13. Gemma
GEMMA
When I opened my eyes, something felt off with the light coming in through the window. The sun was higher in the sky than when I usually woke. Something was off with my body too. My legs ached from the knees down, and my shoulders were worse. Not only that, but there was someone in bed with me.
I peeked over my shoulder.
“Hey,” Bas said. He was on his back, with one arm folded behind his head.
“Hey, um, hi. What time is it?”
“Don’t know and don’t care.”
I reached for my phone, but it wasn’t on my nightstand. A bunch of condom packets were, though.
“Your cell is on the kitchen counter. I meant to bring it in with me earlier, when I went to inspect our jackets.”
I cringed. “Are they salvageable?”
“Doubtful.” He turned to his side, put his arm around my waist, and snuggled his front to my back. “How are you this morning?”
“Good. A little sore.”
“Should I apologize?”
I smiled. “Coming to the vineyards to help was my decision.”
He cupped my breast and teased my nipple between his fingers. “Ah, so the places that feel sore have nothing to do with what happened after we returned to your cottage.”
“Maybe a little bit.”
“If you tell me where, I’ll see if I can make it feel better.”
I hated to say that I needed to know what time it was before I could take him up on his offer, but I had a vendor meeting scheduled for noon.
“Hang on and don’t move.” He rolled out of the opposite side of the bed and went in the direction of the kitchen.
Bas, naked as the day he was born and from behind, was a delectable sight.
He was even more appealing from the front when he returned, carrying my phone.
“Sorry, but I peeked,” he said when he handed it to me.
“So did I.” When I wiggled my eyebrow, Bas’ face flushed. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would’ve doubted it was possible.
He handed me the phone, which I set on the nightstand, then I shifted to the middle of the bed and held the sheet open. “Do you have time to get back in bed?” I asked.
He was on his side, facing me, before I finished my sentence. “I have time. Do you?”
“That kind of depends.”
“On?” he asked.
“If it’s past noon, then I already missed my meeting. If it’s thirty minutes before, I’d probably have time to cancel.”
“Check your phone. They might be one step ahead of you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked as I reached for it. “Oh, they canceled,” I said, reading the message on the screen.
“Which means we have no reason to leave this cottage.” He leaned forward and brushed my lips with his. “So, here is what I propose. First, we take a shower—together. Then, we make breakfast. Also together. And eat it in bed…”
“Together?”
“You’re catching on.”
“And after that? Do we do the dishes together?”
Bas shook his head. “After that, we stay in bed and explore each other’s bodies for the rest of the day. And night. Although then, there’d be more food involved.”
One thing I liked about the cottage but hadn’t realized how much until now was the size of the bathroom. The shower, in particular. Bas got in before me and adjusted the water temperature.
“When you get in, put both hands on the tile in front of you. Can you do that for me?”
With him using that sexy-as-fuck seductive voice, I would do anything he told me to.
He opened the door and held his hand out. “Gemma?”
“Yes?”
“You didn’t answer me.”
“Oh, um, yeah,” I stammered. “Yes, I can do that.”
“Good.” He helped me get into position while somehow managing not to get between me and the flow of warm water. Then I felt was his soapy body pressed against me from behind. “I’m gonna get you real clean, Gem, and while I do, I don’t want you to come. Do you understand?”
I glanced over my shoulder. “Really?”
“Yes, really. And if you can hold off until I tell you, I promise I’ll make it worth it.”
“What happens if I don’t? Or do, I guess.”
When he spun me around to look at him, I had to bite my tongue to stop from laughing.
“What?” he asked when I couldn’t hold it in anymore.
“You look like Santa.” I ran my finger over the soap bubbles clinging to his scruffy facial hair.
“Oh yeah? Wanna see what Santa does to Mrs. Claus?”
Now that I’d started laughing, I couldn’t stop. “I’m not sure I do.”
“Close your eyes.”
When I did, he spread my legs with his knee and reached between them with the bar of soap. “Now remember, no coming, and keep your eyes closed.”
I expected his hands to stay where they were, but instead, he started at my neck, massaging the sore muscles in my shoulders and arms. Then he moved to my breasts, alternating between running the bar of soap over my nipples, rinsing, then sucking them.
When he reached between my legs again and sucked hard, I dug my fingernails into his shoulders.
“You aren’t going to come, are you, Gemma?”
My response was more of a whimper than words.
“Good girl.”
