Twelve Quickies Of Christmas 9: Snow Angel Page 2

  Moments later, she discovered the faucet pressing against her cheek where her head had come to rest after the tidal wave of sensation had passed. Her thighs trembled against his jaw as he pressed gentle kisses along the skin inside them. Her body quivered, jerked at each touch of his lips.

  “Easy,” he soothed her. “Easy.”

  He moved back, lifting her knees from his shoulders, guiding them down so the heels of her shoes made a controlled descent to earth, which was more than she could say for the rest of her. He smoothed her skirt back into place, his palm fully appreciative of the shape and weight of each buttock, and then he slid the same hand under her, his palm flat against her rib cage, raising her up so her back pressed into his chest and she faced him and herself through the reflection of the mirror.

  Her skin was flushed, her shoulder-length dark hair mussed, her lips full and parted, eyes gone deep green with confusion and desire. His thumb played idly over the front clasp of the strapless bra, and the hard steel of his erection pressed between her buttocks, through the tough fabric of his jeans and flimsy substance of her skirt, underscoring the differences between male and female. Hard, penetrating. Soft, yielding.

  He bent his head, pressed his lips against her temple, a tender gesture that had her leaning the weight of her skull into his palm as he caressed the side of her face.

  “I’d like to come home with you, Constance. Be that person who wakes up with you on Christmas morning, my arms around you. I want to go to your home, drink hot chocolate in front of a fire, watch the Christmas tree lights reflect off your face. I want to fuck you senseless. I want you to belong to me tonight.”

  She put her hand over his at her waist, felt the shape of his long fingers. She didn’t lift her head from his touch, wanting to at least savor the fantasy another moment before she had to embrace her reality.

  “I’m sure there are plenty of women who would give you a cup of cocoa and an easy lay.”

  She gasped as he lifted her under the elbows and turned her. He rested her hips on the counter and moved himself between them so the stiff cock beneath his pants was pushed against her still rippling pussy. “Don’t, Constance. Don’t play Jayna, not tonight.”

  “Do…do what?”

  “You know what. That person you pretended to be in high school. The wise-ass bad girl, when everyone who mattered knew you were just a sixteen-year-old foster kid desperate for love. We can be together tonight without wrapping it up with a bunch of baggage, don’t you think?”

  “Sure, no-strings-attached sex. A really novel concept.” She tried to wrench away from him, settled for crossing her arms over her chest when he kept her pinned, and jutted her chin out. “I had enough of the give-everything-to-a-guy-so-he-can-ignore-me-tomorrow strategy in high school. Why would I want to go back to that?”

  “Because my ex-wife and son are in Aspen this week, skiing with her new boyfriend. A boyfriend she efficiently discovered just a few days after our divorce was finalized. We split my son, just like Solomon, but she gets the two weeks of Christmas, because that’s the date of the great Aspen getaway. I supposed it makes sense, because how can you spend Christmas together as a family together, anyway, when you’re no longer a family?”

  The words cut harsh lines into his handsome face, but she had her scars, too. “I don’t want to be your consolation prize, or a warming blanket for you to stave off the cold of being by yourself. There are women out there you can buy for that.”

  “It’s not like that. Would you please stop trying to get away?” He set his hands to her shoulders, keeping her in place. “Yes, I want to bury myself in a woman tonight, Constance. A woman who knows what it’s like to go through the holidays without a family. But if it were just that, I’d have kept my distance.”

  He cupped her chin, made her face his gaze. “It was really, really good to see you here. When I saw you, I knew I wanted to find out more about the woman you’d become. I wasn’t going to ask you out tonight. I knew if I did, you’d think it was just the desperate come-on of a lonely divorced guy, and I’m not desperate. I’m interested.”

  Her cheeks warmed, but he wasn’t done. “Then you whispered in my ear and made me think, this is a Christmas wish I can grant, because it’s my Christmas wish, too. To be with someone who’s not just lonely for a quick fuck, but something deeper. And you felt good on my knee. Right. Can’t it be that simple?”

