Winter Kisses (A 3:AM Kisses Novella Book 2) Read online

  “You said my name.” I let a lazy smile glide up my cheek. “You know it drives me insane when you say my name.”

  “That’s because you have an insatiable ego.”

  I wait for her to follow it up with something far more reality-based like, one that I plan on crushing soon, but she doesn’t.

  “I’m going to be honest with you,” I say as the smile slides right off my face. “I happen to think this is serious as shit.” Her eyes widen. “I’m not sure how much more I can handle before I make a beeline for the bathroom to alleviate some of the pressure you’ve induced in me.”

  “My, my, you’re quick to point the finger.” She slips my tie off and runs it through her hand, nice and slow, as if she’s about to teach both my dick and me a lesson.

  “Just calling it like I see it.” I wrap my hands around her waist, and she doesn’t run screaming, so I take it as a green light and pull her in tight. My body molds over hers, and every cell in me sighs with relief. Laney is back, right here in my arms where she belongs. “You have two choices. Watch or help—and less than three seconds to decide.”

  “Only three?” Her neck arches back as she gurgles out a laugh.

  “Two.”

  My hard-on knocks against her hip. I reach down to release my zipper, but she secures her hands over mine and shakes her head ever so slightly.

  “Oh, believe me”—she whispers—“the pleasure is all mine.”

  “Be my guest.”

  Great. Her sarcastic piss and vinegar routine is pushing me over the edge whether I like it or not because I’m one hundred percent on board this crazy train. And to think, the last place I wanted to be tonight was at that auction. But here I am with Laney, running my fingers through her soft hair, and she’s not pulling a weapon on me, so already I’m glad I showed.

  “I think it’s time for some altar worship.” Laney drops to her knees, and that simple act has my boner trying to eject itself out of its casing. She works my zipper down, tugging at my clothes until both my boxers and pants are past my knees.

  This is it. She’s going to bite my dick off. I’d be a fool to think otherwise. I study her frame as she bows her head toward me. I’m pretty sure I could take her if I had to. But who the hell am I kidding? I’d let her bite my dick in half and offer up my balls for dessert. Just having her mouth around me one more time is enough to make me welcome a dickless death with open arms. Hell, I’d chop it off myself if I could get her to commit to sleeping with me just one more night.

  Her lips brush over the tip, and I let out a guttural groan like a giant pussy because I still can’t believe she’s here. It’s not some well-detailed hallucination, not some wet dream that I’m going to wake up from only to find that the bed is still empty.

  Laney runs her tongue over the length of me, and I suck in a breath through my teeth. I push myself into her, just this side of begging her to put it in her mouth.

  The logical part of me says pull away—stop before you both get into something you’ll regret in the morning, or more to the point she will. She’s drunk, or in revenge mode, and she’ll Bobbitt me by sunrise if I’m not careful, but the primal part of me, the part that’s having his balls molested by her cool fingers while her tongue strokes me back and forth like I was an erect piece of chocolate, just gave my logical half the finger.

  “Shit.” I lean into her hard, hoping she’ll take the hint and plunge me down her throat like a sword swallower.

  Laney pulls back and looks up at me innocent and wide-eyed but in that bad acting kind of way that puts both me and my balls on notice. “Did you like that?”

  “Yes,” I choke out the word. “Laney”—I catch my breath—“why are you doing this?” And there it is. The pussy in me wins because we both damn well know she’s up to something—that loving me tonight is simply a means to an end, most likely resulting in physical harm to her current point of interest.

  “Because I miss you.” Her expression dissolves to something just this side of tears as she glances back down at my dick still wagging in her face like the obscene tail of some happy-to-see-you canine. And, truthfully, that’s about the long and short of it. I feel like an animal, like Laney’s bitch in every single way, and, to be honest, I’d be whatever she wanted me to be if we could reenact this little scene night after night.

  “I miss you, too.” I run my fingers through her hair, like plunging through a silken waterfall. I used to spend hours doing just this while we watched TV, while we talked in bed, while I waited for her to fall asleep in my arms—and now here I am threading my fingers through her warm mane and yet nothing at all is how it used to be.

