The Calum (12 page)

He groaned and nudged her
thighs wider.

Her muscles fluttered
around him.

“
Christ.” He locked eyes
with her again, his usual Caribbean blue looking more like Atlantic
gray.

“
Please, Duff.”

He moved and she
dissolved, wrapping her legs around him as she tried to absorb him
completely. Be absorbed by him. Duff murmured against her neck,
words she couldn’t make out, but understood.

"Oh God…” Flames of
pleasure licked between her thighs.

He silenced her mouth with
an urgent tongue as his pace increased, pulling her right to the
edge of bliss.

Lovie scraped her nails
down his back, swallowing his guttural moan. He broke the kiss,
panting.

“
Fuck, Lovie...ye feel so
good.”

His eyes were unfocused.
His lips swollen. She could feel him barely holding onto his
control and her body flushed with female satisfaction. She took his
face between her hands as he lowered his forehead to hers, his eyes
closed with concentration.

“
Don’t hold back.” She
swiveled her hips.

“
Wait! Fuck, wait I...I
want you to-”

She met his eyes and
rocked under him again. “Don’t hide.”

With a groan, Duff
withdrew. He grabbed Lovie’s hips, flipped her over and pulled her
upright, on her knees. She whimpered at the loss of him.

“
What’re you…?”

“
Shhh, I’ve got
ye.”

Duff knelt behind her, his
legs on either side, and slid his arms around, holding her flush to
his chest. Large hands cupped her breasts as he pressed his open
mouth against her neck. His teeth nipped at her skin. Lovie melted
against him, her hair cascading over his shoulder.

Lovie felt him trapped
between them, hot and hard. Why was he holding back?

The hand on her right
breast slid down. Down her stomach and between her thighs, his
fingers combed through the damp curls and found her
clit.

“
Fuck…you’re so
wet
.” His breath
was hot against her cheek.

She arched against him.
“You did this to me.”

“
Fucking incredible.” His
other hand tweaked her hypersensitive nipple.

Lovie whimpered as tiny
explosions sparked behind her eyes. She grabbed his thighs for
leverage and rolled her hips against his hot, thick
fingers.

“
Yeah, that’s it.” Duff’s
mouth moved to her ear. “Come for me.”

Lovie
shattered.

The orgasm crashed through
her with a ferocity she’d never experienced, stealing her breath
and her reason. Tendrils of ecstasy curled throughout her limbs as
she shook.

Duff held her close, his
breathing as ragged as hers, still hard as steel against the small
of her back. Lovie’s body felt light and empty, and her mind
floated in an airy bliss. She melted onto her stomach.

Duff ran his tongue along
the globes of her ass, up her spine. “God, that was
beautiful.”

That was one word for it.
"Wow," was all she could manage.

He tilted her hips and
parted her sensitive, quivering flesh, entering her with a soft
grunt. Her aftershocks reverberated around him, and he shuddered
with each one. As good as it was, it was no good. Lovie needed to
see him. She straightened up and turned around, pushing him onto
his back. It was her turn to drive.

****

At the first touch of her
tongue, Duff’s mind fractured. His head lolled against the pillow
and his fingers dug into the sheets as she moved up his
body.

Lovie licked a line up his
stomach, his chest, along the cords of his neck. Even the dimple in
his chin. She ran her lips and hands and tongue over his
collarbone, his earlobes, the corners of his mouth. She was barely
touching him and he was dangerously close to exploding, holding
onto his control by a thread.

“
Please.”

“
Now
you’re
begging?” Her husky laugh
almost sent him over the edge. Then she straddled his hips and
sheathed him in her slippery heat and he nearly blacked
out.

“
Jesus.”

Brushing his shaking
fingers over her face, he pulled her forward. She licked her full
lower lip, and it made his brain trip another circuit. He nipped
her parted lips.

“
Kiss me.
Please."

Fuck. She was so needy and
so open. He kissed her. Drove up into her until they were rocking
together, faster and faster, the headboard drumming against the
wall like a bodhran.

Lovie sat upright,
panting. “Show me what you want."

Duff’s hands curled around
her waist, and he stilled her, held her aloft. Withdrew. Waited
until she met his eyes.

Raising his hips, he
teased her entrance. Lovie gasped, suckling him with her body as
her sex clenched. The small swell of her belly clenched and
relaxed. Her breasts, full and round and creamy, rose and fell with
her breaths. The look on her face was pure rapture.

He was mesmerized.
Determined.

Up. Circle.
Down.

Up. Circle.
Down.

Duff used his strength to
control his thrusts, building up a steady rhythm.

Lovie’s muscles fluttered
around him. “Duff…oh…yes…”

She threw her head back,
and her hair brushed the back of his hands. So soft.
Fuck!
She was so soft,
inside and out. He couldn’t believe she’d let him in.
Him.

Lovie leaned forward, her
palms on his chest.

Their eyes
locked.

She was glowing.
Radiant.

“
Yer
beautiful.”

She smiled, her hair a red
sun setting around her. “So are you.”

There was so much more
than
desire
in her eyes. It shot through him like electricity. A little
moan escaped her throat, and his balls tightened. There were jolts
of pleasure everywhere they touched.

He surged up into her,
dangerously close, but he needed her to come one more time. Needed
to feel it.

Duff sat up. Cradling her
head, he rolled them over and kissed her long and deep. He gently
bit down on her nipple, and she clenched around him.

