CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
One day to Christmas, Christmas Eve
We make it back to the cottage just before the storm arrives.
Jake springs into action the moment the door is locked behind us.
He kicks off his boots, but he doesn’t bother to remove his coat—he heads straight to the hearth to stoke sleepy embers back into a proper fire.
As I take off my boots, I shiver like a pounded piano chord.
My teeth clack together so hard I’m afraid I might bite my tongue.
He must be having trouble, because he makes an impatient sound and sits back on his heels, yanking his arms out of his coat to fling it across the room. When he bends back over the hearth, he doesn’t look at me, but he says, “You all right, love?”
“Mm-hmm,” I manage.
“We’ll get you warm soon.”
I shrug out of my coat and lay it on the sofa Jake moved next to the door. Silently, I lift my sweater over my head. Static electricity makes strands from my braid cling to my face and neck. The chilly air makes my upper body erupt in goosebumps so aggressive my skin feels a size too small.
I watch the way Jake moves. He’s determined.
Purposeful. The strong arcs of his shoulder blades rise and shift beneath his sweater, and the warm light of the embers in the hearth glaze his hair with crimson.
Suddenly, the orange glow becomes a bright, golden flame, casting Jake in silhouette. I feel the heat almost instantly.
My nipples are so hard they ache against the fabric of my bra. I reach around to unclasp it and ease my arms out of the straps. At the same time, Jake stands and turns to face me. For a few moments, he simply stares.
He doesn’t take his eyes off mine as he pulls his sweater over his head, letting it fall to the nest we made in front of the fire.
I let my fingers hover over the button of my jeans, and Jake does the same with his own, mirroring me.
Nudging the button loose, I tilt my head subtly to the side.
He thumbs open his own button and licks his lips.
Behind him, icy wind wails down the chimney. For a moment, the flames in the hearth go dark before roaring back to life.
I’m not cold anymore.
When I draw down my zipper bit by bit, Jake does, too. With a playful lift of my brows, I stop midway. So does he. He takes a determined step closer to me, but I hold up a hand. He freezes.
As a reward, I unzip fully and shimmy out of my jeans.
Jake does, too, but he flings his aside with more force than I did.
Our socks come next, one by one in unison, until all that’s left is our underwear.
For me, cream lace hipsters; for him, navy-blue boxer briefs.
I tuck the tips of my thumbs in the waistband near each of my hips, edging the panties down centimeter by centimeter.
Jake’s patience has run out, though. When he drags the waistband of his briefs off his hips, his erection tips forward and sways in front of him, rebounding upwards to curve towards his navel.
My god.
He’s already as hard as I am wet, and we haven’t even touched each other yet. My mouth floods like I’m a woman starved.
The instant I let the cream lace flutter down my legs and kick the knickers aside, Jake is on me, pulling me to him.
Down to our little nest in front of the fire.
Lust is a struck match between us, but he still has the presence of mind to cradle his hand around the back of my head as he lowers me to the pillows.
He kisses his way down my body, but instead of settling between my legs, he turns to lie sideways beside me. Gently, he lifts my leg closest to him so my thigh rests over his shoulder. His arm loops around to rest on my belly, positioning his hand so his long, beautiful fingers can open me to him.
Gasping, I say, “What are you—”
“Save your questions for the end,” he murmurs.
It’s the soft heat of his lips there first. Then I feel him spread his mouth wide, using pressure and friction and suction to reveal the most sensitive part of me.
His tongue makes a slow slide against my entire clit, moving side to side rather than up and down.
Slow, broad strokes at first. I’m being savored.
My leg starts to slip and shudder over his shoulder. Jake reaches up to steady me with a hand shackled around my thigh. Once I’m braced against him, he seals his mouth against my clit. Now it’s rhythmic, rippling waves, escalating in intensity with every swirl of his tongue.
I see actual stars when I come, writhing beneath him as he clings to me like a life raft on a chaotic sea.
I slap one hand over my mouth, the other across my eyes, jerking against him in the most exquisite orgasm of my life.
I don’t recognize the noises I’m making, but I’m too delirious with sensation to care.
