Merry Me: A Holiday Romance, page 11
And apparently, mine had left the chat.
I’d tried to convince myself I’d just been remembering it wrong. Everything must have felt huge as a virgin with zero experience with any dicks but his. But nope. I hadn’t been imagining anything. The huge pole trying to find its home was like a giant boa constrictor.
And I was thirsty for it.
Easton smirked against my mouth like he knew, the arrogant bastard, and I felt the low, lazy roll of his hips, like he was deliberately letting me feel what I’d been missing.
When he pulled back, I chased his lips, whimpering in a blind, lust-driven haze.
“Fuck,” I whispered, eyes fluttering. “You’re still ridiculously big.”
“You’re still ridiculously sexy,” he shot back, his lips brushing mine like he couldn’t stay away for more than a second. “We all have our curses.”
I whimpered, actually whimpered, like some kind of Victorian ghost with a corset problem. My fingers tightened in his hair, and when he pulled back again, just slightly, I followed him instinctively, breathless and wild.
“I need…” I didn’t even know what I was about to say. A glass of water? A fire extinguisher? A lobotomy?
“Don’t worry, baby. I’m going to give us both what we need,” Easton murmured, the words rough and reverent as he dropped to his knees in front of me.
Time fractured.
The brick wall scraped against my back, grounding me in the here and now, but everything else, the cold air, the noise from the bar, the ache in my chest that hadn’t eased since I walked away…faded to nothing.
He looked up at me like I was something holy.
“Easton.” I gasped, already trembling as his hands slid over my thighs and pushed up my dress. His palms were warm and steady, anchoring me even as they made me feel like I might fall apart. He leaned in, dragging the bridge of his nose up the center of my panties, inhaling like he was starved for the scent of me.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “You’re even better than I remembered.”
Easton shoved my panties aside, his fingers dragging over my smooth skin before he slid them through my folds.
“So fucking wet for me, sweetheart,” he breathed, a smug smile on his lips.
The way he said it—like he was wrecked with the knowledge—shouldn’t have sent a shiver down my spine, but it did. It was the honesty in it. The ache.
“I…” I tried to say something, anything. But my body was louder than my voice, already rocking against his touch.
“Tell me what you want,” he said, fingers teasing, hovering just shy of where I needed him.
I was literally shaking against the brick wall of the building as I tried to focus on not collapsing into a puddle. The cold didn’t seem to exist as I stared down at him, flames licking across my skin.
“Do it,” I rasped. “Make me come.” The words fell out before I could catch them.
“Fuck, I missed you,” he murmured, sliding two fingers inside me like he’d never stopped knowing how to touch me. I bit down on my lip, my head falling back against the wall as he rubbed against that perfect spot inside me. His thumb circled my clit in slow, devastating strokes, and I sobbed.
He pressed a kiss to my inner thigh, his stubble scraping my skin in the way I used to crave. “You’re so tight,” he groaned as his fingers fucked in and out of me in the perfect rhythm.
Had it always felt this good? This right?
Fuck. It had.
“Such a greedy pussy,” he murmured, pulling his fingers out and lightly slapping my core.
“Easton,” I panted, my body bowing toward him as he thrust his fingers back inside me. I felt like I was flying and unraveling at the same time.
“I fucking love it.” He forced another finger inside, and I thrashed against him, my body trying to stretch the way he wanted me to. Easton ripped my underwear off like it had offended him, throwing them somewhere behind him before he caught my thigh and lifted it over his shoulder.
“Fuck,” I gasped as he buried his face against my sex, his tongue sucking and flicking as it moved through my folds. I gripped his hair, holding him against me, well aware how intimate this was.
I’d never admit this, but I hadn’t let anyone go down on me since I’d broken up with him. It had felt too personal…too much.
And now here I was giving it to my ex in the back alley of a bar.
Classy, Natalie. Real classy.
That thought slipped away as his hand squeezed my ass and his lips sucked hard on my clit.
Fuck being classy. This felt far too good.
I squeezed my thighs, crying out at the sensation of his fingers and his tongue and his rough stubble scratching against my skin.
“Missed this, baby. You taste like fucking heaven,” he growled as his tongue replaced his fingers in my core, lapping in and out of me for a moment before he pulled away. I watched wide-eyed as he unbuttoned his jeans, his giant cock springing out, the tip angry and hot-looking. I was in a fever dream as pre-cum dribbled from his head, dripping on the concrete beneath him.
My mouth was literally watering staring at it.
“Can’t have me coming in my pants when we’re going to have to go back in there after this,” he rasped.
“Right.” I gasped, feeling like I might be able to come just from watching him start to jack himself off.
Hearing him in the shower today…another thing I’d never admit, it had almost broken me.
This, though, this was definitely going to break me.
Easton went back to work, and my hands fisted in his hair as I thrashed against his face. Fuck. This was another reason that I hadn’t even bothered.
I was quite sure that no other guy could ever eat me out like this. Easton gave me head like it was his favorite thing in the world. Like he actually craved it. He was moaning as he licked through my folds, tonguing my clit as his hand that wasn’t fucking into me pulled at his dick.
