Page 25 of A Very Titan Christmas (Titan #14)

Rachel had been floating all morning long.

She had done precisely nothing on her article and didn’t care.

Every time she sat still, a rush of warmth overtook her.

Memories of last night cascaded through her mind.

The sweet kiss on the carriage ride. The stomach-flipping kiss before dinner.

The kiss that could’ve melted the snow off the mountain when Bryce had dropped her off at home.

She should’ve asked him in.

She’d had a moment of hesitation, and he’d read that as a straightforward answer. Not yet. She wasn’t ready. Rachel had to firmly gather her expectations of what spending the night together would mean.

Those expectations remained unboxed, but she no longer cared.

It was barely noon, but the low, dark cloud cover aged the day as she heard Bryce’s car crunch into her driveway. Goose bumps jumped down her spine. Her heartbeat pitter-pattered as though he’d pulled her close instead of simply pulling into her driveway. Her lusties were entirely out of control.

Rachel imagined Bryce stomping the snow off his boots outside the door. Her insides vibrated. The closer he came, the more erratic her pulse became.

The door swung open. “I come bearing lunch.”

“Be down in a second.” In the bedroom loft, Rachel stared at herself in the mirror. “Pull it together. You’ve seen this man naked before—” God, that wasn’t the right thing to say. She dropped her chin to her chest and searched for composure.

The lights flickered. Well, that was sobering.

“That doesn’t bode well,” he called from downstairs. “The snow flurries haven’t even picked up, though the wind pushed against my car along some of those switchback turns.”

She descended the stairs. Bryce had placed three takeout bags from the Maple Fork on the kitchen counter. “That looks like a lot of food.”

“It is.” He shoved a pint of vanilla ice cream into her freezer and eyed the surplus of frozen pizzas and enchiladas. “This is what my freezer looks like all the time.”

She half laughed. “At home, same. I travel so much; it’s just easier. However, I had groceries delivered this morning. The fridge is well stocked. I think I’ll survive whatever the heavens dump on us. What did you order?”

He grinned like a little boy set free in a candy store. “Everything. Hard to believe the menu hasn’t changed.” He pulled out a container. “Actually, it’s not. That place is an institution, and I’m pretty sure I saw the same faces behind the counter that were there twenty years ago.”

She sidled next to him. “That smells like chicken.”

“Chicken and waffles, chicken fried steak, meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, and pie.”

Her eyes rounded. “We’re going to have leftovers.” She peeked into the third bag. “Yum, that smells so good. I’ve been eating really well with you.”

He snagged her arm and pulled her close. “Tip your chin up.”

Rachel’s eyelashes fluttered. Her stomach rolled with a deliciousness that made her body feel ooey gooey. She tipped her head back and felt like she was melting into his hazel eyes.

“I’m staying the night.”

It was as though she were floating. Rachel nodded and couldn’t hide her smile. “That couch looks super comfy.”

He grinned. “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

How would she eat lunch—and with this amount of food, dinner too—and not combust, knowing they would end up in bed at the end of the day?

His mouth pressed against hers, and her body sighed. The anticipation swam through her. Need pooled deep inside her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and swayed, reveling in how his capable hands ran down and up her back and under her shirt, skimming over her skin.

Bryce lifted her. Rachel wrapped her legs around his hips and broke the kiss. Her eyes locked with his. Their foreheads touched, and Bryce carried her to the loft.

He set her down. Her line of sight landed on the thick erection pressing against his jeans. Her body reacted. Arousal pulsed. Her pussy clenched. She unfastened his belt and zipper.

Bryce drew a deep breath. “Rach—”

She slid his thickness free, and he hung heavy in her hand.

Long and beautiful. Her fingers grazed over the velvet-hot skin.

Bryce inhaled. She wrapped her hand around his length and dipped her head, taking the blunt head in her mouth, letting it rest on her tongue, heavy and hot.

She closed her lips around him and heard his groan.

Her hand slid downward. Her mouth followed its trail. She wrapped her free arm like a belt around his well-muscled thighs.

She explored him with her hands, her tongue. She closed her eyes, tasting him, feeling him pulse and quiver and struggle not to climax.

“Rachel.” His hand fisted into her hair, urging her on and fueling her arousal.

She wriggled. Needing this. Needing more. Needing Bryce Richmond in a way she hadn’t known she could need a man.

“I am not fuckin’ coming before you. Rach—” His chest heaved. “Rachel.”

She smiled. His cock rested against her lips. Her tongue darted out, teasing the thick ridge.

Bryce stepped back, kicked off his pants, and tugged off his Henley. He stood in all his glory, a ruggedly handsome man, corded and sinewy. “That wicked mouth of yours might be the death of me.”

She blushed.

“C’mere.”

Rachel didn’t move closer but raised her arms. His lips twitched, and Bryce pulled her sweater over her head.

He finished undressing her and laid her back on the bed.

The wind howled against the cabin. Her eyes tracked to the window and back to him again, and Rachel reached for Bryce, pulling him into her bed.

Of all the ways the trip to Vermont could have gone, she hadn’t fathomed a world where she could fall in love with Bryce again.

He raised her ankle to his mouth and kissed every inch of her body until she was begging for him to be inside her. His fingers danced over her sex, teasing her legs wider, coaxing her to open for his touch.

Rachel closed her eyes. His tongue flicked over her nipples. His fingers circled her clitoris. Her body tightened, and her innermost muscles clenched. The beautiful, brilliant threat of orgasm pulled her closer and closer to the edge.

His thick fingers pressed into her. “Fall for me.”

So close. She needed to come so badly.

His fingers worked until she writhed.

“Bryce, God, please.”

He nipped and sucked on her neck. “Now. Rach. Now.”

