Chapter 29
Under the Tree
SARAH
“Jamie!” I exclaimed.
But Jamie only bowed his head. He gripped my hips and pressed his forehead to my sternum. I felt his shoulders shudder. He was whispering something. A ministration. A prayer.
A benediction.
He looked up, his expression a torment. “I know sorry’s not enough. But I’m going to keep saying it, whether or not you forgive me. I’ll say it a thousand times. I’ll get it tattooed all over my body.”
“Jamie! Get up.” My heart pounded, and not just at the concern of someone seeing.
He got up, cupping my face in his hands once more. “Fuck, Sarah.” He stared at me like a treasure. “You’re beautiful.” His eyes went to my mouth once more, his lashes lowering over his blown pupils. His thumb grazed my bottom lip. “You’ve always been so fucking beautiful.”
He whispered the words like they were for him. Private words I wasn’t supposed to hear. Like he’d been whispering them for a lifetime.
He had a lot to answer for. But my hormones were so amplified they were breaking the glass on the meter, rattling the glass like the wind outside. “You’re not forgiven,” I whispered. “But you can try.”
He met my eyes once more as he gauged my meaning. The air became thick around us. I could hardly breathe. It was want, and it was need. A gale force of both that couldn’t be stopped.
Voices sounded just then, loud enough to cut through our bubble.
We pulled apart just as the group came into view—a half-dozen people with drinks in their hands, laughing and chatting like the world was still the same as it had been a minute ago.
Jamie leaned against the wall opposite me, his arms folded at his chest with one hand up and rubbing his forehead.
It might look to the group like we were having some kind of confrontation, though I don’t think Jamie was acting.
But they either didn’t see or didn’t want to gawk at us, because a moment later, we were alone again, and he was on me as the voices faded, tugging my hair to expose my neck; ravaging me with his lips and tongue.
“We could go to my room,” he said between kisses.
My lower half flooded with need. “Too far.”
I moved first, poking my head out of the hallway.
There were people behind the front desk.
But one pushed through a door as we moved, the other had his eyes trained on the screen in front of him.
A cluster of people congregated by the entrance to the party, where the bass thumped to the beat of my heart. But no one looked our way.
To our immediate left was the massive Christmas tree in the corner—thick and wide and lined at the bottom with wrapped boxes. Past that were the main doors to the hotel. I took Jamie’s hand and pulled him with me.
A crowd of people came in from outside with a blast of frigid air. They stood for a moment inside the vestibule. Said something about the snow getting heavier. The only road out now closed.
They hadn’t seen us yet. But in a few seconds, they would.
Now.
I grabbed Jamie’s hand, pulling him into the gap between the Christmas tree and the wall.
“Sarah,” Jamie’s voice warned. I slipped behind the tree.
“You’re crazy,” he murmured as he snuck in after me.
I was. This was not me. But it was the new me, wasn’t it? One who wasn’t scared. Who was brave and bold and a Shelly about my life.
I laughed, but he took me against him, my back to his front, his rough hand gently holding my mouth closed. He was hard, I could feel that much already.
There was a big gap here, and it was dark. But not that dark. Anyone looking straight at the tree from the lobby wouldn’t be able to see us, but anyone coming in the door—peering into the gap between the tree and the wall—would. It was shadowy, but not completely concealed.
A moment later, the group passed without looking.
Jamie released me, and turned me around. He looked me up and down, eyes raking over every inch of me. Behind me, the space opened up into the corner. He pointed with his chin. “Back up against the wall, Sarah.”
A thrill shivered through me as I did what he said. I’d been right about Jamie. He had no problem telling me what to do.
I bit my lip. “What are you going to do to me?”
Jamie shook his head, coming toward me. “It’s what you’re going to do for me right now, angel.”
Heat pooled low in my stomach, spreading between my legs.
“I need to see you.”
I swallowed. Some voice inside of me told me to demure. To push back. But why should I? We were snowed in. This was just this weekend. I no longer worked for him. And I was helpless under his gaze. Plus, I wanted him. Like really, really wanted him.
I reached for the shoulders of my dress. But he held a hand up. “Wait.”
Jamie took a step toward me and pressed a hand to my décolletage, splaying his fingers wide like he had in the truck, only this time, his fingers fully reached my breasts.
I let out a breath at his touch.
“I dreamed about this dress,” he said. “About the way I could see all of these.” He traced his fingers across the moles on my chest.
“I’ve always hated those,” I said.
