Page 84 of Have a Bear-y Little Christmas
“Are you sure?” he asked in that rumbling, raspy voice of his, and holy hell, I swore my pussy throbbed with each syllable.
Okay. Apparently, I have a voice kink. Good to know.
I could have just said yes—it was the mature thing, after all. But I wanted that firm grip back on my chin, I wanted to feel that dominance I’d gotten a tiny taste of. I sent him a cocky expression and turned my tone slow and syrupy.
“Yeah, unless you’re too scared?”
I was playing a dangerous game. Not because I was worried that Remy would hurt me—never that—but there was always an inherent risk with teasing that you might accidentally say something that could be an unfortunate trigger. If Remy wasn’t ready, I would never mock him for that. And I liked to think he knew that, and would warn me if I was ever going too close to that border.
“Scared?” The word was more a growl than actual speech.
“Yeah, you know,” I continued, feeling mischievous in all the best ways. I was playing with a fire that might temporarily scorch me but neverharmme. “Chicken.”
Remy leaned closer, his dark eyes stormy, and his lips brushing against mine when he spoke—a tantalizing point of connection but notenough.Now that I was allowing myself to want, it was like that desire was making up for years of lost time.
“If I didn’t know you so well, I would say you’re trying to goad me, Jeannie.”
The way he said my name was pure sin. I didn’t think I’d ever heard it uttered that way. I was a woman possessed. I leaned forward, wanting to capture his lips with mine, to get one more hit of the drug that was him.
But he turned his head to the side so I only got his cheek, and the whine that came out of my mouth surprised me. I truly had no idea I was capable of that kind of sound.
“What’s wrong?” he teased, and I saw a glimmer of the lighter side of him. I appreciated it just as much as the rumbling growl. I liked that he switched it up, never letting me get too comfortable, and never letting him get too predictable. “Are you the only one who’s allowed to be...cheeky?”
Suddenly, his lips were on mine again, and this time there was nothing holding him back from the dominant wave within his kiss.
Yes!I cheered in my mind as I clung to him, loving the pressure, loving the heat, loving the scrape of his teeth against the sensitive flesh of my lips. The intensity of it spoke to the rawness in my soul.
How could there be so many parts in me that I had become so completely unaware of? Or was it that I had been in denial of them? Either way, I had a lot of thinking to do once thought was more possible. Because right now, I could feel sections of my brain slowly shutting down until there was only Remy, me, and whatever was happening in the moment.
I felt so entirely surrounded as Remy pushed me against the wall and possessed my mouth, his hand on my chin and almost,almostputting pressure on my throat in a way that was absolutely exhilarating. It was all-encompassing, and yet it wasn’t enough. I wanted to feel him against every molecule of my body, as impractical as that was.
“Remy,” I groaned into his mouth, pushing my hips up for a little more of that intoxicating contact. I wasn’t anywhere near tall enough to feel his erection against my already slick core, but his jean-clad thigh provided excellent friction, and lightning struck every cell of my nervous system.
“Greedy,” he rumbled. His grip on me changed, and he hauled me off my feet with one hand.
Holy shit! Obviously, I knew he was strong, but it was another thing entirely to experience it firsthand. My attraction to mighty men was definitely not just an aesthetic thing. My body’s reaction was visceral, and I suddenly found myself wishing I had a change of underwear.
Scratch that, I wished I wasn’t wearing panties and had something else absorbing all the slickness pooling between my thighs.
That thought jolted me enough for even Remy to notice, and he pulled away from the kiss to lock eyes with me. “Is this okay?” he asked, voice ragged.
I nodded, distracted by the desire to make him sound downright feral, but the look in his eyes grew that much more serious. “I’m going to need words, Jeannie.” He nipped at my lips, but didn’t give me what I was craving, what I was going mad for. “I need you to say that this is okay and not too far.”
“It’s not too far,” I croaked, and God, it was half hot, half embarrassing just how debauched I sounded already. I took pride in my gift of gab and the ability to banter with pretty much everyone, but now, my entire vocabulary had trickled down to mostly single syllable words and phrases akin to begging. “I want it. I wantyou.”
“And I want you too. I… I’ve been trying not to, but I don’t know why I was fighting against it so hard.” He tilted his head upwards, and I thought he was going to kiss me from this new angle, but he wouldn’t close the last of the distance. “But you’ll tell me, right?”
I blinked at him, brain hazy as I stared at those gorgeous, full lips of his. They were a dusky, pale rose and stood out from the dark wire of his tightly trimmed beard.
“Tell you what?”
“If any of this is going too far. If you want to slow down. If you need to stop and think. Whatever you need to feel safe, I will make it happen.”
He kissed me again, and it went down to the very depths of my soul. When he spoke again, I was sure that I was incapable of speech, but thankfully he didn’t ask me any more questions.
“Nothing happens tonight that you don’t want to.”
I nodded, a gesture that didn’t quite feel like enough, but thankfully, Remy didn’t make me say anything else. He understood me right down to my core. A different core than the one that was pressing against his belt buckle, where I could feel just how much he was responding to me.
