Cricket: Contemporary Romance Novella Read Free Page A

his fingers grazing mine as he reached for cards, there was nothing. And it made sense. It had been a few years, and we were no longer teens. He’d moved on, and from what Hannah had told me, he’d been with a lot of different girls in college. I was still just Cricket, but with a few more curves.
    An hour into tossing and turning, I realized my feet were cold. After sitting in front of the blazing fire for hours, stepping away from it made the rest of the cabin feel icy cold. Hannah’s mom kept a few extra warm blankets in a cupboard in the hallway. I decided it was worth the few seconds of treading across the cold wood floor to get one.
    The clouds had blotted out any light from the night sky, and the cabin seemed extra dark. But turning on the light would have been too harsh on my eyes and then I’d have been blinded by bright spots on the way back to bed. I felt my way out of the room and into the hallway. I tiptoed but it didn’t stop the wood planks from creaking beneath my feet. Just as I reached the blanket cupboard, Tate’s door opened. His white smile lit up the dark hallway. His pajama pants were slung low on his hips and he was shirtless, magnificently shirtless. 
    “I guess we both got the same idea,” he said.
    “Yep. It’s a cold night, eh?” There was a slight waver in my tone, and I had no idea why. We’d had a perfectly nerdy little night playing cards and drinking cocoa like two old friends.
    I reached into the cabinet for a blanket and sucked in a breath as his strong arm curled around my stomach. He pulled me against him and lowered his mouth to my ear. “I know of a really fun way to get warm.” Then his arm dropped. “Shit, I’m sorry, Jamie.”
    I turned around in his arms and wrapped my hands around the back of his neck. He took hold of me and pushed me up against the wall. The plaster was cold, but there was so much heat coming from his body, it didn’t matter. His mouth covered mine and we kissed a kiss that seemed to have been waiting years to happen. My head felt light as if my feet had left the floor. Then, he lifted his face and we gazed at each other, almost as if we were wondering what the heck had just happened.
    For a moment, I was sure he would release me and that would be the end of it. Maybe he was disappointed. I certainly wasn’t. He looked at me questioningly as his hand slipped under my shirt. I pushed my skin harder against his palm to let him know I wanted him to touch me.
    In the shadowy hall, his smile glowed again as he stared hungrily down at my body. “Some guys like silky lingerie. I personally cannot find enough praise for snug fitting long underwear.”
    I laughed. “And it’s my sexiest pair, too.”
    “Yes.” He lowered his mouth to mine again. “It definitely is, Cricket.” In seconds, he had the shirt up and over my head. My nipples puckered in the cold and beneath his gaze. He lowered his head, and his tongue ran tantalizing circles around my nipples. I wove my fingers into his hair and pulled his face closer.
    In my delirium of having Tate Harris’s mouth on my breasts, I hadn’t noticed that my long underwear was now pooled around my ankles. The cold wall shocked me as my naked butt touched it. I stepped out of my pants, and Tate lifted me into his arms, carried me to his bedroom and lowered me onto the bed.
    I fumbled for the drawstrings on his pajama pants, loosened them and pushed them down as he leaned over me. His hard, thick erection pressed against my belly as he kissed me. “Is this all right, Cricket?” he groaned against my mouth. “I have protection, but we can stop if you want?”
    “No, please don’t stop. Watching you these past years and wanting you but never being able to have you has been like the longest, most frustrating bout of foreplay in the world.”
    He lifted his face and smiled down at me. “Only my sweet Cricket would say something that hilarious in the middle of sex.”
    “Call me that again, Tate,