  No, it couldn’t. She knew what it was to indulge in the illusion of intimacy for one night to stave off the demons of loneliness. They came snapping back twice as hard the next day, which is why she’d learned not to fall into the trap of casual sex. There was nothing casual about it for her, no more than one drink could be a casual thing for a reformed alcoholic. But he’d hit her on a night when she was vulnerable. She could despise him for it, or let him take her home, fuck her to exhaustion, and have him slip away in the morning.

  “Constance—”

  “Yes. Okay. I need my arms free to get my dress back up on my shoulders, unless you want me to walk out like this.”

  “It has its appeal, but I think I’d rather keep you all to myself. There were too many guys eyeing you as it was.” He drew her hands through the straps, slid them back up on her shoulders, lifting the gathered neckline so it hung properly over the swell of her bosom.

  “Maybe I should return the favor,” she said. If she’d made her choice, then she was going to enjoy the full measure of it. She reached out to button his shirt. When he drew in his breath when she touched him, she found herself a little short of oxygen, especially when he bent, bit her neck. He gathered her in to him, his arm about her waist, his face buried in her hair. Her arms crept up around his neck, and she marveled at the scrape of his rougher chin against the soft skin of her cheek. It had been a long time since she’d held a man.

  “Are you sure you don’t tell all the Santas what you want for Christmas, to get them to go home with you?”

  She curved her lips against him. “Yes, but you’re the first to fall for it. I thought I had one at the mall earlier today, but he said he couldn’t give up his bingo night with the boys down at the Lions Club.”

  Sam laughed, lifting his head. He sobered when he looked into her face, traced her lips with a finger. “I’m not going to hurt you, Constance. Okay?”

  Yes, you will. It’s never as simple as sex. “Okay.”

  She finished buttoning his shirt and watched him tuck it in the loose waistband of his jeans. The shirt stretched across his upper torso as he did it and she suppressed the urge to touch.

  “So why did you do Santa? I imagine someone like you would be one of the partygoers. I don’t think anybody even knew it was you.”

  “That’s the point. I don’t want them to know it’s me. I usually work events with children, but I’m glad to work a dinner party that benefits them as well. You run a good organization, Constance. My company gives about fifteen percent of our charity budget to it.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I know you didn’t.” He gave her a steady look. “I didn’t tell you that to make this about that, in any way. I just want to make sure you know I think you run a good place.”

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded. “I hate these events. Particularly at Christmas. Playing Santa is a way to get out of doing the dog and pony show and put my energy where it will do some good. You’re the brave one, sweetheart. You came as yourself, and held up your end of the bargain.” His fingers touched her face. “When you spoke to me, it was the first time tonight I wanted to be someone real, not pretending to be someone else. So here we are. Let’s take you home.”

  * * * * *

  Her patio home was clean and cozily decorated in warm tones of blue, soft greens, pale yellows. It was a place she always felt welcome, which reflected herself. But as she let them in, she couldn’t help wondering how it looked to him, a man whose address covered five acres, with a ten thousand square foot home, stables and an Olympic-sized swimmi
ng pool.

  Her Christmas tree was in a corner of the living room. He stopped her from turning on the overhead light, his hand covering hers. “Just let the Christmas lights do it.”

  She put down her purse and turned to him, twisting her fingers. “Hot cocoa?”

  He nodded.

  Constance heard him behind her as she went into the kitchen. What on earth could she talk about? Inspired, she reached out to the countertop CD player. The instrumental strains of Silent Night filled the room.

  “Music always makes things seem more special, doesn’t it?” she commented, moving to the cabinet and taking down the canister of cocoa. “A person stops, looks at a chair. Put it to classical music, or to funny music, and people will get choked up or laugh at the way that person is standing there, even if they’re standing exactly the same way. Take the music away, and it’s just some person standing looking at a chair, no big deal.”

  His hands closed on her shoulders. She stopped, flushing. “I’m babbling.”

