Coda Books 04 - Strawberries for Dessert (MM)

serves me right for sneaking up on you.”
    “You really did deserve it,” he said.
    I reached behind me for his gift and presented it to him. It was a bottle of wine, wrapped in silver foil. “Merry Christmas.”
    “I didn’t get you anything,” he said as he started to unwrap it.
    “I don’t mind.” His cheeks turned bright red when he saw the label, but he smiled. It was a bottle of Arbor Mist Blackberry Merlot.
    “You’ll never let me live this down, will you?”
    “Most definitely not,” I teased. “I hope it goes with dinner.”
    Suddenly the smile disappeared from his face. “Dinner! What time is it?”
    “About five,” I said, trying to pull him close so I could kiss his neck again.
    “I have to make dinner!” he said, trying to push me away, but I had managed to get his arms pinned between us so he didn’t have a lot of leverage.
    “No, you don’t.”
    “I shouldn’t have fallen asleep,” he said. He was still pushing against me, but not too hard. I kissed his neck, although I had to fight him a little to do it. “I was just so tired. I usually spend a day or two adjusting to the time, but I wanted so much to see you—” His sudden admission that he wanted to see me was completely uncharacteristic for him, and it surprised me enough that I quit fighting him for a moment.
    “Really?” I asked, but he didn’t answer me. He pushed me away and stood up, much to my dismay. “Where are you going?” I asked.
    “Honey, have you been listening at all? I need to start cooking—”
    “No you don’t,” I said. I stood up and took his hand. “Just sit with me for a minute.”
    “There’s not time—”
    I tried to pull him back over to me, but he resisted. “A few more minutes won’t hurt.” He looked skeptical, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at him. “Come here,” I said, half-teasing but half-frustrated as I tried again to pull him toward me.
    “If I don’t start dinner now, we’ll be eating at a ridiculously late hour.”
    “I don’t care,” I told him, and he stopped trying to pull away and looked at me in surprise.
    “You don’t want me to cook?” he asked, and he sounded hurt.
    “It’s not that I don’t want you to cook,” I assured him. “But there’s something else I want more.”
    His hurt look evaporated into a teasing grin. “And you can’t wait?” he asked. I could tell he was giving in.
    “No,” I said. “And you do owe me a Christmas present.”
    “Hmmm…” he said as he stepped closer to me. “I love that you’re so impatient, sugar.” His hands moved to the buttons on my jeans, but didn’t open them. “What would you like?” he asked, giving me that flirtatious look through his bangs.
    I pushed his hands away from my groin. “I just want to kiss you,”
    I told him. His reaction was far from what I had hoped for. He looked a little dismayed, and he started to step away, but I put my arms around him and pulled him closer. “Let me kiss you once, and then I’ll let you go cook dinner.”
    He looked reluctant, but he relaxed against me. “Whatever you want, sugar.”
    I took his face in my hands, my palms against his cheekbones, and my fingers in his silky hair. I tilted his head back and let my mouth find his. I kept my touch light and my lips mostly closed. I had learned early on that he did not like to have my tongue deep in his mouth, so I used only my lips. He wasn’t uncooperative, but he wasn’t exactly enthusiastic either. His lips barely parted for me.
    That was fine. I could be patient.
    It wasn’t as if I had never kissed him before, but it had mostly been during sex, and even then I could sense that it wasn’t something he enjoyed much. He had never allowed me to kiss him like this, as a sensual act unrelated to something more explicit, and I found it unbelievably arousing in a way it hadn’t been ever before. I wanted only to keep kissing him and touching him but nothing more. It wasn’t that the desire for sex wasn’t there—it definitely was. I felt as if I was thrumming with it, every nerve of my body straining for him. And yet, even though it had been nearly six weeks, the idea of sex was still somehow secondary. What I really wanted was simply to feel him, and more than that, to please him. It was something I had felt before with other lovers, but not often and not for a very long time.
    I finally felt him relax a little. I moved slow, keeping my touch gentle. I opened my lips a little and