Chapter 20
[Lumi]
“Fuck,” Saint grunts beneath me as I ride him hard, the sensation deep as I straddle his lap, knees at his hips, gliding up and down his thick cock.
For three nights, we’ve been like this. Insatiable for one another.
This round, we’ve made it to my bedroom, but earlier he pinned me to the front hall wall and fingered me with my face pressed into his red jacket hanging on a hook. His hook. The one next to mine, where the placement looks right.
The night of spiced wine and mustardy brats we hardly made it past the hallway to the kitchen, where Saint set me on the butcher block island and made me his dessert.
I returned the favor, teasing that he was better than the average sausage.
The comment earned me a moment bent over the butcher block table with Saint at my back, filling me, like he fills me now.
“So deep,” he groans.
I’ve lost the ability to speak as I trot up and down on him. When he adds his hand to the mix, thumb flat and teasing that trigger point he has learned well, I take off on a sprint, galloping along his thick shaft, racing with the friction.
My responding moan comes from the depths of my throat. “You feel so good,” I admit.
“So good,” he grunts again, matching my rapid sprint over him, tapping my clit against his thumb before he moves his hand and presses at my hips, holding me tighter, so that pressure point kisses his pelvic bone.
“Holy peppermint,” I cry out at the shift. My body moves as if it isn’t my own. Every thought erased. Every emotion confused. My body simply takes the reins and leads me on a wild ride before I break, breathless and spent. I come with my head tipped back and my hair tickling Saint’s thighs.
He is better than any sugary treat.
With the last dregs of his energy, Saint surges upward. His hips bucking and I fling my head back in his direction, eyes wide as he takes over. He pummels into me, as if he can go deeper, force me to ride him harder.
“Saint,” I cry out, letting him lead my body, take it for another trip.
“I love when you surround me. Come on me.” His breath catches. “Mark me.”
Like the stallion he’s suddenly become, he has no idea how he’s branding me, not the other way around. Sex has never been like this before. So raw. So desperate. So fulfilling.
He anticipates my needs before I express them. Sometimes I can’t even formulate what I want, but Saint is there, satisfying me.
His fingers. His lips. His wicked tongue. He’s definitely on Santa’s naughty list, and I’d like to be on the list with him as a footnote.
Indent. Number one. Naughty like this only with Lumi.
“Lumi,” he cries out, breaking my name in half, like it’s two separate words.
Lou-me. Snow-heart. Mark me.
He goes off inside me like an avalanche, without warning and then a sudden collapse of piled up snow. He fills me up, cracking something within me.
I want him to stay mine so badly it aches. Like wanting that special toy as a child and putting all your faith in the big man in red that it will happen.
Sensing Saint’s grand finish is complete, I fold over his chest, tucking my face into his warm neck and inhale. Peppermint and chocolate will never be the same.
Eventually, I slide off him and slip from the bed, finding it easier to sneak into the bathroom for a quick clean-up. When I return, Saint has hardly moved, but he pulls back the covers with one swift tug, and I climb beneath the flannel sheets and layers of blankets.
Saint reaches over the side of the bed, using his T-shirt for clean up, and then crawls beneath the layers as well, both of us remaining naked for now.
We face one another on our sides, and Saint uses his finger to trace around the edge of my cheek. The tenderness of his touch causes me to smile.
“Tell me again about the places you want to visit,” he asks.
We’ve played this game often over the past few days while eating dinner. Where I tell him about a place I’m certain he’s been, as he’s quite the world traveler. Still, he listens as I explain what I want to see and what I don’t even know I want to see that’s special to a location.
Italy, I’d told him the night he made us Santos spaghetti for dinner. The Colosseum. The Vatican. And experience a hidden treasure restaurant.
Germany, I’d said as we ate our bratwurst and sipped mulled wine. The Bavarian castles and the Romantic Road. And eat an authentic pretzel.
The Netherlands, I mentioned, referring to fishing villages outside of our Hideaway Harbor.
Tonight, I had to think hard about a location, keeping to my theme of relating our daily experience to a grander one.
“Montana.”
“Montana,” he chokes. “What’s special about Montana?” He isn’t being facetious, just curious, as he has been each night when asking me about my desired destinations.
“Mountains and valleys. Rivers and streams.”
“You have that here,” he reminds me.
“I know, but you asked. And I want to see those things . . . rivers and mountains . . . outside of Hideaway Harbor.” Bigger mountains. Grander valleys. Larger rivers and streams.
Saint hums, tucking his hands beneath the pillow that has become his. Like his side of the bed. His nightstand.
“And what would you do in Montana?” he questions.
“I’d ride a horse. Maybe camp underneath the stars.” Make a wish on one or a million of them.
“Don’t forget the food.” He smiles, lazy and comfortable, like he knows my pattern. Like he sees me.
“Hmm. What’s Montana famous for?”
“Fish,” he blurts. “Or big game meat, like bison.”
I gasp. “I would never eat a buffalo.” The idea of eating the endangered species, even if some are purposely grown on farms, makes me shudder. Then again, fish is not overly enticing either, as we have plenty right here in the harbor.