  “Yes. I like it. I want you out of this.”

  He pushed her dress off her shoulders again, and Constance held still as he worked it off her arms, loosened her grip on the canister so he could slide the straps over them, then his touch was back at her hips, guiding the dress down, molding the shape of her ass with his hands, bringing the dress to the floor. He bent, looped an arm around her thighs and pressed, causing her to take a half seat on his shoulder so he could lift her feet off the floor and neatly clear the dress from the snag of her heels. Then he moved her into a standing position again and stood. She made to turn in his embrace, but he held her there.

  “No,” he said against her ear, his fingertips playing over her exposed skin. “Make us hot chocolate, Constance. I want to see you move around the kitchen in nothing but your heels and stockings, your panties and bra. I like how your breasts jiggle with every little movement, and that swatch of panties, not covering your ass, barely covering your pussy. I’m going to watch and get hard as iron, and never feel the same way again about having a woman fix me a cup of hot chocolate.” He reached past her, turned off the CD player. “And the music we make will give this moment its true meaning. We won’t play head games with ourselves. Okay?”

  She nodded, and he moved back from her, but his body’s warmth remained.

  When she heard the creak as he settled into one of her chairs, reaction swept through her. What was he seeing as she maneuvered around her kitchen? The stretch of her torso as she reached up to pull down two mugs. Goosepimples rising on her flesh as she opened the refrigerator. The plump curve of her pussy as she bent low to retrieve the saucepan from the cabinets. She deliberately shifted her thighs a little apart.

  Pleasure skittered up her spine at the combination of a moan and growl behind her. She took the saucepan back to the stove and noticed he was right, that her breasts swayed attractively as she moved. Heat built in her kitchen, and it wasn’t coming from the burner.

  A phone tone split the quiet, the only other noise the escalated rate of breathing from two intensely roused bodies and the hum of the refrigerator.

  Sam muttered something. Constance turned to see him having some difficulty retrieving the cell phone from his jeans pocket, due to the constriction of the fabric across his crotch. He worked it free.

  “Sam Coble. Yeah, hey there, buddy. How’s Aspen?”

  His son. Constance went to recover her dress. With a smile at her modest gesture, Sam reached out, drew her onto his knee. He settled his hand on her hip, his fingers hooked into the band of the thong, his thumb rubbing her hipbone. He pressed a kiss to her shoulder, reassuring her both with the affectionate touch and the obvious warmth in his voice.

  “Second-level slope. That’s something else. Yeah, he sounds like he’s a pretty darn good skier. You’re really lucky, sport, getting to spend Christmas in a place like Aspen.”

  The love in his voice never diminished, but the hand on the phone whitened, and the grip on her hip convulsed with every word exchanged about his mother and the accomplished skiing boyfriend.

  Sam Coble had married Tracy Whitline, an obvious money and looks match, but Constance had always thought Sam had much more character and depth. Watching his pain, she wished she had been wrong.

  “Okay. You be careful, son. I love you. Merry Christmas.” Sam broke the connection, laid the phone carefully down on the table.

  “Sam, I’m so sorry.”

  “You know what you said about music?” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Right now there’d be some goddamned ballad playing, extolling the pain of fathers ripped from their kids by divorce, something that would hammer its way into your brain and torture you throughout the holiday season.”

  “Sam.” She put her hand out to give him gentleness, but he stopped her.

  “Tonight’s not going to be about that.” He hooked his other hand into her strapless bra, ripping open the front clasp so it fell away from her body, pushed away by his impatient hands. Gripping her around her rib cage, he yanked her forward, thrusting her right breast into his open, eager mouth, clamping down on the nipple, suckling it, flicking it with his tongue.

  Constance grabbed onto his shoulders, her belly curling with each pull of his mouth against her stiffening nipple.

