Chapter 21
Carli
Once upon a time, Carli had kissed a boy called Niall Butler.
Now, that boy was a man – very much a man – and he was striding towards her with intent in every muscle movement.
She knew there was a reason she’d stayed pinned to the spot as he’d walked away.
Truth was, she hadn’t been able to move from the hurt of his rejection.
Pain had frozen her in the rain, her feet in flip-flops sinking into sodden grass that was quickly turning to slippery mud.
Niall didn’t say a word. Didn’t have to.
The shadow of his wide frame moving to eclipse hers was enough.
The touch of his large hands as they covered her cheeks said everything that needed to be said in that moment.
And the crushing of his lips to hers in the most definitive claiming of her mouth she’d ever known assured Carli that Niall Butler wanted her. He desperately wanted her.
And the kiss. Oh, the kiss. The one yesterday had been a trial run.
This was the real thing. Claiming her didn’t even cover it.
Right from the beginning, she’d been spoiled by the way Niall kissed.
No. Ruined. And here he was doing it all over again.
His tongue practically fucking her mouth as he pulled her face closer to his and pressed his soaking masculine bulk to hers.
This was almost worth the seventeen years of not having him. But she was freezing and dripping wet.
‘Get in the tent,’ Niall husked.
‘I can’t stop kissing you to do it.’
‘Me neither.’ Niall drifted down her neck.
‘I could kiss you all night.’ He swung round, his back to the tent and encouraged her towards it.
Before thoughts could penetrate her brain, Niall was sitting inside the tent, facing her, wet jeans and boots off, peeling his t-shirt over his head, proceedings lit by the sharp, yellow glow of his torch.
Jesus! That body again. In seconds, he was lying back and she was astride him.
‘This tent is five-star compared to mine,’ Niall remarked without taking his eyes off her. ‘Get those pyjamas off before you catch a cold.’
But it was too late. Carli was already shivering, the prolonged exposure to the Scottish rain and cold too much for her. She fumbled at the buttons of her pyjama top, but fumble was all she could do. Her fingers were like giant, frozen sausages.
‘Hey, are you okay?’ Niall shot up, his voice urgent with concern.
‘I’m fine. Just a bit cold.’ Her teeth were chattering, making it hard for her to speak.
‘You’re more than a bit cold, Cass. You’re shaking. Get those wet pyjamas off.’
‘Can you do it? I’m freezing and my hands are useless.’
‘Are you sure? I mean, you’ll be half naked.’
She nodded. What choice was there? All she wanted in this moment was to be warm.
‘I can close my eyes,’ Niall offered, no doubt to protect her dignity, recognising that this wasn’t erotic anymore. ‘Turn the torch off.’
‘It’s fine.’ This wasn’t the way she wanted to be revealed to him but somehow fighting it made it worse. If this was how it had to be, this was how it had to be. This was the truth of her life, so why hide it? Frequently frozen in the middle of her pursuits by her stupid body.
‘Okay.’ Niall unbuttoned Carli’s pyjama top, a small storm of worry on his face, and peeled the garment from her skin, her breasts fully exposed to him now. This should be the moment he took hold of one or plunged his mouth to her nipple or groaned in agonising anticipation.
Fuck my life.
But nothing betrayed what he was thinking or feeling. Sure, he saw her, but he moved swiftly to stretching for the blanket on top of her sleeping bag, sweeping it over her shoulders and bringing it round her front like a cape where it still barely covered her nudity.
‘Come here,’ he commanded in a low burr.
Palms on her hips, he pulled her down his thighs and into the warmth of his broad chest, her legs curved around his waist. Breasts pressed against him, resting her chin in the dip of his neck, Carli got a heady inhalation of citrus and rain with Niall’s pulse thudding against her cheek.
She could stay here forever, her skin flush with his, his arms tight around her, but not so firm as to hurt, heat conducting between them while the rain battered the tent like shrapnel.
This had started as Niall warming her up, but it had quickly segued into something more. Feelings ricocheted between them and Carli knew from how closely he held her and from his resounding heartbeat on her breast that it meant as much for him to hold her as it did for her to be held.
Time passed – she had no idea how long – and her shaking diminished to a trembling then stopped altogether, and Niall’s thumbs were wiping her hair from her face as he searched her features
‘Are you okay?’ he asked. ‘Warm enough?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I am now. Are you okay? This must be frustrating.’
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I’m fine.’
