Page 12 of All the Way
“Aw, how sweet.” Paul dashes upstairs as I put my coffee down and hug Chris back.
“I thought you left.” I nuzzle into Chris’ crisp white shirt and breathe him in. He smells like wintergreen and snow, and his broad, muscular chest feels solid and strong against me.
“Sweetheart, no. I didn’t leave. I’m not going to do that.” He scoops my ass up in his hands and I’m met with the memory of last night again. His mouth against me, his lips, his hands holding me down and making me feel so amazingly good.
“Where did you go?” I ask quietly. I was relieved when he wasn’t there with me in my bed, and then the cold numbness that followed when I thought he was gone for good made me feel vulnerable and exposed. And now? Now I feel like I’ve been cut open for him to see everything, and I don’t know whether I should run and hide or ask him to do the same for me.
He lets go of me and starts fixing himself a cup of coffee. “In case you forgot, you happened to abandon your truck on the side of the road in a blizzard last night. Paul and I just spent the better part of the last two hours digging it out.”
“Oh.” I take a sip of my coffee and go back to my half-made pancake batter and shrug coolly. “Thanks for that.”
“I know a way you can repay me.” He leans against the counter and blows on his coffee, his sexy, pouty lips making me think naughty things.
He walks toward me and takes my coffee cup away from me like I’ve done something wrong, heat and fire burning in his eyes as he pushes me back against the counter, making a cage around me with his arms.
I look down to see the outline of his cock growing inside his pants, and he pushes it against me in response. “Want to know how you can thank me for digging out your truck?”
“And here I was,” I say, “thinking you did me some favor out of the kindness of your heart. I thought it was all for the spirit of the season.”
His tongue traces along his upper lip and he bends down, forcing his mouth onto my neck and nibbling softly at my tender skin. “It was all for you, baby. You can repay me by letting me get down on my knees and licking you until you come all over my face again. Or do you want me to carry you upstairs right now and fuck you senseless?”
My body slacks down against his. He captures me with his hands, gripping my arms and sending heat through my body at his touch and his words.
“I don’t know. You want a repeat of last night?” I ask softly. We both know I have to go back to California shortly. We both know this won’t last. We both know that all the questions we had a year ago are still burning and urgent.
“A repeat of last night? No, baby. I want that to be a permanent part of my life. Of yours too.” He starts to kiss my neck, nipping his teeth against my ear as he trails kisses down my body.
“I can’t right now,” I say, smiling, my body craving his touch. “I need to get breakfast ready.”
He straightens up and adjusts his shirt. He looked so hot last night in his lumberjack outfit, but now he looks even hotter in his dress shirt and tie.
“You were never one to wear something like that, were you?” I ask, starting to mix up the dry ingredients and turning my music back on my phone. I pop out the earbuds so we can both enjoy the music, and adjust the volume so it isn’t too loud to wake up my sister and parents.
Chris moves into the living room and picks up an ornament that fell off the tree overnight, putting it back on an empty branch. He isn’t putting it back in the right place, but he looks so cute and his butt looks so good in those pants that I let it slide.
“Nah,” he says, looking the tree up and down and then gazing out the window. “But I thought it was a special occasion. Wanted to spruce up the old look for my girl.”
“And what about your dad?” I ask, combining the dry and wet ingredients. “Have you talked to him yet? Is he coming over today?”
Chris keeps looking out the window. His model-good looks are making him seem like he stepped out right off of a website. His beard is really doing wonders for his sexiness level. Not that he wasn’t hot before - but now it’s on another level.
“Nah. I don’t think so,” he says, unmoving and matter-of-factly. “He isn’t really one to celebrate the holidays anymore, you know?”
I bite my lip and look down at the bowl of pancake batter starting to come together. “Right. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
Chris turns to me and flashes that gorgeous smile. “It’s nothing, babe.”
I feel stupid for having brought it up, and I hope he isn’t really mad at me under that smile. When my mom asked Chris last night to invite his dad over, I noticed a palpable shift in him. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Babe,” he says, crossing the living room and coming into the kitchen again. “Don’t worry about it. Please. You can’t do anything wrong. You’re incapable of it.”
He sets my mind at ease and I giggle. “Oh, sure. So leaving my truck on the side of the road was the right thing to do last night?”
“Absolutely. Young lady, you know you shouldn’t drive if you feel unsafe,” he says, wagging a finger at me.
“Have you ever thought about going into law enforcement?” I grab a pan from a cabinet and slice a pat of butter into it, turning on the old gas burner. A few clicks and it fires up.
“Now that you mention it, it might not be a bad career path for me.” He dips his finger into the pancake batter and licks it off, sending a little shock into my stomach. “Or maybe I just want the handcuffs that come with the gig.”
