Page 66 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas

And then he licks it off.

He leans close. “Do you know what you taste like, Evie?” He kneels beside me, coasting the tip of his nose along my cheekbone. Then he hovers his lips just centimeters from mine. “You’re a rare vintage, darling.”

I can smell the salt and musk of my arousal on his mouth. It mingles with the deliciously familiar flavor of his breath, the heady essence of his skin, and the barely there trace of his cologne. Surging upwards, I fist a hand in his hair and collide my lips into his, tasting him, tasting me. It’s a furious, filthy kiss. Teeth meeting teeth. Unrelenting strokes of tongue against tongue. Jake makes an agonized noise deep in his throat when I break away. I push him back against the mattress, straddling his thighs.

Skimming both hands down his torso, I say, “What was it you said to me that night on the London Eye?” He shudders when I graze my fingertips along the ridges of his hipbones and the firm hollows beneath. “‘I’m going to edge you until you cry,’ was it?”

He swears under his breath and chokes out, “Fair play.”

I let my jaw drop all the way open and drag the full wet-hot length of my tongue up the underside of his shaft, curling a palm over the top for more friction. He bucks his hips and throbs in my hand when I coast the pad of my thumb over the velvety bundle of nerves beneath the head. When I take him fully into my mouth, Jake’s thighs shudder, and he groans like he’s possessed. He grabs a handful of sheets and twists it around his fist.

“Ah, fuck.” His sharp inhale hisses past clenched teeth. Head thrown back, his throat spasms in a painful-looking swallow.

Flat on his back like this, he doesn’t have much leverage. Still, I can feel how the cheeks of his ass contract and release beneath him in a rhythm that echoes every sucking pulse of my tongue.

Then I stop.

“Bloody Christ, woman.” When he tries to sit up, I push him back down. He throws his arm over his eyes as he hits the pillow. “I think—” his voice cracks, “I’m dying tonight.”

I still have him in my mouth when I laugh softly, letting the mellow hum vibrate around the tip. “I’m sure I’ll be able to bring you back.”

I take him deeper, matching the strokes of my hand to the cadence of every sleek pull of my mouth. My heart hammers so hard I can feel my pulse between my legs. God, he’s extraordinary from this angle. Abs quaking and tensing, chest slick with sweat and heaving with every labored breath. Nipples in tight peaks, and an angry flush across his collarbones.

A low rumble begins in Jake’s chest.

Again, I stop.

“I can’t,” he growls, launching upright quicker than I can react to. In the next beat, he’s got his hands under my arms, hauling me sideways, then onto my back. He’s got me half-pinned with his upper body across my chest and a strong thigh over one of mine. Firelight pours over him, highlighting the thrust of his collarbones and the smooth, broad caps of his shoulders.

“Not fair.” My breath hitches. “You didn’t cry.”

Jake’s low laugh is dark. “Trust me, love. I’m fucking wailing on the inside.”

With his free hand, he pushes my other thigh wide, then he cups the soaked center of me with a trembling grip. I jerk my hips upwards, and he dips two fingers inside me before targeting my clit with relentless friction. Slipping, pulsing, tugging. I’m still primed from the orgasm he gave me with his mouth, so it’s barely a minute before I’m ready to pop again. Pressure pools between my legs, filling me to bursting. It plumes into my belly and races down my thighs. It’s the insistent heat of Jake’s cock pressed against my hip that finally sends me over the edge.

My thighs collapse shut, trapping Jake’s hand between my legs as I begin to rock and thrust against him. I’m out of my mind, yanking Jake down by the back of his neck, sobbing and moaning into his mouth from the pleasure of it.

When I go limp, Jake makes a sound of satisfaction deep in his throat. He sits up on his heels and thrusts into a condom. “More?” he says.

“More. Everything,” I say.

Jake knocks my thighs open with his spread knees. Anticipation pounds through my body like a second pulse in my veins. Wind rails against the windows, shivering the panes of glass in their frames. It’s like a living thing, urging us to match its raw, elemental power.

“Please, Jake. Pl—”

He drives inside me with a single sleek, determined thrust, and I’m ready for him, angling upwards, feet dug into the mattress. My legs fall open wide, boneless. He plants his elbows alongside my shoulders and bears down for leverage, his fingers tangled in my hair. We breathe what the other exhales, taking each other in on a molecular level. He’s primal. Painting my skin with his sweat. He’s got his bottom lip sucked between his teeth in a grimace of pleasure-pain and barely restrained hunger. But I’ve never felt so safe. So worshipped.

Crashing into each other, we’re as unbound and wild as the storm outside, and nearly as drenched. Finally, Jake kisses me, mumbling urgent words against my mouth that I taste more than I understand. He spreads his knees even wider for extra leverage, doubling down on the pace of his thrusts. He surges into me so hard, he pushes us up the mattress, closer to the fire. The heat of it blasts our sweat-slick skin. Jake’s hair falls fully into his eyes, and locks of mine stick to my forehead, my neck. It’s like I’m clinging to Icarus himself, and I’d gladly fly into the sun with this man if it means I get to fall with him.

Jake bucks over me, erratic now. With a shuddering groan, he goes boneless for a moment, then he locks himself to me with trembling arms. His entire body jerks as he empties himself into me, his ragged cries filling the room. I’ve never heard him come so loudly, so frantic. Oh god, the sounds this man makes as we unravel, peeling everything back until the only thing that remains is our urgent, infinite need for each other. Every cell in my body vibrates, faster, faster, as he urges me to meet him in the place he’s just gone. It’s a soaking storm of our own making, and I’m desperate to let it take me.

Come with me.

And I do.

* * *

Later, after we’ve cleaned up and put fresh linen on the makeshift bed, we laze in front of the fire.