Holiday Bound (10 page)

Pain spiked through her thigh.

She lowered it without thinking, crying out in protest when Alex lifted his head and stilled his thrusting thumb. He set her bottom back on the bench and began massaging her thigh muscle deeply. Angeline lifted her head and watched him through a haze of desire.

“It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt anymore,” she said, eager for him to resume what he’d been doing. “It cramped up. It’s only because I was holding—”

“In place like I told you to, I know,” he muttered as he continued to mold her muscle to his palm. He glanced up at her and Angeline thought she recognized regret in his blue eyes. She bit her lower lip at the amplified ache in her pussy when she saw that her juices glistened on his lips and chin. “I tend to like it when you do what I tell you, especially if it increases your excitement, but I
never
mean to cause you any real pain, Angel. I’m sorry.”

Angeline thought of how hot she’d felt holding that position a moment ago while Alex ate her pussy like there was no tomorrow. His demand that she maintain the difficult position—his insistence upon mixing her pleasure with a self-imposed kind of restraint—
had
built the sexual tension in her body immeasurably. It’d been as if he’d amplified her tension level on purpose so that when she did eventually blow, the explosion would be incredible.

“I did like it,” she whispered. She flexed and straightened her leg again, breaking free of his massaging hand, in order to prove it to him. Surprise and then something else—something very exiting—flashed in his blue eyes.

“No, you’ve had enough of that,” he said almost roughly. He put both his hands on the back of her thighs and pushed so that her hips rolled back and her bent knees neared her chest.

When he began eating her again lustily, Angeline’s head fell back with a thump on the bench. She stared into space unseeingly, her entire being becoming one huge receptor of pleasure. It was almost too powerful, but she had no choice but to accept the undiluted bliss that Alex wrought with his tongue and sublime suck.

Come for me, Angel. Come.

Had he really spoken? Angeline thought dazedly. She couldn’t say.

She was too busy following Alex’s order.

Alex ate up her shudders of pleasure hungrily, rewarded by a fresh influx of Angeline’s sweet juices on his tongue and the singular fragrance she exuded during orgasm filling his nose.

He couldn’t believe she’d been willing to resume the position that had caused her discomfort. The evidence of her generosity had filled him with regret, but aroused him as well. He may like to restrain a woman during sex. He may like to make an ass blush under his palm or the paddle he owned. But he never did it if he sensed it didn’t arouse the woman. The last thing he wanted was to humiliate or cause real pain.

If that were true for a regular sex partner, it was a hundred times truer for this woman.

He ran his tongue over her clit again, intoxicated by her reaction to the stroke, the delicate shiver of her body, the whimpers that spilled past her lips.

Sweet. She was so sweet.

His eyes blinked open a moment later when he noticed that her whimpers of post-orgasmic pleasure had segued to soft cries of re-arousal. He wanted to stoke her fires all over again with his mouth and tongue, longed to chase down her fragrant juices of ecstasy with another potent shot of her distilled pleasure.

But his damn cock wouldn’t let him. It was a tyrant when it came to Angeline.

He kissed her once, just over her swollen labia, and stood. He felt her stare on him as walked over to a table where he kept clean towels. He quickly wiped off his mouth with one and picked up several more before he returned to Angeline.

She looked so damned gorgeous lying there naked and restrained, her pale breasts rising and falling with her still-agitated breath. He took his time propping her head up, lifting her long hair off her damp nape before he tucked the towel beneath her head, brushing the soft strands away from her forehead.

Despite the raging despot between his thighs, he took his time kissing her sweet, responsive mouth. Eventually, his furious need made him stand, though.

He held her gaze while he stripped off his socks and unfastened his jeans. He liked the way her soft, ebony eyes sparked with fire when he shoved his jeans and boxer briefs down to his thighs. He lifted his erection and stroked it slowly.

“You look like something out of a man’s dreams, do you know that?” he muttered.

He watched, spellbound as her pink tongue swept over her lower lip. “I could say the same about you for a woman’s fantasy,” she whispered. “Mine anyway.”

He rapidly removed his jeans and underwear. Excitement and a trace of anxiety leapt into her eyes when he straddled the bench in the vicinity of her chest. He bent and plumped one large, firm breast in his hand. He fisted the stalk of his cock.

“You’re gonna have to pay for saying things like that, Angel. A man only has so much control.”

“Ohhh! Alex,” she exclaimed in surprise when he flicked his cock up and down with his hand, beating out a taut rhythm on her nipple. He smiled when he saw the pink crest darken and tighten. Her moan sounded a little desperate when he held up her breast and rubbed the crown of his cock over the beaded crest, spreading a thin coat of pre-come on her nipple.

He lifted his straining erection. “Open your mouth.”

