Unwrapping Her Perfect Match: A London Legends Christmas Novella (12 page)

“I’m not telling you that because I want your
pity.” John threaded his fingers between hers and gave them a
squeeze. “But I understand what it’s like to feel like you’re on
the outside of everything. You know how a few minutes ago I
mentioned I got my first rugby boots when I was twelve?” He waited
till she nodded. “I have a secret. I bought them for myself.”

Her head jerked so she could look at him. He
didn’t seem hurt or agonized or anything but ironically amused by
his revelation, so she wanted to check that she’d understood. “Your
happiest Christmas memory is of opening a present you bought
yourself?”

Nudging her shoulder with his, he said,
“Happiest till today. And you gave that to me. You’re special,
Gwen. Whatever lesson some arsehole teenager taught you about
yourself, fuck him. You’re the woman who patches people back
together when they’re bloody and desperate.”

Pride swelled in her chest and made her
heartbeat quicken, but it was still tempered by reality. “I’ve got
a bad habit of seeing myself the way other people see me—or the way
I assume they see me. Too big. Too quiet. Too boring. Too easy to
take advantage of.”

“We’ve all got that habit. Sweetheart, I’ve
seen mothers grab their children and cross the street when they see
me coming. One night I was walking down a fairly deserted street
when a woman walking alone saw me, gave me the most terrified look
and bolted to the nearest Tube station. You think that doesn’t
affect me? I look intimidating and people make assumptions based on
my size. None of us can do anything about that. But I know myself,
I’m comfortable with who I am, and I spend time with people who
like me. That’s what you need—to see the positive reflection you
make on others. So fuck that little prick who tricked you into a
blowjob. He’s not worth your mental space.”

Gwen bit her lip and glanced up at the
ceiling. “Uh, I’m assuming you got the story from Liam?”

“That depends. Are you going to tell him I
told you? Because my life won’t be worth shit if you do.”

Gwen let her gaze travel from his teasing
grin, down his broad chest and his long, long legs. “I seriously
doubt Liam could do much damage to you.”

“He’s not the one I’m worried about. It’s
Tess the Tiny Tearaway.”

Gwen cringed. “She’s a great person to have
on your side, and a terrible one to anger, that’s for sure. After
she found out what Adam had done to me, she managed to get a
picture of him getting out of the pool with an erection. She spread
the photo around school, and it diverted attention away from me for
a while.”

“That settles it. I’m
never
crossing
her. Ever. Pools have that effect on me too.”

Gwen chuckled and leaned into John’s side. He
shifted so his arm could slide around her ribs and pull her closer.
“Thing is, I didn’t give him a blowjob.”

“He made the whole thing up?”

“Um, not quite. I told Tess that he’d thought
I would be so grateful for his attention that I would go down on
him. She must’ve assumed I did it.”

“But you didn’t.” He kissed her head. “Clever
girl.”

“Not so clever. I was so grateful for his
attention that I had sex with him.”

John’s body stiffened, his lips still pressed
against the crown of her head. Embarrassed, she tried to pull away,
but John tightened his grip. “And he did it for a bet?”

She nodded against his chest, her head
sinking as he let out a deep breath and then a curse. “He’d barely
finished before saying he should’ve bet more than a hundred quid
because I was that awkward. It…that stuck with me.”

John’s fist opened and closed against his
thigh, as if he were mentally wringing a neck. “If someone did that
to my daughter, I’d kill him.”

“I think my parents felt the same. I tried to
keep them from finding out, but it was impossible. They were so
involved, I couldn’t hide anything from them. They never shamed me,
though. They encouraged me to go to school and hold my head up,
but…I just couldn’t. The things the other kids said about me—” Her
throat swelled at the memories. “I begged my parents to let me
change schools for my final year, and after that I kept my head in
my books and didn’t create any waves.”

Hearing her own words repeat in her head and
comparing them to his story about his family, she opened her mouth
to apologize, but he spoke before she could. “I don’t suppose this
Adam bloke likes rugby, does he?”

“Oddly enough we haven’t kept in touch.
Why?”

“I thought I could send him some match
tickets, along with a personal invitation to tour the changing room
afterward.”

