Stocking Stuffer, page 5
“Bailey.” Mack was there, stopping her by placing a hand against the door, using his weight to keep it closed. Their eyes locked, and the air between them seemed to get sucked out of the room.
“Mack.” Her tone held a mix of worry and pleading.
He swallowed hard at the way she said his name, as though she needed something, but he wasn’t sure what to give her.
“I’m here if you need me . . . for anything.” He wanted to say so much more, but he felt anything else would be unwelcome to her.
“Thanks . . . maybe I’ll see you later.” But he heard the goodbye in those words.
She turned the doorknob, and he stepped back, letting her go. As she entered the hall, he tried one more time to say what lay in his heart.
“I wish I had kissed you that night after prom.”
She half turned, her eyes holding his briefly. “I wish you had too.” Then she let the door close.
He stayed by the shut door, letting her walk away, his eyes closed he tried to fight off a sudden wave of dark emotion, which broke upon the bitter shores of his heart. She had wanted to give him everything back then, but the gift of Bailey was long gone. He threw himself down on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a long while. Half an hour later, the power in the hotel died and darkness fell around him.
“Shit,” he groaned. It was going to be a long, cold night.
Bailey had just stepped out of the shower when the electricity shut off.
“What the hell?” She scrambled for a towel in the near pitch-black bathroom. Her fingers brushed against the fluffy fabric of the towel she had set on the counter. With a little shiver, she wrapped it around her body and exited the bathroom.
Pale moonlight obscured mostly by the snow barely lit the hotel room enough for her to find her underwear and the flannel pajamas that she had packed. The bottoms were shorts rather than long pants and she knew she would get cold fast if the hotel’s power didn’t come back on soon.
Bailey attempted to dry her hair with one of the smaller towels, but she knew it was going to end up in a rumpled, wavy mass without a hair dryer. But the worst part was the wet hair was going to make her insanely cold. She dove under the blankets of her bed and tried to get some sleep. But after an hour, with her teeth chattering and no sign of the power coming back on, she gave up. There was only one thing she could think of to keep warm, and it was such a bad idea.
She grabbed her cell phone and room key and went to Mack’s door. She stared at it for what felt like forever. When she couldn’t put it off anymore because her bones were rattling from the cold, she knocked. He opened the door, and she took in the sight of him barefoot, wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt, beneath the glow of the red emergency lights in the hallway, his hair mussed. His face was relaxed until he realized it was her, and then he tensed.
“Bailey? What’s the matter? Are you okay?”
“Y-yeah.” She tried to keep her teeth from chattering—she was freezing. “So, the power’s out. And, well, I am freezing and I thought we could help each other stay warm . . . Oh God, this is so stupid,” she muttered to herself, her cheeks on fire.
“What?” he asked, disbelieving, but she knew in her bones that he wasn’t misunderstanding what she was suggesting.
“Nothing.” She started to turn away, her pulse racing in her ears as his decade-long rejection played out in an instant in her mind’s eye. She had to get away, find another way to keep warm, and try not to think of his solid warm body and drugging kisses a room away.
She shivered as he caught her. One hand curled around her bare arm, and her flesh prickled with awareness as her stomach dropped at the pressure of his strong, wonderfully warm fingers.
“Come in and warm up,” he whispered, each word igniting hope inside her. “We have no idea when the power will be back on. We should do what we can to keep warm.”
She stared at him for a moment as he stood bathed in the snow-obscured moonlight. The shadows on his face were too dark to see his eyes properly, but she knew they blazed with the same intent she remembered from ten years ago. But this time, he was reaching out to her, not pulling away.
She swallowed as she made up her mind. “Thanks.” She slipped past him, their bodies brushing in the dark, and the friction made her breath catch and her nipples pebble.
The door closed behind her, and she paused, letting him step up behind her, the warmth of his body a scant inch from hers, warming the minimal space between them with heat.
