Wreck the Halls: A Novel

It was by the grace of God that Beat didn’t roll Melody onto her back and devour her.

This woman was his refuge, the fulfillment of his lust, his heart. So important. And his body just wanted to show her that. His mouth wanted to communicate it to her in ways he couldn’t. Christ, not yet. He’d just dropped a ton of bricks onto her head by coming clean about the blackmail and he’d done it right on the heels of her asking to go slow.

Slowly into . . . what?

A relationship? What a hilarious word for this bond between them.

Melody Gallard knew the floor plan of his soul. This transcended a mere relationship.

Still, going slowly made a hell of a lot of sense. They’d taken a tandem dive into the deep end without learning how to swim together first. She had enough grace to allow him a second chance and he didn’t want to squander it. Keeping his hands to himself, however, was like asking him to stop his heart from beating.

Impossible.

He buried his mouth in her snow-dampened hair, pressing his chest to her spine so she could feel the way his heart pounded, heavy and fast. In response, she took his hand from where it was molding her hip, guiding it between her tits and flattening his palm there, because this generous, perfect person wanted him to know her heart raced just as fast. And fuck, she rolled her ass in his lap at the same time, making him see double.

“You make me feel so good to be hard,” he groaned into the back of her neck. “That’s how I know . . . I wasn’t doing this right until you. I wasn’t just enjoying it, I was giving myself an excuse not to trust anybody. But I can’t hold back my enjoyment of you, Mel . . . because it’s impossible. I don’t want to keep anything from you ever again, inside of bed or out.”

“Good,” she whispered unsteadily. “I need all of you.”

Those words washed over him like a baptism. God, he’d never felt more grateful and alive and hungry. So hungry for this woman that his palm skated downward from between her tits, traveling over her stomach, stopping just beneath her belly button. “Tell me what you mean when you say all of me, Mel.”

“I want you to confide in me. Be honest with me, no exceptions.”

“I can. I will,” he breathed against the nape of her neck. “What about with my body? Can I touch you everywhere?”

“Yes.”

He flipped up the hem of her skirt and slowly, roughly gripped her pussy. “You want me to fuck you until I come inside of this?”

She moaned, her legs squeezing around his clutching hand. “Please.”

“I need to hear the words.” His middle and ring finger massaged her through the dampening cotton of her panties. “I need to know I’ve got permission for what I’m going to do between your thighs tonight.”

“You have permission.”

“Mel.”

“Fuck me until you come,” she whispered. “Inside of me.”

It almost ended then and there, his vision expanding in a rush, his balls quickening until they felt like fucking concrete. “Damn,” he grated. “I’m going to have to keep your mouth occupied before it finishes me. We’re only getting started.”

She looked back at him over her shoulder, face flushing to a deeper shade of rose every time he stroked her, her panties growing more sodden by the second. “What did you have in mind?”

“Give me that mouth,” he growled, snaring her lips in a kiss. They lingered in the hot suction for long moments, his fingers sneaking underneath the waistband of her panties, so he could slick his middle finger down the center of her smooth, sexy flesh, finding that pearl and teasing it swollen. Their tongues wound together, again and again, until he was on the verge of unzipping his pants, pulling down her panties, and taking them off.

Too fast. Slow down.

Melody was the only woman on the planet who could overwhelm him, but tonight was important. He’d been given a second chance and needed to do this right. That meant slow, diligent care of her body.

Melody had other ideas.

They were breaking for oxygen when she sat up on the edge of the couch, stripping her turtleneck off—without warning, but much to his delight—followed by her bra. And suddenly, Melody was left in nothing but a short skirt and stockings. That was enough to stop the breath in his lungs, because Jesus, there wasn’t a more beautiful sight on the planet. But when she reached for the button of his pants while scooting down the couch to kneel between the V of his thighs, Beat learned what it was really like to forget to breathe.

“What are you doing?”

“Is this bad?”

“God no, it’s not bad. You just don’t have to.”

She unzipped his pants, leaned forward, and nuzzled his cock with her nose, her mouth, and his heels pressed violently into the couch cushions. “Don’t. Please don’t. I’m going to come as soon as you breathe on it.”

Carefully, she tugged down the waistband of his briefs, her lips parting on a rattling inhale when he sprung free, the aching length of him straining against his belly. “You’re beautiful. Everywhere,” she whispered, licking his stomach. Long, unabashed laps. Then that tongue dragged up the side of his swollen sex, running circles around the tip. “You can still enjoy this.”

“Of course I’m enjoying it,” he gritted out. “I’m enjoying it too much.”

