Keep Me (Shelter Me #3) (14 page)

“I’m good with you thrusting that engine a little faster,” I smirk.

His eyes go wide and turn dark in a split second as he catches on to my sexual innuendo.

“You’re a dirty girl, Shelby. Are you trying to say you want to take a fast ride on my sled?”

His deep baritone makes me want to drop my panties right here and now. Even the way he says my name has me wanting to tackle him to the ground and straddle him, snow covered or not. The physical attraction I feel toward this man in such a short period of time is crazy. I wouldn’t even begin to know how to explain it if I tried.

“I’ll ride whatever you want me to, Antonio.”

I take the last step toward him until my front is pressed up against his. He clears his throat, brushing his lips softly over mine while his large hands twine around to grab a handful of my ass.

“You’ll ride it, baby. Slow... fast... any damn way you want.”

He presses his large erection into me.

“Does that mean I can drive it, too?” I ask teasingly, kissing one corner of his mouth and then the other.

“If you can drive a stick shift, then drive all you want.”

I lick the seam of his lips. The sexual frustration building inside of me is too much. He doesn’t have time to react when I grab his hands and drop to my knees in the snow, bringing him down with me. Freezing cold or not, I want him on top of me. I lay on my back and he follows until he is lying right where I want him to be.

He kisses me tenderly, his tongue twirling with mine out here in the middle of the woods beside a frozen lake, the light and dark forest green pine trees scattered everywhere. Chill wind blows snow around us, but I have not a care in the world as my heart floats along freely with the chilly breeze.

In this moment the word ‘forever’ courses through my heated veins and with all my heart I feel myself falling for Antonio Schavone, undoubtedly, unquestionably, and unequivocally, with all my heart. It’s his, and God help me, I hope he wants it.

Chapter Fifteen

Shelby

“When I first met you I thought to myself, this is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

Antonio is still lying on top of me, his weight heavy, but I don’t care a bit as I listen to him intently.

“Nothing compares to how captivating you look right now, laying here and blending in with the snow, your skin flushed with want, eyes lit with desire, those lips inflamed from our kiss. You’re everything I have ever wanted, everything I didn’t know I needed. You consume me.”

His eyes stray to my hair, which has fallen out of my mask and is more than likely frozen stiff from the frosty air mixed with snow.

“If we do this, you and I, there’s things we really need to discuss first. Before you get any wrong ideas, it’s nothing bad.”

Instinctively my mind goes to thinking the worst, but the way he plays with the strands of my hair along with the feverish way he speaks has it dissipating right along with the afternoon sun.

“I want you to feel comfortable and safe with me. Open up, let me in everywhere. But most of all, I want to be the man you deserve. The one and only man. Do you get what I am trying to say to you?”

Those magic words mean more to me than anything he has ever said before. Stunned speechless, I do the only thing my jumbled up mind can. I grasp both sides of his face, bring my mouth within a hair of his, and kiss him. This kiss expresses that what he feels is mutual. I want him to be all those things for me just as much as I want to be his rock, his mountain. The one and only person he can come to and speak freely with, share any and everything with. He’s kissing me back as if he understands. Antonio is falling, too. His kiss along with his words tell it all.

“Are you cold?” Antonio asks when we return to the house, as I am slipping out of all the winter garb I am wearing.

“Just my ass.”

I look to my sexy man and notice he has stripped down to his black thermal long underwear, clinging to his firm muscles from his legs all the way up to his powerful chest. My gaze lingers as I watch his dick swell as his gaze lingers over my breasts. I know damn well my nipples are standing at attention.

“You’re killing me here. Look,” he says, pointing down to all the glory he has been blessed with.

My breath heaves out of me unevenly.

“Oh, I’m looking, all right.”

“Let’s make dinner, then we can get in the hot tub.”

Clearing his throat, he bends and picks up all of our outerwear, hanging it all on a hook just outside the door leading inside.

“Sounds good,” I say, my voice sounding just as sexually irritated as every throbbing part of my female organs is. You would think I was some kind of sex-crazed freak by the way my body is all off kilter.

You’ve wanted this man since the day you met him, you dip shit, now your body is catching up to your brain. I told you, you were missing out on the good stuff. Now march your ass in there and make some dinner and then jump his bones.

