I stole a tiny cake from the tray and escaped across the kitchen to avoid her wrath. “Who serves petit fours outside of a tea room?” Delicious cake muffled my voice.
“I’ve been experimenting with a French baking book.” She watched me lick my fingers. “You approve?”
I nodded and tried to sneak around her to grab a cookie.
Unfortunately, she shielded the tray from my grabby fingers. “These are for guests.”
“I’m a guest. Look, ugly sweater and everything.” I stuck out my chest. “You picked it out, and I’m such a good guest I wore it. Plus, I could have died recently. How sad would it be if you stood here alone, crying over the fact I never tasted your homemade macarons?” I batted my eyelashes at her.
“You didn’t almost die.”
“We don’t know for certain.” I pouted out my bottom lip.
“Okay, you win.” She handed me a red cookie. “Have the raspberry.”
“Mmmm …” I moaned.
“What are you moaning about now?” Kai’s voice came from behind me. “You’ve been doing a lot of that tonight.”
Instead of answering him, I swiped another cookie and held it up to his mouth. “Eat me.”
A wicked smile crossed his face. “I thought you’d never ask.” He opened his mouth and held out the tip of his tongue.
The moan was soft, and might have actually come from me, but I was pretty sure Maggie moaned.
I stuffed the cookie in his mouth—let him smirk with his mouth full.
“Mmmm …” He closed his eyes and licked tiny crumbs from the corner of his lips.
Maggie’s hand clutched my wrist. She whispered near my ear, “How do you resist that?”
Not willing to take my eyes from Kai’s glorious face, I whispered, “Who said I ever did?”
His eyes opened and met mine. There was the smirk. “I’ve tasted better.” His tongue peeked out again, and he ran the tip halfway along his top lip.
I held the edge of the counter, my legs proving unreliable.
“You two need a room.” Maggie fanned herself.
Kai and I laughed.
“I think that’s our cue to leave,” he said.
“So soon? I’m sure there’s a decrepit history professor or two lurking around who haven’t yet attempted to floss my tonsils.” I shot Maggie a dirty look. “What’s with all the mistletoe everywhere?”
“It’s festive.”
“It’s a cold sore outbreak waiting to happen,” I snorted.
“And on that note, I’ll grab our coats.” He walked out of the kitchen.
“Be good to him. He’s a keeper.”
“Oh, great. Now you’re on Team Dutchman?”
“I’m on Team Selah. Up until November, he made you happy. Happier than you’ve ever sounded.”
“It’s difficult to infer tone in email.”
“And the smiling pictures of the two of you? Or the blush on your cheeks when you look at him?”
“Pfft. I haven’t blushed since Bush. The father.”
“You’re flushed right now.”
“Must be the booze.”
“You’re not even drinking.”
Right. “Maybe Elbow Patches spiked my cranberry soda. I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“You’re in love. Fight it if you want, but resisting doesn’t change the truth.”
“Hush your mouth.”
“I will not. Don’t shove him away, Selah. Or find excuses and flaws that aren’t there.”
Kai returned, saving me from further pep talks.
We said good night to everyone and headed home, to my home. Not our home.
There was no ours at this point.
WHEN WE ARRIVED at my house, I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to Kai. Every day it became increasingly difficult to send him away at the end of the evening. I couldn’t even remember why I had been adamant about him not staying at my house. Or in my bed.
“Come inside?” I asked when he stopped in my driveway but didn’t turn off the engine.
“Are you sure?” His hand hovered over the key.
“Yes.”
Silence filled the interior. We paused, waiting for what I didn’t know.
“Selah …”
“Kai …”
“If I come inside tonight, I’m not returning to the hotel. I want you to know if we go inside, I’m staying.”
I smiled at him in the darkness with only the street lights and my porch light for illumination.
“I’m sure.”
The unsnapping of his seat belt echoed around us.
“Eager much?” I teased.
He growled and opened his door. “Coming?” he glanced at me.
“God I hope so. And soon,” I mumbled softly under my breath.
“Come again?” He grinned.
My mind told me we needed to talk.
My heart told my mind to shut it.
