I wonder if he can feel it too, that invisible pull between us.
“I have one more thing for you,” he says, unzipping his jacket, and laying it on an outcropping of rock. I’m about to make a joke about how I can get that whenever I want, but he lifts his sweater and undershirt above his head in one swift move, and I realize he isn’t talking about sex.
There, on his chest, in black ink above his heart, is an upside-down treble clef and a base clef drawn next to it, touching so they are in the shape of a heart. Inside that heart is a cursive H.
“How?” I say, letting my fingers skim across the tattoo. As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize the answer. When he went home for a day, whenever he took me from behind or sneaked into my room after dark, it was all to do this and keep it a secret.
His first tattoo and it’s dedicated to me.
“The first time I saw you play,” he says, “I knew I could never be whole without you. You are everything to me, Harlow.”
I am lost, my fingers tracing the ink, completing the heart, and then restarting again. It’s so beautiful, not a drop of ink out of place.
“You’re freaking me out here, sweetness. What do you think?”
I sever my gaze from the tattoo, but I leave my hand there, atop his heart, which beats steady under my palm.
“I love you,” I say.
He blinks before going very still, and I realize it’s probably not an entirely appropriate response. I should have said thank you or given him the gift in my pocket or told him this is the best Christmas present ever.
What is wrong with me…Shit!
He blinks once more before his lips collide with mine.
“I love you too,” he says, tearing his mouth away just long enough to say the words.
He is warm against me in the cold of the air. I help as he slides my jacket off, and it falls from my shoulders to the ground, my bathing suit forgotten in a pocket. Our lips collide again.
My sweater.
His pants.
My bra.
His boxers.
Everything is left in messy piles on the ground until we are both naked in front of the pool. He lifts me up wordlessly, and I wrap my legs around his waist as he carries us into the water.
It is the perfect temperature, like a welcoming bath after a long day. The water is crystal clear, and where he is standing, before it gets deep, I can see the pebbles underneath his feet. He kisses me again, the water lapping at the bottom of his shoulder blades.
Then he lifts me onto the shore and spreads my legs on either side of his shoulders.
“Let me know if you get too cold,” he says before he disappears between my legs.
I feel rather than see the moment he sucks my clit into his mouth and nips at it with his teeth. He licks a line down the center of me and then back up again. Warmth grows within my belly as his palms push against my knees, spreading me even wider.
There’s the winter sky and the thrust of his tongue deep inside me.
There’s the soft burbling of the water and the feel of his fingers massaging my walls.
There’s the hard, cold rock against my back and the warmth of his kisses peppered inside my thighs.
Within minutes, I am screaming his name, arching my back with the orgasm under the early winter morning, and he is tugging me back down into the water.
“Fuck,” he says, his teeth knocking against mine, “you always taste so good.”
I wrap my arms around him, as I feel his cock, thick and heavy, at my entrance.
“What do you want, baby?” he asks.
I kiss him and thrust my hips toward him.
“I want to hear you say it.”
“You,” I whine.
“You already have that. What else?”
“You inside me.”
“Me inside you doing what?”
“Fuck me, Ian!”
He chuckles, and it’s so soft I barely even hear it. “Ask and you shall receive.”
His hands wrap around the back of my legs and pull me up his body. My back bites into the rocky side of the pool, and I lift up on my elbows, the rock behind me, pushing my breasts up and arching my back as he moves even closer, to where the water is shallower.
His cock teases at my entrance before he slams inside me.
Water drips down his naked chest, across his pectorals and down the ridges of his abdomen, from his hair and down onto his shoulders, as he pumps in and out of me. My breasts jiggle with the force of his thrusts, my back arched, my elbows digging into the shoreline, but I don’t feel it.
All I feel is him.
His cock, large and thick, pumping into me.
His lips, warm and wet, on the tops of my breasts.
“Come for me, Harlow,” he growls, clenching my nipple between his teeth. I’m already on edge, having never really come down from my first orgasm, and I follow his command, my toes curling and my fingers gripping the rock with my climax.
He pushes past my quivering walls and, pulsing, spills inside me. He brushes a kiss across my forehead as he pulls out and tugs me into his arms.
“I’ll never get enough of you,” he says, his words laced with vulnerability. It sounds like a confession.
Behind him, the sun makes its debut on the horizon, and I slip away to fish the box out of my jacket pocket.
“Merry Christmas,” I say, handing Ian the box. “I feel a bit outmatched this year.”
“You got me something,” he says, smiling at the little box. He pulls the ribbon, unfurling it, and lifts the lid.
He looks at me, amused, and sets the box on the rock beside our clothes. He pulls out a small, leather-bound book and opens it. I watch as he reads the first
