Page 26

Chapter 25

Well. That was about the hottest thing I’d ever seen.

“Best Christmas morning ever,” Dane croaked, making me grin. He pulled me down until I was stretched out against his side, my head on his broad shoulder.

“Glad you enjoyed it.” I continued running my fingers through the mess he’d made on his stomach. Because I made him come. I’d never drawn such satisfaction from pleasuring a man before. But I’d also never been involved with a man like Dane. So strong. So masculine. So infinitely sexual. And I had undone him.

“Give me a second to re-inflate my lungs, and I’ll take care of you,” he promised, his hand wrapping around my back and resting on my hip.

The tightness forming between my legs intensified at the thought. I wanted him to. I wanted to feel that beard against my pussy as he put his wicked tongue to good use.

“No, it’s okay,” I told him, my vagina protesting my refusal with a clench around nothingness.

He angled his head down, a frown marring his perfect face. “I want to, baby girl. It’s all I can think about some days.”

Baby girl. I hated to admit how much I liked that. His eyes searched mine, seeking my approval, but I shook my head.

“I don’t want to.”

Laying a soft kiss on my nose, he nestled my head against his neck, which was slightly damp with sweat. “I understand if you’re not ready.”

A little voice deep inside me—a very horny voice—yelled that we were ready, but I closed my eyes against the almost overwhelming need to lie back and let him take care of me. I wasn’t sure why I was refusing since I very clearly wanted him. Craved him with every fiber of my being.

“I’ll get you a towel,” I said, pushing up and climbing off the bed, doing my best to ignore the confusion on his face. Hell, I was as confused as he was.

Too intimate. The words flashed through my mind, and I almost laughed. A minute ago, I’d had the man’s dick in my hand and then ran my fingers through his release, coating my hand with the musk of him.

Once in the bathroom, I lifted my sticky hand to my nose and inhaled. The scent of a man had never turned me on before. I’d actually never paid much attention to it, but the smell of Dane on my fingers made me want to return to the bedroom and tell him I’d changed my mind.

How had I gone from exploring his body while he was asleep to giving him a hand job? What the hell had come over me?

Sweetheart, if you lower your hand another inch, you’re going to find out exactly how much I like being in bed with you.

Oh yeah. That was it. Dane’s words—almost like a challenge—had me reaching for his cock in the next moment. Of course I’d noticed his bulge before, but actually holding that big, thick rod in my hand was on another level. I could still feel the smooth, hot skin that covered the hardness beneath, could hear his grunts and moans of encouragement, could smell—

Dammit to hell, why am I still sniffing my hand? Get your shit together, Eden.

Giving my head a firm shake, I washed my hands before grabbing a towel and walking it back into the bedroom. “I’m going to take a shower,” I told him, tossing him the towel and heading back to the safety of the bathroom. Seeing him sprawled out on the bed, completely naked, was too tempting.

No, Eden. Remember who he is. What he is.

Sure, he was Dane Osbourne and not Damiano Cappitani now, but that was simply the name he was using. It didn’t change who he was on the inside, right?

I should have feared him, hated him but… I didn’t. And that scared the shit out of me. Because beneath that icy exterior, there was a warmth he reserved only for me, and I was finding myself enthralled by it.

“Eden?” My feet stalled at Dane’s voice.

I faced the open bathroom door, not turning around. “Yeah?”

“You okay?”

Plastering a smile on my face, I looked over my shoulder. Big mistake. Dane was lying there, legs spread apart and towel covering his private parts. He looked like a large, lethal cat, one that could take me down with a single bite. My core clenched at the thought.

You’re such a perv, Eden.

“I’m fine.”

His gaze held mine for a long moment before he nodded. “Okay. Go shower, and I’ll put the cinnamon buns in the oven. Then we can open presents.” Something lit in his brown eyes, something almost childlike. Excitement, maybe?

We’d talked about family Christmas traditions last week, and Dane had admitted that he and his family hadn’t really celebrated in any significant way since his mother died. His father transferred a thousand dollars into his and Fiero’s accounts, and that was that.

With some gentle prodding, he told me his mother used to let each kid open one present on Christmas Eve, and then they ate cinnamon buns by the tree the next morning while opening the rest of their gifts. My heart hurt for him, so I suggested we follow that tradition for our first Christmas together.

He’d given me the dress and shoes last night, and I’d given him a fancy new stand mixer, one I saw him eyeing last time we went to the kitchen store he liked to frequent.

“Sounds good,” I said, going into the bathroom and closing the door behind me. Turning on the shower, I undressed and stepped beneath the steamy spray. After washing and conditioning my hair, I soaped up the washcloth and began cleaning my body. When I moved the rag between my legs, I gasped at the aching sensation I found there.

Shit. Jacking him off had turned me on as much as it had him, but while he’d found his release, I was still sexually frustrated. Maybe I should have taken him up on his offer. Lord knew I wanted to.

With a wet plop, I dropped the cloth on the floor of the shower and ran my soap-slick fingers over my sex, finding my clit with ease. It was swollen and hot, ready to be touched. Fuck it. I need some relief.

“God,” I moaned quietly when my middle finger circled around the needy bud. This wasn’t going to take long; I was already halfway there just from feeling Dane’s slick, engorged cock in my hands. I’d never seen one that big. Not in real life anyway. What would that feel like inside me? It was much larger than my pink vibrator, which I’d started hiding in a shoe box in my closet now that Dane and I shared a bedroom.