I panted, arching against his face as he forced another finger inside me.
Sucking and licking, he pushed me closer to the edge.
“Yes, yes, yes,” I chanted, about shrieking when his finger suddenly grazed there.
The bar door started to open, and he ripped his face out from between my legs. “Get the fuck out of here,” he growled, sounding a little…crazy. The door slammed shut so fast I wasn’t even sure who’d tried to come out—who might’ve seen what we were doing.
But Easton didn’t care.
He got right back to work, like he needed to worship me to stay alive, tonguing my clit as everything in me tightened.
“So close,” I breathed.
He growled against me, and that sound alone might’ve tipped me over the edge. But then his fingers curled just right, and the orgasm crashed through me so violently that my scream was swallowed by the night air. My body thrashed against his mouth, every muscle seizing as the world turned white.
Tears were sliding down my cheeks from how good it felt.
Easton didn’t give me time to think. “On your knees,” he suddenly commanded, and without a thought I dropped to the cold ground, still shaking, my heart hammering against my ribs like it was trying to warn me of what I already knew—this was dangerous. This was everything.
Easton’s hand was tight around himself, his chest rising and falling in hard, ragged pants. His eyes were wild, burning with something too bright to name. “Open up, Trouble.”
I did. Obediently. Like I always had for him.
A strangled gasp erupted from his chest as he came, ropes of cum hitting my tongue and my face and my neck as he fucked his fist. I swallowed what I could, moaning at the flavor of him. It was so much better than I’d remembered. I licked my lips, trying to capture each drop as my fingers scooped up the sticky mess on my chin and chest.
Easton just watched.
His gaze burned. His breathing ragged.
We stayed like that, our gasps filling the air around us, our eyes tangled in a silent war as he watched me taste him.
Then sense started to return, slowly, like creeping frost.
I froze, my finger still pressed to my tongue.
What the hell had just happened?
I had thought, stupidly, that maybe this would get him out of my system. That I’d finally feel closure. Like I’d scratched the itch and could walk away clean.
But no. I wanted him.
Even more.
My whole body still ached for him, my skin burning where he’d touched me, my heart pounding with the echo of everything we hadn’t said.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I grabbed the front of his shirt, yanking him toward me, and frantically used the fabric to wipe the remaining slickness from my chest.
“Natalie,” he murmured, but I couldn’t stay to see what he wanted to talk about. I scrambled to my feet, practically sprinting up the alley to where the street beckoned me like a safe haven.
The cold air burned my lungs as I ran, my heels slipping on the wet pavement.
“Natalie, wait—”
Nope. Not happening. Because if I waited, I might look back. And if I looked back, I might go back. And if I went back…
We all knew how that story ended.
I shoved through the front doors of the bar like I was storming a battlefield, weaving around a couple pressed against the wall in a sloppy, open-mouthed embrace. The music was louder now—too loud—the bass thumping so hard it vibrated in my chest, but none of it could drown out the noise in my head.
I beelined for a different bar across the room. New bartender. New location. New identity, maybe?
Because the last one? The one who’d let her ex kneel in front of her like a sinner in a confessional and come undone in an alley behind a karaoke bar? That version of her needed to go into witness protection.
“Whiskey,” I barked, sliding onto the barstool like a woman on a mission. “And make it a double.”
The bartender, a guy with tattooed forearms and an eyebrow piercing, barely blinked before pouring.
I grabbed the glass and knocked it back in one go, relishing the burn. It chased down the taste of him still clinging to my lips, my tongue, my soul.
Fuck.
What was wrong with me?
I tapped the bar for another, throat tight, stomach twisted, and lifted the second drink to my lips just as the hairs on the back of my neck rose like a warning flare.
I didn’t have to turn around.
I knew he was there.
Easton’s presence rolled over me like a fog…thick, suffocating, laced with memories I didn’t want but couldn’t forget. I could feel him at my back, feel the weight of his stare burrowing into the soft, cracked places I’d spent years patching up.
I swallowed hard, then took another sip. Slower this time. Like it made me seem more in control. Like I wasn’t completely falling apart on the inside.
The stool next to me scraped across the floor, and my sister—because of course—slid in beside me, her face flushed with alcohol and a little too much glee.
She propped her elbows on the bar and gave me a once-over.
Then she glanced over her shoulder. To him. Still standing near the back exit, arms crossed, jaw tight, eyes trained on me like I was some fragile bird he’d broken and didn’t know how to fix.
And then her gaze slid back to me.
Her smirk was slow. Sharp. A dagger dipped in glitter.
“Guess I won my bet,” she said casually, like I hadn’t just emotionally combusted behind a dumpster.
I scowled and threw back another shot.
The warmth spread through my veins, but it wasn’t enough to erase the truth—
I was screwed.
CHAPTER 10
NATALIE
Pain.
That was the first thing I registered. A dull, throbbing ache that pounded behind my eyes like a sledgehammer. Every muscle in my body had apparently filed a formal complaint, and I wanted to burrow under the covers and never emerge again.
The second thing I noticed?
I wasn’t alone.
