Gripping her face and drawing her close to me, I tell her. “Listen. We can use a woodshed. I don’t care.”

  “I do. I don’t want to sleep in a woodshed.”

  I chuckle and kiss her again. “Wait here.” I kiss her deeply and then head into the motel office.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Cecily

  Fortunately, we’re not forced to sleep on a pallet in the woodshed.

  It turns out the motel has an out-of-the-way cottage in the woods that’s only in use during the summer months because it has no electricity and isn’t up to code.

  I absolutely love it. It’s charming and cozy, if a little bit dusty and drafty. I helped Milo start a fire. Even though he gives it a college try, he’s simply not built for the outdoors.

  “Guess you’ll be the one barefoot in the kitchen,” I tease.

  Milo pulls me onto the creaky, extra-soft bed in the corner and rumbles in my ear. “As long as you’re the pregnant one, I’ll stay in the kitchen and make you as many biscuits as you can stand.”

  I have to laugh at the thought. “Only when I’m pregnant? I might get hungry in between having your babies.”

  “Anything you want, anytime, anywhere. As long as you start the fire.”

  Our own fireplace is not roaring yet, but we have our shared body heat to keep us warm.

  I forget all about the cold, though, the second I’m on my back, naked except for my panties, and feeling my scarves pinch the skin of my wrists. Milo is tying me to the rickety metal bedposts. The tightness, the security floods me with warmth between my legs.

  I’ve never told anyone else about my secret fascination. But after today, Milo has earned my trust completely.

  He’s going slow with me, taking such good care of me. Just like he said he would.

  “Tell me if you want me to stop or let you out of the restraints.”

  “You’re a Christmas miracle, do you know that?” I tease.

  A dark look falls over Milo’s face, and he presses his lips to my neck sweetly.

  He lets me watch as he slowly bites the end of a berry, going a little over the top by licking the juicy flesh.

  “Share?” I say shyly.

  “Oh, sweet Cecily. You’ll be eating this strawberry. But first, I have plans.”

  I suck in a breath as Milo paints my lips with the cut end of the berry. He sees my tongue dart out. “Nu-uh. Keep that greedy little tongue in your mouth until I say you can lick your lips.” At his words, another wave of heat floods my panties, and my nipples tighten. I squeak out a moan of pleasure and slight frustration, jutting out my bottom lip.

  His next move is to tease my nipples with the fruit. He sucks in a breath and says, “Look at that. You like that, don’t you?”

  I’m concentrating so hard on not licking my lips that I don’t respond. “Answer me, Cecily.”

  The demand in his low, husky voice pushes me deeper into my fog of arousal.

  “Yes,” I whisper. “Yes, I love it.”

  He continues to paint circles around my nipples with the fruit, and I find myself rubbing my legs together to find relief.

  He notices. “I know. But we have to wait until I’ve had my way with you.”

  I blurt out a noise that can’t be described as a moan but also not a whine. My body is pleading with him to finish me.

  “Now,” he says, dragging his palm over my ribcage, too lightly. “Where should we go next?”

  My body chases his touch, craving a firmer pressure.

  “Please,” I say.

  “Please what?” Milo asks, arching an eyebrow.

  “Please decide. I’m going to fall apart,” I answer, rubbing my thighs together once more.

  Milo crawls over me on the mattress, caging me in with his arms. The fire crackles; I feel the room growing slightly warmer and casting a golden glow against his face, and against my breasts that rise and fall with my ragged breath.

  “Lick the juice from your lips, but do it slowly.”

  The strawberry juice tastes sweet, but what I crave more than anything is his mouth, his cock. I need to be filled. Quickly.

  A low growl sounds in Milo’s throat, and for a second, I think he might be ready to finally give me what I want. How wrong I am. A kiss from him—deep, long, wet, and sweet—starts with him licking the remaining juice from my lips and ends with him catching my bottom lip between his teeth. And sucking.

  He echoes that gentle sucking at each of my sticky, wet nipples. It’s too soft and triggers a flood of sensitivity through my body.

