Chapter 14

Conner

The drive to the barn apartment is quick and easy because literally, no one is up at this hour on Christmas Day. Probably a good thing because Mac won't have time to talk herself out of this. Random hook-ups aren't in her wheelhouse. They aren't exactly my area of expertise but I've had a few. They can serve a purpose in certain situations, and I know both Mac and I are in those situations. I am in desperate need of a positive distraction from the impending doom and she needs to get her groove back after a bad breakup.

This isn’t as off-base or insane as I know she’s thinking it is.

When we get to the barn, I park beside her car and jump out so I can hold her door open. She looks… well, a little panicked. So as soon as she gets out of the car and I swing her door closed, I press her up against it and cover her mouth with mine. The kiss is short but deep, and she melts into it, almost dropping the container with the waffles.

I take it from her. “Let’s get these, and you, inside.”

She nods, and one minute later she’s peeling off her coat as I put the waffles and syrup down on the kitchen island. Our eyes connect and a ripple of heat shimmies down my spine. “You should really eat these while they’re warm. They’re better this way.”

She shakes her head. “That’s what microwaves are for. Besides, I’m not hungry. For food.”

And that's that. This is happening. It's a Christmas miracle. Thank you, Santa. She walks toward me and I walk toward her and then we're making out like horny teenagers in front of the sad little string of blinking Christmas lights in her living room window.

Our lips are urgent, and our tongues are ravenous. Her hands are working frantically, unzipping my jacket and pushing it off my shoulders. It falls to the ground. I reach around her, palming her ass in both my hands without a lick of hesitation. I pull her against me, and she doesn't resist. She leans into it, wrapping her arms around my neck, slipping her fingers into my hair, and tugging on the messy ends.

My cock is stiff as a board, wedged between our bodies, and I push my hips into her, squeezing her ass at the same time. It’s full and lush and feels like heaven under my palms. She mews and I swear to god my dick grows. She is very quickly making me absolutely wild with want. Jesus, it’s crazy.

“You feel so fucking good,” I whisper into her mouth before kissing her one more time, my tongue sliding over hers, my teeth dragging across her bottom lip before I pull back again. “I need to feel more of you, princess.”

“I’m not a princess,” she murmurs, her voice breathy as my hands slide from her ass to grab hold of the edge of her scrub top. “Don’t treat me like one.”

“Right then.” I step back and in one hard, fast motion I yank the top up.

She lifts her arms without hesitation and I pull it right over her head. She's left in nothing but a simple black sports bra from the waist up. Her ponytail holder has slipped with the tug of the shirt over her head, half her curls tumbling out, so I reach out grab it, and tug it out, dropping it on the floor with her shirt. Then I wrap an arm around her waist, reveling in the feel of the bare skin of her back against my forearm, and I tug her to me again. My lips pull her earlobe into my mouth and I suck and she mews again and my dick dances in my pants.

I kiss her roughly because she seems to like it. Shit. Mac is emotionally mature and direct and decisive, and it’s even more intimidating than the fearless, cocky confidence she sauntered around with when she was a kid. I feel a flutter of inadequacy that I’ve become much too familiar with lately, at least professionally, and I’m not about to let it infiltrate this too.

So I brush my knuckles against her cheek and her thick, dark eyelashes flutter like a hummingbird. my hand reaches up to move back another wayward curl. "You should probably kiss me again, so we can get to that sex part.”

I smile at her words. She smiles back and adds, “

“A-game, Garrison. Bring it.”

Challenge accepted. And boy does she ever. I kiss her like I own her, hard, strong, without restraint, and she responds in kind.

I pull back from the kiss, after giving her bottom lip a little nip and look at her while our foreheads rest against each other, and run a hand over her messy curls. "Being back here, with all this career drama playing out in front of every person I know and love hasn't been easy. It's just plain sucked," I whisper and then kiss her quickly for courage so I can continue with this obscenely vulnerable confession. "Running into you has been the only highlight. In fact, it makes it all bearable. And now, this is the only place I want to be. Here, getting naked and tasting every fucking inch of you."

She lets out a noise that's a cross between a sigh and a moan and then she's kissing me, long and hard, as I walk us into her bedroom. Even though we're alone in the apartment, I close the bedroom door, because the last logical brain cell I have that hasn't been splintered by lust knows that about forty members of my overbearing, nosy family know how to get into this apartment, I close the door. And then press her back into it, using it to help me hold her up so I can move my hands, not that I don't love grabbing her ass because, Lord, it is one fine ass. But I need to touch more of her, all of her. She's wearing far too many clothes. We both are.

As my mouth moves to her throat I press my hips into the center of her to keep us against the door. Mac moves her hands from my hair to the back of my shirt and as she fists it, she yanks it up. I lift my arms and let her pull it over my head and then immediately bury my face in her neck again. I inhale deeply as I suck the skin there. She smells like peaches and I instantly decide it’s my new favorite fruit.

"Conner…" I pull back to see those light eyes of hers sweeping across my exposed chest as her hands slide up my shoulders. "You're… unreal. Like how does one person look like this without Photoshop?"

I smile, because who the hell wouldn’t. “Hockey, babe.”

“Praise Lord Stanley,” Mac whispers as her hands glide over my pecs greedily.

"Actually Lord Stanley didn't invent hockey. He just donated the trophy. The sport was invented in the United Kingdom of all places and…" She's staring at me with the deadliest STFU expression. "And I am going to shut up and get you naked before I ruin the mood entirely. Please feel free to go back to ogling me like a lion eyes raw meat."

“Thank you, I will,” Mac replies and kisses me quick, but hard.

My fingers trace their way up her rib cage, finding their way to the black mesh edging of her sports bra. She makes these incredible fluttery moans as I explore, fingertips skirting the edge of the fabric and thumb pads sliding over the swells of her breasts, rubbing her pebbled nipples through the thin fabric. Finally, I have to put her down so I can explore even more. I wrap my arms around her back and feel her legs hook even tighter around my bare waist.

As eager as I am, I don't throw her down on the bed. I lay her down gently and hover above her, slowly lowering myself onto her. I'm savoring every second of this that I can because I don't know how we got here or if we'll ever get here again.