Chapter 42
CANDY CANE LANE
ISLA
I’m just settling into bed with a book after seeing the women’s hockey game with my friends when my phone buzzes. It’s late—close to midnight. My heart shimmies more than I want it to when I see the preview pane.
Rowan: Are you decent?
I glance down at my red cami and matching mint green pajama pants.
Isla: Depends what you mean by decent.
Rowan: Are you decent enough to come to the door?
I sit up in bed, my pulse spiking, then swing my legs out. My chest is achy already with the desire to see him—especially since I wasn’t expecting a midnight visitor. At the door, I peer through the peephole, and excitement soars inside me. There he is, looking all beardy and sexy and here.
I yank open the door. He’s leaning against the frame, resting on one arm. His green eyes flicker with heat as they travel up and down me. In his other hand, he holds a canvas bag, like he’s stopped at a store.
“The whole time,” he begins, stepping inside, toeing off his shoes, “the whole time I saw you at that hockey game, I was thinking about you. I was thinking about candy canes. And I was hoping I could find a way to sneak over here.”
I’m buzzy. Intoxicated. His ocean scent swirls around me, and my brain feels foggy already. It’s ridiculous how I react to this man.
“I thought you were with Mia?”
He cups my cheek, strokes it. A rumble seems to work its way up his chest as he threads his fingers through my hair. It’s like he can’t hold back. He presses a hot kiss to my neck.
“My parents came over afterward. We were all hanging out playing board games, and then they fell asleep on the couch. Mia did too. I carried her to bed.” He stops his kisses. His smile is electric and wicked. “So I sneaked out.”
My eyes pop. “This is so high school.”
“Like the way you were grinding against me outside your parents’ home.”
“Pretty sure you were grinding against me. If memory serves, you lifted me up. I remember you rubbing that big dick against me.”
He dips his face back to mine, and his kisses turn hotter, needier. “Details, details.”
“You really sneaked over here?” I ask, breathless and aroused.
“I left a note.” He says it a little defensively but playfully at the same time. “I’ll be back in the morning before anyone wakes up over there.”
“And what did you bring?” I ask, breaking the kiss again.
His lips curve into a cocky grin. “Don’t you want to know?”
“Yes. That’s why I asked.”
“But I think you’d rather be surprised.”
He’s so right. He knows me so well.
“Maybe I do.”
“Why don’t you go get in bed,” he says, plucking at my red cami. “Take this off. And just put on a pair of red-and-white-striped panties.”
I blink. “How do you know I have red-and-white-striped panties?”
He arches a brow. “Do you, Isla?” It comes out rough, gravelly, and full of certainty. Like he’s a lawyer in a courtroom, following that golden rule of attorneys—don’t ask a question you don’t know the answer to.
“I do,” I answer.
“Put them on. And wait for me on the bed. I’ll be there in a minute.” Then he smacks me on the ass over my fuzzy pajamas and says, “Go.”
I rush out of the living room and into the bedroom, my heart beating so fast, arousal already spinning higher in me.
Have I always wanted these kinds of games in the bedroom?
Or is Rowan just the first person to understand that the way I like a challenge in life might translate between the sheets too?
Fifty seconds later, I’m waiting, wearing only the panties he knew I would have. They’re tiny, bikini-style, with red lace trim and white and red stripes.
I’m shivering with anticipation. He’ll be rounding the corner to my bedroom in three, two, one.
His footsteps stop and he stands in the doorway. He’s stripped down to just his jeans. He’s barefoot, still holding a bag, and a hand towel now too. Looks like he snagged that from the bathroom.
“Where would I find one of those five perfectly matching scarves?”
My pulse skitters as I point to the closet. “I hung them up.”
“Of course you did.”
He sets the bag on the foot of the bed and his phone on the nightstand, then heads to the closet. My breath rises and falls with every move he takes. He returns with two scarves—a red one and a white one.
“I’m beginning to think those are your favorite colors,” I say.
“Yes, and you’re going to be the most edible candy cane ever,” he says as he returns to me and kneels on the bed. “How do you feel about me tying you to the bed?”
I shudder. My gaze drifts down to my parted thighs. “Why don’t you check and find out?”
He hisses in a breath and drags a hand down his face. “You’re fucking perfect.”
Then, he climbs over me, his free hand sliding between my thighs, like he’s verifying just how damp my panties are.
