He settled next to her on the chair-and-a-half. “Don’t be sorry. I should’ve waited for you. I knew you had trouble with night skiing and black diamonds. I should’ve been paying better attention.”
Leah put her head on his shoulder. “I didn’t want to hold you back.”
He looked at her. “You don’t!”
Leah smiled and traced the line of his jaw with her fingertip. “In skiing? I definitely do.”
“Well. It’s not like I care.”
“I know you don’t,” she said with a sigh. “But sometimes I do. I mean, we’re only on this trip because you wanted to make me happy. We could be with your parents right now—”
“Sleeping on a lumpy mattress and having to make sure we don’t make too much noise when we’re having sex?” Brandon shook his head. “Not the way I want to spend our first Christmas together married.”
“But you always spent Christmas with your parents,” Leah told him. “Every year. Until I came along, anyway. I don’t want to be the one who makes things change for your family like that.”
“Will you stop?” He laughed. “Things changed for me when I was the first son to move away. Sure, I went back for Christmas because I had no reason not to. But now, we’re a family. And sure, I don’t mind spending holidays with my family. I love my family. But I love you, too. And they love you. It’s all good. We didn’t get a honeymoon, remember? I told my mom we were planning this trip instead. She understood.”
“She probably didn’t like it.”
Brandon laughed. “Maybe not, but she didn’t say so. Besides, she told me herself that she was looking forward to going to my brother’s house for Christmas dinner so she didn’t have to cook for once.”
“And you believe her?”
He laughed again and cuddled her closer. “Maybe not. But that’s what she said. Point is, she didn’t make a big deal out of it, and they’re flying out to visit us in a few weeks, so we’ll do Christmas with them then.”
Leah was silent, hoping he was right. “Doesn’t change the fact that because of this,” she gestured at her ankle, “I’ve ruined the trip.”
“Shut up,” Brandon told her. “I’m here with you, that’s all that matters.”
She had to laugh. “Did you just tell me to shut up?”
“Yep.”
“Really.” She gave him an assessing look, then gripped his chin in her hand, holding his face steady. “That’s the mouth you kiss your wife with?”
“Any chance I get.”
“How about now?” She asked, but pulled her mouth away from his at the last second with a low laugh. “Ah, ah, ah. Why should I kiss you when you talked to me like that?”
“Because you want me to kiss you,” Brandon told her. “Alllllll over.”
“Well,” Leah admitted. “I guess that’s true.”
It certainly was.
* * *
Eggs and toast. Nothing fancy, but he was good at it, and besides, Leah liked it. Brandishing a plate in one hand and a spatula in the other, Brandon appeared in the bedroom doorway with a flourish. “Breakfast is served!”
Leah, propped up on a pile of pillows against the headboard, set aside the magazine she’d been flipping through. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, wincing at the pressure, and Brandon moved forward quickly to put the plate on the nightstand.
“Nope,” he told her. “Back in bed.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was a plot of some kind.”
“Maybe,” he teased. “But you’ll have to eat your breakfast first.”
His wife laughed but moved back against the headboard. “Smells great.”
Brandon settled on the bed next to her and took up the plate and fork, laden with fluffy scrambled eggs. “Here.”
“Oh…you’re going to feed me? That’s service.” She sounded like she was teasing, but her voice had dipped low in a way that never failed to send a little shiver up and down his spine.
“I aim to please.” He fed her the bite of eggs, watching her eyes close and her mouth open, watching as her face twisted in pleasure.
“Mmm, so good. I was starving. Thank you, baby.” Leah chewed and swallowed and opened her eyes, catching him looking. Her gaze flared.
He loved that she knew him so well.
“They’re perfect.” She opened her mouth for him to feed her another bite. This time, though, the eggs slipped off the fork and Leah had to catch them. She laughed, wiping her mouth as she poked him. “Careful!”
He took a bite of them himself, and between the two of them they’d finished the eggs in no time. Leah reached across him for a piece of toast, breaking it into small pieces and alternating bites for herself and feeding him. It was the sort of thing newlyweds did, Brandon thought as he took the bite of toast from her fingers. Sort of silly but fun, too. And he liked making her laugh.
“Now the bed’s full of crumbs.” She sighed and licked butter from her fingers. “And I need a shower.”
“I’ll help you.” He got off the bed and slid an arm beneath her butt, the other behind her shoulders. “Heave ho.”
Leah giggled as he swept her up but didn’t protest. Instead, she cuddled, soft and warm, against his bare chest. She nuzzled him just above the nipple, which didn’t make it much easier to carry her, considering how it distracted him. “I love it when you get all caveman on me.”
“What, I should just let you hobble to the shower on that ankle?” Brandon said as he carried her into the bathroom. “What kind of husband would I be then?”
“A bad one,” Leah said solemnly.
“And I’m not a bad husband.”
“Nope. Definitely not. Best husband I ever had.” Her arms curled around his neck as he lowered her gently onto one foot, the other lifted just enough to prevent her from putting weight on it.
“Ha. Nice one.” He squeezed her ass. “Only husband you ever had. Unless you’re not telling me something.”
“Nope.” She looked over her shoulder at the shower. “This should be fun.”
