Someone to Love (5 page)

I shake the thought loose.

“You’ll be a man-eater by New Years’,” he
guarantees as we make our way through the crowd gathered by the
register. “There’s a special event today—local churches come out to
buy trees for less fortunate families in the area. It’s sort of a
tradition around here.”

“That’s so nice.” I like this altruistic side
of Carrington. I try to catch my breath as he leads us to the
distal end of the property, and a clearing opens up with dozens of
trees to choose from.

Cruise heads over to a tiny anemic tree with
sparse needles and gauges me for a reaction.

I shake my head at that one. I don’t tell him
that’s the same tree my mother bought year after year because it
was all we could afford—that I dreamed of trees fat enough to eat
up the living room, dripping with jewels and a shiny white star on
top. I suppose transferring all of my fantasies over to Cruise
isn’t the greatest idea, but I can’t seem to help it. For some
reason, I want him to be the one to make them all come true.

Odd, since I hardly know him.

“So you’re a size matters kind of girl,” he
says it low, far too seductive for this early in the morning.

Soft bites of rain land over my scalp and I
hold out my hand, surprised to find tiny white flakes amassing over
my fingertips. “I’ve never seen snow,” I whisper the confession.
“It’s magic. It’s beautiful.”

“You’re magic.” He takes a step in until
we’re a breath apart. “You’re beautiful, Kenny.” He showers me with
his gaze, watching as the snow freckles my dark mane.

Cruise leans in.

I can feel it coming.

My lips ache for him to do it.

My palms start to sweat, and my heart feels
like it’s about to jackhammer out of my chest—killing us both in
the process.

“This one,” I say breathless while plucking
at the branch of a Douglas fir before I pass out from the idea of a
kiss.

“Looks like we got our first tree,” he says,
never taking his gaze off me.

My insides bisect with heat at the thought of
a future with Cruise that could string out into the unknowable
future, spending Christmas after Christmas with his heart-stopping
smile.

“Kenny…” His minty breath rakes across my
cheek like a fire. “You mind if I kiss you?”

I shake my head, looking a little more than
overeager in the process.

“It’s Christmas.” A smile slides into his
cheek. “And it’s snowing. I think your first real kiss should be
memorable.” He washes his eyes over me with heartfelt affection. “I
want to make everything we share memorable for you.”

Good God he’s going to take me right here in
the snow. I’m going to lose my virginity on God’s birthday in front
of unsuspecting church folk. In just a few minutes, those children
running wild will be screaming for another reason entirely.

“Merry Christmas, Cruise.” I pant out of
breath like I’ve just sprinted for miles.

He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls
me in. I can hardly look at him. Cruise is far too gorgeous for me
to ever comprehend.

“Merry Christmas, Kenny.” His dimples dig in.
“Thank you for my gift.”

“What gift?”

“This.” He closes his eyes and sweeps his
feather-soft lips over mine before indulging in something
deeper—something that feels so alarmingly holy and right it makes
my insides implode with pleasure. I give an involuntary groan as
his tongue flicks over mine, flirting, caressing. The exquisite
exchange goes on for miles.

We kiss for hours, weeks—decades as the snow
piles up around us. It tries to cool the inferno we’ve lit, but
it’s impotent with its efforts.

We’re building a memory that can last a
lifetime—two lifetimes. It’s bliss like this with Cruise.

This is a Christmas wish come true.

One I didn’t even know I wanted.

Cruise

Kenny and I leave the tree lot, one bushy
evergreen richer, and enjoy the ride home, still hopped up on that
lip-lock we shared. I’ve kissed my fair share of girls. I’ve logged
some mileage with these lips, and swear to God have never
experienced an out of body experience like the one Kenny just
provided. Maybe it had to do with the fact I’m aroused as hell at
the thought of touching a virgin, guiding her down some dark carnal
path, but whatever it was, it sealed itself in my memory as a holy
shit moment.

We arrive at the house and I pull backward
into the driveway, trying to ignore the fact I just took out the
border garden my mother planted last spring. In my defense, a
blanket of snow dusted the ground in the time it took to get to the
tree lot and back. Parking in reverse was never my forte, although
I’d never confess to being anything short of an ace behind the
wheel.