The verdict? Waterworks.
But he’s a focused man, so he reaches for my wrists and meticulously ties one to the slats of the heart headboard, then he moves to the other.
When he’s done, he moves down me, his hands coasting along my sides, sending more shivers radiating over my skin.
There’s a reverence in his touch. An adoration even.
He reaches my panties and shakes his head, like he can’t believe his luck.
He dips one finger under the red lace, but that’s as far as he goes.
He just runs it along my skin. “These are so, so unbearably sexy,” he says.
“And they make me love candy canes even more.”
His smile fades and he reaches into the canvas bag and takes out two mini candy canes.
I part my lips, asking for it right away.
“You want this?” he asks.
“I do,” I say, sounding breathless.
He climbs over me, his knees on either side of my waist. Bracing himself on one palm, he lifts a candy cane to my mouth. “Show me. Show me how much you want it.”
It is on.
I take the hook in my mouth and suck deeply, appreciatively, licking a long line around it, swirling my tongue against it as I watch his reaction. His eyes darken. His Adam’s apple bobs. He can’t stop staring at the way my lips move across the candy cane.
I push it out of my mouth. “Was that…clear?”
“Incredibly so,” he says, then gives me the other one and says, “Do it again. Slower this time. I want to see just how much you love sucking.”
I draw it past my lips and suck again.
He takes that candy cane from me and drags both of them over my chest down to my breasts, swirling them around the nipples and making me squirm.
I’m breathing hard, panting, moaning with each swirl of the candy on my tits.
I can’t believe I’m aroused from candy canes.
But there it is. The evidence. My nipples tighten into sharp diamond points.
Rowan stops, sets the candy canes down on the towel, and leans over me. His eyes glitter with filthy desire as he says, “My turn now.”
He dips his face to my right breast and the sound he makes is so carnal that pleasure rushes hot and fast between my thighs.
I’m ludicrously soaked as he sucks the candy cane trail off my right tit.
Then the left one. He looks up and stares at me with the most satisfied smile.
“I didn’t think it was possible for your sweet tits to taste any better. But I was wrong.”
“Very, very wrong,” I say, but I’m more interested in what he’s up to.
He reaches into the bag again and takes out a smaller bag. I crane my neck. It’s a Ziploc bag, and it’s filled with crushed candy cane bits. He fishes around in the canvas bag for a can and waggles it.
I read the label. “Candy cane-flavored whipped cream?”
“I do like sweet things.”
“Then indulge,” I tell him.
“I fucking will, sweetheart. Pretty sure you’ll be my new favorite flavor of candy cane.”
Rowan takes his sweet time making a sundae out of me. Soon, my breasts are covered with candy cane whipped cream, and he stares at them with such admiration I feel like I’m a work of dirty art.
“You really do have quite the sweet tooth,” I say. He reaches into the Ziploc bag, takes out some candy cane bits, and then sprinkles them on each breast. “I sure do, and I’m going to enjoy every second of eating this off you.”
He drops his face to my chest and makes the most decadent moans as he hungrily licks off every last drop of candy cane whipped cream and candy cane bits from my breasts. When he’s done, I’m squirming on the bed, my skin sticky from the sugar and cream, my thighs aching with want.
“And to think once upon a time you spat a candy cane in punch,” I muse, even though my breath comes out in staggered gasps.
The corner of his lips quirks up. “I guess this was meant to be.”
For a hot, delirious second those words race through me. It almost feels like we could be that way. But then I kick that thought out of my head. This is sex. A delicious midnight sex surprise. That is all.
My eyes drift down to a huge bulge in his jeans. “Well, is that a candy cane in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
His eyes narrow. “Isla, I’m always happy to see you,” he says, then moves off the bed and stands at the foot of it, unbuttoning his jeans slowly, like a stripper, like a tease.
I’m even more turned on than I was before.
He takes his time pushing his jeans down, and when they’re just past his hips, I do a double take.
“Rowan,” I whisper, barely able to contain my own excitement over his…outfit.
“Yes, sweetheart?” He sounds so damn pleased, and his confidence is the hottest thing ever.
“You wore them for me.”
“Of course I did. It’s all for you, sweetheart.” Then he drops his jeans to the floor.
He’s wearing only the candy cane boxers that his teammates gave him and that he sent me a photo of long ago. “I’ve been hoping you would wear them for me,” I admit, a stupid smile on my face.