She came, bucking against his hand, crying out his name on a moan that shuddered through her body.

“Good fuckin’ girl.”

She met his eye, and her body pulsed with pleasure as the wind howled. A rumble of thunder echoed in the distance. The snowstorm would be here sooner than expected. She and Bryce would be snowed in and might never leave her bed.

He sheathed himself with protection and returned to her side.

Bryce raised her arms over her head. His fingers interlocked with hers, and he covered her with his weight and strength. “Take me, Rach.”

She opened to him. Nerves skittered in her chest. The head of his erection pressed into her. Their hands tightened. He pushed into her, stealing her breath and taking her gasps as encouragement.

Bryce filled her. His mouth consumed her. His hands tightened on hers, every flex of his corded body against her a contrast to her softness.

His breath drew ragged.

She teetered on the edge of another orgasm. The drumming, spiraling arousal tightened, tightened until she raged like the brewing snowstorm and fell apart as thunder cracked.

“Fuck,” he growled. With his lips on her neck and his face buried against her hair, Bryce drove into her.

Her hips rolled with his. His power surrounded her. This was more than sex and orgasms and need. It was an addictive desire, deeper and more encompassing than she could understand.

She wanted him now and again. All of him. The man he’d grown into. And she wanted him without pretense, separate from the show they’d been putting on for the world—and for each other. They would figure it all out. She didn’t know how or when. Just that they would.

Another blood-boiling orgasm scorched her.

Bryce flexed and thrust through aftershocks so powerful they almost hurt until his release barreled through him. He gasped, groaned, and held himself deep inside her. She felt him quake and wrapped her arms around him as his strength left his grip.

Her breaths were still labored. He kept himself from crushing her and nuzzled her neck as if marking her, as if he was satisfied but still needed more of her.

She understood that because his actions mirrored everything at play inside of her. She kissed his temple and closed her eyes. Bryce eased himself away from her body, and her need to be in his arms again was as strong as it had been before he had laid her on the bed.

He took care of their protection and returned to her side, pushing the hair off her face. Then he smiled. It crushed her heart in a heady, euphoric way. She was falling in love with him again; it was deliriously, spectacularly awesome.

*

Rachel woke up to silence. Soft gray morning light filtered through the little windows covered with icy frost, but she could see that the cabin was wrapped in feet of thick, heavy snow.

Outside the warm confines of her cabin, everything was still.

Not even a bird chirped. The landscape was painted in a dreamy white.

Alongside Bryce, she stretched beneath the thick heirloom quilt.

Her sore muscles ached with pleasure. He held her.

Clung to her. Even as he’d slept, he hadn’t let go of her, and her heart had thundered when she thought of the way they’d first come together and then did so again after they reheated lunch.

And then yet again, as the worst of the snowstorm blew in with wind, and thunder, and muted claps of lightning.

She studied his sleeping face. All the sharp lines and tension were sleep-softened. She didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to wake him. Because yesterday felt a universe away, and there was the chance all might change if she stirred him back to life.

His eyes opened slowly. Bryce focused on her. She held her breath until this rugged man—her man—showed that he was unguarded and open to whatever was happening between them. Her heart knotted.

“Morning,” he rasped.

“Hey,” she said more softly than she intended and cleared her throat. “Do you always sleep like the dead?”

A sleep-drenched smile pulled at the corners of his lips. “Only when I’m in bed with you.”

Her insides curled as if little snow fairies fluttered in her tummy.

The cabin hummed quietly around them. The snow-blanketed outside world muffled all her worries and insecurities.

If they could stay like this, then she wouldn’t have to admit out loud that last night held more weight than it was supposed to.

But if she didn’t say something, and they had very different views about yesterday, she would be heartbroken.

“About this.” She gestured around her bedroom instead of between them. “About last night.”

He let out a slow breath, as if she’d said too much too soon, as if they should have just lain in bed and basked in a heavenly morning afterglow, repercussions be damned. A crack of ice-cold regret chilled her.

“It wasn’t just last night,” he said.

Her eyes cut to his face. Bryce stared at the slanted plank wood ceiling of the bedroom loft. “Putting on the show for your mom…” He turned his head and rested his cheek on the pillow. “It has really taken a lot of work to pretend. Because I’m not pretending.”

The icy chill of regret dissipated in the sunshine rising through her.

She wasn’t pretending either. They felt like an actual couple.

Getting to know him again as an adult, letting him sweep her off her feet, and working through the silly headaches that came with dealing with Eloise added substance to the roles they had been playing.

They were moving fast, but they’d already had a base when they started. “What do we do with that?”

His eyebrows arched as if that was the question he didn’t have an answer to. “I don’t know. Keep doing what we’ve been doing?”

She bit the inside of her cheek. That was the only answer.

She lived in Pennsylvania. He went wherever Titan Group sent him.

Their time in Silverberry Ridge was temporary, like a beach fling but in the snowy mountains.

It couldn’t be replicated and didn’t have staying power.

Yet she wanted to believe it did. If not, she simply had to prepare herself for heartbreak again.

Bryce rolled over and caged her against the pillow. He nestled himself between her legs, and the hard heat of him whisked away doubts and worries. His mouth found hers in a sleepy morning kiss that exploded like fireworks.

As greedy as he was, desperate to erase thoughts of the future, Rachel wrapped her arms around his neck. She craved him. His taste. His touch. The way he worked her body until she knew no one and nothing but him.

And she loved him.

Impossible. What she felt was a memory of love. A longing. She might be falling again, but she was wrong to think she was already there.

Bryce held her tightly like she was a Christmas gift that might slip away. He spent the rest of the morning cocooning her away from the world, and she felt like she only existed in his arms and in pleasure as she fell harder and harder for him.