I scrunch up my nose, shake my head, and tell my brain to shut the hell up.

Not wanting to take up the time to make a big dinner, I take a moment to observe the contents of the fridge and freezer, pulling out a bag of frozen garlic shrimp and a bag of frozen stir fry vegetables. Heating up the wok I found in the pantry along with pasta, I set about making a fast dish of shrimp stir fry as I flutter aimlessly around the kitchen from here to there.

I praise myself for being quick on my toes as I pour a few drops of oil into the heated wok, along with the shrimp and veggies. I stir with one hand while turning the knob on the stove to warm up the water for the pasta. I’m in such a hurry to get this done so I can finally see the man I have dreamt about so many times naked that I don’t even hear him come up behind me. My body does, though, as it eases itself back into the heat radiating off of him.

“That smells good.”

My heart wallops in my chest.

“Shrimp stir fry. It’s fast and easy, and mixed with the pasta, it fills you up.”

We both laugh out loud at my phrase of words.

“Hmm. I like ‘fills you up’. The fast part, not so much.”

My chest rises and falls in weighty breaths.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asks, backing away and leaving me in my pile of slush.

“Water is good,” I say over my shoulder as I open the box, dumping the pasta into the pan.

“I’ll set the table,” he offers.

“Great. It will be ready in a few minutes.”

I need to stay calm. My mind is failing me, wanting desperately to know what he wants to talk to me about. I have to conclude he will tell me when he is ready, so I finish cooking. I drain the pasta as he hands me the two plates he placed next to the wok moments ago. We walk to the table in total silence as we sit down to one of the best, most efficient meals I have made since being in school, where we were taught the ways to make a meal in a pinch.

Now dinner is over, the messy kitchen cleaned up, and here I stand in this manly bathroom decorated in the deepest shade of navy blue with an intricate circle of swirly lighting shining down above the large, claw footed tub. The white sink is set perfectly in the middle of a long countertop with swirls of white scattered throughout.

To one side is a wide and deep tiled walk in shower; the toilet is to the right of it with a door for privacy. Navy blue and white towels lay folded neatly on a white wooden bench. The effect is dark and mysterious, just like Antonio. The bathroom’s blue and white color scheme matches his bedroom. The bed caught my eye the minute I walked into the room. The king sized bed is spread with a navy blue comforter, looking so plush you want to crawl in and let it swallow you whole, keep you warm on a cold winter’s night.

The fireplace is set into a navy blue accent wall directly across from the bed. A white leather couch with a navy blue Persian rug laying on the floor in front of it invites you to relish in its softness. Antonio has made this place tucked off a road deep in the woods into a home instead of a house. It’s peaceful and quiet, which is not like him at all... and yet it is, if that makes any sense. And here I am staring at myself in the long mirror that stretches the entire length of the counter below, my nerves causing lumps to form in my throat. Noises coming from the bedroom have me turning frantically around to face the closed door. Antonio taps lightly on it.

“You ready firecracker?”

I wrap the towel snugly around my chest.

“Be right out.”

“I’ll meet you in the hot tub,” he calls, as I hear his footsteps fade.

“Here goes.”

Taking the deepest breath and letting it back out, I open the door and walk down the hall toward the man I am about to give myself to for the first time.

“Hey.”

I catch him laughing on the phone, smug look on his face, eyes traveling from my long hair to the tips of my toes.

“I’ll let her know. Catch ya later.”

He disconnects his call. He made his way to me where I had just closed the door still standing there with my hands snug around the knot of the towel keeping it in place.

“That was Markus. He tried your phone didn’t get an answer, so he called mine to tell you he was home safe, and to have fun, ‘Swanky’”

“That asshole,” I mutter.

“What’s it mean?” he asks.

I can tell by the way he’s acting he already knows the answer to his own question.

“None of your-”

“I like it,” he interrupts, invading my personal space. “It suits you.”

His pupils turning darker, his hand lifts up, caressing the skin across the top of my breasts where the towel lies.

“I would have somehow came up with a way to add another ‘S,’ since you are definitely
sexy
.”

His words make me shudder. My hand drops when his stills at the knot. With magic fingers the knot is loosened and the towel drops to the floor. All my earlier bitterness at him learning my nickname vanishes the minute his hands touch my skin.

“Fuck, Shelby. I knew you were beautiful. You’re a goddess.”