He’d never forget the expression in her midnight eyes when Angeline parted her lips.

He spread the remainder of the pre-come on her mouth. Her tongue flicked out to rub the head of his cock.

“No. I’ll give it to you.” He said it sharper than he intended, but this was the sweetest kind of torture.

He pushed the head of his cock into her warm, wet mouth and grimaced in pleasure. When he opened his eyes a second later, his cock lurched in her tight hold at the vision of her watching him with glistening eyes and her lips spread wide to accommodate his cock’s girth. She began to massage the hyper-sensitive crown with a strong tongue while she held his gaze.

He hissed. “I think I’m going to have to introduce your butt to my paddle for that, Angel.”

Something sparked in her eyes and for a second she paused. But then she tightened her lips and began laving his cock again like it was the sweetest of treats.

“You little—” He grunted when she drew on him and flexed his hips, sliding his cock along her warm tongue. He pushed until he saw her eyes widen. He stopped, knowing he’d filled her mouth to capacity.

“Hold still,” he rasped. He grabbed onto the bar holding the weights and began to thrust in and out of her mouth slowly. When Alex realized he was about to come as he stared at Angeline’s huge, desire-glazed eyes and his cock sliding in and out of her lips, he cursed and forced himself to stare at the wall. He continued to face-fuck her for a delicious moment, loving the fact that she not only let him, but given the hot look in her eyes and her suck—which seemed to only get stronger by the second—Angeline
liked
it.

He stared back at her face, too tempted by the memory to avoid looking at the erotic vision. She looked fevered as she stared up at him, her cheeks bright pink and her dark eyes glazed. The evidence of her arousal pitched his own exponentially higher.

“Do you want more?” he rasped. “Shake your head if you don’t. It’s okay.”

A rough grunt tore at his throat when she nodded her head eagerly, making his cock bob. He tightened his grip on the bar, clenching his fist as he dipped into her humid heat further. When he felt the narrow passage of her throat and she instinctively jerked, he withdrew. Her resumed strong suck told him she wanted to try again, however.

“Nice and easy,” he coaxed. “Just for a moment, Angel.”

He grimaced in sublime pleasure when the tip of his cock breached her throat and he felt the tight squeeze of that muscular channel. She started beneath him, but then he saw her breathe through her nose, calming herself.

Pleasure roared through his flesh as he stroked her deep several times, always withdrawing before she could experience any discomfort. For several ecstasy-infused moments he gripped the weight bar and pumped forcefully.

“Awww,
yeah
, Angel,” he bellowed as orgasm ripped through him. His body went rigid at the first blast of pleasure. When he realized he held himself deep in Angeline’s mouth, he backed out of her throat and thrust shallowly as he came, his semen jetting onto her tongue. His orgasm was so powerful that, after the first initial shudders, he leaned heavily on the bar, panting as his cock continued to slide in and out of Angeline’s hot, hungry mouth, watching her elegant throat convulse again and again as she swallowed all that he had to give her.

Her sweetness and generosity overwhelmed him.

He withdrew his cock and bent to take her mouth with his own, ravaging it with frothing need before he slowed to make love to it with a profound tenderness he’d never before known.

He’d come down here to prove a point to her, but Alex wondered, as he savored their combined flavor and Angeline moaned softly into his mouth, if he hadn’t been the one who had ended up learning a lesson.

He’d demanded that they spend the rest of the evening in bed—
what the hell else would they do after she’d given herself to him so wholly?
—but he soon discovered Angeline was no pushover. She might submit sweetly enough when it came to sex, but if he thought he was going to dominate her outside of the bedroom, he had another think coming.

“We’re not going to spend all of Christmas Eve in bed having sex,” she exclaimed after he’d uncuffed her from the weight bench and informed her of his intentions. “I’m making us roasted chicken for dinner, and you have to bring in the Christmas tree. I’m going to go shower, so you bring it in, okay?”

She didn’t bother to wait for his acknowledgement before she bent to pick up her clothes and headed for the stairs.

“Angel,” he called out gruffly as he watched the beguiling sway of her sweet ass.

She paused and peered over her shoulder cautiously.

“Okay…but we will spend
part
of Christmas Eve in bed having sex.”

She started to scowl before a beguiling smile curved her sex-swollen lips. The sight was nearly enough to make him forego what he’d just said and haul her upstairs to bed.

He thought something similar after he entered the living room and she turned from where she’d been standing before his opened entertainment center, her hand still on the knob of his stereo. She’d taken a shower earlier and her dark hair was still clipped on top of her head, although some dark tendrils fell around her face. Her cheeks looked pink, but whether the flush of color was a remnant of her arousal or cooking in the kitchen, he couldn’t tell. Either way, she made a damn appealing sight.