I glance over at Kenny with her hair slightly
wet from the snow, the skin on her chest quivering, and the breath
escapes my lungs like it were a building on fire.

Damn she’s hot. I blink a quick smile and pat
her on the knee like some perverted uncle.

“Let’s do this,” I say.

Kenny helps me drag down the furry monster
that once stood proud as a card-carrying member of the forest and
is now reduced to living room décor for all of one night. But I
don’t mind. I can’t remember the last time I had a tree with the
exception of living in the bed and breakfast with Mom and
Molly.

“It smells so good!” She inhales deeply as
her lids flutter. She looks as if she’s about to have an enriched
sexual experience, and with me a good ten feet away, missing out on
all the fun.

“Sure does. God’s perfume,” I say, dragging
it into the house and leaning it against the wall farthest from the
fireplace. No use in burning down our love shack before giving it
the proper conjugal usage.

I step back and lose myself just staring at
Kenny.

“What?” She bites down on her lip, and her
hip juts out like she’s making me an offer. For a girl who claims
to never have had more than one drunken kiss, Kenny sure knows how
to bring the heat without trying. And what the hell am I saying,
conjugal usage? Kenny isn’t one of the tramps I pick up on my
nightly panty raids down on sorority row. I’m pretty sure this is
one fountain of youth and beauty I won’t be tapping anytime soon.
The nice guy in me won’t allow it. I’d like to take that part of me
out back and knock the shit out of him with a shovel—bury him in
the process for morphing into a bleeding heart without my
permission.

Kenny comes in close with those pale,
sky-washed eyes, and I have a hard time catching my breath.

“Boy, you’re quiet,” she whispers.

“Just enjoying the view.” God’s honest truth
right there. Kenny is a goddess who should be admired by the entire
human race. “So what are we going to do with this thing?” I dig a
smile in the side of my cheek and try to pull her in the way I do
with other girls. But for her, my heart skips a beat, and I’m not
sure I like what this means—not sure I’ve ever felt this
before.

“Come on.” She pulls me down to the carpet,
and we lean back admiring its crooked form.

It’s comfortable like this with Kenny. I push
into her shoulder playfully, and she reciprocates with a bubbling
laugh.

“You kissed me,” she whispers, looking up
from under a thicket of lashes.

“Only because your lips were begging for
it.”

“You wish.” Her cheeks fill with color like
maybe they were begging for it after all.

Kenny locks those steel-colored eyes over
mine and doesn’t let go. For a second I envision straddling
her—hell, her straddling
me
with that impossibly perfect
body, her warm limbs wrapped around my back like a bow.

A wave of heat washes over me, and I glance
down at the bare stump of the tree in an effort to deflect the
hard-on in my jeans rising to salute her.

“You think we should decorate it?” She rakes
her foot over mine, and an electrical jolt fires up to my
groin.

Yes, with a condom, I want to say. Instead, I
opt for something more appropriate and likely to happen. “My mom
probably has an entire crate of ornaments she’d gladly gift us.” I
tap her foot with mine and feel a surge bullet through me once
again. I’m fascinated by the physiological effect she has the power
to invoke. Obviously sex with someone as physically charged as
Kenny would kill me instantly. But what the hell, I say get the
paddles ready boys. I’m going in on a suicide mission.

For a moment, I envision myself stretched out
on a gurney with my dick smoking.

I pluck my phone out and shoot a quick text
to mom before I get off track and end up dry humping the evergreen
just to keep from going insane.

“Ornaments are just what we need.” She shifts
and appraises me as if seeing me for the very first time. She looks
up at me with those bowtie lips, and my insides come to life in a
flaming ball of fire.

Shit. I’m not used to this. I haven’t had a
real girl over in so long—
ever
in fact, and it’s quickly
becoming obvious my body doesn’t know what it’s supposed to do with
her. Hell, I know what it
demands
to do with her—and most of
those things aren’t legal in any of the fifty states.

“Tell me something about yourself,” she says,
lying on her back. “What turned you onto women en masse?”

