Winter Kisses

  He moans before pulling away and moving his sleepy eyes back up to mine. I hike up on my elbows, out of breath, and pant into him for an unreasonable amount of time.

  Stupid, stupid me for insisting the lights stay on.

  I want to watch? Watch what? The unflattering way my boobs roll to my armpits when I lie back instead of perking to the ceiling? It’s like my nipples turn into a couple of lazy eyes that drift to the mattress, making me look unnecessarily flat chested. I’m half tempted to hold them into position all night, but I’d much rather dig my fingers through his hair.

  His lips curve just enough to give him that dangerous appeal that made me gravitate to him to begin with.

  “What the hell are you smiling at?” I thump my knee over his bottom. “Get back to work.”

  His brows peak in that dark, seductive way that makes my toes curl all on their own.

  “Was I smiling?” His eyes continue their viral assault on my hormones, and I’m about to have a double orgasm without the satisfaction of having it derived from his lips.

  “Damn straight you’re smiling because you and I both know it’s your lucky day.” Did that just fly out of my mouth? God, I love it when the whiskey talks, and takes off my clothes, and lands me in bed with the exact person I swore to never speak to again. Note to self, make shrine to whiskey before setting the whole damn bar on fire for housing the promiscuous poison.

  He huffs a dull laugh. “Oh, sweetie, this isn’t work. This is a pleasure cruise.” His hand travels down past my hips as his fingers trace out my wet folds. He plunges a finger into my body and works his thumb over me in a circle.

  A swell of anger fills me from out of nowhere, and I’m beginning to think whiskey is code for mild psychosis. “First, I’m nobody’s ‘sweetie,’” I correct him a little more throaty than intended. Although, I’m not so sure how one goes about critiquing the distribution of an orgasm, but seeing that I’m in bed with my ex, no level of evil is off the table tonight. “And second—there are a lot of things your hands are good for, trust me, this isn’t one of them. If it’s one thing that makes me testy it’s being made to endure waning fireworks only to be denied the grand finale.”

  “Waning fireworks?” he mouths.

  That vexingly hot grin crops up on his face, his chin dips with wicked intent.

  “Listen, honey,” he growls it out alarming sexy, and my sweet spot starts in on a series of spasms. Crap. I knew the big O was knocking at the door. “The only thing waning is my dick, and I’m about to find it a nice, wet home.” He extracts his finger from deep inside me, and my insides wail to have him back. His features soften as he holds my gaze. “I love you, Laney.” His perfect lips twist, the muscles in his jaw pop. He’s waiting for me to say it back. His eyes latch onto mine and make sweet love to me all on their own. He rides his wet hand up my belly and strums over my flesh just begging to hear those words, but I won’t give them. That’s not what tonight is about.

  And, perhaps, that’s not what we’ve ever been about.

  “To work,” I say.

  He growls before dipping down between my legs and burying a kiss over me. His tongue lashes out, loving yet violent.

  “Oh God.” I grip the bedding and clutch at it as if I were in pain. A cry rips from my throat, and I lurch forward with my fingers knotted in his hair. My body responds without hesitation, and I spasm right into him.

  I do love Ryder.

  But I’ll be damned if those words ever leave these lips again.

  Ryder

  I close my eyes and lounge over the sweetest part of Laney’s body, loving her, molding my mouth over her while soaking in all the heated moans, the nail-digging groans. I’m savoring the taste, the way her legs cascade up and down my back, the way she’s pulling out my hair, hard, just this side of violent, but I don’t really give a shit if I walk away battered, bruised, and bald. It’s as if all of time had shrunk down to this tiny microcosm, and here we were again, a place I never thought we’d get to. I sink down lower and penetrate her with my tongue, spinning spirals through her again and again, half-afraid to stop because I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to visit here again.