“Mack . . . ,” she said with uncertainty and stopped.
“Bailey?” Her name, whispered in the dark in his deep voice, obliterated the last of her good sense.
“If we do this . . . ,” she began, and her mind screamed the correction When we do this. “It’s just tonight. We go back to our lives tomorrow, and we never speak of this again.”
She held her breath, waiting, and for an agonizing moment he said nothing. Then he spun her to face him. They came together in a kiss that was brighter and hotter than any distantly burning star in the winter sky. Her pulse raced wildly as he pushed her back up against the wall. When he kissed her like this, everything she had ever felt for him came back, like lightning striking her. Electricity shot down her limbs, and she gasped against his mouth. He cupped the back of her head and caged her against the wall, leaving no doubt that he was in charge of this, in charge of her.
“Wanted this so much,” he murmured against her lips. “Had so many fantasies about you, Bailey.” He was no poet, but the desire in his voice was the best love song she’d ever heard, and the feel of his desperate hands rubbing at her pajamas was purely animalistic. She kicked out of her pajama bottoms and squealed as he suddenly lifted her in his arms. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and he carried her to the bed. Somehow, her button-up pajama top slipped away, leaving her in her panties as he laid her back on his bed.
He stripped off his T-shirt, exposing his chest. Everything else beyond him seemed to vanish in the darkness, and only they were illuminated by the nearby window that let the snow-softened moonlight through. It was easier to surrender to her fantasies when she was in the dark with him. She could pretend it was a dream and there would be no heartbreak tomorrow.
She had seen him half-naked plenty of times from her bedroom window growing up, but that had been the slim-muscled body of a seventeen-year-old boy. Now he was broader in the shoulders, his muscles more harshly cut beneath his skin. Her own body screamed to touch his, to run her tongue over every magnificent groove and curve of those gorgeous muscles.
“Fuck, Bailey,” he groaned. “You’re gorgeous. Too beautiful to be real.” He stared down at her as though lost in the same wild, lustful thoughts as she was. It lasted for a single moment, and the intensity seemed to build, and she couldn’t bear it.
“Touch me, then. Prove you’re real too,” she challenged.
With a darkly primal grin, he knelt at her feet and pulled her toward him. She parted her thighs, and he reached up, fisting his hand in her panties. Then he tore the scrap of lace from her body. The flimsy cloth snapped beneath his grip, and she whimpered at the sudden flood of wet heat between her thighs at his roughness. She didn’t want the boy next door—she wanted the grown man who could fuck her hard enough to make her forget the past and cease to worry about the future.
In the dim, pale moonlight, she saw Mack’s gray eyes glowed as he forced her thighs wider and he leaned in, his lips trailing up her leg with light kisses toward her core.
She’d had a few boyfriends go down on her, but none had affected her the way Mack did. He licked her like a man starved, his tongue lapping at her, which only made her wetter.
“Have you been naughty or nice this year, Bailey?” he asked before he dragged his tongue through her slit, and she saw actual stars as she threw her head back.
“Oh God,” she gasped. “Naughty . . . definitely naughty.”
He laughed, his warm breath tickling her.
“A bad girl, eh?” He slipped a finger into her, pushing it slowly deeper, making her all too aware that he was gently owning her body.
“Uh-huh . . .” She was panting now. Her mind had only one goal: pleasure. That was all that mattered. Mind-blowing pleasure. She knew Mack could give it to her.
He slowly withdrew his finger from her core and stood up, leaning over her. “Suck it,” he commanded in a dark tone that sent delicious shivers through her.
She parted her lips, and he slid his finger into her mouth. She tasted herself on him, and it made her legs tremble and close at the sinful action. She let him remove his finger from her mouth, and it escaped from her lips with a soft pop.
“Do you know what bad girls get for Christmas?” he asked.
“A lump of coal?” she answered cheekily.
He opened his jeans and pushed them down, his hard cock jutting out toward her.