When he knelt, raised one of my legs, and draped it over his shoulder, I held on to the tile with one hand and wound the other in his hair.
“Bas?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“You didn’t tell me…” I was so close to coming when he slid two fingers inside me and fastened his mouth to my clit. “Bas, you didn’t tell me what happens if I come.”
He stopped and leaned away. “This.”
“This, what?”
“Everything stops.”
My eyes opened wide. “For how long?”
“It could be hours. It could be days.”
“Oh.” Well, that was enough to halt my threatening orgasm.
“So, you’ll be good for me?”
“Yes?”
He smiled and spread my folds wider, then sucked hard on my clit. As sure as I was a few seconds ago that I wouldn’t be on the precipice right away, I was on the verge.
“Bas, please, either let me or stop.” Again, I could barely understand my own words. I doubted Bas could.
“Since you asked so nicely and I want you to come on my face, you have my permission.”
He thrust his fingers deeper, curled them, and swirled my clit with his tongue, and I screamed his name and held on for dear life as my body writhed. Before the orgasm even slowed, he spun me around, told me to put my hands on the tile, and entered me from behind.
“I’m close, Gemma. I need one more from you. Will you give it to me?” He went harder, his grip digging into the flesh of my hips. I cried out again and arched my back, drawing him deeper.
“Gemma, God,” he shouted as he pulled out and I felt him come on my back.
He turned me in his arms, brushed my wet hair from my face, and kissed me.
Before we got out, Bas drizzled shampoo in my hair and took his time washing it, massaging my scalp like he had my shoulders. Then he finished soaping up the rest of my body, rewashing parts he already had and lingering between my legs until I was on the verge of coming again.
“My turn.” I grabbed the soap and sinking to my knees so we were face-to-face. “Stand up, Bas.”
He couldn’t contain his grin when he rose and his cock jutted out. “See what you do to me, Gem?”
I ran the bar of soap over the lower half of his body, leaving between his legs for last. “No coming until I say so,” I murmured as I leaned forward and swirled my tongue around the tip.
His hand gripped my hair hard enough to hurt, which only made me wetter.
When I sucked him deep into my mouth, he groaned, and I think he begged, but I was too focused on what I was doing to listen.
“Gemma…I can’t…God…I have to come,” he pleaded when I took him as deep as I could. I didn’t pull away. I held him there until I felt him pulse.
Neither of us could move very fast when we finally toweled off. I grabbed the two robes I found hanging on the bathroom door and held one out to him.
“I swear I didn’t know these were here,” he said when I raised a brow.
“Tsk, tsk, Sebastian. First, you come without permission, and now, you’re fibbing to me.”
He grabbed me around the waist and nipped at the side of my neck. “How much do you want to bet there are two robes in every cottage?”
I giggled. “That isn’t helping your cause.”
“Okay, you got me. I put two behind the bathroom door of each one in case that was the cottage you picked and after we got all wet and cold and muddy while fending off the frost, you’d invite me into your bed, we’d have sex all morning long, and then I’d have nothing to wear, and voilà, there’d be two robes ready and waiting. ”
“I knew it.”
He shook his head, rolled his eyes, and laughed. “Please tell me you have something here we could make to eat.”
“I do.”
“Thank God. I didn’t want to have to sneak up to the house in nothing but this robe to bring stuff back here.”
“While I would dearly love to see you sneaking around the estate in nothing but a robe and bare feet, I would’ve suggested having something delivered instead.”
“Good thing you’re here, cause that never would’ve dawned on me.”
We made omelets, bacon, toast, and coffee. Bas lifted me up on the counter, stood between my legs, and we took turns feeding each other.
“Next time, breakfast in bed,” he said between bites of toast.
“Too many crumbs that way.”
“You make a good point. See? What would I do without you?”
“Starve,” I teased.
“I’d manage.” He took the last piece of bacon off my plate. “I said that in confidence.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon either naked or in our robes. We alternated between the bed and the kitchen, where sometime after dark, I heated up more leftover goulash, and we ate it out of the pot with two forks, then returned to bed.
“Bas. What happens to the year now?” I asked later when we were lying in the dark with his arm under my neck.
“Nothing’s changed,” he responded several seconds later.
I turned so he couldn’t see my face. The deal was still the deal. That was what I’d asked, and that was what he’d told me.
Bas was gone before I woke up the following morning, but he’d left the coffee on and a note on the counter, which said Zeke needed him in the vineyard and he’d catch up with me later.