Santa Baby: a Crescent Cove Romantic Comedy Collection Read online

  The vibration of his growl made my skin prickle. Somehow, I’d thought I could just walk in and make this work. It wasn’t as if I was a complete novice about sex. I hadn’t actually had it, but I was a woman with needs. Some nights the only way I’d gotten to sleep with the stress and frustration of my life was to take care of myself.

  But I’d been deluding myself that it compared to reality in any way.

  He lowered his face until our gazes collided. “What?”

  “I…”

  “You…what?” He laughed. “You can tell me anything. You know that.” His dark brows pinched together. “Has someone hurt you?”

  “No! Oh, God, no.” I blew out a breath. I was doing this all wrong. I slid out of his arms and paced the wide living space. “It’s not that. In fact, quite the opposite.”

  He tunneled his fingers through his hair and gripped the back of his neck. His anger and heat had ignited a dangerous prickle of excitement in my bloodstream. That he’d been so upset on my behalf was only one of the reasons I was so head over heels about this idiot. “What does that mean?”

  As a hint of something I couldn’t read filled his eyes, suddenly it was Seth who was pacing the length of the room.

  He tugged the tails of his shirt out of his jeans. “You aren’t telling me what I think you’re telling me.”

  I pushed a wild curl out of my face. My hair was finally drying and my curls were a little intense, thanks to the rain. “I mean, I know it’s crazy, but look at it from my point of view. I’m always working, or I was always taking care of my mom. I didn’t really have much time to date.”

  I couldn’t spit out the word. I knew he needed it, but I just couldn’t get it off my tongue. I blocked him from making another path across the Aubusson carpet.

  “Seth.”

  “No. Don’t you ‘Seth’ me.” He grabbed me by the upper arms and lifted me onto my toes. “You spit it out right now.”

  “I’ve sort of never done this with a person before.”

  He dropped me back onto my feet and staggered back as he jammed his fingers into his hair again. He pulled until his thick near-black hair was as wild as mine. “No one has ever been inside you?”

  I winced. It was kind of crazy when he put it like that. And I felt even more stupid. I folded my arms over my chest. “It’s not a big deal.”

  He crossed to me and lifted me up, then crushed his mouth to mine.

  Well, okay then. Guess that talk was over.

  He curled my legs around his hips and walked me through the suite and kicked open the door to the bedroom. He set me on my feet at the end of the bed and lifted my dress over my head before I could say another word.

  I crossed my arms over my chest again instinctively. My boobs were too big and my ass too shapely. I’d gotten my hourglass figure from someone in my family. My mother had been slight for as long as I could remember, but there were pictures.

  Ones with her smiling on the shore of Crescent Cove in a bikini. We could have been twins once upon a time.

  He pulled my arms away. “No one has ever touched you here?” He skimmed the back of his hand along the swells of my breasts. The bra was too flimsy to really hold me in, but it went with the dress. And like the dress, the sheer factor was very in his face at the moment. He circled his fingertip around my nipple. “No one has sucked on these?”

  I swallowed as I swayed on my feet. “I’m not a complete nun.”

  He peeled back the nude colored nylon and hissed. “Did he know to touch you like this?” He tugged my nipple with his first two fingers until the skin stretched a twinge past pleasure into pain before he let it go.

  My nipple tightened even more and the quick rush of blood under the dark rose flesh made me gasp. “No.”

  He reached around me and unsnapped the bra and eased it over my shoulders, then set it with my dress on the chair in the corner. He lifted each of my breasts until they filled his hands, and my nipples were trapped by his thumb and forefinger.

  “No one has ever taken the time to find out just what you need?”

  I tipped my head back and fought against the quick rush of tears that had come out of nowhere. “No,” I said brokenly.

  “I will. I’ll make sure I know every inch of your precious body.”

  He released one of my breasts and his hand slid lower. He coasted over my waist to the soft skin just above my slit. “And no one has been here?”

  I shook my head. “Just me.”