  “Sam--”

  “No.” He caught his fingers in her hair, took her head back so they were eye to eye. “I need to take you, Constance. Take you hard. I told you I need to bury myself in a woman. That woman is you. Tell me you’re on birth control, because I’ve no intention of separating myself from the heat of your pussy with anything if it can be helped. I want my cock driving into your sweet cunt, and I want it there now. Will you take it?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, overwhelmed by his brutal need. How could she deny him when she understood the raging pain she saw in his eyes? Only maybe it was worse for him, because he was the outsider in his own family, whereas she had never had a family.

  She rose off of him, bent and laid her upper torso on the table surface gracefully, her ass tilted up because of the height of her heels. Keeping her eyes on his, she reached back, slid her finger under the thong back, moved it aside so her pink, wet labia was clearly visible. “You can fuck me as long and hard as you need to, Sam. But it doesn’t help you forget. It just makes it hurt less for a little while.”

  He stared at her. Her heart thundered against the table surface. He rose abruptly, and she saw the length of one long thigh as he moved behind her. She heard him unfasten his jeans, and her pussy contracted, wanting him even as her heart drew in on itself, protecting her against what was to come. The pounding of flesh against flesh, where her soul would be left out in the cold, unneeded and unwanted because the simple act of lust to escape pain only needed a pussy and a cock to satisfy it.

  She tensed as he put his hands to her hips. The silence of the kitchen drew out, the ticking clock on top of her refrigerator and the appliance’s low hum the only noise.

  “Constance, you really need to learn when to throw a guy out for being a jerk. You’re worth more than that.” He lifted her, turned her to face him.

  She raised her hands to his face. “So are you. You’re a good man, Sam. Most dads wouldn’t have been able to stop themselves from saying something nasty.”

  “He and I have a good relationship. I know and he knows I’ll always be his dad. It just rankles the hell out of me that some asshole gets to play Daddy to him just so he can fuck what used to be mine. Sorry,” he shook his head. “I’m a little territorial. I’ve no regrets. It was way past time for Tracy and me to split. We never should have gotten together in the first place. We defined the term ‘marriage of convenience’. But, God, I just feel so mad when I think of her with someone else…”

  “That you feel like you need to go pee on some bushes or fuck a woman to assert your dominance again?”

  He didn’t quite manage the smile. “Something exactly like that.”

  “All right, then.” She brought his hand t
o her breast. “Take me, Sam. I want to feel that. I’ve never been taken, swept away. Give that to me. Prove to me that I’m yours, that I belong only to you and no one else will ever have me. Fuck my heart and soul when you fuck my pussy.”

  “Jesus, Constance,” he muttered, his hand closing over the nipple that grew stiff and longer under his touch, fueled by the illusion her words were constructing.

  “Please, Sam. Please.”

  Civility had compelled him to rein back animal instincts, but she knew it was still there, simmering behind that control. At her words, it broke free.

  He lifted her under the arms, shoved her to her back on the kitchen table and tore the thong away with a rip of fabric that scraped her skin with his brutal need. He gripped her hips, tested her waters with the head of his cock, and finding her ready, drove in with the strength of a stallion in full rut.

  Constance arched, cried out. He filled her tight passage to the point of pain, yet she wanted it, wanted the closest thing to intimacy she could have on this Christmas Eve. She raised her stockinged legs, wrapped them around him, driving the points of her heels into his buttocks.

  “Oh, sweetheart. Be still, girl. You’re tight as a virgin. You’ve not done this in a while.” He bent, bracing one hand over her. “I like knowing that. How long has it been?”

  “Since high school,” she managed.

  With a muttered oath, he stopped. He would not let her move, kept his hand pressed down on her as he shut his eyes, fought some battle within himself. Her pussy quivered around him, wanting to hold that part of him forever.

  “No. No, we’re not doing it this way.” He withdrew from her, groaning at the retreat, but he took both her hands and brought her to her feet. “You were making me some hot chocolate, and that’s what you’re going to do.” He sent her toward the counter with a light smack on one bare buttock. By the time she had turned to look at him with a confused expression, he had his jeans up, fastened and buckled.