The Mistletoe Effect (16 page)

Enough was enough. It was time to teach her family a new way to treat her. “For the greater good of who, Daddy? Why don’t you tell me and we can get it out in the open.”

Carina’s mom scanned the crowd, probably searching for some excuse to beg out of the confrontation. Carina’s dad and Granny June gaped at Carina, like they couldn’t believe their eyes that their mousy, meek girl had it in her to stand up for herself. Well, they’d be in for a rude awakening one of these days, because she was tired of being the family doormat.

Decker took her hand. “Excuse us for a moment.”

He led her toward the doors, lifting a full champagne flute off a tray and handing it to her.

“For the greater good, my ass,” Carina said with a huff. “Did you hear them?”

“I did, and I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself, but right now, the greater good for me is getting you naked in our marriage bed. If lying accomplishes that in the fastest way possible, then I’m all for it.”

She took a sip of champagne and rolled it over her tongue, forcing herself to calm down. Getting naked with Decker was definitely a perk of the lie. From that thought, it was just a hop, skip, and a jump in her mind to the cock ring she’d given him to wear at the reception. “I’m all for that part, too.”

He kissed her temple, then pushed through the lounge doors into the hall. “Good, and you should know I’m not going to stop lovin’ on you tonight until I have you screaming ‘holy matrimony.’ ”

She had the sneaking suspicion he was trying to distract her from her frustration at her family, and she had to admit, it was working. Not his dirty talk, but that he was taking care of her, whisking her away from her parents, calming her down, and making her feel cared for. The more she considered it, the more her troubles sloughed off, left behind at the party she’d never wanted to host anyway. Maybe Alex had been right when he’d said that everybody needed someone to look out for them. She liked the idea of Decker being that someone.

In the hall, she set her half-drained flute on a decorative table, then grabbed Decker’s hand and pulled him onto a balcony just off the hallway, leaving the last of her worries behind and getting into the sexy spirit of things. The air was bracingly cold on her bare legs and face, though she counted her lucky stars that it wasn’t snowing or raining. As soon as the door flapped closed behind her, she pressed him to a dark corner out of view of the glass door and copped a feel on his crotch.

“Trust me,” he said. “I’m holding up my end of the bargain.”

She smoothed her hand along his erection. “It feels to me like you’re up right now, bargain or not.”

“Very funny.”

Next thing she knew, his hand had worked its way up her skirt and onto her bare butt. “You’re not wearing much under this. What if a strong breeze came along and blew up your skirt?”

“I would be the talk of the party.”

He hummed his approval, then moved his hand higher until he found the thong. “These are the mistletoe panties, I’m guessing. If I’m remembering them correctly, then around to the side here I’m going to find—bingo.”

With a flick of his wrist, the sound of ripping Velcro echoed through the air. The thong sagged against her inner thighs. She squeezed her pelvic muscles, giving in to the deliciously wicked realization that with one more flick of his wrist there would be nothing standing between her body’s most intimate flesh and the air surrounding them. The idea of being so exposed, of walking back into the party on Decker’s arm, panty-less, turned her on in a low-down, dirty way.

“Now for the other side,” he said. He made short work of it and caught the thong before it passed her knees on its way to the floor.

The feel of his hand between her thighs and the air against her hot flesh left her dizzy with anticipation and need.

When Decker straightened to his full height again, his expression was dark, his jaw tight. He slipped the thong into his pant pocket. “I guess we’d better make extra sure we don’t encounter any bracing winds on our way home,” he said.

“Two can play at that game.” She worked his belt open, then plunged her hand below the elastic band of his boxer briefs.

His breathing labored, he leaned against the brick wall. “You say that like I should be trying to stop you from doing something dastardly.”

Her hand grazed over the cock ring. She loved the way it jutted his dick and balls out in front of his body, brazen and proud. Then again, he should be proud. He’d been blessed with one of the finest male bodies she’d ever had the pleasure of fondling. At her first tug up the length of his shaft, stretching his skin, he groaned. His head lolled back to rest against the wall.