“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” played softly in the background and the scent of fresh pine, roasted chicken, baked apples and—
cookies?
—wafted into his appreciative nostrils.

He inhaled deeply.

“Merry Christmas,” she said softly, taking one step toward him.

“Smells like Christmas.” He glanced over at the Scotch pine he’d placed in the stand while Angeline showered. It was only about six-and-a-half-feet tall, but he’d noticed its perfect shape and full branches many times because it bordered the edge of his yard and the forest at the back of his house. It’d been a bit of a trick locating it in the swirling snow, but he’d chosen the right one after all.

It looked like she’d already strung on the lights, although she hadn’t yet turned them on. He met her gaze again and smiled. “Looks like it too,” he added, thinking not just of the tree, but Angeline’s cheerful red sweater and luminous face.

She took another step toward him, the sudden hesitancy—or was it shyness?—of her manner entrancing him, just like everything else about her did.

“Dinner will be ready in forty minutes or so. Do you want to help me decorate the tree? At least the high branches?” she added with a smile.

“Sure. You go ahead and start. How about a glass of wine?”

“Oh, yes. I didn’t see any.”

“I keep it in a room downstairs. Be right back.”

He entered the living room a minute later carrying two glasses, a corkscrew and a bottle of a rich, peppery Malbec that he favored—okay, so he might miss the easy access to a good bottle of wine in Chicago as well as his barber. Thank goodness for the Internet.

Angeline finished hanging one of the white beaded snowflakes on the tree and turned to him.

“The white looks pretty against the dark green. Does your mother do crafts like your grandmother?” she asked as she reached for another snowflake ornament while a billion of its prototypes danced merrily outside the window.

“Nah,” he replied as he set down the wine glasses on the coffee table and uncorked the wine.

“What does she do?”

“She’s an accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. She met my dad when they were both undergrads at the University of Minnesota. She managed to finish her degree, and even get her master’s, despite the half-assed support from my dad with regard to childcare.”

He noticed the way she froze in the process of hanging the snowflake on the tree and felt a pain of mixed irritation and regret.

“It’s just the truth, Angeline. I’m not making stuff up to justify sleeping with my dad’s girlfriend.”

She turned toward him slowly. “Your father must have been very young himself.”

“He was,” he replied neutrally. It was Christmas Eve, and he was trying his damnedest to coax Angeline Kastakis to him. Complaining snidely about his dad wasn’t going to do that.

But at the same time, it wasn’t in Alex’s nature to lie.

He poured a glass of wine and stepped across the room to hand it to her. “It’s not a situation most college kids would want, having a kid at age twenty. I don’t envy my parents that. I respect my mother more than I can say for the life she and my grandparents gave me. I’m proud as hell of her for the fact that she didn’t get her bachelor’s until she was in her mid-twenties and that I attended her graduation ceremony when she got her master’s degree when I was fourteen years old. My dad was already up for partner at Hanks, Ellsworth and Leibiz at the time, after completing law school at Vanderbilt. Right on schedule, of course.”

She took a thoughtful sip of her wine and set it on an end table. “I guess you wouldn’t be one of those men who claim that women
choose
to leave the workforce when they’re pregnant, and therefore
choose
to fall behind men.”

He tried to smile, but suspected his grin looked more like a grimace.

“Despite the fact that those same guys are the ones getting women pregnant, and insisting they be the one to leave work? No. Maybe I’m an ass in a lot of other ways, but not in that one. It was one of the things that made me sick about corporate America. If a woman gets pregnant, one gender typically pays…and one only.”

She studied him intently when he turned. “There’s so much, isn’t there, Alex?”

“So much
what
?”

“So
much
…so much history, so much hurt between you and your dad. I’m an idiot for throwing myself into the middle of it.”

“What did I
tell
you?” he growled. He set his glass down and stalked toward her.

“That…that Mitchell Carradine has nothing to do with us?” she whispered, her breath falling warm and soft against his thumb as he held her chin.

He nodded. He found he couldn’t speak while restraining himself from pillaging her opened lips, drowning himself in a flavor he’d only just learned, but suddenly thirsted for almost constantly.

She swallowed heavily. “I’m not doing this because of what Mitchell Carradine is or isn’t, Alex.”

He waited, his breath straining in his lungs.

“I’m doing this because of
you
. But it’s not as clear to me as it is you. Do you think you could cut me just an ounce of slack for having to swim around in all the Oedipal murkiness because of my decision?”

“Screw Oedipus. Freud was a fraud. You want me, don’t you?”

Her solemn nod made his need swell.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Aside from the fact that I’m going to have to tell your father I slept with his son?” she asked, a wry smile tilting lips that Alex couldn’t help but notice were still swollen from his kisses…not to mention his plunging cock.