My body ignored both of them and hummed with anticipation.
When we made it inside the house, he pinned me against the wall and crushed my mouth with his. In romance writing there was a trope about tongues battling for dominance. I never understood the appeal or the action until that kiss.
Battled.
Dominated.
Pillaged.
Massacred any resistance I still held.
I rubbed against him like a cat. Yearning for Shiva’s multiple arms, my hands touched everywhere they could reach. They tangled into his hair, ran over his shoulders, inside his coat, under his sweater, and over his lower back before coming to rest on his ass.
When we broke apart, panting for oxygen, he asked, “Am I forgiven?”
“Less talking tonight. Talk tomorrow,” I said between pecks across his scruffy jaw. I nipped the smooth spot under his ear and inhaled a big dose of his pheromones. Not that I needed them. “Upstairs.”
He guided me toward the stairs. With a single smooth swoop, he lifted me into his arms and carried me up to my room. Normally, I would have complained about weighing too much, or not wanting him to hurt his back, but the way Kai held me made me feel light, even dainty. And I wasn’t fool enough to argue.
When he set me on the bed, I fell into the soft down of my duvet. Staring up at him, I remembered our first night together at his hotel. We might have had sex seven hundred ways to Sunday between now and then, but now, this, felt like the first time all over again.
“You said no talking, but I’m not very good at following rules, so I’m ignoring your request for a second.” His dimple appeared. “I love you, Selah. Not a temporary kind of love either. I didn’t stop after our disastrous phone call, and I don’t have plans to stop. Ever.”
“I love you. Truly, madly, deeply,” I whispered, lost in the depths of his eyes.
He shook his head and chuckled. “You just quoted One Direction.”
“Pretty sure it was a movie title first.” I sighed and rolled my eyes. “You know One Direction song titles?”
“Father of a girl who loves them. What’s your excuse?”
“College students.”
“Mmm hmm. Sure.”
I wanted to kiss him to stop any further discussion of boy bands while I waited for the squishy feeling which usually accompanied my fear of facing Cibele, and her inevitable rejection and dislike. It didn’t come. If Kai and I loved each other, we’d figure out Cibele. If not, there was always boarding school.
“Hey.” He sat on the edge of my bed. “Sorry to ruin the moment with reality.”
I patted the bed beside me, and he lay down. Propping myself up on my elbow, I gazed down at him.
“It’s okay. She’s yours and a part of you. I’m sure I’ll love her.”
He blinked up at me in stunned silence. Or in awe at my maturity.
“What am I going to do with you?”
I giggled and leaned over to kiss him. “I don’t know, what did you have in mind?”
“You’re the one who’s been sick.”
“True. I’m not my usual wild self.”
“Maybe we should sleep. You need your rest.”
“No way. You riled me up with those mistletoe kisses and One Direction references.”
“I enjoy you riled up,” he confessed, kissing me softly. “You rile me up, too. In all of the best ways.”
My glance flicked to his jeans where there appeared to be evidence of riling.
Oh, hello, Gerhard.
Any other man bringing up a boy band and his daughter would have killed the moment. Somehow, Kai doing it only made me love him—deeply, madly, truly, and foolishly love him.
He pushed himself up on his elbows to deepen our kiss. I let him guide us, falling backward when he leaned over me. Exhaustion seeped into my bones and I swallowed a yawn, not wanting him to stop.
Sensing my mood, he slowed everything down to an agonizing pace. Each piece of clothing, beginning with the hideous sweaters, was peeled off us and tossed onto the floor. He pulled off my shoes and toed off his, before gliding my pants down my legs and then his jeans.
The slow seduction didn’t change once we were naked. He kissed down my body, nipping and licking patterns along my skin. Each touch reignited my nerves. I squirmed when he scraped his scruff over my hips. He held me down with his forearm while he went further south, teasing me along my upper thighs, and lavishing me with attention.
His tongue set the rhythm I loved, and his fingers found the spot inside me, providing backup. He forgot nothing during our time apart. If anything, this was the best sex we’d ever had. The knowledge we weren’t beginning or ending only intensified every emotion and sensation until I shuddered and pleasure coursed through me.