Merry Me: A Holiday Romance, page 13
Easton leaned back just enough to look at me. His green eyes sparkled, that grin of his tipping toward wicked. “Didn’t think I’d ever hear that come out of your mouth, but I gotta say, I’m very into it.”
“Shut up,” I laughed, heat flushing my cheeks as I tugged him closer by the front of his coat. “You are not allowed to use this against me later.”
“Oh, baby,” he murmured, voice thick with heat as his mouth hovered over my skin. “I’m framing this moment and putting it on our mantel.”
I almost snorted. Almost. But I was too busy trying not to combust like a string of faulty Christmas lights.
This means nothing, I told myself. This is what sad, lonely people do during the holidays when thrust together with their emotionally-complicated, unfairly-hot exes. I was basically living in a Taylor Swift ballad, thank you very much. Probably “Evermore” if we’re being specific. This was totally natural.
This meant nothing.
His lips found the sensitive curve of my neck, trailing fire with every kiss. His beard scratched just right, making my breath hitch in the most humiliatingly obvious way. I arched into him without meaning to, my fingers fisting the lapels of his Santa jacket like I was trying to keep myself from floating away.
I could practically hear the inner sirens wailing. Danger! Danger! You’re slipping.
But they were also saying We ride at dawn.
So the situation was complicated.
“You remember what you said that first time we were together at Christmas,” he murmured, his lips brushing my ear, his voice like smoke and secrets.
I blinked, trying to keep up. “You mean…when I drank that peppermint schnapps and tried to make out with a snowman?”
He laughed low against my skin, the vibration of it tickling down to very inappropriate places. “No, not that time. The other first time.”
I shook my head, breath catching. My brain cells were currently on sabbatical. But also, he was being very talkative for Santa. I wanted more ho ho ho and less reminding me that he was the best I’d ever had.
“You told me you wished you hadn’t fought me for so long,” he continued, his voice suddenly softer, rawer. “That we could’ve just been together from the very beginning.”
Oh. That first time.
His hands slid beneath my sweater, fingers brushing over the bare skin of my stomach. I sucked in a breath.
“That must’ve been drunk me,” I said, attempting a light tone as panic nudged at my ribcage…even though I’d said that way before I’d ever tried alcohol. “She’s a bit of a romantic and can’t be trusted. Honestly, she’s embarrassing.”
Maybe I should quote those Taylor lyrics to him so he would understand what was supposed to be happening here.
Might drive the point home, right?
He grinned against my neck. “She’s my favorite version of you.”
“Well,” I muttered, “she’s definitely not here today.”
But even I didn’t believe it.
Easton pulled my sweater over my head, revealing the lacy red bra I’d worn on a whim…a hoochie mama whim, obviously. His gaze roamed over me, dark and heavy. “This is what you wore for brunch?”
I lifted my chin. “Maybe I wore it for Santa.”
He groaned low and guttural, and suddenly I felt like the most powerful woman on earth.
With a reverence that made my breath catch, he lowered his mouth to my chest. His hands spanned my back, undoing the clasp like he’d been born with the skill. I gasped when his lips wrapped around one aching nipple, his tongue flicking, teasing, worshiping like I was something holy.
“Easton,” I breathed, head falling back.
He growled softly, trailing his kisses lower, down the curve of my stomach, pushing my skirt up around my hips.
“I feel like this might break some kind of North Pole code,” I whispered.
“Pretty sure the only pole Santa’s worried about right now is mine,” Easton muttered as his fingers slipped beneath the waistband of my thong, sliding through my slick folds. I gasped, my hips bucking toward him hand.
“So ready,” he murmured, his voice almost reverent. “Always so damn ready for me.”
He dropped to his knees, lifting one leg over his shoulder as my dress slid up my thighs. I gasped as his mouth found me, licking and sucking with lazy, devastating precision, like he had nowhere else to be. My fingers tangled in his thick, tousled hair, grounding myself as the storm of him built around me.
“Fuck,” he growled, pausing just long enough to rip the fake beard from his face and toss it across the room.
“Hey,” I breathed, only half kidding. “I was kind of into that.”
I whimpered as he dove back between my thighs, his tongue licking through my slit before he sucked hard on my clit.
He glanced up at me, his green eyes dark with heat and mischief. “I’ll grow the beard later, baby. But I’m not walking into brunch smelling like your perfect pussy unless you want me to start breaking noses. That scent?” He grinned, wild and wicked. “That scent’s mine. And God help anyone who thinks otherwise.”
“There’s a lot of things wrong with what you just said,” I gasped, and then promptly forgot how to speak as he dove back in.
“I—” I tried again, but my words vanished as he slid two fingers inside me, curling just right, just as his mouth closed around the sensitive bundle of nerves that made me see stars.
My back arched off the desk as the orgasm slammed through me, fast and blinding.
I was still trembling, still trying to catch my breath, when he rose and crushed his lips to mine.
He kissed me like he’d missed it, like he was trying to memorize me with his mouth. I moaned at the taste of him, of me, of everything we’d ever been and everything we still could be…and tried to ignore how much it undid me.
