby.”
She drops her forehead to my shoulder. “I have a feeling it’ll be worth it.”
Four hours later, Maise is in bed. Finally. It took an hour and a half to get her ready and tucked in between six million questions about when CC and I are getting married and giving her a little sister, or what she should wear to the summer wedding. Because she hates the cold.
I sidelined most of those questions with a flakey response about grownups having to decide these things and earned myself at least a dozen eye rolls in the process.
“Night, kiddo.” I pull her door shut.
“Night, Daddy,” she calls out. “Night, CC!”
Celeste, who is downstairs wrapping gifts for her siblings for the first time in years, calls up the stairs. “Night, hon.”
And for the first time in my life, I feel like everything is right with the world. Everything is in its place. The people I love are—
I grip the doorknob, resting my head against the closed door.
Fuck.
That sure as hell crept up on me.
I’m in love with Celeste Black.
I try to rationalize it each step of the way back down, but by the time I make it to the living room, I can’t reason away the intense feeling I have for the little woman sitting on my living room floor among wrapping paper, ribbon, and name cards under the sparkling strings of fairy lights around the room.
“Hey, Quinnie. Almost done. You need anything wrapped?” She looks up from the present she’s working on.
I stop by the sofa, almost breathless at the sight of her in my house doing something so mundane, just living. A stone occludes my airway as I rasp, “I’m good.”
“What’s wrong?” She pushes to her feet and pads to where I stand. Her elegant fingers flatten my brow. I must have been frowning. “What’s got you worried, hey?”
“Not worried, just . . .” I close the space between us and take her face in my hands, dotting a kiss on her forehead. “Content.”
“Well, if that’s your content face, I think it’s broken.” She nips my neck.
“Oh yeah, what about this one?” I haul in a lungful before meeting her gaze. And by the heat that’s growing in my core and the blood that just rushed south with her touch, I’m guessing she’ll read this expression much differently.
“That one’s . . .” She nudges her nose along my jawline. “One of my favorites.”
“Is that so?”
I brush my lips over hers, and she slides her hands around my neck and into my hair. “It is.”
Her heartbeat thunders under my fingertips when my hands fall from her face, grazing her neck on the way to the buttons of her sweater. “Got a Christmas wish, baby?”
“Sure do.” Brown eyes darken as she draws my mouth down to hers.
Hungry, I take everything she gives up, exploring and devouring. Her hand tugs at my button-down flannel, and I haul it off my back, leaving behind my T-shirt.
“What about Maise?” CC breathes, her forehead resting against mine.
“She’ll be out like a light, but we can check on the way to my room, if you want.”
“Please tell me your bedroom door locks.”
“Absolutely it does. You sleeping over?”
Brown eyes search mine. “I want to, I really do.”
I haul her onto my hips before she gets another word out, taking the steps two at a time. We pass Maisey’s room, and I crack the door to check she’s asleep.
Out cold.
She’s always been a good sleeper. Happens, I suppose, when you run at a mile a minute all damn day.
“Satisfied?” I ask.
She simply nods, her gaze snagged on my face. Her fingers explore my neck, hair, and every angle of my face on the way to my room.
My heart thunders under her scrutiny.
Will she like what she finds? Will we make this work?
And what happens to my heart, to Maisey’s, if it doesn’t?
Nope.
Past that point.
Life is full of risk. And damn, I haven’t wanted a woman this way ever in my entire life. That has to mean something.
I close the bedroom door softly behind us and flick the lock. “Just you and me.”
“Good.” Her mouth meets mine the second the syllable leaves her lips.
I spin and pin her to the door.
She releases a little moan in my mouth, and I’m hard as fuck. Desperate for nothing between us.
Hands start tugging at my T-shirt. And I let her struggle for a little while I taste that sensitive spot beneath her ear, every inch of her soft neck, and then dip to her collarbone.
I don’t let up until I have her writhing against the door.
“Qui—” A whimper tumbles from her as I nudge her chin up with my nose and mouth.
We are making this last.
“Too many clothes, baby.”
This time, it’s going to be bare, raw, and torturously slow.
At least, that’s my plan.
I want to cover every inch. Taste every part of her. Find out what she likes. What she doesn’t.
I let her down to her feet and am pulling her sweater over her head a beat later. I leave the shirt on, the silky button-down blouse sticking to her skin with static accentuating every curve, the roundness of her perfect damn breasts.
