Page 51 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas

He pulls back. His shallow exhales are hot across my collarbones. “You’re doing this.”

I cup both hands around his face, dragging my thumbs over his bottom lip. His eyes are hooded as he lets his jaw go slack. “God, I am, aren’t I?”

“Do you want to do this?”

I want to devour and be devoured. Squeezing my thighs around his waist, I grind against his belly. My panties are soaked again—he has to feel my wet heat against his bare skin. A beacon calling him home. His fingertips dig in, socketing my body against his. My mouth crashes down on his again in answer. Jake grunts and staggers backwards, stumbling over our discarded clothes and shoes. Steady again, he adjusts my body so I’m supported beneath by a forearm. With his other hand, he lets his palm skid up my sweaty spine before delving his fist into the back of my hair.

In an explosive breath, he tears his lips away from mine, angling his chin up and away so he can speak. “Tell me what you want.”

I bury my face under the angle of his jaw, sucking, biting. The pulse in his neck rampages against my lips, and the scent of him makes me delirious. Scoring my teeth along his earlobe, I say, “You.”

The word is barely out of my mouth before he has me on the bed, covering me with his body. He settles heavy between my thighs. The exquisite length of him is pinned against my clit with only two thin layers of cotton between us. I want to yank the crotch of my panties aside and beg him to bury himself inside me.

In the next moment, he raises over me, lifting himself away to kneel between my legs. He’s so desperately hard, the tip of his cock rises above the waistband of his black boxer briefs. I swallow down a howl of frustration, but then he’s hunched over me, running his beautiful hands across my breasts, over my ribs, my waist. He hooks a single finger in the elastic of my pink satin panties, meeting my eyes with a playful boost of one brow. I arch my back off the mattress and let my knees fall open.

Instead of taking them off, he lets the waistband snap back into place.

“Jake.”

He smirks, bending to cover my nipple with his mouth. As soon as I sink my hands into his hair, he moves down, coasting kisses along the arch of my ribs and the subtle swell of my lower belly. He skims his hands over my knees and up my outer thighs before gripping my hips.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about the way you taste,” he murmurs, tugging the top edge of my panties down, kissing my hipbone with teeth and tongue.

Then he’s rolling the satin down my legs. Once they’re off, he cups the cheeks of my ass in his hands to lift me to his wide-open mouth and his gloriously strong tongue. I’m so turned on, the pleasure of it is almost too much. I push away with my heels against the mattress, but Jake adjusts his hold on me, bringing one hand up to pin me down. It’s barely thirty seconds before I’m rising off the bed in a soul-shattering orgasm. I lever up onto my elbows to watch him drive me over the edge, my chest heaving, my thighs shuddering, Jake’s big shoulders moving rhythmically with the unwavering pace of his mouth.

I’m limp against the headboard. Jake gets his briefs off and pulls me down the mattress by my ankles so I’m flat again. “You drive me mad, Evie.” He shudders as he rolls on a condom with a single slick stroke. Tipping his head back, he pauses for a beat, gripping his shaft at the base. Firm enough that the veins in his hand bulge around his knuckles. “I’ve been fucking hard since I made you come in your pretty little knickers earlier tonight.”

When he looks down at me again, his expression is pure, sensual determination. Hands clamped on my hips, thighs braced wide, he’s there. Blunt and broad, blazing with heat, poised to bury himself inside me. I clamp my teeth on my bottom lip, welcoming him with a sinuous upward roll of my hips. He sinks down to the root without taking his eyes off mine, and we both close our eyes and breathe. The aftershocks of my orgasm still ripple through my core.

“Christ,” Jake rasps. “You’re still coming.”

I can’t control the way my thighs tremble, so I lock my ankles around his ass to anchor myself to him. He pulses inside me, but the rest of him is as still as a stone. When I open my eyes, his head is thrown back, teeth bared at the ceiling. A vessel throbs alongside the straining cords in his neck.

“I can’t believe this is happening.” He lets out a shaky breath as he finally looks down at me. “I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you.”

“I’m here.” I shift beneath him. “Please, Jake.”

He holds himself over me, body trembling with restraint. Then he withdraws, inch by torturous inch, before easing back into me with brutal tenderness. I surge upwards to meet him, drenched and impossibly inflamed.

“Slow down, love.” Jake is so hoarse, I barely recognize his voice. The muscles in his entire upper body tense against mine. His thighs go rigid, and he pushes onto his elbows to meet my gaze. “We’re just getting started.”

Arching my back, I roll my hips to draw him deeper.

“Fuck,” Jake exhales on a low, whimpering groan. It’s a sermon, and I’m desperate to worship.

I don’t think I’ve ever been this turned on. He’s already close to losing it, and we’ve barely begun. This big, beautiful man is barely clinging to self-control because of me. Me.

I’m dying to watch him unravel completely. “Do you really want to slow down?”

Eyes squeezed shut, he grinds his teeth, making the muscles at his jaw go taut. “Yes,” he says. In the next breath, he growls, “No,” dropping his forehead to the pillow next to my head. He gives me three solid, unrestrained thrusts, bouncing us hard against the mattress. Then he stops again. It’s like he’s allowed himself one urgent, hungry indulgence before locking back in on discipline.

He’s edging himself. It’s one of the hottest things I’ve ever witnessed.

“I don’t want this to be over yet,” he rasps.

“We can just do this again.” I nip his earlobe. “And again.” I dig the tips of my fingers into the cords of muscle along his spine. I want to be selfish. I want to be railed into a different universe and worry later how I might get back to Earth. “And again.”

When I clench around him, tight and greedy, he gasps and presses his open mouth to my temple. “Fucking hell, Evie.”