Chapter Twenty-Four
Reese
“Okay, so this recipe calls for both baking soda and baking powder?” Reese eyed me doubtfully.
“You want to doubt Tutu’s famous sugar cookie recipe?”
“Oh, I didn’t know this was Tutu’s. In Tutu, we trust,” she said.
I laughed, slightly insulted. “But you don’t trust me?”
“With cooking, sure.” She licked her fingers clean. “But with baking? Not so much.”
I took the towel in my hand and wound it up, ready to snap it at her.
“Whoa there, buddy!” She jumped away.
“I’m not the one who doesn’t know the difference between baking soda and baking powder.” I playfully snapped the towel, missing her on purpose.
“I doubt anyone knows the difference. And in my defense, I’ve never bought either of them before!” She squealed as she ran to the other side of the kitchen island.
I lowered the towel, and my eyebrows scrunched together. “You’ve never bought either before? What the hell do you bake with?”
“I don’t bake!” She made her way back over to me, eyeing the electric mixer distrustfully.
“Never?”
She picked up the mixer and turned the power on. The mixer was at full speed.
“Wait!” I lunged across and turned it off. “You’ll want to start at a lower speed, or else you’ll end up with flour everywhere.”
“I told you, I don’t bake. When you travel as much as I do, you need to keep your belongings to a minimum. There’s no way I’m going to lug around flour, sugar, baking soda, blah blah blah.”
“How do you go without?” My body wrapped around her, taking hold of her hand and guiding the mixer back to the bowl of ingredients.
“I’m sorry, are you trying to recreate Ghost?” She laughed but leaned into me.
I turned on the mixer at a lower speed and tried to concentrate, but kept getting distracted by the minty smell of her shampoo. “Is it working?” I planted small kisses on the side of her neck.
“You know, I think it is,” she chuckled as she leaned into the already forming bulge in my pants.
I released my hold on her hand and moved my way down to her waist. Reese was wearing a white sweater, despite it being 70 degrees outside, and an apron she had insisted on buying on one of our last adventures to a tourist trap.
“Hold your horses, mister. I will not be responsible for ruining Tutu’s cookie recipe on Christmas. You’ll have to wait until we get these puppies in the oven.”
It was Christmas morning, and I had the most breathtaking woman in my kitchen making my grandmother’s sugar cookies.
Things had changed for us after trivia night in October.
Without officially defining it, Reese and I were together.
Truly and wholeheartedly. To my complete devastation, Reese hadn’t been able to switch shifts to attend my cousin’s wedding, and I was miserable the entire time.
I’d spent the whole time checking my phone for any connection back to her.
I was supposed to stay in Maui for three days after the wedding, but found myself booking a flight home as soon as the wedding was over.
When I landed, I rushed over to see Reese. I didn’t care if I ran into Derek, if it meant I got to hold Reese in my arms. That was the first night I’d spent in Reese’s room, and the first time I got to put her famous vibrator to good use.
Being with Reese felt so natural, so easy.
It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.
We watched movies that made us laugh, some that made her cry.
Slowly but surely, I was teaching her how to cook and was making a mental list of the recipes she seemed to like the most. I fell in love with the sight of Ted at her feet as she attempted to cook.
I loved how we could talk for hours about anything and everything.
Everything that is, except for our relationship status.
On the weekends Reese had off, we went out exploring the island.
We had made a dent in the list of things she wanted to do or see.
Every Sunday she had off, she was at family dinner at my parents’ house, as if she had always belonged there.
Slowly but surely, she was learning to drive my truck.
It had become a ritual for her to drive anywhere we went, even if that meant we stalled out at random times.
It was the small, quiet moments that meant the most. We made love at almost any chance we could get, like we were teenagers and not two adults in their thirties. She easily spent more nights at my house than at her cousin’s.
I was disappointed when Reese was assigned to work on Thanksgiving.
When Christmas crept around, I thought for sure she’d be flying back to the mainland to see her parents, but she said they were spending the holiday in Bali.
When I asked her if she wanted to spend the day with my family, she asked that Beth be invited, too.
I liked Beth. She was hilarious and caring, and it seemed like she and Reese had a healthy relationship.
I just didn’t like her husband. Beth had come along for some of our weekend dates and explained that Derek was gone a lot for business.
I wasn’t shocked when I found out he'd be gone the entire week of Christmas.
However, this had been a shock to Beth, who hadn’t booked a flight home because she thought she and Derek would be spending it in Hawaii.
Instead, he’d told her only three days before that he wouldn’t be around, and she couldn’t get a flight to her hometown of Gilbert, Arizona, unless she was willing to drop some serious money.
Reese had explained that she didn’t get how someone as bubbly as Beth could end up with a douche-bag like Derek. She told me how, when he was home, which sounded rare, she heard them fighting non-stop.
“Kelly, how long are these supposed to bake for?” Reese was almost finished dropping small balls of dough onto the cookie sheet.