  Milo pops the remainder of the strawberry into his mouth casually and instructs, “Spread for me, Cecily.”

  I’m so frustrated that I want to punish him for the light touches. “No. You do it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Cecily.” His voice is admonishing but gentle and more than a little heated in his excitement. He goes up on his knees and adjusts himself, then reaches his hand under his shirt to caress his soft, masculine tummy and broad chest. The muscles of his arms ripple with the simple movement like his entire body is tense. Good. I hope he gets so excited that he has to take out his cock to get some relief. I’m so ready for it.

  His rough hands firmly grip my thighs, his fingers slightly pinching the soft inner flesh. He spreads my legs apart, and his nostrils flare. When he drags his hand over the material, he whispers, “Did you ruin your panties for me?”

  The touch of his fingers over the fabric makes my body ache twice as much as before. I need to be free of every barrier between us. “No,” I say, blushing. “You ruined them. Better take them off.”

  A wicked smile spreads across Milo’s face. He lets me slowly watch him unbuckle his belt, unzip, reach inside and adjust again so that the head of his penis peeks out of the waistband of his briefs. I think he’s going to strip down completely, my brain is begging for it. Instead, he crawls back up the bed and presses a kiss against my neck. “Good answer,” he murmurs, spiking another jolt of pleasure and need through me.

  He keeps his lips close to mine as his hand slides down between my panties and my pelvis and begins to slowly tug downward. His kisses punctuate every slow movement.

  “How…how did I get so lucky, Cecily?” I want him to move faster, but also I’m enjoying the taste of his kisses. He rewards me with extra pressure from his lips, a squeeze of my fleshy hip. I arch my body up off the mattress to help speed things along. I want those panties gone. “What did I do to deserve you giving me a chance? I’m going to make you so happy, my Cecily.”

  “You already have.”

  Finally, he slides my wrecked undies off my legs completely. Slowly. Putting filthy thoughts in my head with his words about what he might do next. He can throw them in the fire for all I care. Milo delivers a deep, tonguing kiss to my mouth, and then he’s on top of me, the loose belt buckle biting into my thigh.

  I forget that my hands are tied to the bed frame, and I automatically attempt to reach out and touch him. I want to grab his shoulders, graze my fingers over his chest, explore the fuzz on his chest, give him as much enjoyment as he’s given me. The resistance reminds my reptile brain that my hands can’t go anywhere. So I angle upward, pressing harder against the width of him between my legs. Milo’s midsection is just thick enough that I can’t quite hook my feet behind his back, but I can use my legs to squeeze, to hook him closer, to let him know what I want.

  “You need something, baby?”

  Again, I blurt something unintelligible; I’m one part raging with the need to touch him and one part lost in the torment.

  “Remember the safe word. You can always use it,” he urges softly, presses kisses across my collarbone, up my neck, and then nuzzling me there. This move is so sweet; I would never know he was capable of torture.

  “No,” I find myself deciding. “No, keep going.”

  Without another word, Milo sits back up and lets me watch as he takes another strawberry and has me suck off all the chocolate.

  “Bite off the end,” he says, low and softly.

  This berry he’s chosen for me is much larger and just as sweet as the other.

  “A bit more,” he coaxes. “I need more…surface area. Good girl.”

  I chew and swallow the strawberry. My mind wanders aimlessly, wondering what he plans to do with the rest of it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Milo

  I’d planned to tease her with this fruit, coat her lower lips in its juice as I did her mouth just minutes ago. I gaze down at my Cecily, spread wide for me on the bed, the fire crackling, both of us overheated with lust. First, I need an unadulterated taste of her. Then, the teasing.