“You always taste like heaven,” he murmured, his voice low and wrecked with need.
Easton shoved the Santa pants down, his erection springing free. I reached for him, wrapping my hand around his length, stroking him slow and deliberate…trying not to think about the fact that he had the most perfect dick on the planet.
“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath.
Before I could catch my breath, he growled and flipped me over, pressing my breasts against the cool surface of the desk.
Very un-Santa-like.
I tried to pretend like this room was never used and that Margaret and her husband never came back here to do paperwork. If I pretended that, it wouldn’t be so weird later on when she inevitably tried to shove a Christmas cookie down my throat.
I barely had time to brace myself before I heard the sound of fabric rustling, the soft thud of boots hitting the floor. I turned my head just in time to catch sight of him—gloriously bare, his body lean and strong and every inch of him tattooed into my memory already. He was still wearing the Santa hat. Of course he was.
Fuck. Forget Santa-kink. My unfortunate real kink was everything Easton Maddox.
“Hope you’ve been nice this year,” he said as he rubbed my ass, his gaze focused on where the head of his cock was pressed up against my soaked slit.
“Define nice,” I shot back, breathless.
He responded by spanking me. Once. Sharp and delicious. The sound echoed, and I gasped, the sting fading into warmth as my body responded with a traitorous rush of slickness.
“Look at you,” he rasped, dragging his fingers through my arousal. “My perfect, dirty girl. Soaking wet for Santa’s cock.”
I moaned, because I was only human, and this was extremely fucking hot.
His hands had a possessive touch as they moved across my skin, reverent and teasing all at once.
Then, a beat later, he started pushing in.
“Fuck. Wait just a sec—” I moaned, because no matter how wet I was…it was always going to be a tight fit when a cock that big of a monster was trying to get in.
It needed a warning label. Something like: Please stretch responsibly.
Easton thrust in with a growl, burying himself to the hilt in one smooth, devastating motion that had me seeing stars, stripes, and everything in between.
Count me out. I’d just been sliced in two…or at least that’s what it felt like. Had he gotten bigger since high school? Because it felt that way.
He groaned behind me, the sound vibrating down my spine. “Still so tight, Trouble. Like your body remembers I’m the only one who’s ever really filled it.”
I tried to think of a witty comeback—maybe something involving a traffic jam or a construction permit—but my brain was currently being jackhammered by pleasure.
Easton gripped my hips, his fingers digging in, his rhythm quickening, each thrust rougher than the last. The desk creaked underneath us, my nails scraping across the polished surface as he took me hard, deep…relentless.
“You can pretend this means nothing,” he panted, leaning over me so that his mouth brushed my ear. “You can lie to yourself all you want. But you’re mine, Natalie. You always have been. And I’m not walking away this time.”
His words hit harder than the thrust that followed, and I nearly buckled.
I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood, staring at a roll of Christmas-themed packing tape on the desk and briefly, seriously, considering the logistics of duct-taping his stupid, beautiful, infuriating mouth closed.
“Don’t talk,” I gritted out, already breathless. “Just—”
He slammed into me again, hitting that perfect spot with merciless precision.
“Just what?” he asked, smug and wrecked and glorious.
“Just keep doing that,” I moaned as the world blurred at the edges.
He chuckled darkly, then did exactly that, pounding into me relentlessly, each thrust sending sparks of pleasure racing up my spine. I could feel the intensity building, my body trembling beneath him. He wrapped a hand around my waist, pulling me back to meet every drive of his hips.
“You feel so fucking good,” he groaned. “Like you were made for me.”
I blinked at those words, and suddenly I was in the past.
We were seventeen, lying on our backs in the bed of Easton’s truck out on the ridge, the stars stretching endlessly above us like someone had spilled a jar of glitter across the velvet sky.
The air was crisp, sharp enough to turn our breaths into fog, but neither of us minded. Not with the way the flannel blanket was tucked around us, or the way our bodies had inched closer and closer, sharing warmth that had nothing to do with the weather.
The world was quiet up there, like it had taken a breath and held it just for us.
“Do you think there’s one person for everyone?” Easton asked, his voice low, almost reverent, like he was afraid that speaking too loud might scare the stars away—or maybe me.
I didn’t answer right away.
I thought of my parents. Of how my mom used to look at my dad like he held the moon in his pocket, only for him to vanish one day like none of it had mattered. One suitcase. One voicemail. No apologies. Just…gone.
She’d believed he was her soulmate. She’d said it with certainty, like it was a fact, like gravity.
And then she’d cried for a week straight. Screamed his name into the sink one night when she thought we were asleep. Said it like it was a curse.
So, I didn’t know what I believed. Maybe I didn’t want to believe in something that fragile.
As much as it felt like love with Easton, I always reminded myself that love could crack. That it could wither under pressure or bleed out slowly and quietly when no one was watching. That it left.
“I don’t know,” I said finally, staring up at the constellations. Orion. Cassiopeia. Shapes that had been there forever, even when everything else fell apart. “I guess…maybe. But if there is, it’s probably rare. And people mess it up all the time.”
There was a long pause. Then I felt his hand reach for mine, our fingers tangling together, warm even through our gloves.