“Blasphemy,” he whispered. “They’re like stars. My stars.”
I had no words for that. Just a lump where my voice used to be.
It was too much. I knew what I had with Jamie could have been something in another world. But now, with so much between us? I could only count on each moment. So I shook off that pinch in my nose, the lump in my throat. And I hooked my fingers into the shoulders of my dress.
“Let me show you more,” I said. If we only had tonight, I was going to make it count. I pulled the top of the dress all the way down, along with my bra, freeing my tits before I could change my mind.
When Jamie’s pupils flared, I felt imbued with bravery. I lifted my chest, presenting my bare breasts to my grumpy boss. “You like what you see, sir?”
“Fuck me, Sarah.”
“If you’re lucky.”
He snarled a laugh. But even in the shadows of the space, I could see the bulge between his legs pulse.
Jamie dropped to one knee, his eyes fixed on my tits like he was starving for them. But he surprised me by taking his time, setting a series of kisses over the moles across my chest, each one more reverent than the last. “Fucking love these,” he repeated. “So fucking pretty.”
By now though, my nipples ached. “Jamie,” I begged, desperate for him to touch me where I wanted.
Finally, he took both breasts in his big, rough hands, constricting them into points.
“Fucking perfect,” he breathed.
“Mouth,” I begged. “I want to feel—”
He didn’t hesitate another moment, bringing his lips to my left nipple. When the wet heat of his tongue met my sensitive skin, I arched my back. “Oh God!” The pleasure spiking through me was almost too much.
“Shh,” he warned. But he didn’t do anything to help me not cry out, because he immediately sucked harder, teasing one nipple into a tightened point before pouncing on the other one. He pulled and tugged at my nipples in turn, using his fingers to give equal treatment to wherever his mouth wasn’t.
I rocked under him, each touch perfect and at the same time not enough, unable to fathom the moment before when I’d needed this so desperately. Reveling in the ecstasy of it happening.
I pressed my hands flat against the wall behind me as he sucked at me, feeling faint at the rippling pleasure of his touch.
“Mine,” he whispered as he moved between them.
“Yours,” I replied.
He buried his face between my breasts. Kissed each of my moles again. Each of the things I thought of as tiny imperfections.
He made me feel beautiful.
His tongue circled the bottom of my breasts, half-moons that had me gripping my boss’s hair, threading the silvery strands through my fingers.
“More,” I gasped.
But he was already sliding his hands down my hips, gliding his palms over my thighs. When he arrived at the short hem of my dress, he slid his palms back up again with agonizing slowness, dragging my dress up with them.
He murmured words I couldn’t hear as he went. Little words of approval as he revealed more and more of my thighs. When he’d passed my underwear, he made a sound of torture. It sounded like my name.
He bunched the dress up in one hand and licked a line up the outer edge of my thigh, and somehow that was hotter than if he’d done it on the inside.
But when he did—fuck me.
He separated my thighs. “I’m going to take such good care of you, angel. Such good care of my girl.”
My legs trembled. I gasped as Jamie’s thumbs brushed under the bottom of my underwear.
He growled his approval. “So wet for me, Sarah.”
“Yes.”
“Have you thought about fucking your boss?” Jamie slipped his fingers up to the waistband.
“All the time.” The confession was humiliating.
But Jamie looked relieved. “Good,” he said. “That’s good, baby girl.”
He kept his eyes on me as his fingers danced along the bottom of my underwear. He didn’t shift his gaze even as his finger slipped under the elastic. Even as he dragged his thick index finger through the hot slick inner lips of my pussy.
I cried out, and he pulled back, his finger on his lips. “You need to be quiet, sweetheart.”
“Okay,” I said, my voice a desperate plea for more. I pinched my lips shut, glancing to the gap as the doors opened again.
Someone came in, but they walked right by.
This was stupid. So stupid. We could go to jail for this, couldn’t we? But all thoughts fell away as Jamie tugged on my waistband, pulling my underwear down.
I looked at the gap again, but Jamie grasped my jaw, angling me back toward him. “Eyes on me, sweetheart.”
He tugged my underwear off, tucking it in his back pocket.
Then he tucked the hem of my dress into the pulled down top.
Satisfied, he dropped his gaze back to my center, and when he did, he let out a low breath.
He looked at me like I was something to worship.
When he looked back up at me, his pupils were so blown his eyes were nearly black.
“I knew you would have the most beautiful pussy, Sarah.”