Page 29 of Just Say Christmas
He said, “Behave yourself.”
He said it softly, but she opened her eyes and smiled at him, all the wickedness in the world in it, and asked, “Or what?”
Oh, bloody hell. He was in trouble here. He moved on to her toes, pulling on each one in turn, and she didn’t close her eyes. She kept watching him instead, and her smile got more knowing with every second.
By the time he was doing her other foot, he was sweating, and when they moved on from feet and his hands were on her quadriceps again, shaking the muscle, then kneading it some more, rubbing deep circles into her white thighs, and her legs were parting like she couldn’t help it? He was worse.
“This is where you take your edging up another notch, when you’re alone,” Chrysalis said, when he was up as far as he could get in public, half of him feeling impossibly exposed and absolutely uncomfortable, and the other half not wanting to stop. “As you’renotalone, I’ll give you some ideas to try later.”
He was counting backwards from a thousand, and it wasn’t working. To one side of him, he heard Koti say, “Well,thisis unusual.” On his other side, Nico said, “I’m ignoring you lot, so you know.” He didn’t say anything himself. He couldn’t have thought of what to say. He didn’t know what Will said, either, even though a ten was always going to saysomething,because tens didn’t know how to shut up. Fortunately, he couldn’t hear him over the music.
In the center of the circle, her silver curls lit from beneath by a dozen candles, Chrysalis raised a beringed hand, the sleeve of her purple dress dropping down her arm, all of her looking like a high priestess summoning the spirits, or possibly somebody on a Tarot card, and said, “As you keep working on her thighs, as you watch them parting, I want you to think about cupping her yoni in one hand, letting her feel the warmth, and letting her feel you there. Letting her knowyou’re right there with her. When you think it’s gone on long enough, when you’ve asked her how it feels and she’s asked you to continue, you’ll move on to gentle squeezing. Hold the two sides of her yoni between your fingers and move slowly down, and then back up again, always remembering that the point isn’t how fast you can get her there, it’s how slowly you can do it. Hold that intention, visualize that process, and prepare yourself for those moments, thoseminutes,and for the patience you’ll summon. Your patience will make everything so much better for her. You’ll let her go deeper, and you’ll help her go longer. We’ll take a little longer ourselves, have a few breaths here in this perfect place, before we swap over and let her have her turn with you. For now, think about that slow, steady squeezing. Think about reading her breathing, coming closer, then backing off. Think about her trembling right at the edge, and how good you’re going to make her feel.”
As he watched, Nyree’s eyes drifted shut, and the muscles under his hands tensed. He kept going on her thighs and thought,Don’t you dare. Don’t do it.She was breathing harder right the bloody hellnow,and what was he meant to do here?
He said, “Don’t.” Quietly, because how could he say it louder? The skin was prickling on his arms. That thing about the hundreds of thousands of kilometers of nerve fibers? That was him, because every bit of him was focused in one place, and all of him was focused on her. He needed to be driving into her sweet body more than he’d ever needed anything in his life, and he couldn’t do anything about it.
She opened her eyes and stared into his, nearly blindly, and said, “I can’t . . . help it. You’re so . . . red,” on a whisper, and the muscles under his palms tightened some more. Her feet were flexing again, her hips going rigid.“Marko.”
The shudder rose in her, took her in its grasp, and he stood there and watched it happen. He’d have backed off—he’d have done anything to back off—but he didn’t know how. She was trembling, shaking, exactly as advertised, and then she rolled onto her back and convulsed in a long, slow, full-body shudder. Her teeth closed on her lower lip, her hands gripped the edges of the table, and then she clapped one palm over her mouth and stared at him, her eyes wide. Marko glanced wildly at Chrysalis, and she said, “And . . . let’s take a moment longer,” and turned the music up a notch. And Marko stood there, held Nyree’s thighs in his hands, felt her come, and then felt her keep right on doing it.
He could stand any amount of physical exertion anyone could possibly ask of him. He could go hard for the full eighty minutes, and then he could keep on going. When other men had had enough, he was just getting started.
This, though? This was too much to ask. He couldn’t.
* * *
Nyree
She knew she wasn’t supposed to. She knew it was killing Marko, too. His face was rigid, his big hands gone tense around her thighs, the muscles bunching in his forearms. She couldn’t help it. It was all she could do to keep quiet.
She couldn’tstop.It just kept going. She wanted to say,Sorry.She wanted to laugh at the look on Marko’s face. All she could feel, though, were the rolling waves of pleasure breaking over her body, and what was worse, or better, or impossible? It was stillgoing.
After a minute, though, or possibly ten, she was finally shaking in the aftermath, knowing that all it would take was another touch to start her up all over again, and Marko was saying something. She focused on trying to listen. “I think we’ll miss this next part out,” he was telling Chrysalis. As assured as always, but with an edge to it. She knew exactly what that edge was. “Nyree’s come over a bit faint,” he explained, the words practically jerked out of him. “Pregnant, eh. Too much lying down.”
A bitfaint?Nobody was going to believe that. She tried to think what to say instead, but he was pulling her up to sit. “Come on, baby,” he said. “Let’s get you to bed.” After which he picked her up in his arms and carried her into the house.
She wanted to laugh again. She didn’t, because, as it happened, shedidwant to go to bed. So she wrapped her arm around his shoulders instead, waited until they were in the kitchen, which was fortunately unoccupied, and finally said, “You did really well,” then turned her head and kissed the broad, strong column of his neck. After that, she bit it. Tasted salty. She’d made him sweat, and maybe it wasa good thing that he was carrying her. Her legs might be a little shaky. Or a lot shaky. Her wholeselfwas shaky.
But then, it had been onehellof a massage. She said, between bites and licks at the side of his neck, which made him go even more rigid against her, and made him walk faster, too, up the stairs, “You didn’t get your turn, though. I wanted to do it for you.”
“That’s why we left,” he said, not out of breath at all, of course, like carrying her was nothing, even though she wasn’t exactly a lightweight at this point. “I get my turn. Right the hell now.”
“Oh?” The blood was thick in her veins, her skin slick with oil, but she also still wanted to laugh. “Not sure I can do it as well as you did. I just had the orgasm of a bloodylifetime.Good job, boy. But I didn’t even get to hear what my edging techniques are, the ones I get to use on you.”
“Consider me edged. Door two, three, four . . . which one is it? I can’t remember. Why doesn’t anybody leave their door open?”
“Didn’t you get your copy of Vic’s map?” She was feeling better and better about this. What was it about getting under Marko’s skin that was so satisfying?
“Careful,” he growled.
“Ooh,” she said, “I’m scared now. What are you going to do, give me a spanking? Next one on the right.”
He said, “If you weren’t pregnant . . .” Then, finally, he was inside the door, shutting it by throwing his back against it—Marko was always efficient—reaching the bed in two strides, setting her on it, unhooking her bikini top, and shoving the bottoms down her legs. “Get on your knees,” he told her. “Belly down between them.”
“What happened to asking nicely?” She was having some trouble breathing, because he wasn’t grabbing her. He’d switched on the light beside the bed and yanked off his own togs, and now, he was just standing there, his face hard and his big body harder, his dark eyes burning hot, waiting for her to do it, like she wouldn’t dare do anything else. His whole self pulsed deep-red with energy, and he made her forget all about her goals and her agency and her selfhood. He made her regress to some earlier time, like it was five hundred years ago, and she was his.
“I’m done asking nicely,” he said. “Do it.”