Gwen hid her smile in his chest, and he took
the opportunity to tumble her across his lap. Pushing her hair back
from her face, he gave her a sweet, lingering kiss. When he pulled
back, he still cradled her face in his palms and he gave her a
searching look.

“What?”

“I was just thinking how lucky I was to fall
on my head yesterday. But maybe that’s the bruise talking.”

Gwen slid her hands up his chest and came
onto her knees so she knelt between his legs. “Funny, I was
thinking how lucky I am that my sister needed me to buy her
boyfriend last week.”

“We’re a couple of very lucky people indeed.
Want to get very,
very
lucky?”

Placing a finger on his lips, Gwen stopped
him. “Speaking of the bruise—”

“Shhh…we can pretend it’s not there.”

“I can’t pretend. I want to help you heal.
Plus, you came close to suffocating me last night. I’ve seen quite
a few people meet the end of their lives, and that’s not how I want
to go. We need to take it easy.”

“I can be easy. Very easy.” He dipped his
head to capture her lips again. He could also be gentle,
apparently—very gentle. The way he reined in his strength while
caressing her with his mouth sent Gwen’s resolve packing. She put
her whole heart into the kiss, needing him to see how his listening
had affected her. How safe it had made her feel in his arms. Her
fingers curled through the hair at his temples as she held him
close and moved her mouth over his.

With an intake of breath, he cupped her bum
and flipped her onto her back, kneeling between her widespread
legs. She fell awkwardly against the pillows and pushed herself up
until she half reclined. “What are you doing?”

“Showing you what I think of you. Not too
big. Not too quiet. Not too boring.” He reached for the hem of her
shirt, tugging until she sat up and lifted her arms. Sweeping it
over her head, he stared down at her breasts and grinned.
“
Definitely
not too big. Fuck me, Gwen, but you’re perfect
for me.”

Her chest heaved, and he buried his face in
her cleavage, kissed his way across the boundaries of her bra.
She’d changed when she’d gone home. Until now, he’d seen her only
in her plain, boring, extra-support sports bras. Now she wore navy
blue satin and lace. She’d had to special order these, but the
money was so worth the pure pleasure on his face as he nuzzled her
breast. “So beautiful.”

He tugged the cup down far enough to tease
her nipple with the tip of his tongue. Pleasure shot straight
through her core, and she shifted her legs restlessly. “More.”

“Are you sure? A nurse I know keeps reminding
me I’ve got this concussion...” He moved further down the bed,
kissing his way to her waistband. His fingertips went to the snap
of her jeans and flicked it open. Lowering her zip so slowly it
sang, he teased her with a wicked grin, a grin that promised all
manner of delicious torture. “I want to do something for you, Gwen.
Something to show you how much I like you.”

“Really? How do you think you can show me
that?” She licked her lips, taking in the sight of this great, big
man kneeling before her and dragging her jeans down her legs.

He tugged them all the way off, tossed them
across the room, then stripped her socks off and sent them flying
in the same direction. “I want you to know, this isn’t something I
do for every woman I meet.”

“That’s reassuring.” God, how could this man
make her smile and ache at the same time?

“In fact, I haven’t done it many times at
all—though I’ve been assured I’m naturally talented.”

She bit back a laugh. “I’m fairly certain
most men think that.”

“Really? Well, in my case it happens to be
true. So I’ve been told.” He slid his hands up and down her thighs,
each stroke bringing him closer and closer to the place she most
wanted his touch. She bent one knee, giving him a hint.

He didn’t take it. Instead, he hunched over
and kissed her inner thigh before moving down—down!—toward her
knee. The wrong damn direction!

When he made it to her foot, he kissed her
instep and sat back on his heels. Then he laid her foot on his lap
and began to rub. “Like I said, this isn’t something I do for a lot
of women. But I saw how you rushed around the A&E, and since
you’ve been here you haven’t sat still for long. You’ve been
running around all day doing things for me and Agnes. I want you to
know that I’ve noticed and I appreciate it.”

Stupid, grateful tears stung her eyes. The
fact that he’d noticed both surprised and thrilled her.
Embarrassed, she swiped at them and tried to make a joke. “Damn. I
was hoping you were going to go down on me.”