  “I miss the way you taste in my mouth.” Her lips glide over me, smooth and hot in one slick motion until she hits the base, and I let out a roar that’s been bottled up in me for one year solid. Laney dives down over me again and again, and I writhe, grinding my shoes into the floor, twisting and turning, pulling her hair at the base of her neck and pushing her deeper into me. I’m spent. This is it. I’ve got another few good thrusts, and I’m going to explode, come for weeks, and there’s nothing either one of us can do about it. But I stop short because I don’t want this to be all about me.

  “Come here.” I hoist her up and hold my breath when I see her eyes swelling with tears. “Hey.” I pull her in and my chest lurches because I’m this close to joining her in the tear-fest. “It’s okay.” I pepper her face with kisses, landing the sweetest one over her lips, and linger until her hot tears fall over my cheeks. I pull back and wipe them away. “You want me to take you home?” I touch my nose to hers a moment before bouncing back and taking in her beautiful features. Laney is as gorgeous as a runway model, and she doesn’t even know it. That’s part of her charm, she’s humble and sweet and sarcastic as hell, but I wouldn’t want her any other way.

  She shakes her head and crashes her mouth over mine, violent and hungry. Laney very much wants this tonight, and as much as it breaks my heart, those tears reassure me that she still has feelings—that she’s felt just as much sorrow and pain as I have, and it’s all coming to a rolling boil tonight right here in my bedroom.

  Something tells me, make-up sex at its finest is about to take place.

  Laney rakes open my shirt and the buttons snap off as she rips it from my body. I pull off my clothes like stepping out of a fire. My fingers fumble with the back of her dress until I hit a zipper, and it snags about an inch of the way down.

  I reach back and shut off the light, but she hits the switch and looks up at me with a renewed lust in her eyes.

  “I want to watch.” Her lips curl, and I think it’s the first genuine smile I’ve seen all night—all year—and my heart sings at the sight of it.

  “Then I’d better give you something to see.” I lift her skirt, and my fingers find her bare waist. I groan into her as our lips make their way to one another again. Laney gently swipes her tongue over mine, and it feels like home. It feels as if my mouth, my teeth, my fucking tonsils have had every single one of their prayers answered because Laney Sawyer is right where she belongs—with me—falling into my mouth with her hotter-than-hell kisses. Gingerly, I back her toward the bed, only the room is so damn big it’s turned into a moaning, loving, slow dance, and now, I’m about to write the builder a thank you letter for making the master bedroom so fantastically wide. My hands glide up her back, and I unhook her bra in some freshman maneuver I should be ashamed of, but this is Laney, and more than anything, I want her naked on my mattress so I can live out each and every fantasy I’ve had for the past three hundred and sixty-five days.

  Laney reaches down and slowly unties her corset. Her eyes never leaving mine like a dare. She licks her lips before pulling her dress off in one Herculean move and leans against the bedpost, bearing herself to me in all her God-given glory. Her eyes widen as she licks the rim of her lips, flirting, tempting me to take a bite out of her in all the right places.

  I cup her face and hold her like that while pou
ring my unspoken I’m sorries into her crystal cut eyes. I don’t dare say the words. I don’t dare bring up the past like the carcass it is. I don’t want to clog up the room with the stench of all our sorrow. We’re here now. I’m not so sure how we arrived, but there’s not one part of me that wants to contest the logic.

  I bow into her and press a searing kiss over her lips. I pull back and examine her like this in the light. Laney’s dark hair falls across her shoulders, her perfect body expands and retracts in all the right places like an hourglass. I land a kiss in the hollow of her neck, lower still until I make my way to her nipple. My lips seal themselves over her, and I moan as her sweet, soft flesh conforms to my mouth. I roll my tongue over her nipple until she’s hard, and my teeth graze her ever so gently until she gives a strangled cry.

  I pull back and take her in. Laney looks up at me with her eyes slit to nothing, her neck arched back as she waits for more.