I’m left throbbing and breathless by the end. Jake sits up, looks me in the eyes, and wipes my wetness from his chin with a lazy stroke of his thumb.
And then he licks it off.
He leans close. “Do you know what you taste like, Evie?” He kneels beside me, coasting the tip of his nose along my cheekbone. Then he hovers his lips just centimeters from mine. “You’re a rare vintage, darling.”
I can smell the salt and musk of my arousal on his mouth.
It mingles with the deliciously familiar flavor of his breath, the heady essence of his skin, and the barely there trace of his cologne.
Surging upwards, I fist a hand in his hair and collide my lips into his, tasting him, tasting me.
It’s a furious, filthy kiss. Teeth meeting teeth.
Unrelenting strokes of tongue against tongue.
Jake makes an agonized noise deep in his throat when I break away.
I push him back against the mattress, straddling his thighs.
Skimming both hands down his torso, I say, “What was it you said to me that night on the London Eye?” He shudders when I graze my fingertips along the ridges of his hipbones and the firm hollows beneath. “‘I’m going to edge you until you cry,’ was it?”
He swears under his breath and chokes out, “Fair play.”
I let my jaw drop all the way open and drag the full wet-hot length of my tongue up the underside of his shaft, curling a palm over the top for more friction.
He bucks his hips and throbs in my hand when I coast the pad of my thumb over the velvety bundle of nerves beneath the head.
When I take him fully into my mouth, Jake’s thighs shudder, and he groans like he’s possessed.
He grabs a handful of sheets and twists it around his fist.
“Ah, fuck.” His sharp inhale hisses past clenched teeth. Head thrown back, his throat spasms in a painful-looking swallow.
Flat on his back like this, he doesn’t have much leverage. Still, I can feel how the cheeks of his ass contract and release beneath him in a rhythm that echoes every sucking pulse of my tongue.
Then I stop.
“Bloody Christ, woman.” When he tries to sit up, I push him back down. He throws his arm over his eyes as he hits the pillow. “I think—” his voice cracks, “I’m dying tonight.”
I still have him in my mouth when I laugh softly, letting the mellow hum vibrate around the tip. “I’m sure I’ll be able to bring you back.”
I take him deeper, matching the strokes of my hand to the cadence of every sleek pull of my mouth.
My heart hammers so hard I can feel my pulse between my legs.
God, he’s extraordinary from this angle.
Abs quaking and tensing, chest slick with sweat and heaving with every labored breath.
Nipples in tight peaks, and an angry flush across his collarbones.
A low rumble begins in Jake’s chest.
Again, I stop.
“I can’t,” he growls, launching upright quicker than I can react to.
In the next beat, he’s got his hands under my arms, hauling me sideways, then onto my back.
He’s got me half-pinned with his upper body across my chest and a strong thigh over one of mine.
Firelight pours over him, highlighting the thrust of his collarbones and the smooth, broad caps of his shoulders.
“Not fair.” My breath hitches. “You didn’t cry.”
Jake’s low laugh is dark. “Trust me, love. I’m fucking wailing on the inside.”
With his free hand, he pushes my other thigh wide, then he cups the soaked center of me with a trembling grip.
I jerk my hips upwards, and he dips two fingers inside me before targeting my clit with relentless friction.
Slipping, pulsing, tugging. I’m still primed from the orgasm he gave me with his mouth, so it’s barely a minute before I’m ready to pop again.
Pressure pools between my legs, filling me to bursting.
It plumes into my belly and races down my thighs.
It’s the insistent heat of Jake’s cock pressed against my hip that finally sends me over the edge.
My thighs collapse shut, trapping Jake’s hand between my legs as I begin to rock and thrust against him. I’m out of my mind, yanking Jake down by the back of his neck, sobbing and moaning into his mouth from the pleasure of it.
When I go limp, Jake makes a sound of satisfaction deep in his throat. He sits up on his heels and thrusts into a condom. “More?” he says.
“More. Everything,” I say.
Jake knocks my thighs open with his spread knees. Anticipation pounds through my body like a second pulse in my veins. Wind rails against the windows, shivering the panes of glass in their frames. It’s like a living thing, urging us to match its raw, elemental power.
“Please, Jake. Pl—”