“See, it’s there, just like you commanded me. I might have gotten a ring on your finger, but you got two rings on me—my finger and my family jewels. That’s staking quite a claim on the resident hottie.”

She looked up from where she was admiring the crown of red, swollen flesh breaching the top of his boxers to enjoy his self-deprecating smile.

“We’ll see if you’re still singing the praises of marriage and rings in a few minutes.” Assuming an evil smile, she slid her hand back down the length of him and pressed the vibrator button at the top of the cock ring. The ring hummed to life.

∗∗∗

“You play dirty, Mrs. Decker.”

Judging by her proud, naughty smile, she agreed.

While he was thrilled that he’d distracted her from her family’s dunderheaded statements, there was no way he could walk back into the building without something covering his front because of his hard-on and the way the cock ring pushed his goods out front of him, giving him the bulge of all conspicuous bulges. The ring didn’t even allow for creative tucking or sliding his dick along his hip bone.

The vibrating wasn’t loud enough that people in the party would hear it over the revelry, nor was it overly intense, being that it was concentrated in the battery-powered nub sitting atop the root of his dick. But it was enough to keep him in a state of constant awareness of his arousal.

He could handle the short walk down the stairs and out the building in that state, but not much more, which was fine, because he was past ready to have Carina naked and beneath him. “You ready to get out of here with me?”

“I sent Alex home tonight, so I have to stay until the end of the party.”

Decker reached up her skirt again and cupped her ass. “Bullshit, you do. We’re newlyweds. We have a built-in excuse for leaving early.”

She suckled his lower lip. “I have responsibilities, workers who gave up their free night at the last minute to pull this off. How would it look if I blew this off?”

He growled. “Woman, don’t you dare mention blowing anything off unless you’re prepared to get down on your knees. And I don’t think chafed knees is the look you’re going for in a short skirt like that.”

“You’re just going to have to be patient. Let’s go mingle and have another drink.”

He chuckled, picturing himself having a serious discussion about horses or ranch life while his crotch vibrated, yet clearly, she was serious about her duty to stay. But that didn’t mean they had to go back inside right that very second.

Wrapping his arms around her, he spun her so that her back was up against the wall in the darkest shadow of the balcony. She opened her mouth to protest, but before she could speak, his fingers delved into the wet, heated flesh between her thighs.

He captured her moan with a kiss. “We’re not going anywhere just quite yet.”

She brought her hands up around his neck and let her head fall forward, pressing her cheek against his, clinging to him in a way that made him feel like the most powerful man in the universe, controlling the world’s axis with the tip of his finger.

Her breath skittered over his cheeks in fits and starts as he traced relentless little circles around her clit.

“What about the promise in your note this morning?” she said, her voice thick with passion.

“What promise was that?”

He lightly squeezed her clit between two fingers, curious if she’d be able to speak through such concentrated pleasure. “That I’d—” The rest of her sentence dissolved into a shaky exhalation.

Smiling, he kissed her, getting his tongue involved as his fingers dipped lower and pressed inside her. Groaning, she broke their kiss and rolled her head against the stucco wall, her eyes closed. He pumped his fingers and trailed kisses on her exposed neck.

“You said …” She paused, panting. Her eyelids cracked open and a smile danced on her parted lips. “You said I’d be the one issuing commands from now on.”

In his excitement about her sexy plan for the cocktail party, he’d forgotten about that. The vibrations of the cock ring hadn’t exactly helped him focus, what with all his blood rushing in the opposite direction of his brain.

“You’re right. I did. And look at you, asserting yourself right now, holding me to my word.”

She smoothed her hand over his hair. “I have big plans for you tonight involving the Naughty Newlyweds basket.”

“You’re the one who said you can’t leave the party yet.”

Her smile faltered, and he instantly regretted bringing up her work commitments. To distract her, he thrust his fingers out and in, working her clit with his thumb until the worry erased from her features.