“Yeah?”
“They make you festive as fuck,” I say.
“And that turns you on?” he asks while rubbing the heel of his hand against his hard length.
I part my legs for him so he can see the evidence of my arousal. “Well, do I look festive as fuck?”
With a salacious groan, he stares wantonly at my center. “You really fucking do.”
He climbs onto the bed, reaches for my panties, and skims them off in seconds. He looks like he’s about to dive in and feast on me, but I say, “Give me your dick. I want to taste you.”
Normally, he’s all too happy to eat me up, but he must hear how desperately I want him since he pushes off his boxers, then straddles me up above my tits. He leans forward, offering me his cock. It’s glistening at the tip with a bead of arousal.
I part my lips, asking for him. He feeds me the head of his dick, and I greedily lick it. I draw him in as much as I can with my hands tied, sucking and licking till he’s moaning and groaning.
And fucking my eager mouth. Like I want him to. I’m sloppy and loud, but squirming as I try to get as much of him as I can.
With a bitten-off groan, he says, “Enough,” then eases out. “Can’t wait any longer. Need to feel you right fucking now.”
I strain against the scarves, lifting my hips. “In case it wasn’t clear, that’s exactly where I want you.”
He reaches for a condom from a collection on the nightstand, then rolls it on. After settling between my thighs, he sinks inside me. I arch my back, so hungry for him. Pleasure shoots through me, sparking through all my veins, filling all of my cells. I’m close already.
When he grabs my hips and practically slams me onto his cock, I scream out in pleasure, “So good.”
“I know,” he grunts out. “It’s always so good with you, sweetheart. It’s so fucking good I can barely stand how much I want you.” He sounds borderline mad at himself, and it’s hot as hell.
His cock is masterful, hitting me in the right spot over and over, and I ache to touch him, to rake my nails over his back, to grip his ass and encourage him deeper, but the scarves keep me restrained, and that naughty thrill lights me up again.
“It’s driving me fucking crazy how much I need you,” he grunts out as he thrusts deep into me.
“How crazy?” I ask, egging him on.
“It’s infuriating,” he says with another rough punch of his hips. Pleasure bursts inside me, coiling tight and hot, and I’m not far off.
“Then fuck it out,” I urge. “Fuck it out now.”
He takes my command and runs with it, pumping hard and fast, a punishing rhythm. When I feel close, I strain against the scarves even more.
“Want me to free you?” he rasps out.
“No. I want you to make me come.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As he fucks me hard, he rubs dizzying circles on my clit, owning my pleasure as I’m tied up with my scarves, the remnants of candy cane bits and whipped cream on my body. Soon, very soon, he sends me over the edge after midnight. Seconds later, he’s grunting and cursing as he follows me there.
A little later after we’ve both showered and my sheets have been swapped for clean ones, he slides into bed with me, nuzzling my neck.
“Pretty sure this counts as a date,” I say softly, stroking his hair.
“Good. I planned it and everything. Wanted it to be amazing.”
“You succeeded. From the surprise of it to all it entailed.”
He smiles against my skin, giving me another soft, sleepy kiss. “You gonna say it now?”
I laugh, shaking my head. “Not yet. I’m not saying it yet.”
“You will, Isla. You will.”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely,” he says, then blows out a long breath, like he’s letting the day fade away.
We’re quiet for a beat, but as he drifts off, I ask, “Are you sure you don’t need to go?” I’m hoping he’ll stay.
“Are you kicking me out?”
“No, but you said you snuck away. I wanted to be certain,” I say, and maybe because I’m not that used to sleepovers, or to a man telling me what he’s up to. It’s all new, but I like it.
“This is where I want to be,” he says, and my chest warms from the reassurance. With a yawn, Rowan reaches for his phone from the nightstand and dictates a text, presumably to his parents, saying, “You were right, but I’ll be home by five-thirty.”
After one more soft kiss in the dark, he falls asleep in seconds, probably tired from the game, tired from the candy canes, tired from everything.
I’m not tired, so I read a little longer.
Even though the story is an escapist one, and even though I’m still riding the high of kisses and whipped cream and candy, I’m both dangerously happy and a little bit melancholy.
But secret midnight visits with a hot guy who takes you on a trip down Candy Cane Lane don’t come around often. You have to grab them while you can.