  His nostrils flared. “At night? In the dark?”

  I swallowed. “Not often, but sometimes when the loneliness was too much.”

  “Show me.”

  I shook my head.

  “Show me,” he said more forcefully. “I want to make sure I’m doing it right.”

  “You are.” My lower lip trembled. “Everything has been right.”

  “I was too rough.”

  “No. I just wasn’t ready.”

  He led my hand to my pussy and made small circles. My cheeks burned at just how wet I was. No, definitely not like when I touched myself. I was fuller and more swollen. My body had reacted to the differences and made room for my fingers and his as I gasped.

  “Like that?” His voice was like gravel and his eyes were a touch wild, along with being kind.

  I didn’t really want kind. I wanted the Seth who couldn’t wait to get his hands on me. I wanted the man who was so hot for me he couldn’t wait to touch me.

  Hesitance was the last thing I wanted.

  I slid my fingers out from under his and held him to my entrance. “You know what I need. I need you to trust that. I trust you with this.” I lifted trembling fingers to the buttons of his shirt. “I trust you with me.”

  Swallowing hard, I pushed his shirt open and over his shoulders. We struggled with his cuffs and finally he was as bare as me from the waist up. I took a tentative step closer to him and had to take a slow breath when my breasts touched his chest. The soft hairs along his abs felt different than the more wiry ones between his pecs. Both of them were rather glorious.

  I chased the wonder and hoped it would lead me away from the nerves multiplying in my belly and brain. I wanted this with everything inside of me. Even knowing things would change between on us on a fundamental level, I couldn’t turn away from him any longer.

  He kicked off his shoes and I did the same with my boots. His pants hit the floor next and we stood in front of each other nearly naked.

  Me, completely, but I was sort of glad he’d left on his black boxer briefs. I wasn’t sure I was ready to see just what my choices had led me to.

  Especially with the bulge tenting under the snug cotton.

  I lifted a shaking hand to his shoulder and he swept me up into his arms and deposited me on the mattress. “We’re going to take this as slow as you need to, all right?”

  “What if I want fast?” I scuttled toward the head of the bed.

  He grabbed my ankle and widened my legs before fitting his shoulders between my thighs. “Oh, there’s no way we’re going fast.” He grinned up at me and I was relieved to see the thrill in his eyes again.

  Challenge accepted.

  I could see the change building inside of him. I was pretty sure I was in a lot of damn trouble.

  When he lowered his head, and slipped two fingers along my slit, I fell back against the pillows with a groan.

  He looked up from between my thighs. “Let’s just make sure you’re ready for me. Now that I know I need to be a little more careful.”

  “Not too careful.”

  “It’s not supposed to hurt.”

  “How many virgins have you deflowered, buddy?”

  He twirled his tongue around my clit. “Just one.”

  When I tensed, he grinned. “This one.”

  “Oh.”

  “So it’s technically a first time for both of us.” He rolled his hips into the mattress and I was suddenly very jealous of the high thread count sheets and his cotton underwear.
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  I wanted him to roll those hips against me, dammit.

  “I’m a big guy. I’m used to having to get a woman ready for me.”

  “Oh, that’s very kind of you.”

  He grinned then dragged the flat of his tongue over my center. “Jealous?”

  “How would you like it if I was talking about another cock inside me right now?”

  His nostrils flared again. “I’ll be the only one inside this pussy from now on.”

  “You don’t own me or my pussy.”

  He dragged in a breath and slipped those two fingers in farther. I arched under him and groaned when he stretched me further. He went at my clit like a man possessed. I slapped the mattress and bowed up and pushed pillows out of the way as he drove me up and through another orgasm.

  Not sweetly.

  No, I’d asked for the sweet Seth to step aside and it seemed like that was exactly what I was getting.

  Part of me wanted to tweak the demon out again, but I couldn’t quite breathe yet. The lights of the bedroom were sparking and my thighs wouldn’t stop quivering.

