“And you can’t take it upon yourself to think you know how to handle yourself in a blizzard, my little Texan angel. I’ll make a thousand calls and wake the fucking Archangels of Heaven if it means making sure you are safe.”

Damn, he was good, she’d give him that. When he wanted to make a point he made it. Leaning forward, he gazed at her from beneath heavy-lidded eyes. Golden light bathed every crevice of the living room but nothing matched the brightness of his irises. Shot through with anger and a mixture of fear, they caught her gaze and refused to let go.

He dropped his arms and she lifted her chin in defiance. The last of what she had left zinged through her blood and held her in place, when what she really wanted to do was fall into his arms and let him kiss her with the promise of passion she knew he held.

“Damon. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

He shook his head softly and lowered his voice to a gravelly baritone that raked over her and eased some of the tension wrapped around her heart. “Have you thought about asking for help? Letting someone close enoughtohelp you every once in a while? You’re not alone, angel. There are people in this world that love you.”

She brought her head up. “Love? Like actual love and falling in love? That doesn’t exist for me. Or at least I never thought it did.” But the conviction she once felt wavered and she caught the second he noted the change in her tone.

“Doesn’t it? I felt the same way before you came into this town, but now…can’t you feel it? It wasn’t just sex between us, Ivy.”

Featherlight fingers dusted across her mind cheek where he brushed away a strand of hair. Her eyelids drifted closed, and for a brief second everything silenced. All the worry and all the concern around what her future held drifted to the back of her mind and all she could feel was peace. Standing here with Damon with the snow falling like fairy kisses from the sky just beyond the window.

It all seemed so magical. But was it real?

She sensed Damon shift closer, and her eyes sprang open. “What am I feeling? No medical book describes what I’m feeling.”

A slow grin spread across his face. “Love, angel. What you do to me every time you look at me, what you make me feel every time you’re in the same room. What you’re feeling isn’t in a textbook.”

He ate up the last of the space between them and scooped her into his arms. Her gaze lowered to his lips.

She should resist. Go back to Houston. Finish her degree and be happy.

Her resolve was fast giving out.

Fact: she was happier right here on the cusp of something so life-changing she was afraid to move.

She dipped her head, and her heart nearly doubled in size as the warm press of his lips against hers stole every ounce of air from her lungs. She buried her hands in his silky hair, the ends still damp from the melted snow, and let the last of her control slip to the floor with her clothes and his. This Christmas would be different. This Christmas held hope for her.

“Take me, Damon, long and slow this time. Make me feel what love is. Let it be a Christmas gift. Let it be our beginning.”

His hand moved from the back of her head and glided to palm her ass as he hauled her to straddle his waist. The thickness of his shaft rested between her folds and she rolled her hips. Pleasure had her head falling back, the ends of her hair like angel kisses on the globes of her ass.

He wound the long lengths around one hand as he lowered her to the plush couch. Warm and velvety, the large cushions accommodated them perfectly as Damon kneeled over her. He peered down at her, and she brought her hands between then to roll her nipples between her thumbs and forefingers. He watched hungrily, his eyes ablaze with the desire she felt thrumming between their connection.

“Is this how it will always be?” Her question was a husky version of her voice, thick with lust and need. Without her glasses there was a hazy outline but even she could see the precum that wet the bulbous head of his long, very thick and utterly beautiful dick.

She squeezed her eyes shut and arched as he bent over her and wrapped his warm lips around a sensitive nipple.

With her hands buried in his hair, she pulled him up and gasped as he pulled hard before letting her nipple slip from his mouth. Every nerve between her pussy and tits heated beyond bearable and she loved the delicious burn across her senses.

“I want to taste you,” she demanded. But just barely. It seemed every thought was hard to come by at the moment as he captured her other nipple and repeated the heavenly torture.

Heavy breaths pulled from her lips and she cried out from the sudden burst of pleasurable pain to her nipple.

“Damon,” she begged and he paused, his cock teasing her clit.

“Yes, angel?”

She didn’t need to say the words when actions would speak louder.

Pressing her palms to his chest, she pushed him until he kneeled on the couch in front of her with one leg over the side for balance. She gathered the heavy weight of his cock in her hands and licked her lips.

“Oh, sweet angel, you’re killing me.”

She eased down and moaned as the first salty taste of his come hit her tongue.