  “Ryder.” She grinds into me, and I bury a kiss over her. “Ryder, please.” Laney coils her fingers around my hair and pulls me up a few inches. She’s panting and writhing, and I can’t help but dig a smile in my cheek. For so long this is what I’ve wanted, and now that I have it, I don’t plan on denying either one of us a moment of pleasure. I lunge over her, lashing her with my tongue, harder, faster than she needs it until her breathing sounds erratic and her knees lock over my skull like a vice. “Ryder!” She bucks forward and holds me captive right where I want to be. I’d volunteer to be Laney Sawyer’s sex slave if she’d have me. This headlock right here is the reward I’d live for each and every day. I’d rearrange my world to have Laney back in my life. And, if she gives me the chance, I’ll do just that.

  “Come here, you.” She pulls me up, and I fall over her in a heated slick. I hike up on my elbows and take in the rosy glow of her cheeks. It’s satisfying to know I put that beautiful pink color in her face—that I still have the capability to light her up from the inside—that she’d let me.

  “Damn you’re beautiful, you know that?” I stroke the hair from her forehead. “You’re drenched from head to toe, and we’re just kicking off the party.”

  “Says who?”

  “My hard-on.” I take her hand and guide it over me until her fingers clasp on, and I flinch as if she kicked me in the gut.

  “Maybe that was my wicked plan all along.” She rolls back, and her body glistens in the light. “Get what I can then get the hell out.”

  I groan into her. “I can live with that.”

  “You can?” She readjusts her head on the pillow as her paper-white teeth graze her cherry-stained lip.

  “Why don’t you come by night after night and test me?” I swallow hard. “I’d die happy knowing I’d get to end each day with you raining down your perfect pleasure right into my mouth.”

  She gives an impish grin. “You’re a dirty boy, Ryder.” Her lips quiver. Laney’s expression takes a turn for the serious. Her eyes round out, vulnerable and sweet like a little girl. “I’ve missed you.” She gives a hard sniff into my neck and lets loose with the tears.

  “Laney.” I swallow hard while pressing a kiss just above her ear. I reach over to the nightstand and switch off the lamp. The lights from the Christmas tree pour into the room and cover us in a kaleidoscope of color. “I missed you, too.” I sink down next to her and wrap my arms around her. “I’m never letting you go.” My voice cracks, and I don’t really care if I sound like a pussy. “We’re going to make this work. My world doesn’t function the way it’s supposed to without you. I can’t take the fucking pain one more minute.” I press my lips hard over hers and she reciprocates with an explosive kiss that threatens to combust the entire damn room.

  Laney runs her hands down my back and rounds out to the front. She strokes my dick, guiding it. Her other hand gently grazes my balls until the need to have her takes over.

  I reach back onto the dresser in what’s proving to be more of a ceremonious maneuver since I know for a fact I don’t have any protection lying around—there hasn’t been a reason, and, now, I feel like an idiot for having the girl of my dreams ready and willing, and here I am, unable to dive in like I want.

  “Crap.” I lie back on the bed, disbelieving that my wildest dreams are about to come crashing to an end because I can’t for the life of me remember where the hell I have a missile shield stored.

  “What’s the matter?” She props up on her elbow and traces my body out with her eyes.

  “I’m sort of out of raincoats.”

  “Is that all?”

  “That’s a pretty big deal.” I give a bleak smile. A part of me is hoping she’ll surprise me with the fact she’s on the pill, and I can dive in anyway. I’m starting to get the shakes, like a star
ving man who’s crawled on his belly through the long, hot desert only to find a glass divide between him and the gourmet meal he’s been salivating after.

  “It’s not a big deal.” She lands her finger over my chest and creates a giant letter S as she sizzles her way down to my weeping dick. “I’ll take care of you.”

  I pull her onto me and feel the weight of her sweet tits over my chest.

  She lowers her head until our lips collide. Laney chases me with her tongue as I pour all of my affection straight into her mouth.

  I pull back and steady my gaze over hers.

  “I’m insanely, deliriously, outright fucking crazy in love with you. Laney”—I swallow hard because I’m going there—“take me back.”

  If she did—if we could work things out—it would make what she’s about to do that much sweeter. Just knowing she loves me, that she’s willing to open her world to me once again would bring Christmas a little early, not that she hasn’t already done that. I guess it would be the star on the tree.