‘But this…’ Carli ground a little over Niall’s hardness which had been a consistent presence under her all this time. ‘Doesn’t it hurt?’
‘Don’t worry about that.’ He planted a soft kiss on her cheek. ‘I can’t hide the fact that you turn me on, but I’m in control of what I do about it, even though the little guy wants to have his say.’
‘He doesn’t feel so little to me.’
‘Ha. Thanks. When I’m around you, he doesn’t seem that way to me either. Listen, this might be the wrong time to say this, but you should probably take those wet PJ pants off as well. I’ll look away while you change into spares.’
Carli was about to say you don’t have to, but Niall’s eyes were already closed, so she climbed off him and pulled off the sodden pants, but instead of searching for spares, driven by something beyond rationality, she straddled him again.
His eyes shot open and she met them in the tempered light.
‘Hey,’ she said.
‘Fuck.’ Niall cupped the small of her back and slid his gaze down her body. ‘You’re naked.’
‘Yep.’
‘You’re astounding.’
‘Thank you.’ She shuffled a little closer to him, granting him permission to feel what he needed to.
A low growl thrummed in Niall’s throat as he grasped the moment and kissed her, firmly but tenderly, hungry but assured.
Holy smokes, the man could still kiss. He captured her mouth like it was vital to life.
Like she was the centre of his world. As if he was acutely aware this could shape everything else that came afterwards and would not compromise on the importance of that for one second.
Palming her breast, he broke away and studied her, his gaze heavy as her lids fluttered and her resolve gave way.
Ran his thumb over her nipple, grazing gently across the sensitive tip until she was whimpering.
Then he drifted his touch down the planes of her stomach, subtly dusting with his knuckles, back and forth, up and down, his fingers trailing down between her legs, hands exploring before his eyes got to take it in.
‘Holy f… You’re bare.’ Niall’s voice was hoarse and his cock twitched beneath her.
‘I’ve a landing strip,’ she said.
‘You feel fucking incredible.’ He ambled his fingers to the sensitive skin around her crevice.
‘Oh.’ She whimpered.
‘You like that?’
She nodded, lips tightly pursed.
‘And what if I do this?’ He slid lower and coaxed her wetness back over her clit.
‘Yes. Oh, mmm, that’s really good.’
Through aching lids, Carli saw Niall watching her as if she were made of gold dust. When was the last time a man had looked at her like this?
Like she was beautiful and sexy. Touched her like her pleasure was a giant gift with his name on the label.
A long time gone. And none of them looked at her quite like Niall did, like he was lost yet completely found in a land of adoration and raw sexual want.
He slid his fingers inside her, pulsing her walls, the heel of his palm rubbing over her clit.
‘Oh God!’
‘It’s Niall, actually.’
She managed a strangled laugh.
‘I can’t take my eyes off you, Cass… You’re like a drug.’ He drove pressure into her, finding the perfect spot to detonate bliss through her core.
‘Oh! Niall.’
‘Do you know how fucking beautiful that sounds, you saying my name like that. Here…’ Niall’s command rumbled from deep within him, ‘put this on.’ He held out his hoodie that he’d left her with the previous night.
‘What? Why?’
‘Because I don’t want you getting cold during the next part.’
‘What next part?’ In the muted light, she searched the face she had known so well, yet didn’t know as part of a grown, sexually mature man. Did he want to fuck her already? Surely it was too soon. She was desperate for him, too, but there was such a thing as foreplay.
But then in a voice as rough and seductive as heather-coated Scottish mountains, Niall made his intentions unequivocally clear.
‘The part where I get between those legs and devour that beautiful pussy until you can’t see straight, and the deer on the other side of the loch bolt into the hills at the sound of you coming. ’
Holy Christ!
‘Well, when you put it like that.’
He raised his eyebrows, shot her a smile that knocked her almost dead, then lifted her hips, like she was as light as the pillow behind him, and shifted himself from under her.
‘Lie down,’ he said once she’d put on the hoodie, passing her the pillow and transitioning onto his knees, giving her space to recline.
When she was laid before him, he said, ‘Fuck, you’re a one-off, lying there, legs spread open, wearing my clothes.
’ He roamed his gaze up to her face then back to that throbbing, aching place between her thighs that could only be sated by his tongue on her.
And down he went, Niall and his ravenous mouth, gently prising her knees apart, then onto his stomach between her legs, sinking his face into her dripping epicentre, drinking her in like she was his whole world.