“What about a reindeer? Would you eat one of those?”
I blink several times. “And upset Santa? Never,” I groan.
Saint chuckles. “You can eat caribou, though. It’s actually better for you than cow meat. Less fat.”
I stare at him before laughing. “Are we really discussing the merits of meat while naked beside one another?”
“That’s what couples do.”
I blink. The casual way he’s been tossing out compliments and comments about us is unnerving, because I’m nervous about the end. Of us.
“I wouldn’t know,” I admit, having always been a single mother and never really forming a deep commitment to someone else with Danny present.
“I wouldn’t either. I’m just guessing.” He pauses a second. “But it’s nice, isn’t it?”
Not once in the time I’ve known Saint has he come across as vulnerable. Yet his hesitation gives me pause. Is he just as unsettled about us as I am? Does he not want to leave, just like I don’t want him to go?
“Yeah. It’s nice,” I confirm.
He reaches out for my face again, brushing my hair around my ear. “We need to get you a Christmas tree.”
“I don’t need a tree.” I decorated my house after Thanksgiving like I always do.
Getting a live tree is a tradition. Each year, I’d wait for Danny to return from college, and then we’d go get one.
Spend the day decorating it together. We’d crank up the Christmas tunes and marvel at each ornament as we unwrapped them, because we hadn’t seen them in a full year.
There was one to commemorate every year of Danny’s life.
His interests from toddler to teenager and then adulthood.
When Danny said he wasn’t coming home, I passed on the tradition, making the instant decision not to get a tree. I’ll go to Neve’s this year, and we’ll celebrate with her tree.
“Blasphemy,” Saint counters. “Tomorrow night. Christmas tree date night.”
I laugh at his emphatic decision.
“What about you?” I ask. “What places have you never been that you’d like to visit?”
“Oh gosh.” He rolls to his back and stares up at the ceiling.
Already knowing he’s been to so many places, I imagine his answer will take a minute.
“In the Himalayas, there are monasteries built into the mountains, and I’d love to see them. And the Tianzi Mountains in China. Or the Badab-e Surt in Iran.”
“Why does everything you’re mentioning sound dangerous? Heights. Political unrest.”
Saint shrugs and rolls back in my direction. “The world is a beautiful place.”
I smile at the innocence of such a belief. The world is beautiful. I’ve just not seen much of it.
“Well, I’d need food,” I tease about the locations he’d visit. The adventures he’d certainly have. I’m just not certain I’m that adventurous.
“So, you want culture more than climate?” he questions.
“I’d want food, yes.” On cue, my stomach growls like I hadn’t eaten hours ago.
“Excuse me,” Saint says before pulling the blankets over his head and diving beneath them, heading for my belly.
“What are you doing?” I laugh.
“Your stomach and I need to have a chat.”
Only when he gets to my midsection, he peppers it with kisses, and I lift the sheet over my head as well to watch him. With my other hand, I brush over his head.
“When I had my accident here, I was coming back from a cross-country road trip,” he admits, sucking at the loose skin near my belly button. “Would you be interested in a road trip?”
“Of course,” I state. “The U.S. and Canada have so many beautiful places to visit as well.”
“Places with food,” he adds, moving his kisses closer and closer to my breasts.
“Yeah, food.” I sigh, then gasp when he nips the underside of one.
“Would you take a road trip with me?” he asks, his eyes as hesitant as his tone, as he peers at me over the swell he nipped. “If I promised to feed you.”
“Abso—” My answer is cut short as he opens his mouth and sucks on my nipple, hollowing his cheeks to pull me into his mouth, then releasing me with a soft kiss before circling his tongue around the peaked nub.
My stomach rumbles again.
“What was that? I didn’t hear you. This belly has so much to say,” he teases as he moves to my other breast, while his hand flattens over my stomach, as if willing it to stop grumbling.
I laugh again, threading my fingers through his hair.
“I’d go anywhere you asked,” I admit.
His head pops up, the release of my breast from his mouth sharp.
“Anywhere?” he questions, lowering his hand between my legs, where my thighs slide apart to welcome him as if I didn’t just ride him like I was chasing the wind.
“Any—” My word is cut off again as he easily slips two fingers into me.
“Would you be willing to take an adventure with me?” he asks, withdrawing his fingers but quickly returning them deep inside me.
“You’re the adventure,” I admit as my eyes roll back at the delicious way he draws forward and back, dragging out the pleasure.
While my head says this is all pillow talk, my heart has packed bags for wishful thinking. Do I really have anything binding me to Hideaway Harbor? Could I go wherever he wants to take me? What would an actual adventure with him be like?
“Now, that’s what I like to hear,” he teases as my stomach gurgles despite his attention lower on my body.
“You need something to eat, snowheart?” His tone is salacious, like he has something he can feed me.
“Don’t you dare stop,” I warn about what he’s doing to me. “You can have your turn next,” I joke.
“I’m going to take my turn right now.” He disappears farther beneath the sheets and dives between my thighs, making me climb a different type of mountain. Taking me on another new adventure.
One where I forget about any place in the world other than him.