I roll onto my elbow and take her in from
this aerial vantage point.

“You’re a beautiful species. Can you blame
me?” I won’t be filling her in on my heartbreak anytime soon.
Besides, I’m over that. This is the new me, the one that doesn’t
need assurances, just a pocket full of condoms and I’m good to
go.

She adjusts herself and her chest ripples in
all the right places, eliciting a groan from me in the process. I
can feel the old me wanting to burst through and make Kenny my own
in a far more intimate way than any of the long string of girls
I’ve reduced to body parts in the last several months. But body
parts in and of themselves are fun, and having your balls handed to
you spiked on a stiletto, not so much.

“Well I think
you’re
a beautiful
species.” She nestles in a little closer. I can feel her gunning
for another kiss, but she’s too shy to go there on her own.

She kicks off her shoes exposing her glossy
red toenails. Kenny rolls into me with her hip seductively hiked,
her shoulder turned in until it looks as if she’s downright posing.
My body starts in on the shakes, and my breathing picks up pace. I
bow into her like a warning and she doesn’t resist the effort.
Instead, her eyes enlarge, and her breathing becomes erratic,
letting me know she wants it. I close my eyes and go in for the
kill.

“So”—she bolts up as if waking from a bad
dream—“we should roll some ideas around for our experiment. You
know, set some ground rules.”

“Our experiment?” I slouch after having my
lips shot down like an incoming missile.

“Yeah, you know.” She pushes her shoulder
against mine and that same surge of electricity vibrates through my
chest. “You’re my fearless leader. You’re going to teach me the
ropes”—she ticks her head toward the leash on the
floor—“literally.”

“You really want to do this?” A thin rail of
disappointment speeds through me. I thought maybe she’d cave,
decide that she’s a one-man woman and maybe, just maybe, that man
could’ve been me.

“Yes.” She pushes it out as if she’s unsure.
“I mean, only if you’re interested. If you find me repulsive, I
could look elsewhere for instruction.” Her lips twitch under the
duress of her words, as if she meant it as a joke and had a reality
check that stunted her ego.

“I definitely don’t find you repulsive, nor
am I willing to relinquish my star pupil. Trust me, I’ll have you
bedding your way through fraternity row by New Years’.”

She ticks her head back rebuffing the
idea.

Knew it. She’s a big phony.

A smile twitches on my lips, but I won’t give
it.

“New Years’?” She shakes her head. “How about
Valentine’s Day? That might be a nice touch. I’m sentimental that
way.” She gives an impish grin.

I’m quick to do the math. “Nine weeks without
sex? What planet are you from?”

She opens her mouth to protest, and I place a
finger over her butter soft lips.

“I’m teasing.” I trace the outline of her
mouth as she arches back with pleasure. “I haven’t forgotten your
virginal standing. And believe me when I say, I’ll prepare you
well.” I pull my finger down her neck, and she gives an
uncontrollable shiver.

“I’d hate to take up too much of your time.”
She looks down forlorn for a moment, like maybe she wouldn’t mind
taking up a little more of my time than she’s letting on. “I mean,
you know, I’d hate for the scoreboard on your bedpost to go stale
because of me.”

I drink Kenny down with her wide-eyed
innocence, her spectacular level of vulnerability that sends my
testosterone into overdrive.

“The scoreboard should probably take a
breather. I was thinking about taking a break, anyway. That way I
can hone in all my efforts on you.” I stop shy of any sexual
illustrations that were begging to fly from my lips. There’s no way
I’m going to feed her to the masses at Garrison or anywhere else.
I’ll simply teach her a thing or two about the male anatomy. Hell,
maybe she’ll like this slice of genetic pie enough to want to stick
around—come back for seconds, over and over again.

“So, I guess you’ll be my first.” She leans
in and her breasts ripple out of her low-cut sweater. I try to keep
my eyes level to hers, but it’s like holding up a battleship.

“I guess I will.”

I’m mesmerized by this goddess before me. The
idea of being with Kenny, of touching her heated skin to mine,
burying myself inside her, sends blood rushing to places that will
make for an interesting conversation in a few minutes, and I start
to sweat.