“Spread your thighs again, brat,” Mack growled, but there was such affection in the word brat that it came across as an endearment, so she complied with even more hunger for him. He snagged his jeans from the floor, removed a foil packet, and tore it open. She watched him roll the condom over his hard cock, and she swallowed in anticipation of being filled by him.
Mack bent over the bed and crawled up over her body. Pinning her down on the bed, he settled his weight on top of her, and she did as he ordered, her legs spreading wide. He braced himself above her, his thick forearms on either side of her head. He shifted, reaching down between them, gripping his shaft, and then he was entering her. She moaned at the sudden hard invasion. He was almost too big—she wasn’t even sure she could take him.
“That’s it, take it, baby,” he murmured in her ear. “Don’t be quiet. Let me hear you scream with pleasure.”
When he withdrew and slammed back in, she did scream. It felt so good and almost overwhelming at the same time, and she couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Pure sex glowed in his gray eyes as he stared down at her.
“You want to be my dirty little secret, Bailey?” he asked as he pummeled his hips against hers. The sound of their flesh slapping in the silent hotel room mixed with their shared breaths was an erotic symphony that she would remember for the rest of her life.
“Yes.” She could barely speak. She was so lost in him and the reality of Mack owning this last part of her.
“You know how often I’ve dreamed of this? Of sinking myself into this sweet little body?”
She couldn’t speak now. It was impossible. Mack was a dirty talker, and she loved it.
“Ever since I left for college, you were all I could think about. I wanted to hear you scream my name.” His low, rough confession as he made love to her, had her head spinning.
She gasped, breathing out his name in pants.
“You’re my pretty toy, aren’t you?”
His wicked words were spinning this into a new level of eroticism that was almost too perfect. She whimpered as he changed the angle of his thrusts.
The man was a sex god. He knew exactly what to do, how to brush her clit as he circled his hips and then changed his rhythm. It took her a moment to realize he was keeping her from coming.
“Mack, please,” she begged.
His rough chuckle only made her wetter. “My girl wants to come?”
She bit her lip and nodded frantically. “Please.”
“Come for me, baby,” he urged. and he deepened his thrusts, unleashing his sexual fury on her, and it was exactly what she needed. The orgasm nearly caused her to black out. Her heart actually stuttered to a stop. Mack thrust several more times, almost brutally, taking his pleasure from her sated, limp body, and then he called out her name like it was the most important thing he could ever say and emptied himself inside her. He stilled above her, their eyes locking in the snowy darkness as they shared shaky breaths.
What they’d done . . . they couldn’t take it back, and she feared it was the most wonderful mistake of her life.
Mack held still above Bailey, his heart battering against his ribs. He had completely lost his mind and his self-control. He had just fucked the cute little girl next door like she was some sort of personal pleasure toy, and it had been the most amazing thing he had ever felt in his life.
“God, Bailey, are you okay? I didn’t mean to get so—” He wasn’t sure why he was whispering, considering how loud they had just been. The whole hotel probably heard them.
“Don’t you dare apologize,” Bailey whispered back.
“I just treated you like—”
“We just released a decade of fantasies together,” she said. “It was bound to happen.”
Bound to happen? Why was she reducing the hottest sex in his life to the pent-up frustrations of teenagers?
“Stop trying to lessen what just happened, Bailey. There were two of us in this bed.”
At this, she looked away from him. He moved off her, their bodies separating. She slipped off the bed and disappeared into the bathroom. Mack sat naked on the bed, staring around at the darkened, powerless hotel room with the snow still swirling outside. Then he retrieved his briefs from the floor and Bailey’s torn panties and pajamas. When he tried the bathroom door, he found it unlocked. She was in the dark, running water over her hands.
“Here,” he murmured and gave her the clothes.