He takes a step back, which gives me the opportunity to study his body in his gray board shorts and bare chest. Christ almighty, those muscles! I lick my lips, my hands twitch. I need to touch him and yet, I can’t move. He senses this in me, I know it. He’s on me like white on rice as I am lifted off of the floor and slung over his shoulders. He’s marching down the hall in the direction of his bedroom.

“What are you doing?” I call out while shoving my hair out of my way so I can get a good look at his ass.

Damn. I am tempted to take a bite. This view is de-light-ful.

“I am taking you to my bed, Firecracker. My tongue, my fingers, and my dick are dying to get inside of you. If they don’t, they’re all going to die a slow, agonizing death and you may have to perform mouth to mouth on all of them.”

I swallow hard, thinking of performing mouth to mouth on his cock. I crane my neck when he enters his room. Antonio stops at the side of his bed.

“Yum.”

He says as his hands graze up my legs as he slowly slides me down his body. My core pulses all the way into my stomach as it, too, glides against his smooth skin.

“Get on the bed.”

His eyes never leave mine. Even though typically I don’t like to be told what to do, under these circumstances, I comply. Suddenly, his mood changes from cocky to serious.

“Do you have any idea how beautiful you are? You don’t, do you?” He waves his hand down toward his cock. “He’s been like that for four months every time I think of you. And now that you’re in my bed, I’m not sure baby if I ever want you to leave.”

Coaxing me back gently, his hand palms one breast as he bends and takes the other one in his mouth.

“Oooh.”

My mouth waters as he swirls his tongue around my nipple and sucks hard. My hips buck into him.

“You like that?” he asks, releasing my nipple as he trails kisses across my chest to the other breast. He pulls that one into his mouth, repeating the same action. His other hand tweaks the already swollen nipple on my other breast.

“Fuck!” I cry out.

He keeps up his assault on my breast with his mouth, releasing his hand and skimming down my side, goose pimples erupt the closer he gets to where I need him to be. When his hand reaches between my legs, his eyes shoot to mine with a devilish look. He shoves two fingers inside, making my back arch and unintelligible words to course through the air. Only when he releases my nipple, kissing it tenderly, does he remove his gaze from mine to focus on his torture of my pussy.

“Antonio,” I moan, my voice hoarse.

“Yeah, baby?” he asks through kisses down my stomach.

I chuckle when I lay my head back down. His fingers feel so good, I forgot what I was going to say. When his mouth reaches my center and his tongue flicks my clit, I lift my legs and throw them over his shoulders as he assaults my core as if he hasn’t eaten for weeks.

“Holy… oh, my God!”

His magic tongue has me in a trance the way its slides up one side and down the other, repeating these movements a few times before he licks straight up the middle. The minute he thrusts his tongue deep inside, I come and I come
hard,
all over his mouth.

He’s not done as he continues to dip and nip and suck every part of me, his fingers stroking my folds right along with his talented mouth, teasing me as he slides one in and out just as fast as his tongue and teeth, and nipping and licking at my clit. With one last lick up my center, he pulls away his mouth and pulls me up into a sitting position. We stare intently into each other’s eyes. His have darkened, making his pupils barely visible.

“I need to have you, Shelby. I-”

Struggling to find the words to say, he runs his hands through his hair nervously.

“I haven’t been with a woman since before you left here four months ago,” he blurts out of nowhere.

“What?”

“Shit. What I’m trying to say is... you did something to me. Here,” he says, pointing to his heart.

“I can’t explain it any more to you than I have been able to explain it to myself. All I know is that I have no desire to be with anyone except you. I knew you would be coming back. I knew I wasn’t going to give up on you without fighting for you every step of the way. I don’t want anyone else. I want you to give yourself to a man who deserves you, who will cherish you. That man is me. Do you get what I am saying?” 

Astounded at his confession, all I can do is gape with my mouth hanging wide open.

“Are you telling me you want me to be yours?”

He takes a deep breath and rests his forehead against mine.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Then make me yours,” I mouth against his lips.

Both of us smile softly as he brushes his tongue across my bottom lip. His arm muscles flex and he pulls the bed covers down. I scooch up the bed so my back is to the soft headboard.

“Leave the light on,” I say when he walks over to where I assume he is going to shut it off.