He burst out laughing, making the bed shake
beneath her. Squeezing a sensitive spot on her foot, he winked.
“Oh, I’m going to do that too, sweetheart. Don’t you worry. Just
relax a bit first, and then we’ll get there.”

She bloody well tried, but it wasn’t easy
with his fingers massaging her. After a few minutes, she placed her
other foot on his thigh and flexed her toes, brushing his erection
through his jeans. He jerked, his nostrils flaring. “No fair. I’m
trying to do something nice and unselfish. Touch me like that again
and there’ll be consequences.”

“What consequences?” Brush. Brush.

He closed his eyes, his fingers tugging up
and down at the foot in his hands as his hips tilted forward to
meet her soft strokes. “Gwen...please let me do something nice for
you without you giving me something in return.”

“You know what would be nice for me? Losing
control with you.” Brush. “But gently. Slowly. I don’t want to hurt
you.”

“I’m hurting already,” he groaned. One of his
hands fell from her foot to unbutton his jeans. He reached in and
freed himself. His erection stood so swollen and hard it looked
painful. She slowly ran the tip of her big toe down it. His head
fell back and tremors shook his body. “I don’t know if slow is a
possibility anymore. I was trying to stay good, but you’ve got me
all worked up.”

She arched her back and reached behind to
unhook her bra. His head snapped forward to watch as she lowered
the straps and dropped the bra over the edge of the bed. His tongue
swept across his lower lip.

“We’ll have to go slow or I’m going to stop
us. Understand?”

He nodded, his hand stroking up and down her
foot. His hips rocked and she brushed his most sensitive skin with
her toe. Up and down, up and down, both of them pretending they
were stroking each other more intimately. Both fighting for
control.

Patience apparently at an end, he pushed both
of her feet to the mattress and hooked his fingers in the waistband
of her satiny bikini briefs. She lifted her hips and he had her
bare in seconds. Flattening his palms against her thighs, he kept
up the rhythm he’d established with her feet. Up and down, up and
down, putting just enough pressure on the insides of her thighs to
push them gently open. She lay completely naked in front of him,
legs spread wide, breasts heavy, nipples tight, hands gripping the
sheets beneath her. She should’ve felt exposed, self-conscious, as
she always had done before. But the look on his face—the one that
said
How did I get so lucky?
—made her nothing but eager to
experience every single bit of him again and again.

He didn’t bother kissing his way back up her
legs. His wide shoulders wedged her thighs further apart, and he
look one long, leisurely lap at her. She gasped, shuddering when
the tip of his tongue brushed over her clit.

“Oh, my God.” Her fingernails would’ve ripped
the sheets if she hadn’t kept them trimmed short for work.
“Again.”

“You’re a demanding little thing, aren’t
you?”

Little
. Jesus, she needed him in her
right now. She grabbed his shoulders, trying to let him know that
she wouldn’t wait, couldn’t wait, but he ignored her. His mouth got
busy licking and flicking and sucking, keeping the rhythm
maddeningly slow. As if he had all the time in the world. As if she
weren’t about to explode. His fingers joined the fun, working
together to ratchet her lust straight off the charts. She clamped
her legs around his shoulders and rolled her hips in time with his
caresses. Nothing existed—not fear, not consciousness, not any
bloody thing but him and his mouth and his fingers and the sight of
his big, hard body bent in supplication at the entrance to
hers.

He whispered her name against her flesh and
she flew to pieces. When she came back down to earth, his tongue
was still gently caressing her, as if he knew how ultra-sensitive
her nerve endings were. Anything more would border on painful.

She threaded her fingers through his hair and
stroked his scalp. “John. Come here.”

He didn’t need any more coaxing. He crawled
up her and laid his mouth on hers. She held him close and hooked
her foot into the gaping waist of his jeans, pushing them down to
his ankles. He kicked them off and pulled back long enough to yank
open the drawer of his bedside table. When he brought out a condom,
Gwen laid her hands over his. “Let me take care of you.”

He settled back on his heels, searching her
eyes for a few seconds. But he didn’t fight when she took the
condom from him and urged him to lie back on the bed. “You were
very slow down there. I thought it would kill me.”