“Rest that ankle. I’ll help you,” he warned and turned the water on, setting the temperature just how she liked it and then helping her so carefully out of her clothes she laughed and poked his bare chest.
“I’m not an invalid, Brandon!”
He shrugged. “I do it for you when we’re at home because you like for me to do it. Why wouldn’t I do it when you really need my help?”
Leah sobered, brows knitting. She slid her hand over his heart, then up his throat to cup his cheek. Brandon turned his face to kiss her palm.
“I know you like to,” she said in a low voice. “It just feels different when you have to, that’s all.”
They’d had a hard few months after she lost her job and needed to rely on him as the breadwinner. For Brandon it had been no big deal to pool their funds—they were getting married, after all. And that’s what a man did, right? Take care of his wife, however she needed it? And even though he hadn’t made as much money in his job as she had in the one she’d lost, it had been enough for what they needed. It had scraped at her, though. A lot. His wife was one independent woman, and he wouldn’t have her any other way.
Even if it was a little frustrating, sometimes.
“It still gets me hard,” he said, off-handedly enough to pretend he was teasing her. Which he wasn’t. His dick was definitely already getting hard.
She looked between them. “I see that.”
“Tell you what. If you promise not to fall on your butt in there, I’ll leave you alone. As much as it pains me,” he added, just to make sure she knew he was being serious.
“I think I can manage a shower on my own. I can call for you if I really need help.”
“You sure? I could wash your back.”
She smiled. “The offer’s tempting, but…no.”
He didn’t really want to leave her alone in the bathroom, and not just because he was horny, but he knew better than to push her. If she sa
id she wanted to be alone in the bathroom, she meant it. He kissed her though, long and slow and thoroughly, just so she’d be sure to notice exactly what she’d be missing.
“Go,” Leah said softly, squeezing his ass. “I’ll be fine.”
Reluctantly, he let her go. In the kitchen, he put all the dishes in the half-size dishwasher and scrubbed at the pan he’d used for the eggs. He turned with a smile when he heard her in the doorway. “Hey.”
“You are something else,” she said.
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“It makes you a keeper, that’s for sure.” She started to hobble toward the chair, protesting only with a sigh when he moved to help her. “You take such good care of me.”
“Is it still so hard for you to believe I really do like it?”
She smiled a little and leaned to catch a crumb at the corner of his mouth with her fingertip. “No. I know you do. But it’s still a little hard for me, sometimes, to admit how much I like you doing it.”
“I know. But I’m not going to stop, so you’d better get used to it.” Brandon went back to the sink to finish rinsing the pan. When he turned back, she was watching him with a familiar gleam in her eye.
His wife might struggle sometimes with how much she liked being in charge, but it didn’t stop her from doing it.
“What?” Brandon looked over his shoulder, eyes a little wide because he knew exactly what that did for her. “Something on my pants?”
“You have such a very, very fine ass,” Leah said matter-of-factly. “It makes me want to take a big bite. In fact, why don’t you finish putting away all these dishes so I can ogle you shamelessly.”
He could manage that, not a problem at all. In fact, he could go one better. “I can put some away, too,” Brandon told her, stretching to put one of the wineglasses they’d used earlier way up on the highest shelf in the cupboard, one so high even he had to stretch to reach it.
Leah’s gaze flared and her tongue pressed briefly to the center of her upper lip. “You. Are. Shameless.”
Brandon grinned and faced her, flexing just a little more than was entirely necessary and was rewarded with the way she shifted a little in her chair. If he moved his hip just the right way, his loosely tied pants would slip just a little farther down his belly. She liked that, too.
“Anything else you need taken care of?” His cock was already telltale tenting in the front of his pajama bottoms, and he didn’t miss the look she gave that, too. “I think there’s a mop in the closet. I could get that out.”
Leah laughed, but throatily. “How about a scrub brush and a bucket, instead?”
He gave her another falsely innocent look. “Oh…you’d like me to get on my hands and knees?”
He loved the way she laughed, covering up her eyes as though the idea embarrassed her, when he knew better. Something about him getting on his knees for her turned his wife on in a major way—had the first time they’d met, as a matter of fact, though he hadn’t known it at the time. Of course, he hadn’t quite known that getting on his knees for her would flip his switch, too.
He looked her over. “That would totally turn you on, huh?”
“Hush.”
He laughed. “It would!”
“Careful,” Leah warned, “or else you’ll find yourself on floor-scrubbing duty and you won’t like it very much.”
“Baby, whatever gets your motor running is good for me.” He mimicked revving a motorcycle.
She laughed at him again. “It’s not the actual scrubbing part of it, you know that, right?”
He knew it. It wasn’t necessarily what he was doing, be it making her come with his mouth and not his hands, or following her list to the letter or simply taking over the laundry chores because she hated doing it. It wasn’t the tasks he performed that turned her on, but the fact he was willing to do them to please her.
“I like to make you happy,” Brandon said with a shrug. It seemed like such a simple thing, even though he knew lots of his buddies would rather have stabbed themselves with hot pokers than admit it—or actually do it.