I turned to him, heart thudding like it was trying to speak for me, but I didn’t know what it would say.
His eyes caught the starlight, and I swore they looked brighter than anything overhead.
“I think you were made just for me,” he said, his voice so sure it scared me more than anything else in the world.
My breath caught. My heart stuttered and then thundered, slamming against my ribs like it wanted to leap right into his hands.
“Easton…”
He didn’t give me time to say more. Maybe he knew I’d try to ruin it with logic or fear or something else that had nothing to do with him.
“You’re my one, Natalie. I’ve always known it. And I won’t mess it up.”
I hadn’t said anything then.
But I’d never forgotten it.
Not his voice. Not that night. Not the way his hand held mine like it belonged there.
Not for a single heartbeat since.
I blinked, and I was back, and the memory shattered something in me.
I cried out, my release crashing over me like a dam finally giving way. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t sweet. It was raw and relentless, rolling through my body like it had been waiting years to escape.
He followed moments later with a strangled groan, his body stiffening as he thrust deep one final time. I felt the rush of him inside me, the heat, the way he muttered my name like a curse, like a prayer, like he’d never meant anything more in his life.
For a long beat, neither of us moved.
Thank fuck I was on birth control…because that was definitely a lot of cum dripping down my thighs. Holy hell.
We were still wrapped around each other, skin slick with sweat, breath coming in uneven pants. I trembled in his arms, the aftershocks pulsing through me as if my body were unwilling to let the moment go.
He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me up against his chest, his mouth finding my shoulder…soft, reverent kisses that stole the last bit of fight I had left.
“Still think this doesn’t mean anything?” he whispered, and this time, it wasn’t teasing. It was quiet. It was vulnerable. He kissed my shoulder again. And again. Like he could will the answer out of my skin.
I didn’t reply.
I couldn’t.
Because the truth was already unraveling inside me, slipping through the cracks in my denial like light through a broken window.
He pressed a kiss to my temple, then murmured almost to himself, “No one else could ever come close.”
The words didn’t register at first—just a quiet rumble in the haze of the afterglow.
But then my brain snagged on them, turning them over, examining them under a light that was far too bright.
I blinked. My stomach did a slow, swoopy somersault, one of those queasy-giddy-nauseous flips that only came when you were in serious, serious trouble. Emotionally compromised. Teetering on the edge of falling all the way back in.
I stared at the ceiling. Willed the words to leave me alone.
But then I did the worst thing imaginable.
I opened my mouth.
“So…” I said, my voice raspy.
He loosened his arms, enough for me to roll and face him. His green eyes were heavy-lidded but alert, his brows raised in anticipation.
“Yes, Natalie,” he said patiently, like he already knew I was about to be annoying.
I cleared my throat, trying for breezy. “I mean, it kind of just sounded like I’m…still number one on your list. Which—don’t get me wrong—isn’t surprising. I’m excellent. Like, if I were a Yelp review, I’d be five stars. With photos. And a waiting list.”
His mouth twitched.
“But,” I added quickly, “it’s maybe…slightly surprising. I imagine all those Hollywood girls are pretty good in bed.” The last part of the sentence came out in a whisper, barely audible over my mortification. I stared at the wall behind him, pretending to be fascinated by a festive garland that was definitely not worth dying over.
His mouth did an amused smirking thing that I personally did not like, but which my lady parts did like. A lot.
Ugh.
“Hmm. I wouldn’t know,” he finally said.
I blinked again. “What does that mean?” I asked slowly, like maybe I’d misheard him. Like maybe the post-orgasmic fog had translated it all wrong.
He hesitated, his expression shifting. That teasing glint in his eye dimmed, replaced by something unreadable—guarded, but not cold. Something almost too sincere. He shook his head a second later, shrugging it off. “Forget it.”
Because clearly, he was messing with me. That had to be it. Right? It was just some flirty post-sex nonsense. A joke. A throwaway comment to keep the mood light.
Except…
“Okay,” I said, trying not to sound as thrown as I felt. “It kind of sounds like you’re trying to say you haven’t been with anyone else.” I rolled my eyes and added, “You can tell me the truth, you know. I’m a big girl. I can take it.”
There was a pause. A long one.
And then I noticed I’d closed my eyes, like I was bracing myself for a blow. Like I’d rather not see his face when he laughed and told me I was being ridiculous.
But the laugh never came.
Instead, there was silence. And more silence. Thick, tense, electric.
I opened my eyes.
And promptly forgot how to breathe.
Easton was staring at me. Really staring. His gaze pinned me like a butterfly beneath glass—open, raw, stripped of all the glossy charm I’d come to expect from him. There was no smirk. No smug grin. Just heat. And something else that terrified me more than all of it.
He reached up and gently tapped under my chin, nudging it closed. I hadn’t even realized my mouth had fallen open.
“I’m not joking,” he said, his voice rough…his words rasping against the quiet like sandpaper.
Time slowed.
No. Time stopped.
A thousand things crashed through me at once. Shock, obviously. But also disbelief, panic, confusion…and underneath all of that, a dangerous swell of longing that made my chest feel tight.
He meant it.