“Thanks.” She took them and dressed in the dark while he cleaned himself and slipped his briefs back on. She stared at the ripped lace panties and then with a sigh tossed them into the bathroom trash can. He’d never done that before, gotten so dominant that he’d ripped a woman’s panties clean off her body. Looking at her now, though, he was afraid his sexual aggression might have been too much for her. Had he crossed a line?
“Are you really okay?” He caught her by the shoulders. He had to know if he had done something terribly wrong.
“Why . . . yes.” She sounded so unsure that it crushed his chest in a viselike grip, making it hard to breathe.
“Bailey, talk to me. Please, you’re scaring the hell out of me.”
She lifted her face to his, and he cursed the darkness for not letting him see her better.
“It’s just . . . I’ve wanted that, wanted you for as long as I can remember. Now that I’ve had you—part of you—”
Mack held his breath when she stopped talking, terrified of what she might say next. Was the idea of him was better than the reality? He couldn’t compete with a dream version of himself.
“You’re so much better than I ever imagined, and I know it won’t last. It can’t last.”
He wanted to ask her why it couldn’t, but he didn’t dare. He had no right to ask that.
“So we have tonight,” he replied, pulling her into his arms. “I’ll be whatever you want, do whatever you want. I’m yours until dawn.”
This seemed to be what she wanted to hear. She relaxed into him at these words, and he kissed the crown of her hair. She was warm now, but the room was still too cold.
“Come back to bed. It’s chilly.” He pulled back the covers, and she climbed into bed. He joined her, spooning her into his body and wrapping himself around her.
“I’m so tired, but I don’t think I can sleep,” she murmured.
“Let’s talk,” he suggested. “Let me have a chance to get to know the new grown-up Bailey.”
She laughed at this, the sound an adorable sleepy giggle. “Do I get access to all the grown-up Mack secrets?”
“Absolutely,” he promised.
“Okay, ask away.”
And he did. He asked every question he’d wanted to know over the years. Her favorite college classes, what she did when she wasn’t at work, was her favorite color still that bright green?
She asked him about his trips, the islands that he’d visited, the places in Europe that had given him inspiration.
“I want to see the world like you,” she said with a yawn. “I’ve always stayed close to home . . . I don’t know why.”
He had known she’d never really traveled far from where they’d grown up. The years that she had missed the few Christmas events when their paths would have crossed, she’d never even left the city, yet she had still been just out of his reach.
“You could come with me next time,” he suggested. “Next year I think I want to go to Germany for the Christmas markets.”
She stopped breathing for a few heartbeats.
“That would be lovely,” she admitted, but he heard the false joy in her tone. She wasn’t actually agreeing to come. She was just pretending to entertain the thought. But why? He nuzzled her neck and pressed a soft kiss to her skin below her ear, and she shivered in his arms.
“Thank you, Mack,” she whispered.
“For what?” He held her closer, drawing the blankets up tighter around their bodies.
“For this, for tonight. It was a wonderful Christmas present.”
He didn’t respond. His throat was too tight. She drifted off to sleep, and all he could do was lie awake. He didn’t want to miss a second of this night with her because he knew that come morning, she would run from him.
Five
The power was back on when Bailey stirred the next morning. She stretched and yawned, feeling well rested. A hard, warm male body was next to her in the bed, and in a flash she remembered what had happened last night. She covered her face with her hands, not knowing whether to laugh or shake her head at herself.
Mack lay beside her still asleep, illuminated by the bright sunlight reflecting off the snow outside. The bands of light bathed his bare upper body where he had stretched out in the night and caused the covers to fall down to his hips.
Bailey bit her lip and smiled at him. She had never seen him like this before. Sleep softened him in a way she’d never seen before. His golden hair fell against his closed eyes, and his lips curved ever so slightly, as though whatever he dreamed about was wonderful. Last night had been intense and perfect. To be with him, and just experience it all, had been incredible. But it was over. She had to let go because she wouldn’t risk her heart, not again. Mack wasn’t going to settle down anytime soon, and she was ready for that next step in life—marriage, kids, all of it.