What I wouldn’t do to have one of those in my mouth right now . . .
“Off, Quin. Take it off, please.”
I ignore her, tracing the pad of my thumb over the hard peak pushing against the silky shirt and lacy bra underneath. I feel the intricate texture of the lace as I swirl my thumb around the nipple.
Celeste’s head falls back against the door with a thud.
“We’re going to have to move before you wake Maise up,” I whisper, sweeping her into my arms. I place her in the center of the bed and step back, just taking in her lying on my bed for a minute.
“What?” she says, breathy and strung out.
“Just thinking you—”
Fuck.
My throat closes over. I’ve been a girl dad for too damn long. Every emotion Maise feels, I live through, rewiring my brain to the softer side of life. Where the precious things live.
One of those now lies splayed over my bed.
And I know a life-altering moment when I’m looking down at one.
“You sure, CC?”
She pushes up, her elbows digging into the mattress. “Very.”
I crawl onto the bed, over CC, until our gazes are level. “Hey, baby.”
Her hands slide across my jawline and into my hair. “Hey, Quinnie.”
“Slow, remember,” I breathe.
She nods. Her hands wander to her buttons, and she pops them one by one. “I can live with slow.”
“Good to know.”
The blouse falls away, and I capture one hard peak between my teeth.
“Get it off,” Celeste gasps.
I slide a hand under her back, releasing the bra clasp. She hauls the lingerie off her chest and tosses it onto the floor. I dot kisses around her chest, ignoring her heaving peaks, knowing all too well she’s desperate for me there.
One hand holds me above her while the other tracks over her stomach, brushing my knuckles over the soft skin. Goosebumps flourish along her belly following my touch. And when she’s all but breathless, I bend my head and pluck a taut nipple between my teeth.
She arches off the bed instantly on a whimper.
Fuck.
I don’t know who’s torturing who here.
My rigid cock strains against my jeans. And when a little mewl slips as I pop the hard peak from my mouth and take up the other, I all but need to fist my cock to stop from embarrassing myself.
The way this little woman flays me open, leaving me needy and vulnerable with a wordless syllable, is ridiculous.
The overwhelming need to bury myself as deep inside her as possible sends my head spinning.
I need to taste her.
To feel her tighten around me as she comes, taking me with her.
“Baby, I don’t know if slow’s going to work this time,” I rasp.
No telling my girl twice. Her hands work my shirt from my back. She pushes off the mattress again, trailing kisses over my damn chest, her dark hair swinging around her shoulders.
When she makes it to my stomach, I tense, wanting to be the one to lay her bare first.
I grab her wrists when her hands move to my waistband.
“No, I’m fucking devouring you first.”
She opens her mouth to object, but I flick the button on her jeans and have the zipper down and the heavy fabric over her hips a second later.
She wriggles and I pull them off, losing them to the floor.
Her lacy panties are soaked. And so coming off.
I slide a finger behind the waistband of the panties and have them gone next. I strip down until we are both bare, not a stitch between us. Standing at the edge of the bed, I survey the most stunning damn woman I’ve ever seen.
“Fucking hell, Celeste. This pretty little pussy consumes my damn dreams. But it’s never as good as the real thing. You’re fucking glistening for me, baby.”
“I—”
I don’t give her a chance to respond, dropping to my knees and sliding my hands behind hers, hauling her to the edge of the bed. A little squeak slips past her lips, and my cock twitches.
I spread her wide.
Her hands turn to fists around my duvet.
“Come all over my face, Celeste.”
I dive in, lapping at her clit and sending my tongue through her wet center. She’s breathless, chanting my name softly a minute later. Her knuckles turn white, and I can feel her tensing. Legs trembling, she widens them. “Quin . . .”
“Yeah, baby.”
“Fuck, more.”
I suckle hard on her clit, slipping two fingers inside her tight pussy.
And it’s all I can do not to make a mess of the damn duvet hanging over the bed. I pause—just for a moment—breathing deeply.
She opens willingly for me. Not shy and unsure like the first time we touched. She lets go so easily with me now. Fucking perfect.
We just fit.
I send my tongue around her nub before sucking down hard. She flies off the bed, hands sinking into my hair, her grip turning painful.
Those hands slip, tilting my head up, her fingers wrapped around my jaw. Her mouth crashes over mine before she breaks away. “No more, I want to come with you.”
I crawl up onto the bed, taking her onto my hips. “Good fucking girl.”