  A lone tear falls from her cheek to mine.

  “I…” She takes a breath as if I caught her off guard. “I need some time to think.” She presses her lips together hard. “You know what happened, Ryder. You were there. This is complicated and…” She buries a kiss over my neck, and now I want nothing more than to end this conversation. Laney’s chest bucks with silent tears. She gives a hard sniff as if she were checking her emotions.

  “It’s all right.” I run my hand over her smooth hair and take in her vanilla scent. There’s no way it’s all right, but the last thing I want is to upset her any more than I already have. I should have known she wasn’t going to fall over me with an enthusiastic yes. This was far too twisted, too many people have trampled between us, and as much as I hate to admit it, she’s right. This is complicated.

  Laney trails slow, blistering kisses straight down my body. She runs her fingers across my chest as if she were mapping out the landscape. I want to tell her she doesn’t have to do this—that given five minutes in the shower I should have things under control, but I don’t. The truth is, I want this from her, from her hands, her mouth. Nothing compares to the way she loves me, and for damn sure not one part of my body can substitute what Laney can give me.

  Her mouth lands over the tip, and I let out a heated breath.

  “Right there.” I hike up on my elbows and bend my head back just taking in the sweet feel of her lips. Laney opens up and devours me, carefully raking her fiery tongue over my body as she slips me back out of her mouth. She dives down and wraps her lips tight around me, sucking as if she were about to inhale me, dick first, into her body. “Shit,” I belt it out, and the room vibrates.

  Laney drops down, running her tongue over my balls, and my stomach clenches.

  “Yeah that.” My chest pumps with a dry laugh.

  I don’t ever remember her employing these moves. She brings her hand to the party and works her fingers over me in a place where fingers or any other body parts are never allowed. I try to deflect her, and she catches me by the wrist. Her mouth melts back over me, riding me in a wave of insanity, and I’m about to lose it.

  Laney works her magic while doing her best to suck me down to nothing. She takes me in all the way to the base, and I fucking lose it. Laney doesn’t move, she just drinks me down like some tropical cocktail, and I lurch forward with a roar ripping from my lungs until the shakes subside.

  Laney climbs up and falls back next to me on the mattress. We just stare up at the ceiling for moment, wondering what the hell just happened.

  “Come here.” I pull her in, and she collapses her heated chest to mine. “You okay?” I know for fact she’s never swallowed before. At least not me, and I hope to God she hasn’t been practicing while we’ve been apart. God knows a year of celibacy nearly killed me, but just the thought of Laney loving anyone else with that body would test my mortality and the mortality of the one she slept with.

  “Why wouldn’t I be okay?” She rakes her fingers through my hair with a renewed tenderness. All of the primal tendencies she held just a few minutes ago have been quenched at least that’s what I’m hoping. “I’m fine.”

  “Thank you.” I touch my finger to her cheek and trace out her immaculate bone structure, her pillow-soft lips.

  “For what?” She buries a kiss in my palm.

  “For loving me.”

  “Who said I loved you?” She dips her chin, never taking her gaze off mine.

  “You didn’t have to tell me.” I pull her in, and she twists until we’re spooning. “You showed me.”

  Laney sighs into me, pulling my arm tight across her waist.

  Here we were after thoroughly loving each other—mostly—after tears and every emotion known under the sun, and we were pushing through. Riding the edge of the night with our bodies tangled as one.

  Nothing could be better.

  Nothing could ever come close.

  4

  The Way We Were

  Laney

  The sun filters in through a crack in the curtains, and I startle because I can’t make out the layout of my bedroom. I give a series of rapid blinks, dizzy and bleary-eyed at my foreign surroundings. The dresser is bigger…and why is the door on the other side of the room? I lean up on my elbow and squeeze my eyes shut tight once again until the room warbles in and out of existence. The door, the dresser, the man breathing heavily next to me—

  I seize the sheet over my naked body and slide in the opposite direction a good two feet.