Oh, damn. There were the tears again, glistening subtly but surely. Concerned, he pulled out the chair next to hers and took her hand in both his. “Leah. What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
Disturbed, he searched her face for any sign of what could be bothering her. He ran through a checklist of anything that could be wrong—but as far as he knew, their bank accounts, though still smarting, had started to recover. She seemed to like her new job, and his wasn’t putting any strain on them either. It was always entirely possible he’d screwed up somehow, done something stupid and utterly male, but Leah was never shy about letting him know when he did, so he figured it couldn’t be that.
“It’s because of the trip, huh?” It was the only thing he could think of. “I knew it. I should’ve taken you to the Bahamas. One of those all-inclusive places with lots of fruity drinks…”
“It’s not that. I told you, I like to watch you ski, and I like it too, even if I’m not very good at it. Well, when I’m not falling down the mountain,” she amended. “Really, honey, it’s nothing.”
She leaned to kiss him, and he knew that was a sweet way of distracting him, but when she slid onto his lap to straddle him, he was more than willing to be distracted. She ran her fingers through his hair as the kiss deepened, and when she stroked her tongue along his, his dick stirred.
“Hmm,” Leah said, rocking herself against him, “what’s this?”
“Maybe you should find out,” he suggested, trying to kiss her again and letting out a low sigh of semi-frustration when she teased him by pulling away.
“Maybe I should,” she said as she slipped back into her own chair, wincing a bit when she put weight on her foot. “Stand up.”
He did, standing very still as she looked him over like he was a cupcake in a glass display. Like something she wanted to eat right up. God, he hoped that was what she was thinking.
“Take those off.”
He slid his pajama bottoms off, tossed them to the side, dick getting harder. She licked her mouth as she looked at his cock, so damned sexy without even half trying. He’d been with girls who’d tried too hard, put on their porn-star moves or whatever, thinking that being sexy was something they could do rather than just…be.
Leah sat up straighter in her chair and looked up at him. “Come here.”
She took hold of his dick at the base, holding him firmly while she guided him closer to her open mouth. Hot breath moved over the head, but instead of taking him into her mouth, she nuzzled at his skin, rubbing him along her cheek, her closed lips, her jaw line. She made love to his cock without even sucking it, and his balls still got as tight as if she’d taken him down the back of her throat.
“I love your cock,” she breathed, so low he might not have heard her if he hadn’t been holding his own breath. Her hand slipped between his legs to cup his balls, her thumb stroking the sensitive part between the sac and his ass. Her other hand still held him at the base as she slid her lips along the length in one long, sweet kiss. “Tell me what you’d like me to do to you now.”
“Use your mouth,” he managed to say, though his throat was a little too dry for speech. “Um…please?”
She hummed laughter against him. “Oh, Brandon. I love you so much it hurts, you know that? And I want to taste you just as much.”
He put his hand on the softness of her hair, which she’d pulled into a bun on top of her head. He tugged away the elastic band and let the strands tumble around her shoulders. “I like when your hair is down.”
She kissed his belly, then, without taking her mouth away, looked up at him. That view, that sultry-eyed, tumble-haired vision, her mouth scant inches from his dick, never failed to send a bolt of sensation running through him. He wanted her mouth on him, but part of this, a big part, was about the waiting.
He didn’t have to wait too long. Leah nuzzled his cock just
a bit more, then tongued the head, paying special attention to the little divot underneath. Then down the shaft, dipping her head to add a swipe of her tongue along his balls that had him stutter out a groan.
This time when she came up, she took him fully into her mouth. Sucking gently, she eased his thickness past her teeth and used the flat of her tongue to stroke him. His hips pumped involuntarily, but she was ready for it, her hand still at the base, keeping him from going too deep or too fast.
The chair put her at the perfect height for this, and the table was just right for him to grab for support—and he was going to need it, because when Leah sucked his cock there was always a good chance his knees were going to get weak.
Sometimes she drew it out—not that he ever minded—but today didn’t seem to be one of those days. Leah set to fucking him with her mouth and he gave up to the pleasure of it. Looking down at her, watching her hand slip from his balls to between her legs, watching her rub her clit while she sucked him, Brandon knew a couple things. One, he was a very lucky man. Two, he was going to come sooner rather than later.
Pleasure built like bricks, one after another, making a wall that had no choice but to come down. He murmured her name. When she looked up at him, her mouth still sucking on him, he shuddered.
He thought then she’d release him, maybe urge him to fuck her. On the table, maybe on the counter, maybe even ask him to take her to the bedroom and do it on the bed. But instead, Leah bent back to sucking his dick. Her hand moved faster between her legs, her pace and the rhythm of her sucking faltered just enough to let him know she was being distracted by her own pleasure.
That made all of this ten times hotter.
Sometimes it was hard for him to tell if she was close to coming, but not now. The shift of her breath, the small, low moan that vibrated his dick, the way her shoulders jerked a little—they all told him Leah was getting off. She paused, breathing hard, to look up at him with a glazed gaze. Then she bent back, moving faster, using her free hand to stroke him at the same time while the other started up again between her legs. Her orgasm came close after the first, urging a small cry from her, and almost tipping him over…but not quite.