Chapter 14 - Maren #2
“Ethan’s finishing paperwork. Miles is rearranging bows like a lunatic.” He nodded toward the front. “And you? What’s your excuse for being out and about at this hour?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
He smiled faintly. “You’re a terrible liar.”
The air between us changed. The lights from the snowflake display glowed soft gold around us, and I could feel my pulse syncing to the rhythm of the muted hum overhead.
Adrian reached for a piece of stray tinsel caught in my hair, his fingers brushing against my temple. The touch was light. Innocent enough to ignore, suggestive enough to make me warm all over.
“You’re supposed to be working,” I said, but my voice didn’t sound like mine.
He eyed me with that easy smile of his. “You’re supposed to be home.”
“I’m bad at rules.”
“I’m counting on that.”
He stepped closer, close enough that I could smell the faint trace of coffee on his breath, the clean, fresh scent of sawdust clinging to his shirt. My frantic heartbeat drowned out everything else.
When his mouth found mine, it wasn’t a question. It was an inevitability.
Everything I’d been holding in since the harvest market—all the guilt, all the wanting—broke loose in that instant. My hands slid up the front of his shirt, finding the heat beneath, and whatever self-control we’d both been clinging to didn’t stand a chance.
The store felt miles wide and paper-thin at once. Somewhere in the distance, a light flickered off. He muttered my name against my neck, and I forgot how to breathe.
When he kissed me, it was nothing like being lost in the maze. He was more possessive. More intentional. Passion overtakes us quickly, the kiss becoming something greedy and forceful, our mouths hankering for each other as if there would be no other time to find satisfaction.
He swallowed my gasp as he grabbed my ass and lifted me off my feet, carrying me backward. I had no idea where we were going, but I didn’t care that much either. As long as his mouth kept doing what it was doing.
I wasn’t blameless in the entanglement. I kissed him back with just as much impatience and hunger, knowing that if he tried to slow things down I’d probably tie him up with string lights and make this go the way I wanted it to.
Thankfully, holiday restraints weren’t necessary.
Adrian staggered once, then turned around so he could sit on the first ottoman that showed itself, bringing me firmly into his lap. His hard-on strained between my legs as I rolled my hips, desperately searching for that sweet friction to soothe the ache throbbing there.
I arched into him, hands too eager to take hold of anything. My fingers raked through his unruly nest of curls, coasted over the hard planes of his chest, the flex in his shoulders, cupped his face as a shaky moan spilled out of me and into his hot, wanton mouth.
God, I was dizzy with want for him.
He gripped my hips, then his hands slipped into my sweatpants from behind, grabbing onto my ass cheeks. My ulterior motives laid bare, he broke the kiss to lock eyes with me, a cocky grin on his face.
“No underwear, huh?”
I clasped my hands at the nape of his neck, still grinding myself against the bulge in his pants. “I read somewhere that barriers to entry were the number one reason new ventures failed.”
He gave a husky laugh, full up on bottled arousal. “I like the way you think, Calloway.”
“Is that all you like about me?” I rocked my hips and watched him spasm with pleasure under me, his jaw slack with it.
“You’re gonna be my ruin,” he groaned, sucking and nipping at my neck.
“What can I say? I have high hopes.”
He swayed back and then used the momentum to swing forward, lifting us both. In one swift motion, he whirled round and slammed me onto my back on the ottoman. Hard enough to knock the breath out of me in some heady blend of a whimper and moan.
His hands were on me in a flash, making quick work of my pants as he dragged them down, snapping them over my feet in a flourish.
I mirrored his movements, and ripped my sweater over my head while he tore off his t-shirt, then I leaned back on my elbows, heels planted on the edge of the ottoman with my knees up.
Hazel eyes on fire fixed on the shadowed spot between my legs. I parted my knees, getting instantly wet the way he licked his lips, shaking his head slowly.
“Just look at you,” he breathed, one hand working his hard cock with long, slow strokes.
I reached down into my slick and split two fingers to splay myself open for him. The sound that came out of him struck my swollen clit with a jolt, making me shiver. “I want you to do more than look at me.”
It was the most honest thing I’d said all night. Never adventurous in the bedroom category, and yet… since embarking on whatever this was with these three men, I’d found myself wanting to be fucked in all the ways. On a table, in the middle of a crowded market, a deserted department store…
How did I begin to explain to Liv that her vanilla best friend had discovered a secret side to herself that was nothing like the woman she knew and loved?
Would she accept this side the same way she did all my other parts?
Then again, how could I ask her to do that if I wasn’t entirely sure that I did?
What respectable kindergarten teacher bared herself this way in a public place?
Still, in the bubble of passion that formed whenever I was with the men, there wasn’t any room for rational thinking and second-guessing. With them, everything was suspended in an untouchable pocket of pleasure. Every choice, every breath was aimed at satisfaction in the moment. Nothing else.
He came toward me, one hand on his dick, the other bracing beside my head to hold his weight as he sank between my legs. I hiked my knees up, hooking one ankle at the base of his spine as he brought his erection to where I needed it most.
“I’ve been thinking about this forever,” he rasped, his breath hot and ragged on my lips. “What it would feel like to fill you up and fuck you until you come around me. Broken.” I trembled all over, biting back a helpless whimper as I lifted my hips, looking for contact. He held back.
“But I’m gonna do this slow.”
My eyes went wide and I sank my fingers into the soft flesh of his ass, pulling him down hard. Desperate to show him how unhappy I was with this development. He was a lot stronger than me, though, and my attempts fell to nothing.
“I want to slide my dick inside your dripping pussy so slowly. I want to feel you take me in, clenching around me, inch—” He nudged my entrance with the tip of his cock, making me squirm. “—by inch.” He did it again.
“You about ready to roll out of here, Ace?” Ethan’s voice. Footsteps.
We froze, still half tangled together, hearts pounding. Then Miles’s laugh broke the silence, quiet and incredulous.
“Well, well. Looks like he’s already rolling with something.”
I pulled back just enough to see both of them standing at the edge of the display. Ethan’s expression unreadable, a single dimple on Miles’ cheek. But a sudden, raging fire lit up in both pairs of eyes that stayed glued to me.
For half a second, none of us spoke. The air between us shimmered with unspent desire looking for a way out.
“Why don’t you join us?” I said, surprising even myself.