Chapter Twenty-Two
Celebrate Life with Sprinkles—The Blog
Taking in the Moment
Anticipation runs through me as I park my car in front of Maxime’s house. I take a second to reflect on this moment, because once I walk through that door, everything between us will change. There will be no going back to the way things are now after tonight, when we make love for the first time. My mind is filled with thoughts of what his body will look like when I undress him, how he will feel against my skin, and how his body will join with mine.
Heat flickers within me from those images passing through my mind. I’ve never wanted to be intimate with someone as much as I do Maxime. With each date we had, whether in person or through video, I found myself wanting to know all of him more and more. I want the passion, the tear-your-clothes-off need to make love, as if no other man could fill my needs as he can. I want him to feel the same way about me, to want me in a way he’s never wanted anyone else. I want to explore him and give him what he needs to drive him over the edge.
Sex, however, isn’t the only threshold we’ll cross tonight. This isn’t just sex for me, and after my conversation with Gavin, I know it’s not for Maxime, either. This is an emotional investment in each other. We are allowing ourselves to be vulnerable for the first time since our hearts were broken, and to see if the relationship we’re building is moving closer to love for both of us.
There’s something magical about firsts. The first touch of a hand. The first brush of the lips. Now we’re entering the first time we’ll bare everything to each other and make love.
The funny thing is, I’m not nervous. Not at all.
I feel as if Maxime is the one I’ve been waiting to find.
The one who could be my everything.
I climb out of my car, grabbing my tote, and dash up to his front door. This is our “cozy date,” so Maxime told me he wanted me just the way I’d be at home for a snowy night in, as snow is forecasted this evening. I glance down at my outfit. I went all out, with my Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer plush pajama bottoms, complete with Abominable Snowman, and a white lace camisole leaving nothing to the imagination, but one he can’t see until he unties my white hooded cardigan, which I have belted so the camisole is just peeking out at the top.
It’s soft and cuddly, and I can’t wait for Maxime to take it off, I think with wickedly.
Oh, and to finish off the cozy vibe, I’m wearing brown suede moccasin slippers lined with fleece.
Don’t say I don’t know how to seduce a man with a sexy outfit, I think, grinning.
But the thing is, with Maxime, I know I don’t need seduction. We have a connection that goes beyond the superficial, that is driven both by emotional and physical desires.
I ring the doorbell and hear his dogs barking. It feels like forever since I’ve seen Maxime.
I hear him talking to the dogs, and they both fall silent. The door opens, and it’s all I can do not to gasp aloud.
Maxime has dressed to a T for tonight, with gray drawstring sweat pants, a white T-shirt, and the red and black flannel shirt I requested. He still has a cut across his left cheek from his fight. Maxime’s hair is messily rumpled, the gold-streaked waves sweeping across his forehead.
I restrain myself from jumping him right there in the doorway.
I drop my tote on the floor. Maxime takes me into his arms, his hands sliding up to my cheeks, his eyes drinking in every detail of my face as he stares at me.
“You have no idea,” he murmurs sexily, “how long I have waited to do this.”
He lowers his mouth to mine. I eagerly open for him, my tongue parting his lips, tasting him, inhaling the glorious, unique scent of bourbon and vanilla mixing on his skin. I feel his hands climbing to my hair, tangling through my loose waves. I glide my hands over his powerful arms, stroking the muscles through the soft flannel, to his neck, then to his hair, looping the silken waves around my fingertips and moaning softly as Maxime’s lips begin kissing the side of my face.
“I missed you,” I whisper, closing my eyes again as his mouth moves down my jaw.
His hands span my back, drawing me into his hard body. I tilt my head back, and he trails his tongue down the side of my neck. Maxime gently moves my sweater aside so he can breathe a sexy kiss on the top of my shoulder, causing me to shiver in response.
“I’ve missed you, too,” he murmurs against my skin. “God, how I’ve missed you.”
He lifts his head and once again frames my face in his hands. I gaze up at him, touched by the look of adoration in his vivid blue-green eyes.
“All I could think about,” he says softly, “was being able to touch you. To feel your silky skin with my hands, to kiss your luscious mouth, to bury myself against your neck and inhale your scent, which is imprinted on my mind. I see your eyes and the way you look at me, and I want nothing more than to be with you. I need to be with you tonight.”
“I want you,” I say, my voice low with desire, “to make love to me.”
Maxime’s eyes flicker with passion. We both know the moment is right now.
He picks me up, and I wrap my legs around his waist as his tongue parts my lips in a desperate way. I grab his hair and kiss him back, my mouth rapidly moving against his, heat filling every inch of me as we move toward the living room. Oh, God, I’ve never wanted—needed—a man like I do right now. I’m tugging on his hair. I’m biting his lip. I’m greedy and taking everything I can get from him as I return my tongue to his mouth, deeply kissing him as a groan of desire escapes his throat.