He tried to ignore the flash of tingling heat in his cock, but it was difficult. He didn’t stop her from turning away and resuming decorating. He picked up an ornament and began to help her.

“It’s a mess and you know it, Alex.”

He paused with his arm outstretched toward a high bough. “Mitchell’s not in a position to do anything to damage your reputation with Littleton, is he? Old man Littleton and him never did get along all that well, despite both being name partners.”

“Mitchell wouldn’t do anything to hurt me professionally because of this, Alex!”

He shrugged, trying to hide his doubt. “Maybe you’re right. Mitch can be a prince among men—and women, of course—when it suits his purpose.”

He noticed her dazed, confused expression and felt guilty. She was right. This must be a hell of a situation for her. He felt bad about it, but he refused to apologize for making love to her. Might as well say he was sorry for needing to breathe.

“I’ll be the one to tell him, Angeline. You shouldn’t have to do that.”

“Why? You weren’t the one to go out on him,” she said flatly as she hung a pear on a branch.

He reached for her elbow and pulled her into his arms. He felt her shiver when he pressed his lips to her fragrant neck. “Things were never that serious between you two. You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about,” he muttered gruffly while he delved his fingers into her thick, soft hair and removed the clip that secured it on her head. “I know what you’re thinking, Angel.”

“What?” she whispered as he smoothed her long hair around her shoulders, appreciating the sensation of the silky strands running through his fingers.

“You’re wondering if you sacrificed a highly respectable relationship with my dad in order to have a hot fling with his not-so-reputable son.”

“That’s not true,” she said irritably, but he noticed the way she averted her face.

“I agree. It’s not. Not the fling part, anyway. That’s not how I’m looking at it. The point is,
you
are.”

She lifted her chin and studied him soberly. He held her stare, trying to make it clear he had nothing to hide from her.

“What is it, Angel?” he asked quietly, sensing her unrest…intuiting an unasked question in her eyes. What was making her so damn anxious?

“The…way you make love to me…”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not doing that to prove some point?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, growing wary.

She bit her lower bee-stung lip. “Alex…I’m not saying you’re doing anything purposefully or…consciously.
No
, listen,” she said quickly when she saw his suspicious look. “You don’t have to be a worshiper of Freud to believe in unconscious motivations.”

“So,
what
? I unconsciously want to tie down a woman before I make love to her because…let me guess, I carry some deep, dark hatred of women? That’s crap. I love women. Haven’t you been listening to what I said about my mom and grandma?”

“No! I don’t think you’re a misogynist. You’re missing the point completely, Alex.” She glared at him. “And on purpose, I think.”

“So why don’t you tell me exactly what the problem is, counselor.”

She flashed him an annoyed look, but he still sensed her uncertainty beneath her pique. “Well…it’d make a hell of a point that you stole your father’s girlfriend when you’re so angry with him. Wouldn’t it make even more of one to do in such an—inflammatory fashion?”

“
Inflammatory?
” he asked slowly. His brows knitted in confusion. Then he saw her blush and all the pieces started to fall into place. He leaned down toward her and spoke softly. “Angeline…you don’t think I spanked you because I wanted to humiliate you for falling for my dad, do you? Or that I restrained you down in the workout room to show how much power I have over my father?”

He saw the column of her throat convulse as she swallowed. “Well…I wouldn’t say I believe it, necessarily, but I did wonder…”

She faded off when she saw him shaking his head grimly.

“I’m not a die-hard dominant, Angeline, but I do like to take control of a woman’s pleasure in bed. I’m not into pain or humiliation. The thought of purposefully hurting anyone—especially you—makes me sick. But did I like spanking your ass—
yeah
. Did I like restraining you so you couldn’t run from your pleasure even for a second…so that you
had
to submit to your desire—
hell
yeah. That’s just how I’m built. I’m not going to apologize for it. It’s got nothing to do with my conflict with my dad. I don’t know why I’m that way, any more than I know why
you’re
that way.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you get turned on being restrained. You got so wet and hot after I spanked you last night that I thought I was living out a fantasy.”

She closed her eyes and her cheeks deepened in color. Alex couldn’t tell if her reaction was from embarrassment or arousal, but he suspected both.

The cheerful chorus from “Let it Snow” played in the background as he tenderly kissed her nose. “You’ve never liked it? Being restrained before?” he asked gruffly. He was relieved when she shook her head. He hadn’t been so sure he wanted to hear it if she replied to the affirmative.

He brushed his lips over her silky, warm cheeks. “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, Angel. The way you respond to me is beautiful.”

She opened her eyes and gazed up at him, the mixture of uncertainty and trust in her big, dark eyes making his cock throb pleasantly.

“Come on. Let’s finish the tree or Christmas may never get here,” he said with an encouraging smile.