Page 81 of War on Christmas

“Then finish, Sunshine,” he whispers back. But his free hand is roaming over me, gently pushing a braided loop from my forehead then dropping to trace the line of my collarbone. And every brush of his fingertips is fire, a meteor trailing heat and stardust in its wake.

“I can’t—” My breath hitches. “I can’tthinkwhen you’re touching me like that.”

“Mm.” He nods, like he’s mulling over my dilemma. “Can’t be that important then, can it?”

His smile is teasing as he leans in to kiss me. He knows what he’s doing. He knows what I still need to say, and it’s like he’s going to make mebegto say it.

Ha!Just because I’m crazy about him doesn’t mean I’m going to give up my favorite pastime. Which is, of course, driving him out of his mind. I mean, what would be the fun in that?

I shrug my shoulders. “You’re right,” I say, my voice airy as I lift my face to press my lips against his. “Nothing important at—”

“Say it,” he laughs, dropping my hands so he can cradle my face. He’s smiling that unabashed, megawatt smile that warms me from the inside out. “Please, Frey…”

“Sorry.” I stick my nose in the air. “I can’t seem to remember what I was about to—”

“Say it.”

He’s gone from laughing to growling like a beast, and I’ve never in my life been so delighted.

“What is wrong with my head? I just really can’t recall—”

“Say it.”

My snarling beast of a Viking changes tactics, and my eyes widen with glee as clothes start flying off me. The belt. The tunic. My lacy red bra. They fly across the hotel room, one after the other, like the frenzied shower of wrapping paper flying across a living room on Christmas morning. He’s unwrapping me like I’m the present he’s been waitingforeverto open. By the time he’s kneeling in front of me, tossing my boots over his shoulder and peeling the breeches down my legs, I’m shaking, my fingers digging into his hair to steady myself.

He just makes the land of Whoops! I’ve Gone Too Far so damn…exciting.

His eyes never leave mine as he slides my panties off then lifts my leg, hooking it over his broad shoulder. I’m completely naked, spread and exposed before him, while he hasn’t removed a stitch of clothing, and something about the drag of his cotton button-down shirt against the bare skin of my thigh feels dirty and wrong and so very, very right. His fingers rest on my stomach then drift down, over the hill of my pubic bone and into the slick folds between my legs. His eyes flare at how wet I already am, and he plunges two fingers inside me, stroking slow and steady and ruthless, and goddammit I’m going to come. I’m going to come, and I haven’t even said what I need to say because we get caught up in these games, but fuck it feels so good and—

“Say it, Sunshine.” His mouth is so close to my pussy his breath heats me as he speaks, and my thigh muscles start to tremble.

“Sorry—say what exactly?”

Never say I’m not a glutton for punishment.

Jeremy smiles as he reaches out his tongue and laps at my clit, one firm, lazy stroke that has my orgasm barreling down on me. I gasp, tightening my fingers in his hair. Me teasing him isn’tthatbad, right? It got me here, with his head buried between my legs, finger fucking me toward an earth-shattering orgasm. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life telling him that I love him. Every single day. I’m quite affectionate once I’ve decided someone’s mine. I’ll tell him right after I—

Without warning, he turns his head and nips at the secret ticklish spot on my inner thigh, and I squeal as my legs seize around him.

“Say it,” he whispers, his tongue tracing swirling patterns along the soft skin he bit. “Say it, Frey.”

And when I finally,finallydo, it feels like the most natural thing in the world. Like my first time walking out on a darkened stage, my scuffed-up Vans echoing across the wooden planks, my stomach falling with the uncanny sensation that I’d done it countless times before.

“I love you.” I use my grip on his hair to tip his head back so he can see my face. So he can see every ounce of affection and desire and love I can feel pulsing through me. “I love you, Jeremy. I know I got scared, and I know I fucked up, but it’s always been you, even if I haven’t—”

“I know, Freya. I love you, too.” He stands, toeing off his shoes as he unbuttons his shirt. My fingers are already at his belt, fumbling to unbuckle it. “Now say it again,” he rasps.

“I love you.”

He lowers his head, his lips brushing against mine. His shirt drops to the floor, and I press my chest to his, melting at the friction of his chest hair against my hard nipples.

“Again.”

“I love you.”

He demands it, again and again and again, and I give it willingly. After all, honesty is what I’m known for, and honestly? My love for this man is a part of me, spun into every fiber of my being. No more games, no more teasing, no more denying it. He’s my best friend. My biggest fan. My occasional tormentor—but always in a sexy kind of way.

My lover.

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