Merry With a Scrooge (The Love Beach Holiday Collection)

11. Vail

Vail

The softness of Laney’s mouths in something I never thought I’d experience. The gentle press of my mouth on hers has every cell in my body vibrating with need.

Licking her lower lip produces a gasp of surprise and I smile as I take the parting of her lips as an invitation to explore deeper.

Her taste is minty—probably her toothpaste or mouthwash—and the wet warmth of her tongue against mine has my breath seizing in my chest.

This woman is soft and lush and everything I’ve ever wanted.

She’s open and honest in life, and her kiss is no different. She gives as well as takes and as our mouths duel, I know I’ll do anything to be able to kiss her for the rest of my life.

Our kiss heats, my desire previously restrained now let free to roam threatens to take out my knees. She’s everything I dreamed she’d be and more.

“Laney,” I whisper her name into her mouth and breathe her air, take that small part of her inside me to hold, to cherish.

“Stop talking.” Her words are followed by a bite to my bottom lip, and I shudder at the erotic pain slicing through me.

With a tug, I follow her, never taking my mouth off hers, never letting go of her face where my hands hold her close—hold her head still so I can continue to plunder her mouth.

It isn’t until she topples backward, until I fall with her, that I realize she’s been moving us toward the bed.

I want to fuck her with a depth that hurts. Except I don’t want to rush into this. Can’t afford to.

I’ve ambushed her in the middle of the night and while I’m thrilled she’s going to give me a chance to prove I’m worthy of her, fucking her within minutes of arriving is not going to help my cause.

Sure, it’ll relieve the strain in my pants and no doubt the pleasure will be unparalleled, but this is Laney. She deserves more than a quick fuck after my declaration.

She deserves everything.

She is everything.

And I’m going to prove it to her before we tear each other’s clothes off.

Pulling back, I stare down at her. “Laney.”

Her smile, the look in her eyes, the sweep of her tongue over her lips almost makes me change my mind. I have to gather every ounce of my strength and keep my gaze locked on hers.

“We can’t do this.” My breath is harsh, my heart thumping against my ribs in a pounding protest against what I’ve said.

“What?” The confusion and fear swirling in her gaze has my inside locking up tight. “You don’t want?—”

“Yes. No. Yes.” A shake of my head doesn’t clear the lust fog and my words are jumbled but I forge forward anyway. “Yes. I want you. For years I’ve wanted you. I told you that. But I need to prove to you I’m worth it.”

“Why the hell would you?—”

I press my thumbs to her lips. How I’ve kept my hands on her face I don’t know but they’re there and they help me keep her still so I eyes remain locked and she sees the emotions I’m no longer going to hide. “I need to make amends for what I’ve put us both through by using another woman as a barrier.”

Her lips move and to make sure she stays quiet I press my thumbs harder into the soft flesh.

“I won’t lie about the coward I’ve been. First, I need to apologize for the disaster my life is. A disaster I’m going to ask you to be part of. Second, I’m sorry for taking my anger and frustration out on you these last few months but Laney, if you hadn’t been there, if I hadn’t had you within reach, I don’t think I would have survived this long. I would have spent every one of those months like I spent last weekend. In the dark of my house, a bottle of whiskey within reach.”

The sparkle of her eyes when they fill with liquid has my chest aching.

“Don’t cry. It’s okay. I just”—I shake my head again—“I guess I needed to hit the bottom of those bottles, needed you to walk out?—”

She wraps her hands around my thumbs and yanks them away from her mouth as she says, “I didn’t walk out. I couldn’t keep watching you break. It broke me to see it.”

The tears are leaking from her eyes, and I suck in a breath, the realization that I’ve hurt her again gutting me anew. “Fuck. Laney.” I lower my forehead to hers. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you’re in pain. I understand it and accept it, but this isn’t the Vail I know, this isn’t the man who along with his two best friends built a billion-dollar business from scratch in only a few years.”

“I know. I lost myself in my efforts to deny my feelings for you. But I can’t regret those actions, those years, they gave me Kavan.”

“I have?—”

“No. That can wait. I can tell whatever you have is important, possibly the break we need to get him back, but I need to focus on you right now. On us. Can you do whatever you’re doing without telling me? Can I take some time to fix what I broke between us?”

“We’ve never been broken, Vail, because there has never been an us.”

Her words slash through me, a tearing wrench of my insides that has bile rising in my throat.

How can she not see the only thing we haven’t done is admit our feelings, connect physically?

“You’re not the woman who has taken care of me? Not the woman I need within sight or reach to just be able to breathe?”

“I.” She snaps her mouth shut.

“I meant what I said. I would not have survived the last few months without you beside me. I might not have acknowledged how deep that connection is, and I may have been able to keep my desire for you in check?—”

“Same.”

“Same?”

“I’ve done the same. Kept my feelings hidden. Pretended I don’t want you with every breath I take.”

“I hate that we’ve, that I’ve wasted all these years, but I have to believe there’s a bigger reason for the path we took.”

“Kavan.”

“What?”

“We had to take this path to have Kavan.”

“I don’t have—” This time it’s her pressing fingers to my mouth.

“You will. I promise you that.”

I speak against her fingers. “You can’t?—”

“I can.”

The smile she gives me is brilliant. It’s lights me up like the lightning outside lights the night sky and I can’t stop myself from kissing her.

And in spite of my best intentions, we’re back to making out, back to letting the passion between us free.

I’m not sure how, but the buttons of my shirt are opened, and her hot hands are exploring my chest, her fingernails scraping over my skin sending shivers through to my bones.

All the while I lose myself in her mouth. My hips rock, pressing my engorged cock into the apex of her thighs over and over. The heat from her pussy burns through my pants and if I’m not careful I’ll be coming in my pants like a teenage virgin, and I don’t care as long as I get her off too.

One of my hands finds its way under her shirt and I cradle her breast, the flesh bare and warm against my hand. The hard nipple making a home for itself in the palm of my hand.

A slice of pain zips through my chest, the heat of it darting down to my groin and throbbing.

Tearing my mouth from hers I pant, “Laney?” I don’t know why her name is a question. Her body is showing me permission has been granted but I need to hear her say it. “Can I make you come? Will you let me make you come?”

“Together.” She arches up and nips my bottom lip. “We’ll come together.”

“No. This is for you. I want to make you feel good then hold you while you sleep. Wake with you in my arms.”

I’ve never been a cuddler. Never wanted to sleep or wake with a woman in my arms.

Fuck. Felicity and I had separate rooms.

“But…” Laney’s gaze searches mine. “You really don’t want to have sex?”

“Yes. But I don’t think we should yet. Don’t get me wrong, it’s going to hurt not to sink inside you, but I need to earn the privilege. And I’d like to be able to look your brother in the eye when I tell him I’m pursuing a relationship with you.”

“And you can’t do that if you fuck me?”

A growl rumbles in my throat. That word, coming from her mouth, in her lust drenched voice, has my resolve shaking. “No. I can. Maybe.”

“Then—”

“I need to do right by you. I’ve fucked this up from the moment I realized I wanted you and I don’t want to continue to do that.”

“And that means we don’t have sex yet?”

I grin. “We can do other things.” The thought of getting my mouth on her, of drinking down her taste…my eyes close with the images flooding my head.

“Vail.” She accompanies my name with a scrape of a nail over my nipple.

My eyes snap open. “My pants stay on. Yours come off.”