“I want you now,” he pleads before kissing me again. “All of you, I want to see all of you.”
He puts me down in the living room, and I’m about to undress him when I become aware of what he’s done. I gasp in surprise at what Maxime has created for us tonight.
It’s the cozy date I told him I had dreamed of for us.
The floor is filled with thick, plush blankets, all in cream. There are luxurious pillows strewn about. There’s a fire roaring in the fireplace, which, along with dozens of cream-colored votive candles, provide intimate lighting in the room. I see two glasses of red wine and a bottle on the coffee table.
My gaze stops there, because next to the wine glasses are two pink cupcakes, covered in colored sprinkles.
“You said sprinkles make everything better,” he says softly.
I turn back to him, overwhelmed with what I’m feeling for this man. Maxime wanted to make tonight everything I asked for.
It’s not a date on an exotic beach. It’s not on a yacht off the coast of Monaco.
It’s so much better.
Love surges through my heart as it beats frantically inside my chest. One thing has become crystal clear, in both my head and my heart.
I love Maxime.
Love is what this is. Love drove this man to create this kind of moment, one that he knows will mean everything to me. Love is wanting to bring this joy to my face, just so he can see it. He wants it to be romantic and intimate for our first time.
I turn my attention back to him, this amazing man that I’ve fallen in love with. I’m going to give him all of me physically tonight, but now my heart as well.
“Maxime,” I whisper, “it’s perfect.”
His mouth reclaims mine, but this time the kiss is slow, sensual, as if he wants to savor every second of this intimate moment. It tells me the kissing is just as important as the act of making love.
Maxime skims his hands over my body, causing me to tremble. He undoes the knot on my cardigan, sliding his hands inside of it, where they find my waist. His fingertips slowly, achingly dance up and down, causing desire to swirl within me.
“I need to touch you,” I murmur sexily against his mouth, causing him to groan.
I begin to unbutton his sexy lumberjack shirt, and once I reach the last button, I glide my hands up over his T-shirt, trembling as I feel the hard, muscular chest that is all mine to kiss and touch. I remove his shirt, allowing my fingertips to explore his sculpted shoulders.
Maxime continues his deep, slow kissing, his hands now sliding up to remove my cardigan. I let it fall to the floor, standing before him in a sheer, lace camisole.
With nothing underneath it.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, his eyes moving over me. Maxime lowers his hand to the bottom of my cami and slowly, gently, raises it up, as if he’s unwrapping a precious gift. He carefully lifts it over my head and bares my breasts to him.
He doesn’t say a word, but his eyes say everything to me.
This man is going to love me with reverence tonight.
Maxime moves his hands over my breasts, touching them gently as he explores me for the first time.
As he does, his lips find mine, kissing me sweetly, carefully, with gentle intimacy.
I reach for his T-shirt and push it up, my hand skimming over his abs, and I sweep my fingertips across the contours of his defined muscles, shaking.
Maxime helps me push it up, and then he takes it off. I gasp upon the sight of him, the hard muscle, the developed pecs, and the sexy, glorious trail of dark hair that starts at his chest and leads down to his waist that dips into a V, where his sweatpants hang enticingly from his hips.
I stare at him, utterly amazed at how beautiful and powerful his body is. I run my hands over him, caressing him, and then I begin a trail of kisses from the top of his chest and move down slowly, kissing him, touching him, and stopping just as I get to his waistband.
Maxime is shaking. So am I.
He lowers me to the floor, cradling me on top of the blankets. The light from the fireplace flickers across his face, illuminating him in the darkness as his hands move down to my pajama bottoms. His hands carefully stroke the inside of my thighs as he lowers them down past my hips.
He kisses me again as he removes them, as if he needs to stay connected with these intimate kisses as our hands explore each other.
I feel loved.
“God, I want this,” he whispers as he slowly traces his fingertips around the wisp of my lace thong.
I undo the drawstring on his pants. He removes them, and I swallow hard when I see how perfect he looks in boxer-briefs. I move my fingertips over the waistband, down to his backside, cupping his tight, firm butt in my hand as he lowers himself over me.
Maxime dips his head and kisses my neck, down to my breasts, slowly moving his tongue across my body, giving every inch of me attention. I’m shaking. My hips buck against him, and I bite my lip to keep from crying out for him.
He lifts a pillow and pulls out a condom before his tongue is caressing my mouth again. He gives me a long, deep kiss before breaking away.
“Now,” I pant, desperation filling me. “I need you now.”
“No,” Maxime whispers. “You need to be worshipped and touched everywhere. I am going to take my time tonight. You deserve to be made love to, to have all of you celebrated. For hours.”
A cry escapes my lips as he traces them with his tongue.
I close my eyes, happy tears filling them.
Maxime is going to make love to me in a way I’ve never dreamed existed. I will do the same, loving this man and his body as we become one tonight.
I love you, I think as I kiss him back. I love you, I love you.
And now is the time to show him how much.