  I spread kisses down the inside of her thigh, easing my way to her soft, wet folds. My thumbs spread her open; a moan escapes me as I see her essence dripping, glistening in the firelight. I cast my gaze over this perfect, sweet, fiery beauty. And I can’t believe she’s mine. Her dark hair is slightly mussed as it’s spread out on the pillows. Her eyes are full of trust. Her lovely face the picture of surrender. My Cecily’s long, curvy limbs are built for pleasure, made to wrap around me and climb me and own me. I intend to let her do just that whenever she desires. Her rounded hips, perfect breasts with their dark pink nipples inspire me like a work of fine art. I’m utterly humbled that she’s letting me do this, letting me have my way with her.

  I forget everything I was about to do; forget all about torturing her any further. This is the real thing; this is what I want, what I need.

  The first taste of her slicks my tongue with such sweet honey I could die happy.

  Her soft moan is so sweet but too quiet. I aim to make her get a little bit louder than that. I find her clit and suck it into my mouth, teasing it with my tongue.

  She gasps, “Oh my god!”

  Cecily’s thighs tremble; she’s so close. I sink one finger into her heat, massaging her walls while my mouth continues its work on her taut button. Soon, her “oh my gods” grow louder and louder. Her release comes quickly, her lovely cunt flexing around my finger.

  “Milo, oh my god!”

  “Good girl. Say my name again.”

  “Milo,” she breathes.

  I share her essence in a searing kiss, showing her that despite my teasing, my torture, I ache to connect with her. Always. I grind against her, the tip of my cock coating itself in her heat as she trembles in her aftershocks. “Feel that? Feel what you do to me?”

  My breathless girl laments, “I wanted to come with you at the same time. I’m sorry. I couldn’t control it.”

  I can’t have that. I can’t have Cecily thinking she somehow underperforms, or whatever it is she’s thinking about herself.

  My slick hand comes up to cup her face. “Look at me. You can come as early and as often as you like. Because believe me, you have way more than that in you.”

  She laughs. “Come early, come often?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Standing, I pull off my shirt and kick off my jeans and briefs, fully freeing my aching length. The slight relief pulls a groan from my throat.

  Cecily’s been tied up long enough.

  “What are you doing?” she asks as I untie the scarves and, one by one, massage and kiss her wrists, making sure her skin has not been irritated by the rubbing there.

  “I need your hands on me now, Cecily.”

  She tentatively rests her hand on my thigh and says, “I want all of you, and I don’t know where to start.”

  At her touch and at the sound of her voice, my ache evolves into an angry throb.

  I sit facing her with one foot on the floor, letting her watch me stroke my cock slowly. Her eyes lock onto the end, glistening in her essence and my precum. “Do you see?” Picking up the cut strawberry I abandoned in the bowl, I use it to coat her folds in its sweet, red juice.

  Careful to avoid her entrance, I swirl the ripe strawberry through her wetness, over her clit, and everywhere else.

  “Cecily.” The heaving of her chest tells me she’s indeed building up her arousal. I drag the berry up slowly from close to her bottom all the way to her clit as I talk. “I love you.”

  “Milo, I—”

  “Let me finish. I love being near you. I’ve been drawn to you from day one. I physically hurt when you’re not around. I want to be there for you. I know you have to finish school, so I’m canceling my book tour.”

  She gasps. “You can’t do that.”

  She’s right; I can’t. It amounts to a breach of contract, and I’ll have to give some of my money back to the publisher. But I don’t give a fuck. Cecily doesn’t need to know that. I have a feeling she’d be pissed. She might let me be the boss between the sheets, but she’ll definitely have some things to say about me sabotaging my own career for her sake.

  “It’s not a matter of can or can’t. This is where I need to be, and that’s all you need to know.”

  She grips the base of my cock. “Milo, you’re too much.”

  “Cecily, you’re my everything.”

  “Oh,” she says, forgetting herself as I wickedly drag the strawberry around, across, over her clit. “Oh my...”

  “Good?”

  She moans and then finds the words. “Nobody has ever done anything like that for me before.”

  Abandoning the strawberry once more, my heart feels like it might explode with joy. Swiftly, I spread her once again and nudge my body between her legs, balancing them onto my shoulders as I set about licking off the sweet, sticky juice from her body.