  “Get in my bed,” I whisper. “I’m going to love every last inch of you.”

  3

  Let’s Get it On

  Laney

  My legs clench as my body heaves with a little pre-orgasmic intent. Ryder has always held a cool command that drives women insane and makes them want to get in his bed—with me being the leader of the bed hopping bandwagon.

  I glance down at his rock hard chest, then lower still and swallow hard. His erection is pointing at me as if picking me accusingly out of a line up as the perpetrator who tried to make off with his balls a moment ago. I’m sure his hard-on is screaming at the top of his testicles to get me to finish the job. I was more than ready and willing, but a very greedy part of me wants to extend the fun just a little bit longer.

  My fingers fly up to his cut features, and I trace them out. I’ve known Ryder Capwell all my life, well, most of it. Roxy attended my mother’s dance school, and that’s how we met. Ryder went to the expensive private school on the hill, so our meet and greets were far and few between in the beginning, but the older and wiser we grew, the more inseparable we became. A flashback of all those endless nights we spent wrapped in one another’s arms gets caged in my mind, and I want to play them out on a loop more than I do relive them. It was so much simpler back then, and now, there’s a mile-wide heartache separating us emotionally. I’m not so sure falling into bed with him will ever fix that.

  “Let’s do this.” He tightens his arms around my waist.

  “Maybe I don’t want to get in your bed,” I say, and every last inch of me that he threatened to love into oblivion protests the idea of straying from his mattress. I hardly think my feet would listen if I willed them to carry me out of here. My primal instincts are in control of this party, and they scream triple orgasms all around as if they were buying. Clearly logic and reason aren’t invited tonight.

  Ryder lowers his lids, rendering me defenseless to his bedroom eye superpowers. His features harden as if I’ve blatantly pissed him off and he was about to teach me a lesson. He dips his thumbs into my panties and hitches them below my hips until they voluntarily fall to the ground.

  “Would you look at that?” he whispers over my lips without taking his eyes off mine. “Here we are, naked in my bedroom.”

  “Hard to believe.” I run my finger over the length of him when I say it.

  “I want you back, Laney.” His jaw redefines itself as his hand finds that tender part of me that’s been screaming out for him ever since that last night we were together. I let out a heated breath because I’m finding it impossible to focus on the finer details of our breakup while he rubs me into a sexual nirvana. Maybe a little revenge sex is what I really need. One wild night to work him out of my system—maybe then I’ll finally be free.

  I wrap my arms around his neck and touch my forehead to his chest. My body writhes to the rhythm of his magical fingers. It’s obvious now that an entire suitcase full of vibrators could never replace the real deal.

  I arch my neck back and let out a groan. “The thing I mourned most was the fact our bodies never had the chance to say a proper goodbye.” It sails from my lips in a hoarse whisper. “Maybe that’s what this is, one long, drawn out, carnal goodbye.” I look up at him because a small part of me wants him to refute the theory.

  “Goodbye?” He presses out a dull smile while studying me with those dark unknowable eyes. “This isn’t goodbye.” He gravels it out with demonic intent. “What you’re about to experience is wild, savage make-up sex.”

  “You’re forever the optimist.” My heart thumps because I sort of like the idea of make-up sex a whole hell of a lot better. For a moment I envision us snuggled up by the fire as we throw fistfuls of dildos into the flames because with Ryder around there’s no need to keep spare man parts hidden in my underwear drawer.

  “Let me love you.” He strokes the hair from my face. There’s a tenderness in his voice, in his eyes, that I haven’t seen in so long. I want to believe it’s real, but a part of me can’t be sure. This is just the homerun at the end of some bizarre night at a charity ball. A cash exchange took place, and he was simply accepting my services. This means as much to him as the tax donation that landed me here in the first place.

  “I don’t think you know how to love me, Ryder,” I give it in less than a whisper. Sometimes it’s hard to hear someone tell you the truth, but it’s also hard to be the one to say it.