I slid my middle finger inside my sex, the slender hole hungrily sucking my entire digit in. “God, Dane. Fuck me,” I whispered, pressing my cheek against the damp red tiles. But one finger wasn’t enough to simulate what that big dick would feel like inside me, so I added two more.

Wincing at the uncomfortable tightness, I pursed my lips and panted in and out as I took my time, my body slowly acclimating to the fullness. The hint of pain began to morph into pleasure, a raw, greedy thing that took over my body as I added some thumb action to my clit.

My mind pictured Dane behind me, thrusting hard and deep, soft grunts of bliss emanating from his full lips as he fucked me. I imagined those eight-pack abs of his—yes, I counted them—tensing with each roll of his hips. His hand gripped my chin and turned my head so his mouth could take mine in a searing kiss, our tongues tangling with carnal thrashes.

I came with a soft cry less than a minute later and had to brace a palm on the wall to keep from collapsing with relief.

I tried to brush away the guilt for wanting the things I wanted. I was supposed to hate Dane. After all, it was his father’s fault I wouldn’t be spending this Christmas with my family, that my entire life had changed for god knows how long. I hung my head, letting the hot water course over my neck and down my back as a voice inside my head reminded me that he wasn’t his father. That Dane had never treated me badly, only with kindness.

And, despite my constant snarkiness with him, I was beginning to actually like him. A lot.

Damn, I’m in so much trouble.

Dane was like a kid on… well, on Christmas morning, as we sat on the floor in front of our Christmas tree and opened gifts. He stared in awe at the bottle of rare bourbon in his hand, the tiny blue lights on the tree casting an azure glow against the side of his face.

“Pappy Van Winkle? Eden, where the hell did you find this?”

I shrugged nonchalantly, though I couldn’t help the pride that swelled inside me from his reaction. “With a little help from our computer whiz friend.”

He laughed. “I should have known Robert would have something to do with this.” Cradling the bottle with both hands, he read the label again, shaking his head back and forth. “I can’t believe you got this for me. My grandpa on my mother’s side had a bottle of this that he only broke out on special occasions.”

“Like your eighteenth birthday,” I said, remembering him telling me that story a couple months ago.

Dane was still staring at the bottle, lost in his memories. “Yeah, he called me to his office and poured us both two fingers of whiskey. It felt so… important that he was sharing his prized bottle with me.” His lips twisted into a crooked smile. “I wasn’t even old enough to drink, so that made me feel even more like a big shot.”

“You’d never drank before that?” I asked, and he released a loud guffaw.

“Fuck yes, I had. Fiero used to buy me liquor because he was older. He told me it would put hair on my balls.”

“How charming,” I said flatly. “So, I’m assuming your brother doesn’t believe in manscaping?”

“I don’t know,” Dane replied in an equally dry tone. “I don’t enjoy staring at other men’s dicks. Unlike someone I know.” That last pointed comment was accompanied by an impish grin and a wiggle of his dark eyebrows.

“Dane,” I gasped, feeling heat rush to my cheeks, though somehow his blatant teasing made what we did in bed earlier seem a little less awkward. He wasn’t being weird about it, instead acting like his normal, teasing self.

“What?” he asked with a casual shrug. “Ain’t no shame in loving my penis. It’s probably my best feature.”

I snorted loudly. “You are so ridiculous,” I told him, reaching for the final present wrapped in purple.

We’d followed one of my family’s traditions when it came to wrapping paper. When we were growing up, Auburn, Monty, and I each had a designated color for our Christmas morning gifts. Dane and I had done the same, going to the store and picking out paper for each other. His was a masculine red and green plaid, and mine was purple with silver ornaments in a scatter-print.

Ripping off the paper from the small box, I gasped when I pulled off the lid. “Dane,” I breathed, one of my hands going to my throat.

“Do you… like it?”

“It’s gorgeous.” The paper-thin platinum chain was delicate, the tiny facets of each link reflecting the light. But what held my attention was the charm. About the size of a nickel, the turtle’s curved back was encrusted with green gems.

Dane scooted around to sit beside me, resting one hand on the floor behind my butt while using the pinky of the other to point at various jewels as he spoke.

“While these are all emeralds, you can see they have different hues and vibrancies. The green ones are classic emeralds. The ones with yellowish and bluish tints have iron and chromium in different amounts. And these…” he pointed out two that had a red undertone. “These have more vanadium and iron. They’re called pigeon’s blood emeralds and are pretty rare.”

I looked up, catching his brown eyes with my blue ones. “How do you know all that? Are you secretly a gemologist?”

He scraped his teeth across his bottom lip. “I know how you like knowledge, so I had the jeweler print out all the properties of the emeralds I chose. The card is at the bottom of the box.”

“Wait.” I shook my head. “You had this custom made for me?” My heart pitter-patted in my chest.

He looked mildly embarrassed. “Yeah. Technically, the ones that aren’t the bright green color are considered impure, so they’re not perfect.” A tear slipped down my face, and Dane’s expression turned into one of panic. “I’ll get him to change them all to just regular emeralds. It’s not a big—”

I stopped the rest of his sentence.

With my lips.

On his lips .