“You’re right about the note. Tell me what you want now and I’ll do it,” he said. “Do you want to wait until we get home later or do you want me to make you come now for
the first time
?” He put the emphasis on
the first time
so she’d know this wasn’t going to be a one-and-done kind of night.

He first heard his answer in the way she added a slight bend to her knees and rotated her hips, urging his fingers deeper into her body. “Make me come.”

Her whispered command and the way her body trembled in ever-heightening arousal, mixed with the excruciating pleasure of the cock ring vibrations, nearly did him in. He was torn between reaching his free hand down his pants and getting the inevitable first orgasm over with and edging it out while he took care of Carina, then endured the rest of the party. What he really wanted to do was fuck her hard and fast right there against the wall, but her family and dozens of guests were on the other side of the wall from where he and Carina stood and he hadn’t defended her honor against Cord McGraw and the other resort workers only to sully it in a new way should someone walk out and see them. They were already tempting fate as it was.

His first attempt to speak again came out as a croak. Clearing his throat, he fought to ignore the messages his dick was sending to him by concentrating on the way Carina’s body felt against his, her hands in his hair, her face buried in his neck, until he’d calmed down enough to get a few words out. “Your wish is my command.”

He withdrew his fingers and concentrated all his effort on her clit and creating a building rhythm in his movement. She brought her forehead to his chest, breathing into him. He loved the way holding her felt, loved witnessing her soft, sweet body coming undone in his arms.

Then he felt her hands working below the hem of his shirt, sliding against his stomach, then lower still. She reached into his boxer briefs and took out his cock. It hung in the night air, heavy and hot and at the mercy of the cock ring’s vibrations. Wrapping her hand around his shaft, she raised her head and met his gaze. Her lips were parted, her cheeks flushed with arousal.

She was so beautiful and the ecstasy of her hand on his dick was so profound that Decker couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. No clever banter, no words of thanks for giving him what his body needed. All he had in his mind was the bliss of her hand wrapped around him, the wet heat of her body where his fingers circled, and the way it felt to stand together, their bodies and minds moving in a unified dance of intimacy. He’d never experienced anything quite like it, and he’d done a lot of living in his near thirty-one years.

As he worked her flesh, she tugged on his, stretching his skin and working up a friction that brought him right to the brink. He brought his face down and nuzzled his nose and lips in her hair, closing his eyes. She nestled her face in the crook of his neck, her parted lips pressing onto his skin.

The world went quiet, save for their labored breath, the vibrating hum of the cock ring, and the rustle of their clothes as they arched and squirmed and fought, together, for release. He felt Carina’s orgasm before she reacted outwardly. Her muscles pulsed; then she rose onto her tiptoes, her spine straightening. The hand pumping his cock stopped. At her first whimper, he dropped his lips onto hers and kissed her. She writhed on his hand, and the arm she’d lassoed around his neck crushed him close to her.

When she came down from her high, she broke the kiss and grinned at him, her eyes dewy and satisfied.

“Yeah?” he said.

She nodded, pecked his lips with another kiss, then sank to a squat.

He hooked his hands in her armpits in an attempt to pull her up. “Carina, baby, no. Someone could walk out any second.”

She licked his crown. “Just let me do this for you. Besides, we’re married. We have a right to touch each other whenever and however we want.”

Not exactly true, though he appreciated the sentiment. “Carina, please.”

“You forget who’s in command right now,” she murmured right before her mouth closed over him. He knew he wouldn’t take long, not only because of the hand job and cock ring she’d primed him with but also because he’d learned that past week that she had some serious skill when it came to oral sex, one of the many discoveries about her that had surprised him.

True to form, she did some kind of swirl with her tongue that lit a fuse in him and it only took about two-point-one seconds for him to stop caring who might walk onto the balcony at any moment. He smoothed tendrils of hair away from her forehead and wallowed in the pleasure of her mouth taking him in, her lips gripping him tight.

Her hand closed around the base of his shaft, pumping in time with her mouth. Gazing down at her, he saw a flash—her wedding band on the hand jerking his dick. That was all it took. “Carina, stop. I’m coming.”