Page 11 of Mistletoe Madness

And forget all about the L-word! I knew, deep in my heart, that’s what this was, but I didn’t want to jinx what we had by applying too much pressure too soon. There’d be plenty of time for big declarations down the road. (That didn’t mean, however, that I hadn’t doodled my first name paired with his last name on the pad of paper I’d been scribbling the names of potential companies I could apply to when I’d been at the computer yesterday.)

Nick’s questing hand moved from one side of my chest to the other, and he pinched my nipple. I yelped at the fresh sting, but arched my back for more contact when he kneaded my breast in his warm palm. His cock pressed against my backside. “When did you say they’re coming over again?”

“I didn’t,” I answered, feeling him grow thicker and longer beneath me. “They didn’t, either, for that matter.” And even if they had, I wasn’t sure I could remember what they’d said … not with the way he was currently exploring all the contours of my body. When Nick touched me, my brain tended to lose its ability to function at all.

He traced his way down my sternum and past the elastic waistband of my leggings until his hand cupped me over my pants. He ground the heel of his palm against me, and my hips rolled forward of their own volition. “Just like that,” I encouraged as he pressed harder, his middle finger dropping back to rub along the seam between my thighs, directly over my center.

“I want to fuck you so bad right now.” He leaned forward to capture my lips in a quick, hungry kiss. “You make me so fucking crazy.”

“Same,” I breathed out, my hips moving faster against his fingers. “Oh god. I’m going to come.”

“Take these off,” he said, plucking at my leggings. “I want to taste you when you come.”

I started to scramble off his lap when I froze, the sound of the door opening at the front of the house.

“Knock, knock!” Bethany called out as I collapsed back down onto Nick’s lap. She breezed through into the kitchen, her shoulders dusted with snow, as Rudy and Beckett followed behind carrying three boxes of pizza and two six-packs of local craft beer.

Rudy lifted the cans as he stepped into the kitchen. “We come bearing gifts.”

Nick latched his arms around my hips, his fingers digging into the fleshy part of my ass. “Don’t you dare move.”

I dropped my face forward and rested my forehead against his shoulders to hide my flaming cheeks lest our friends know what we’d been up to just before they arrived. It was no use though. One look at the way Nick had me locked against him, his breathing ragged, and our guilt was more than evident.

From across the room, Beckett threw a dish towel at us, and it landed on top of my head. “Would you two get a room already?”

“We did. It’s called the kitchen.”

I grinned into the crook of his neck and then flicked my tongue out to lick a quick path up to his ear.

“Eww. We have to eat off these surfaces,” Rudy said, casting a dubious glance at the counter he’d set the pizza boxes down on top of.

“Don’t worry. The counters are safe,” I said, rolling my cheek on Nick’s shoulder and peering out at his best friend from under the safety of my heavy bangs.

“Ugh,” Bethany groaned as she walked past us with a slice of pizza in one hand and a cold beer in the other. She sailed down the long hallway toward the living room. When she reached the pass through, she turned back toward us. “Are you guys coming, or what? Lily Aldrin waits for no man.”

“We’ll be right there,” Nick said, adjusting his grip as his body relaxed beneath me.

* * *

Nick traceda pattern over my hip, down the flank of my thigh, and then back up again. My head was on his chest, and his heart was beating strong and steady against my cheek. It was nearly one o’clock in the morning, and he’d just given me my third orgasm of the night, having pounced on me the second the door closed behind Rudy, Bethany, and Beckett just after ten o’clock.

Abruptly, the beating in his chest accelerated, and thewhiragainst my ear grew louder and more pronounced. With shaking hands, he drew a series of hearts on my exposed rib cage. “In twenty years, how will we tell our kids we got together?”

I felt my own heartbeat quicken against my breastbone as his fingers came to a stand still against my skin. I lifted my head and looked down at him. His other arm was lifted above him, his head resting in his upturned palm. It was a casual pose, but I could see the tension in the set of his jaw and the veins that popped under the skin of his forearm.

He stared back at me, his blue-eyed gaze so open and trusting. “You know I love you, right?”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat, and felt my head bobbing up and down, my body having already accepted what my mind was only just now coming to accept. “I love you, too.”

“I know,” he said, the right side of his mouth tilting up in a small, sweet smile. “You told me last night.”

My confusion must have shown on my face.

“You talk in your sleep sometimes,” he said by way of explanation. “You were particularly chatty last night.”

I closed my eyes and blew out a breath of mortification. “Oh god.”

He wrapped me up in his embrace and abruptly rolled me onto my back. Hovering over me, he brushed my hair off my forehead and gazed down at me with affection. “You said that a lot, too.”

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