Page 84 of Peppermint Bark

“Such a good girl, that’s what I like to hear,” he said as his head dipped again, his soft moan reverberating through my nerve endings. I whimpered at the workings of his tongue, writhed as his fingers explored inside. “I knew you’d feel this good. So sweet, so tight, so fucking perfect.”

“God, that feels incredible,” I raved, feeling my inner muscles clench and he groaned into me at the praise. My feet pushed into the bed to lift into his mouth and he wrapped his free arm over my waist to hold me down as his lips and tongue caressed me. I gripped the sheets as sparks built in my stomach.

When he looked up with a triumphant gleam in his eyes, it was enough to make me fall apart.

“Oh fuck, Alex!” I swore as the orgasm cascaded through my body in a flush of heat, warming in my core then snapping through my nerve endings. My hips bucked into his mouth as my legs shook around his head, fingers tangled in his hair. He let out a hungry moan, sending vibrations shooting through my center, up into my belly, and through my fingertips and toes. Pleasure cascaded through me, wiping my mind clear of all thought.

His gentle hands caressed my legs as I came down,murmuring against my sensitive skin. “Can you go again?”

“I — I don’t know,” I confessed, mind a little loopy, body feeling drained. “That was …”

“That was what, Grace?” When I let out a grunt of tiredness, his teeth scraped my inner thigh. “Don’t leave me hanging. Lightning or fireworks?”

“… the Fourth of July.”

“Good. That was the opening burst,” he said, self-satisfied and confident. “Let’s build to the grand finale.”

His mouth dropped for another round, but I used my hand in his hair to pull him off. “No, not that. Can we …? Please, Alex.”

I drag him up to kiss me, pulling his body against mine. My eyes fluttered shut as our bodies fit perfectly together, and his hard length pressed against my hip. I dropped my hand between us to trace his length.

“God,” he tilted his head back to catch his breath. "How do you do this to me?"

I pushed his pants down his legs and he shifted to kick them off. I grabbed the condom and rolled it up his length. He rolled over me, propped up on those perfect forearms, and notched himself at my entrance.

Then he was pressing into me, stopping to let me adjust and clenching his jaw at the snug feel.

But it wasn’t just his size I was adjusting to.

He fit perfectly into my body. The way a man was supposed to fit a woman. The way I’d always craved feeling — like half of a whole.

If only he could fit so perfectly into my life.

“Can you lift your legs, darling?” he asked. WhenI wrapped my legs around his hips, he slowly pressed the rest of the way in. I loved the feel of him inside me, of opening for him.

And we paused as he made small circles with his hips, his forehead pressed against mine, gazes locked. I fell into his eyes, irises dark with need like the midnight sky. I gave myself over to his movements, lost in the slide and friction as he began to move.

I used my well-honed meditation skills to push away all thoughts of anything but the feeling of him inside me. As my body built to another climax, as my hips rolled into his, as he aligned himself so that he grazed my clit at the end of every stroke, as my body lit up with need and desire … I leaped.

And I let myself fall.

Chapter 29

Alex

I woke up to the easy fit of Grace’s body against mine. It felt natural to have my hand splayed across her hip, her ass curved into my groin. She’d finally stayed in bed past dawn. Then again, we’d stayed up way past her bedtime.

I still didn’t understand how we were here. The lodge had initially been intended just until Mallory finished skiing, but when my sister called, Grace sent me to shower. By the time I emerged from the steam, Kate was on her way to pick up Mallory and drop off an overnight bag.

The night had passed in slow motion, talking and touching and eating and laughing. We’d fed each other room service, fucked until we were sweat-drenched and spent, then laid wrapped around each other and whispered for hours.

I stroked her back and told her about Victoria, how we’d fallen into a relationship accidentally, convenient but never satisfying. She scraped her fingernails over my scalp and told me about Shannon, how they’d fallen in love before her transition and Shannon promised her feelings wouldn’t change. I twisted her long hair around my fingertips and told her all my favorite things about San Francisco, how I used to run the length of the city every Sunday before I made Senior Associate, and she encouraged me to make time for it when I went back.

She rested her head on my chest with her arm around my waist and trusted me with the full story of her dad kicking her out and canceling her financial support: tuition, rent, phone. She told me how she’d stayed at a domestic violence shelter and the social worker helped her come up with a plan — including introductions at her alma mater in Vermont — which inspired her career choice.

Between our slow storytelling we’d drifted off, but when one of us stirred, we reached out and came back together, stroking and caressing and whispering until we fell back asleep. I’d never felt so satisfied. It wasn’t just the sex; there was something about Grace that made everything feel easy and light. So completely different from the high-pressure life I’d paused in San Francisco.

I dreaded the fact that I only had five days left before I had to go back, knowing that my abrupt departure and unresponsiveness would probably lead to retaliation. When I got in the cab in New York last week, bound for the mountains instead of the airport, I’d given up my chance at this round of promotions. The partners would expect another grueling year or two before giving me the nod.

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