“I would set the timer for eight minutes and check from there. They can burn easily.”
“Well, we can’t be burning Tutu’s cookies, now, can we?” She winked at me as she set the first tray in the oven. “I’m going to take a quick shower, and then we can swing by to get Beth. Can I trust you with these?” She eyed me up and down.
“You can trust me,” I said as I strode closer to her, wiping a small splotch of flour off her nose.
She looked up at me, a devilish gleam in her angelic eyes. “On second thought,” she said as she wrapped her arms around my waist. “I can think of something better we can do with those eight minutes.”
Reaching up on her tiptoes, she pressed her lips to mine before lightly nipping at my bottom lip, making my cock press painfully against the seam of my pants.
“Have I ever told you how much you drive me insane?” I asked.
“Oh, is that so?” she said innocently when her smile was anything but. “I think I could make you more insane.”
She kneeled in front of me, right in the middle of my kitchen, as she grabbed hold of me, slowly unbuttoning my jeans.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said, even as my erection grew stronger.
“I don’t have to,” she said confidently. “I want to.”
Holy fuck.
She unzipped my jeans and then slid them slowly down past my knees. Her fingers delicately took hold of my underwear before yanking them away, my cock springing free. My erection was rock hard as a small bead of pre-cum glistened on the tip of my penis.
She took hold of me with both hands, and I threw my head back with a groan. I looked back down just in time to see her place the head in her mouth, slowly at first until she was taking me to the back of her throat. She rhythmically stroked the base of my cock as she slid her mouth up and down.
“God, baby,” I huffed as I grabbed hold of her hair. This only made her suck me faster. “It’s so fucking good.”
That low burn was building quickly as she devoured me, and I knew I wasn’t going to last more than thirty seconds.
“Come here,” I said as she released my cock with a loud ‘pluck’ sound.
As she stood, she slipped her hands under my shirt, bringing it up and over my head. I shimmied out of my pants and moved her body until it was up against the island.
I turned her around with her back to me as I stroked my hands over her breasts. She moaned as I teased her nipples before untying her apron and almost ripping her sweater off. She was wearing a lacy white bra that had become my favorite, and I quickly unhooked it and dropped it on the floor.
“Take your pants off,” I instructed.
She did as she was told, standing there in a matching pair of white panties. I reached around to the front as I dipped my fingers in, feeling how wet she had become for me. One hand worked her clit, occasionally slipping a finger into her, and the other hand toyed with her perfectly peaked nipples.
Reese’s moans became louder, and my cock pressed harder into her back with every whimper that escaped her.
“Come for me,” I whispered in her ear. “I need you to come for me.”
My dirty words encouraged her as my hand moved even faster against her clit. Her knuckles were white as her hand grasped the island in front of her. With a few more strokes, she came apart and leaned back against me.
“I fucking love the sounds you make,” I said, pressing my cock into her back.
Sliding her panties down, I brought my cock to meet her entrance from the back. I teased her a bit before pausing. “I need to go get a condom,” I said as I released my hold on her.
“Don’t,” she said as she turned to face me. Her body fucking ruined me. “I have an IUD in place, and I had a clean bill of health at my last appointment.”
I had never had sex without a condom, and I had a feeling she hadn’t either. “I’m clean, too. But you don’t have to do this. I can go grab a condom,” I said, not wanting her to feel pressured, even though it was her idea.
“I want to feel you inside me, Kelly. Please,” she said, a small smile on her face.
Instinctively, I pressed my body against hers. I kissed her like it was the last thing I was ever going to do on this earth before turning her around again. I didn’t hesitate as my cock easily slid into her.
Goddamn!
Her pussy was so tight and warm as it surrounded me. It was pure ecstasy as I tried to slide in and out of her slowly.
“Kelly! You feel so good in me, baby,” she panted, and I almost came right then and there.
Sex had always been good. And with Reese, it had been better than amazing. But this was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. I knew, right then and there, I was going to be ruined for the rest of my life. I could never go back to anything else.
I slid my hands up and down her silky-smooth back as I rocked in and out, her breasts swinging in front of her as I fucked her from behind.
“Fuck, Reese. I’m not going to last long. It’s too goddamn good. You’re too goddamn good,” I managed to huff out. “I’m going to have to pull out,” I said.
“No, I want you to come inside me,” she said.
That was all it took for me to erupt, gripping onto her hips tightly. We were both breathing rapidly as I leaned my head into her.
After a minute, I slowly pulled out, my legs shaky, as she turned to face me, grabbing my face with both hands. She brought me in for a soft, slow kiss, her body pressed against mine. I kissed her back, trying to tell her how much I loved her.
The timer went off for the cookies, and she laughed.
“I can’t let those cookies burn. I don’t want to be responsible for ruining Christmas,” she said before releasing me to fetch the cookies.
I wanted to tell her that she couldn't ruin Christmas.
That she was single-handedly the best thing that had ever happened to me.