  “Mine,” he muttered and went in for another round.

  I was weak and my elbow collapsed beneath me as I giggled my way through the band of hysteria around my chest. How many orgasms were too many?

  He blew over my clit and I shuddered and tried to roll away from him. “Seth, please.”

  “I like when you say that word.”

  “Don’t get used to it.”

  He inched up my body finally and settled his hips between my thighs. He pressed his cock against my pussy and I cried out. Christ, I might just come from that little touch.

  Every nerve ending was firing and my synapses had crossed and recrossed until I was so wrung out, I was ready to flip him over and take care of things myself.

  Too bad he was so goddamn tall. And the endless flexing muscles of his shoulders and thighs were deceptively heavy.

  A perfect kind of heavy.

  One I could become addicted to.

  No. Don’t go there, girl.

  I sifted my fingers through his sweaty hair and gave him a long lazy kiss. He groaned against my lips and his hips shifted. God, yes. Finally.

  “I need you inside me.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “It’s not like you have a damn python in your pants.” I stroked my fingers down the intricate tattoo along his left arm. I rarely got to see it since he was almost always dressed for business, but the white snow leopard was stunning. Using his skin tone and a deft hand, the artist had created a stunning animal that climbed up his arm and over part of his shoulder. I leaned over and licked the muscles that twitched and flowed under the art.

  The cat’s blue eyes were sharp and assessing, and the claws and jaw were in mid-attack. Just like him. Sleek and panther-like, with a bite that could surprise you when you weren’t paying attention.

  He finally lowered his boxer briefs and butted the head of his cock along my pussy. He leaned down and tugged at my lower lip. “Someday I want to watch these full lips widen around me. Take me deep.”

  I swallowed a shuddering breath. I wanted that too. I wanted everything.

  He reached for the bedside table and a black wrapper sitting on the corner.

  My eyebrows shot up. Everyone, even a virgin, knew what a black labeled condom meant. He slid the length of his cock along the outside of my lips until the flared head rested right above my slit.

  Good grief, he wasn’t being boastful with the Magnum condom.

  I was a dead woman.

  He leaned back until he was kneeling between my legs and I was suddenly worried that maybe I really wasn’t ready for this. As he rolled the condom over his length, the almost angry hue of his cock made me wonder just how on edge he really was.

  I looked a little closer at his face. Because, seriously, I needed to not look at that monster between his damn legs. Sweet merciful heaven. There was a tension around his eyes and his lips were pinched. He’d been giving me the royal treatment to make sure this night was amazing for me.

  Now I’d have to figure out how to give some of that back.

  I reached up to cover his hand at the base of his cock and pulled him back down over me. The tension I’d been trying to avoid suddenly didn’t seem to so overwhelming. I guided him between my legs and he slowly slid inside. My body was never going to be ready for him, not to this level.

  Not until he stretched me and made me his.

  He paused and blew out a slow breath. I reached around him and gripped his ass to pull him deeper.

  “Ally—” But he groaned and his head tipped back. His neck rippled with each swallow and the tendons raised in reaction.

  I let out my own slow breath as I took him deeper, stretching, opening. But then he was just mine.

  Just everything.

  I wrapped myself around him and my hips lifted to meet him as he slowly withdrew and pushed forward. “God,” he muttered against my neck.

  I tightened my grip around his shoulders and my legs around his hips until we were moving as one. I wanted more. I wanted it harder. Some part of me was craving the stretch, but he kept each stroke measured.

  He reached between us and suddenly, with a few flicks of his talented fingers, he tripped me back into the whirling pleasure. He’d truly primed me for this moment. He pumped inside of me a few more times, his rough movements just what I needed, and I cried out.

  I wasn’t ready to be done. But the orgasm slammed into me just the same, and the chain reaction seemed to pull him under too.

  My name was a prayer on his tongue as he kissed me through the end of his release. I encircled his shoulders and held on as he shook over me, and there was an overwhelming sense of peace that flowed through his muscles.