The realization slithered in slowly, creeping through the fog of my hangover. A heavy arm was wrapped around my waist like it had a right to be there, fingers resting low on my hip in a way that screamed possessive and delicious and deeply unhelpful to my sense of self-preservation. My limbs were tangled around him like I was some kind of desperate, drunk octopus. My leg was tossed over narrow hips like I’d been practicing for a gymnastics event in my sleep. My cheek? Firmly planted against smooth, naked man-chest.
Oh no.
Oh no, no, no.
I cracked one eye open.
Easton.
His name flashed in my brain like a neon warning sign. My stomach flipped—possibly from the hangover, possibly from the sheer hotness of him lying there looking like a GQ spread. Hair a mess. Eyelashes obnoxiously thick. Jaw shadowed with stubble that had definitely done things to me last night.
My brain short-circuited.
Fuck.
This was not how the morning after was supposed to go. There was supposed to be a healthy amount of regret and maybe a hasty escape wrapped in a comforter. There was definitely not supposed to be cuddling. And definitely not this much touching.
His hand flexed in his sleep, gripping my hip tighter like even unconscious Easton wasn’t ready to let me go.
Memories from last night came rushing back. The alley. His mouth. My mouth. The way we’d devoured each other like we were starving, like we were trying to make up for all the lost time in one night.
And then?
The bar.
I had gone back to the bar and promptly started to drink. Possibly a hundred of those devil drinks, aka Rudolph’s Nose or whatever they’d been called. And whiskey. So much whiskey. I remembered lifting a glass like I was toasting to my own destruction.
Apparently, I’d succeeded.
Fuck. It hurt to think.
At some point I’d obviously blacked out.
I groaned internally, squeezing my eyes shut as if that would somehow rewind time and undo the absolute disaster I had walked into on my own two feet.
Or my vagina. I was pretty sure that my traitorous vagina had been steering last night’s ship, and clearly she’d decided to go down with it. In spectacular fashion.
I should move. I needed to move.
I would move.
Any second now.
Except the second I tried to shift away from him, my body revolted like I was betraying it. My head pounded in angry pulses, my stomach twisted in a way that did not feel promising, and everything, everything, felt like it had been run over by a Mack truck.
I felt gross. Hungover and sticky and in dire need of a shower.
Easton let out a low sigh in his sleep, his chest rising and falling against mine in the rhythm of someone completely at peace.
Must be nice.
I stared at the ceiling, debating whether I should try to sneak out or just die right here. But the warmth of him, the safety I hadn’t felt in so long, it wrapped around me like a blanket I didn’t remember missing until it was back.
Just for a second, I told myself.
Just one, tiny, hungover second.
I’d lie here.
Let the room stop spinning. Let the nausea fade. Then I’d escape this tangled mess of limbs and lust and lies with what little remained of my dignity.
That was the plan.
The very solid, very reasonable plan.
But instead of eventually moving…I melted.
The tension drained from my shoulders. My fingers relaxed their death grip on the sheet. My head dropped back against his chest like it had always belonged there.
And before I could talk myself out of it, before I could remind myself of the million reasons this was a bad idea…I drifted off again.
Warm. Sated. Safe.
Curled in the arms of the one man I had absolutely sworn I was over.
EASTON
I wasn’t going to let her avoid me.
She was trying. I’d give her that. Like her life depended on it. Like eye contact might actually kill her. Frankly, it was adorable.
We were at some post-party event Paige and Levi were calling a Hangover Brunch—complete with a Bloody Mary bar, mimosas in the hands of toddlers—Okay, not really, but it felt that way—and whispers of a Santa appearance. The whole thing felt like a fever dream of holiday chaos, but it was a good call. Nearly everyone who’d been at karaoke last night had been obliterated. Including Natalie.
My Natalie.
Fuck, she’d been cute last night…just soft and tipsy enough to stop pretending she didn’t want to hold my hand. Her head had rested on my shoulder like it had always belonged there. I’d even snuck a couple selfies of us while she wasn’t looking—nothing scandalous, just her tucked into my side with the kind of peace on her face that made my chest hurt.
I’d wait to show her those, though. Timing was everything. Right now, she’d probably scream and launch her mimosa at me if I even hinted at them.
Speaking of mimosas…Natalie was currently sitting as far from me as physically possible in the room. Her focus was laser-pointed on the glass in front of her like it held the answers to all of life’s mysteries. Or, more likely, like she could manifest it into a shield and block me from her memory entirely.
I watched her, taking a sip of my coffee and pretending to care about the guy in a reindeer onesie making balloon animals. She was flustered.
And she hated that she was flustered.
I knew her too well—her tells, her habits, the way her foot tapped when she was anxious or overstimulated. She was at war with herself right now, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t entertaining as hell.
But I wasn’t here to play. I was here to win her back.
I smirked to myself, strolling over to the buffet and loading up a plate—not for me. For her. The plate practically looked like it had been curated by a personal chef who’d spent years studying her exact taste buds. Blueberry pancakes. Crisp bacon. Scrambled eggs with a ridiculous amount of cheese. I even made her a coffee exactly how she liked it, a splash of milk, two shots of espresso, and five tablespoons of sugar…because I wasn’t above playing dirty.