“No, I mean . . . the waiting. The edging.” She kissed the head of his cock. “You’re still allowed to enjoy it, even if this ends with you still inside of me.”

Blood rushed north, creating a whooshing sound in his ears, before journeying back south with a vengeance and stiffening him to the point of pain. Melody was kneeling between his thighs, sucking him into her mouth, her fist circling him in a way that wasn’t necessarily firm enough to get him off. Just enough to keep him balanced on the edge. Her lips remained loose, her tongue teasing him with light strokes, but every so often she clamped her lips tight and sucked hard enough to make his hips jerk on the couch, his very life flashing in front of his eyes.

When he reached the point of no return, she seemed to know it, halting her torture and reverting back to light touches of her tongue, slow, lazy strokes, until he was panting.

“Mel,” he growled between his teeth. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

“Uh-uh.” She kissed his crown again, her lips plumping against his hardness, then lapped at the bead of moisture that formed. “Not yet.”

His body was on fire in the best way, sweat slicking his skin, the anticipation of pleasure racking his muscles. Was Melody right? Could he still enjoy being denied . . . in a healthy way? It had never felt like this before. Healthy. Solely in the name of pleasure, because of the person he was sharing it with. There was no heaviness in his chest or guilt or shame. Only decadence.

Only love and connection and Melody. Always Melody.

“Come on, baby, give me one of those hard sucks.”

She dragged the tip of her tongue up the side of his distended shaft, slow enough that he was groaning by the time she reached the top. “How bad do you want it?”

Christ, he was literally shaking, one hand gripped the back of the couch, the other one clamped onto the edge. “Really fucking bad.”

“I’m going to give it to you . . .” she whispered, her lips poised at his tip. “Because you’re incredible. And I love the taste of you.”

The fact that he didn’t explode from the sheer pressure in his chest was an inhuman feat. He barely made it through the next part. The part where she gave him what he asked for, but not for the reason he’d always needed it. No. She turned his guilt inside out, turned his kink into something exciting instead of a punishment and all the while, she praised him with her eyes, the intense suction of her perfect fucking mouth and he knew. He knew life would be better from now on. Because she existed and knew him better than he knew himself and he’d somehow taken a right turn and ended up in heaven with an angel.

“I’m so fucking close,” he hissed, his stomach flexed so tightly to stop himself from ejaculating that he’d be sore for a week. Worth it. Worth every second. “I’m a wreck without your mouth on mine, baby. Come kiss me. Come fuck me.”

His entire world was narrowed down to his soulmate straddling his hips, still in that dick tease skirt and stockings, her tits pouting at him in the lamplight. Their hands collided while reaching between her thighs and they ripped her panties off in a joint effort, Beat dragging his cock to her entrance and groaning deep in his throat. Melody correctly interpreted that as his wordless plea to lower down, and she did, her knees trembling against his rib cage, her eyes losing focus with every new inch she took inside of her.

“Oh my God.” He flexed his ass and lifted, grinding up into her, transfixed by her teeth sinking into her lip, the palms that slid through the sweat on his chest to clutch his shoulders, her hips beginning to punch and roll. Punch and roll. The sight of her enjoying herself on his cock, no reservation, no pretense, was so erotic and awe inspiring, Beat felt almost greedy gripping her ass cheeks and riding her harder. But he was too lost, his body moving of its own volition in a perfectly synced dance with Melody’s, as if they’d been born to fuck each other. “Mouth, Mel. I don’t think you understand, I’ll fucking die without it.”

She muffled that last word with her lips and color went off like a firework in his head, his lungs replenished with oxygen, heart booming out of control. His right hand left her backside to bury in her hair and if he died in that moment, he would have died happy, because Melody’s tongue was in his mouth and she was . . . Christ . . . she was edging him again. She’d slid her knees back and was now rubbing her clit on him slowly, but no longer plunging him in and out of her body. Just leaving him fully buried, her walls throbbing around him, her mouth devastating him with every stroke of her tongue. But no movement. She left him on the verge of an orgasm without enough friction to get there.

“Good girl,” he said, not recognizing his own voice, his chest heaving between them. “Get your own. Take your own. Use me to come. Please. That’s all I want in my fucking life is to be the man who gets you off, Peach.” He pulled her forehead down to his. “Tell me I fill it up tight. Tell me it’s yours.”

“It’s mine,” she gasped, her trembles turning more severe.

He couldn’t help it. He started upthrusting, his flesh smacking in quick succession off hers. Making rough love to her from below. “Tell me you are mine.”