Duff built up a rhythm,
buried himself inside her. She was so wet, so warm, so
perfect.

It was heaven.

She was heaven.

Lovie arched against the
bed.

Duff nudged her legs
further apart, stroking deeper, and she made a sound somewhere
between pain and pleasure. She was hot and smooth and tighter than
a fist.

She let out a long, low
moan and grabbed the headboard. Duff pressed her knees up toward
her shoulders and stroked through her cock-strangling climax. He’d
been so busy watching her pleasure play out on her face that he was
blindsided by his own.

It bowed his back and
ripped her name from his throat, spiraling through him like an
errant firework. His body splintered into a thousand
pieces.

Duff collapsed into
Lovie’s arms, held her close. He turned his face into the crook of
her neck and just…inhaled. Shampoo and whiskey and
Lovie.

He listened to her
breathing settle. Felt her stomach move against his. Soft hands
stroked his back. Soft lips kissed his shoulder.

Duff tried to hold onto
some portion of his sanity. No such luck. Three days in, and he was
crazy about her. He’d known it would be this way. Fuckin’ knew
it.

After a while, he rolled
over and sat up. The cooler air of the room raised the gooseflesh
on his skin. Grabbing a few tissues, he quickly cleaned himself up
and tossed the refuse into the wastebasket.

He flopped onto his back,
turning his head to look at her.

Lovie lay beside him limp
and languid. He spied a tear running down her temple and sat up on
one elbow.

“
Lovie?”

“
I’m okay.” She smiled up
at him, and he flooded with relief. Sprawled out naked on the bed,
the moonlight filtering in through the window to paint her honeyed
skin with silver, she was a vision.

“
That was...” She took a
shaky breath and gave him a smile that reduced his spine to loose
pebbles.

“
Aye.” Duff cupped her
cheek and leaned in to kiss her. Lovie smiled against his mouth,
teased him with little nibbles. He lifted his head to look at her,
and she met his eyes. He wondered what she saw. They barely knew
one another, but it didn’t feel that way to him. No, it
didn’t.

Not at all.

They kissed again, moaning
softly into one another. He only stopped because his head was
spinning.

She pushed him onto his
back, threw one leg over his thigh and rested her head on his
chest. His fingers slid into her hair. The urgent need to consume
her temporarily abated, he had time to luxuriate in the soft,
fragrant coils.

Duff had never felt this
kind of harmony.

Lovie was incredible.
Sensual, playful and shy and nothing like he’d ever experienced.
She was also incredibly brave.

His head hadn’t been in
the right place.

She should have run
screaming from the room. Instead, she’d given herself to him, and
in such a way that he had no choice but to give right back. It
scared the shit out of him.

He’d just made love to
her. Not shagged, not fucked, made love.

It may have been
a first.

Lovie turned away, putting
her back to his front, and he spooned her. Generally speaking, he
wasn’t a spooner. Generally speaking, he didn’t do this.
Intimacy.

The women he had been with
over the years, they’d meant nothing. He’d felt nothing, outside of
immediate gratification.

Lovie sighed, and there
was a twinge in the vicinity of his heart. Hope stirred in the
place where his soul had lain dormant.

It felt foreign and right
and good.

Too good.

He wrapped himself around
her. Nuzzled into her hair. Took her scent into his
lungs.

This was
something.

She turned her head toward
him. “Do you have anything to drink besides Scotch?”

“
Ah, no.” Duff sat up and
peered over her shoulder.

She had a dreamy,
satisfied expression on her face that made him want to roar with
pride. “I can get us some water, or-”

“
Water would be perfect.”
She smiled, her
eyes
already closing.

He kissed her shoulder.
“Be right back, then.”

Duff slid off the bed and
stepped back into his jeans. The duvet had been pushed to the
floor.

Lovie lay curled on her
side, her arms wrapped around her. He couldn’t get over how
trusting she was. How completely she’d chipped away at his
defenses.

A clock chimed somewhere
in the house. It was almost Christmas Eve. Would Lovie want spend
it with him and his gran? Joana could come too if she
wanted.

Maybe he had time to get
Lovie something small. To show
her
that he’d been thinking of
her.

Duff smiled to himself,
shaking his head.
You’re in trouble, me
lad.
He gently covered her and slipped out
of the room. He’d made it halfway down the hall when he heard a
familiar rhythm.

Bang. Bang. Bang.
Bang.

The closer he got to the
master bedroom, the louder it got.

Bang-bang. Bang.
Bang.

“
Oh God! Don’t
stop!”

Mother. Fuck.

Duff was going to kill
him.

Departures

Lovie woke up, acutely
aware of the lack of a warm body next to her. The light filtering
in through the windows told her that it was well into the morning.
Had Duff come back to bed last night?

She needed some water. She
also needed to pee. Her muscles protested from abuse as she got out
of bed, but it was a welcome ache. Making love to Duff, and that’s
what it was, had been a revelation. But what now? She didn’t even
know where he lived.

She dressed quickly
because the room was freaking cold. Apparently central heat hadn’t
reached the Highlands. Out in the hall, she listened for the sound
of the other occupants, but it was church-quiet. Where was
Duff?

After using the bathroom
and brushing her teeth - no morning kiss with funky breath, thank
you - she crept downstairs.

Duff sat scowling in front
of the fireplace, poking at the crumbling logs.

“
Hey.”

His head snapped up, his
brow knit with a frown before a soft smile curved his lips.
“Hey.”

“
You...didn’t come
back.”