  Crap! I let out a little squeal as I give a one-eyed stare over at the penis slinger snoring next to me. Last night comes crashing back like an avalanche of spinning Christmas trees and blowjobs, and I groan as I dread to face my new reality. I glance at him with his dark rumpled hair, his strong wide back turned toward me.

  Dear God let that be Ryder.

  I hope to God I didn’t hallucinate last night with some not-so-close second and pretended to be having sex with my ex while sucking down the man juice of some drunk fifty year old I picked up at the Black Bear.

  I kick him in the thigh, and he obediently rolls over exposing the fact that the penis slinger snoring next to me is very much sexier-than-hell Ryder Capwell, and thankfully so, or I’d have to tiptoe the hell out of here while clutching my costume like a toddler.

  It all comes back to me with perfect clarity. Whiskey—that stupid, stupid auction.

  I glance over at him once again. There he is, in his immaculate state of early morning duress. I’m guessing that tent peg lifting the sheets at his crotch is exactly how he plans on saying good morning.

  My fingers glide to my throbbing forehead and I sigh because, for one, I’m not safely tucked in Prescott Hall—hell, I’m nowhere near Whitney Briggs, and a wild fear grips me. I could call a cab but I don’t have my wallet. I could call Baya or Roxy, but I don’t have my phone, and God knows I don’t have anybody’s number memorized.

  Ryder turns into me, and his hands swipe for my waist. Something in the motion—in that subconscious act brings back all those old feelings, and I break. I scoot in and let his arm find me, scooping me next to him like I belong there. His snoring ceases as he latches on and the touch of a smile glides over his lips. I want to say something, kiss him, or wrap my hand around that early morning greeting of his that’s scraping against my thigh. But if I remember correctly, we’re down one protective hedge and about a fifth of whiskey.

  Then on cue, my head begins to throb as if the sun itself had detonated in my skull. I rub my temples for a moment.

  “No, no, no,” I moan.

  “Yes, yes, yes.” He pulls me in by the small of the back until my chest crushes against his and lands a hot morning kiss over my lips. I don’t hesitate to take more than he’s giving and plunge my tongue into his searing mouth. What the hell, I’ve already crossed every imaginary line in the sand, and, somehow, over the course of the night my heart thawed out, and all of those wonderful feelings I once had fil
led in the reserve like a bright spring morning.

  Ryder tastes sweet, juicy, and something about the way he’s manhandling my boobs has me panting for a reprisal of just about every activity we shared last night.

  I pull back, my lids heavy with a renewed lust for him.

  “I don’t think I ever want to leave.” I bite down over my lip to stave away the tears because in reality very few things have changed, and yet we’ve unwittingly opened another door.

  “Lucky for you because I wasn’t planning on letting you go.” He warms my arms with his hands. “Stay.” He pleads with those midnight blue eyes. “Let me cook you breakfast. I make a mean omelet, and I have every intention on making those Mickey Mouse pancakes you love so damn much.”

  I give a little laugh as I tighten my grip around his waist. “I can’t stay. I have rehearsal at noon.”

  “Tell them you’re sick.”

  “That’s bad luck.”

  “Tell them you’re too busy getting your insides licked, and they can all go to hell—starting with Guy Richards.”

  “Ryder!” I slap him across the chest as a laugh gets buried in my throat. “That’s crude.”

  “Yeah, but you loved it.” He lays his head over mine and snuggles into me.

  “I did.” I sigh into him. “I loved a lot of things you did—that you said last night.”

  I run my fingers through his dark hair, and our eyes lock. Ryder Capwell has an entire ocean hostage in those deep navy eyes.

  “Let me love you, Laney. Don’t walk out of my life again.” His Adam’s apple rises and falls. “I can’t handle it. I need you here just to breathe.”

  Crap.

  I swallow hard. I’d like to think it were as simple as me saying yes—that suddenly things would change for the better, but the reality is, all those old issues would be right there waiting for us again. They’re haunting us even now, waiting for us to just try and make things right so they can hack us to pieces all over again.