“I’m yours. I’ve always been yours.”

“I’m yours, too, Mel. All of me. Take it.”

“D-don’t stop. Keep doing that.”

“Don’t stop what?” He pressed their cheeks together, so he could speak against her ear. “Plowing your little wet cunt? Couldn’t if I tried.”

She made a strangled sound, her intimate muscles constricting around him.

Almost there.

The hand still clutching her ass applied more pressure, shoving her hips down to meet his upward drives. “I know it’s a long fall, but I’m going to catch you. Every time,” he said through his teeth. “Let go.”

That reminder of their unique trust turned out to be the push she needed and the results would be seared on his brain for the rest of his life. The way she bore down with her lower body and let out a muffled scream into his neck, her pussy shrinking up tight around his shaft and throbbing through an orgasm, her back, thighs, and belly shaking, every inch of their sweating bodies fused together. Colors that hadn’t been invented splashed on the backs of his eyelids, his mind in a state of total and complete nirvana over giving Melody pleasure.

But more. He needed more. He needed to consume her, so he wouldn’t have to live a minute of his life without feeling her presence in his fucking bones. Get deeper. Taking her mouth in a rough kiss, he flipped them over on the couch, using his shoulder to press her knees high, all the way to her shoulders and he lost it. He completely lost his mind.

I don’t have to pull out.

I don’t have to stop.

More than that, though, he couldn’t fathom doing either of those things. Who would want to leave the cradle of this perfect human’s body until they were forced to?

Not him. Never again.

Her bent legs were preventing him from kissing her, so he threw them over his shoulders, the cushion of her calves meeting the breadth of his back. He slung one arm beneath her hips to hold her steady and gripped the arm of the couch with the other, riding her in an aggressive way, encouraged by her kisses and moans, that he’d never associated with love, not until now. But then again, he’d never expected to be this deeply devoted to anyone. Never expected to find out what romantic devotion even meant.

For Beat and Melody, it meant trying to exchange souls through every eager kiss, every rough slam of his hips. For them it was a battle they both could win.

“I’ve never come inside of anyone,” he panted in between plunders of her mouth. “And I’ll never come inside of anyone else.” His lips raked over to her ear, his teeth closing around her lobe in a light snap. “I know that’s part of what’s making you so wet.”

“Fair is fair,” she hiccuped, reaching overhead to cling to the arm of the couch. Looking him in the eye. “You’re my only one, too.”

“Mel,” he choked out, his abdominals reaching peak strain. “Melody, I’m there.”

“I know, baby. You’re so big now.”

“Jesus Christ,” he groaned, pinpricks of light appearing in his vision. Melody calling him “baby” drop-kicked him right over the edge. And he didn’t have a single second thought about pulling out. There was no option but joining himself completely with this woman.

His woman.

“Stay inside me,” she whispered, planting kisses on his jaw.

“I am. I will. No choice,” he said hoarsely, seeing nothing now. Only feeling. “A matter of survival. That’s what you are. Goddammit, it’s . . . oh fuck, it feels so good. Wrap your ankles around my neck. Oh shit, I’m coming inside of you.” The muscles of his back, neck, chest, and stomach pulled taut to the point he was positive they would snap until some kind of otherworldly bliss cut through him like a buzz saw, elevating his stomach to his mouth, his eyes lost in the back of his head. “Oh my God, Melody. Melody. It’s so fucking good.”

His body screamed at him with urgency after that first wave of undiluted pleasure and he drove into her frantically, trying to eradicate the rest, shouting her name as he fought through the raw ecstasy of release. Beat became someone else in those frenzied moments, someone with no filter or self-control, his teeth razing her neck, his hips bucking roughly, filth spewing from his mouth into her perfect, delicate ear.

“I will worship you every day,” he growled. “I will wreck you every chance I get. I want to live between these legs.” Then the filth turned into sap and he couldn’t control that, either. “You’re so beautiful, Peach. It hurts to look at you, but I can’t look anywhere else. I just want you naked and looking at me all the fucking time.” His lower body bore down. “Moan for me until the last drop. Do it. Please.”

“Beat . . . Beat . . .”

Some small part of him might have worried that he was going too far with those feverish words, but the nails digging into his buttocks, helping him rock and grind out that final wave, the kisses she continued to leave on his throat, his face, they told him she was matching him beat for beat. A perfect harmony. They were the greatest song ever written. And when he collapsed beside her and they locked together like two pieces from the same puzzle, one heart thundering against another, he planned on singing their song for the rest of his life.