  “I do. Let me into your heart, Laney,” he pleads with those deep navy eyes as we stand just shy of his bed. “Let me crush every memory you have of the two of us and make something new, something better, something that never disappoints because it doesn’t know how.” He dots a series of hot kisses slowly up my neck, and a shiver runs through me.

  My skin touches his, and then it’s over. I’m all in. Every last inch of me has been so thirsty for Ryder, and now, here I am, ready to drown in the cool spring of his affection while my entire body reanimates under his willful supervision. A part of me died last winter in a very real way, and, here he is, reawakening me, breathing life back into my soul by way of his mouth, his fingers—his bare flesh.

  He pulls back and rakes over me with his slow gaze.

  “Get in my bed,” he growls it out, sharp like an order.

  “If you want me in your bed, you’ll have to damn well put me there yourself.”

  Ryder gives the ghost of a smile.

  And he does.

  Ryder scoops me into his arms and lands me on the cool comforter. He glides over me, and my skin ignites like a field fire. Our fingers interlace as he pushes my hands high above my head. Ryder parts my legs with his and settles his body in the gap while his tongue takes free roam of my mouth.

  I give an involuntary moan as my hips rise into him as if my vagina had just delivered a formal invite to the general and two colonels to invade my fort any time they damn well pleased—right fucking now would be nice. I claw at his back, raking my way down his granite-like ass and digging in, hoping to hurt him the way he hurt me. Of course, my injuries were emotional—a battered heart, a tattered ego. I could never hurt Ryder where it really counted—not sure I would want to.

  His kisses grow erratic and sloppy as he traces his hot tongue all the way over to my ear.

  “You want me to fuck you, don’t you?”

  Ryder always did like to get to the point.

  “Yes,” I choke it out because as much as my dignity wishes it could strangle me, my body would much rather have one last night of rough sex with an ex than sit alone and wallow in my righteousness.

  “Too bad.” He breathes it hard in my ear as he settles his weight over me. Ryder presses in a slow, circular kiss over my lips until my insides buzz with delirium. “I’m not fucking you ever again, Laney. I’m going to make love to you, forever if you’ll let me.” He continues his kissing assault down my neck, and my heart melts at his sweet sentiment.

  Tears spring to my eyes, and I’m quick to blink them away. This is nothing more than a one-night stand. I can’t buy into the lies Ryder is feeding me
. I wasn’t enough for him or his family just a few short months ago—I don’t see why I would be now.

  Ryder dips his kisses into my cleavage. He pushes my breasts together and buries himself in the mass of flesh. His groans are far more viral than I remember. I try to memorize each tug and pull, the way his teeth graze over my nipples, the hot of his mouth as it works me into a heated daze. He grazes lower still, raking a line down my torso with his molten hot mouth. His tongue unleashes on my belly, and my toes curl from the quivering sensation.

  Holy hell.

  There should be a one-night stand emergency response necklace they force girls to wear in college. Only instead of having some medical staff on standby it would be an entire legion of girlfriends who were more than capable of handling a sexual distress call. I can envision it now—me hitting the magic button until Roxy and Baya pop up on the other line. Help, I’ve fallen in bed with my ex, and he’s gotten it up. He’s hedging his way to the runway with his motherfucking tongue, and I am completely immobilized. Send help by way of distractingly cute Whitney Briggs football players, hell—send the entire team!

  Who the heck am I kidding? It’s more like send provisions. I plan on keeping Ryder’s tongue busy for quite some time, until morning to be exact.

  I had a shift tonight at the Black Bear, but Baya will have to hold down the fort for me. I’m too busy doing what I swore I would never do again—letting Ryder sink his wickedly sexy mouth in places no mouth has ever traveled. Well, except his. He’s no stranger to the hills and valleys, the canyons and mountains of this girl’s terrain. He knows my every nuance, what the pattern of my breathing means, he knows how to distinguish each and every kiss I give him, and he knows how to pleasure me in ways that I never knew were possible.

  Ryder gently lifts my legs until they’re sitting over his shoulders and parts my thighs just enough to enjoy the view.