  Cecily goes nonverbal as I devour her, bathe her, with my tongue and mouth. Sweeping over every inch of her. Her musky sweetness combined with the fruit is like nothing in this world. I could remain here and sip all night long and never tire out.

  Another orgasm rockets through her as I adore her sensitive clit; more of her gorgeous essence coats my tongue.

  When I come up to share her taste with her, I slide the tip into her welcoming heat, letting her legs slide down to my hips. For weeks I’ve been dreaming of those long, muscular legs wrapped around my waist, my neck. And now that it’s happening, she feels even better than I imagined. Words can’t describe how it feels to be wrapped in my Cecily.

  And her hands, finally her warm greedy hands, are all over my bare skin, as they should be. She digs her nails into my back as I push in deeper, slowly, little by little, my arms propping me up, so I don’t crush her with my weight.

  “That’s it,” I say, nuzzling and kissing her face and her neck. “Dig your nails in as hard as you want. If this hurts and you want me to stop, say so.”

  She nods and smiles shyly, her strong legs gripping me close, urging me to press on. I sink in another inch, and I feel the break. She winces slightly; her nails are definitely going to leave a mark. And I’m totally okay with that. I’ll wear her scratches like a badge of honor because I asked for it, and she gave it willingly.

  I slowly nestle my cock into her, all the way to the hilt. “Okay?”

  She nods and bites her lip as she wriggles her hips like a wicked temptress.

  She giggles, which is so unlike her. “I’m trying to pull you down, silly. You don’t have to worry about crushing me. I want to feel all of you.”

  And that’s how my Cecily takes me in, grasping, urging me on with her body, our bodies smashed together in a breathless, delightful, grinding heap. She clasps me so close to her, it feels like she’ll never let me go.

  She doesn’t let go, even as my release takes hold and my orgasm rushes through me. I jet into her, and she clamps down hard with her muscles, prolonging my release and making me nearly go blind with pleasure.

  My Cecily has all of me in her grip, my body, heart, and soul.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cecily

  The rest of my winter break is spent moving some of my things out of my basement apartment and into Milo’s hotel suite. And, unfortunately, the both of us recovering from strep throat that I spread to Milo after spending so much time snuggling all my nieces and nephews at Christmastime.

  Once the antibiotics do their magic, we take breaks from unpacking my things to experience some of my new man’s favorite restaurants in the city. I was born here, and I thought I knew everything about it. But Milo has the inside scoop on the best-hidden gems.

  Yeah, I’ve pretty much changed my tune on his knowledge of food. I’m still not retracting my article. And he’s not asked me to retract it.

  But he’s won me over in so many ways, and on a more critical level, than just his cooking. Cherise has improved his dessert menu by many degrees.

  Milo offers to hire a mover to haul my stuff to his suite, but I insist that’s wasteful, as I don’t have that much to move. I tell him he should consider renting a house through the spring semester, as a hotel suite is an enormous expense for that long, but he insists on keeping it.

  It’s been a few weeks since the day he whisked me away from Michael and Cara’s cabin and my family’s Christmas gathering.

  “Um, Cecily?”

  I’m unpacking a box of books to keep on the night table when Milo strides out of the kitchenette holding an empty Cheez-its box.

  “Yes, Milo?”

  “I don’t care if you did, but I just need to know if you ate all the Cheez-its I just bought yesterday, or if we have a junk food burglar.”

  I think back on the last 24 hours. “Uh, yes. I had a terrible salt craving, and I sorta binge-watched Drag Race while you were at the restaurant.”

  His eyes go wide, and I can tell he’s trying not to judge. “That’s fine. Are you okay?”

  I smile up at him, place the last book on the stack, and break down the box. “Other than a sudden craving for square, orange, cheese-adjacent crackers? I’m peachy, why?”

  He looks at me sideways. “No reason. Just didn’t know you could pack it away like that.”

  I laugh. “Well, you haven’t known me that long. Dang. Now I want peaches. You got any?”