  He rolled off me and disposed of the condom with tissues from the bedside table. His eyes were so heavy, I wasn’t sure he was actually still awake.

  When he rolled me under him and threw a thigh over me, I knew he was half asleep. The actual confirmation came a moment later when he softly snored in my ear.

  “Seriously?”

  I tried to move him, but I was utterly pinned.

  Afterglow, my ass. He had literally tapped out.

  Eight

  Holy fuck, I was dead.

  No, wait, I was still alive. That was oxygen puffing out of my lips against the pillow under my cheek. There were definite scratches on my back from—

  I jerked up in bed, gripping my head so it didn’t revolve off my neck. I wasn’t in my bedroom at home. Swanky suite. Friday night in the summer, all booked up, but I got a room for sex because I was old town money. So that meant I got to fuck a beautiful girl on the fly, since no one wanted to deny my dick a thing.

  Sweet, really.

  Christ, was I hungover? No. Fucked over. Completely. I’d had the best sex of my life, and now I was in an empty bed.

  Eyes still half closed, I swung out and patted the sheets. Ice cold. She’d been gone for a while. Probably the moment I passed out.

  And passed out about summed it up. I’d drained what was left of my smarts and my sense into that condom and gone to sleep quicker than a drunk at the tail end of a bender.

  Wasn’t completely my fault. I hadn’t had a childless night for a while, and my little girl tended to have a few crappy dreams. Monsters with snapping teeth. Wild dogs. Demons in closets I had to dispel with wise words and hugs in the dark.

  I wasn’t even going to touch on exactly how long it had been since I’d had sex. Well, sex with someone other than myself. Self-created booty calls happened often, but with an actual flesh-and-blood woman? It had been a while. Hell, Ally was the woman, even if I hadn’t fully realized it before I’d presented her with that contract. I’d been rocking a boner ever since.

  So yeah, I’d been kind of pent-up. Exhaustion had claimed me swiftly, and it had been much preferable to fighting to stay awake to talk about…

  Way too much.

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nbsp; No wonder she’d sneaked out on me. Supposed best friend, and I’d dirty-talked her and taken her virginity—which was not my fault, since she’d never seen fit to tell me that little fact until we were getting naked—then fallen asleep as if it was any old night.

  Jesus, and I thought my brother was a douche? He had some stiff competition for the title.

  Forcing my heavy eyelids open against the sun trying to carve my brain in two, I glanced around and wished for alcohol. Maybe there was something worthwhile in the mini bar.

  Those days are over, pal. They ended right about when the condom slipped when you were banging Marjorie in the Mustang. Now you’re a responsible father, remember?

  I braced my head in my hands and sucked in a breath. Responsible, right. I had to pick up Laurie. It had to be mid-morning from the amount of sunlight, and I’d told Oliver I’d be there early.

  Rubbing my eyes, I kicked off the sheets. And noticed a bright red splotch on the fitted sheet.

  Christ. I’d tried to be careful, to take it slow, but I hadn’t at first. I’d rammed my fingers into her like a damn bull, and she’d never—

  Before I could argue with myself, I fumbled for my phone on the nightstand. I had to know she was okay. She could hate me, probably did, but I couldn’t move from this room until I knew she was all right. She’d certainly come last night, and I was pretty sure she’d been right there with me for most of it, but she wasn’t here now. She was alone, and I couldn’t fucking bear it.

  I typed out a quick text.

  Missed you this morning.

  Oh yeah, that was how to demonstrate my concern. By couching it in a healthy streak of douche swagger.

  She answered swiftly.

  Had an early shift at the diner. Eggs Benedict & burnt coffee wait for no man.

  You didn’t even leave a note.

  Good lord, I might as well have taken out my tampon with that statement. She was probably laughing at my pathetic ass.

  From her next reply, it was close.

  Was I supposed to? Didn’t realize we’d progressed beyond booty call status to something else.