“No, no, don’t slip away.” Kol’s voice was throaty as his thumb made a tender circle around her. “Stay here with me, baby.”
Piper’s mouth dropped open as she snapped her head down to him, the sparkle of lust in his eyes and on his tongue intoxicating. She gripped fistfuls of his hair, pulling his mouth up against her once more. He answered with a guttural sound as he brought her ever closer. “I…I might,” she whispered, toes curling as she writhed under all of his attention.
“You will,” he said, pulling his mouth away and running his thumb over her once again, this time with the slickness of her body and a pace she couldn’t elude.
“I don’t”—she swallowed, catching her breath—“I don’t want anyone to hear.”
Something soft was shoved into her face, and she mindlessly grabbed onto it, pressing it to her mouth just in time for an orgasm to pour out of her. Wave after wave of ecstasy crashed within her veins, running through her limbs and uniting in her core. Her back arched and her shoulders fell loose, and it was like his touch was a light, drawing her out of every dark place she’d ever hidden as her delighted cry was graciously muffled.
But Kol’s touch didn’t relent even when she shuddered and tried to catch her breath. His fingers, his mouth, his very spirit were still worshiping between her legs, one arm wrapped around her hips and holding her in place as she bucked up against him.
“I can’t,” she said, but it was silenced by what she held. “Oh, Mr. Barnabus, I’m sorry,” she squealed, dropping the teddy bear on the dresser beside her, and then her legs were shaking. “I can’t, Kol. Not again.”
His tongue pulled back, but his fingers remained, tracing around her entrance. “You can’t? Or you won’t?”
Totally out of breath, Piper shook her head. “I haven’t come like that in…ever. That might be…my lifetime allotted orgasms…all rolled into one.”
“You’re sure?” He flicked his tongue over her again.
Piper bucked, the pleasure morphing into pain. “That’s it. You got it all.”
With everything so wet, Piper should have slid right off the dresser and onto the floor when she slumped backward. Eyes closed, she couldn’t move, limbs so heavy and boneless they refused to cooperate. But she was moving anyway, being lifted from the dresser by strong arms that wouldn’t let go, and then the bed was beneath her.
23
Better Than Coal
Usually, they wanted him to leave, so Kol wasn’t entirely sure what to do when Piper wrapped her arms and legs around him. It was easy to grip onto someone when giving them what they asked for, easy to hold them in place while drawing out the thing they needed, and with Piper it had been even easier because he wanted to uncover everything there was to know.
And then once she was completely spent, that was supposed to be it. That was when he was supposed to put on his clothes and go back to his lonely apartment and wait for someone else to call.
But Piper wasn’t letting him go.
She snaked an arm behind his neck, hand tangling itself in his hair once again, and her other hand reached all the way across his chest to squeeze his side. The thighs he had to coax into spreading now had no trouble as she wedged his hips between them, leg hooking across him. She had turned her entire body into the epitome of a hug, and, gods, it waswonderful.
“I should take care of you now,” she murmured sleepily into his ear.
Kol carefully laid his arm atop hers, spreading fingers over her skin and holding on but gently, just in case it was too much and she pulled back. She only nuzzled into him harder. “You already have.”
It was hours later when Kol felt himself be roused out of a dreamless sleep. Piper’s small voice was whispering his name, and he instantly came to attention below the waist if not above the neck. “Again?” he asked, reaching for her blindly in the dark. “This time I’m going to make you come twice.”
“No, no, something happened.” The urgency in her voice made him sit up. Piper was kneeling on the bed beside him, a robe pulled tight around her, and she was biting her lip, but not in that sexy way when she’d been hovering above him and holding back. “I have a funny feeling that something’s wrong.”
“I can fix it,” he said without concern for whateveritmight be.
“I sure hope you can.”
The house was silent with only their shuffling footsteps on the stairs as they crept down to the living room. Grogginess swam in Kol’s head, but he could tell it was either very late or very early, that time that almost all humans found themselves asleep, so it was only right that Piper was taking him by the hand and leading him through the darkness.
She’s holding my hand, danced through his brain as she tugged him down the hall, and his heart fluttered. The glow of the lights on the tree ahead haloed around her form as she led him, and he wanted to pull her back into his arms, but…oh, well, that was…interesting.
“What do we do?” Piper came to a stop just behind the couch and began to chew on her fingernails.
The tree had…well, it hadgrown. It was pushing up against the ceiling, and its branches were sprawling outward, catching on the nearest furniture and bending awkwardly, a few ornaments fallen askew.
“You are welcome,” Kol whispered through a wide grin.
“Kol,” she hissed and nudged him with her elbow, but the anxiety hadn’t gone from her face. It was serious, of course, but he had to laugh—all that concern that the tree would die, and here it was, better than ever. Her younger cousins were sleeping so hard in the room, they hadn’t noticed yet, but they would when they woke. Everyone would. “Did it really grow because…because of that?”
