Mission of Christmas Page 4

  I smirked at his words. Then he leaned forward and smelled me again. This time there was no denying it.

  “I love how you smell…” He buried his head in my neck and breathed in again.

  I thought I was going to melt into the floor. Even four hours ago, the idea of him sniffing me would have been weird and scary. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the fact I’d exposed something so private to him, I was vulnerable.

  Maybe I was overly sensitized.

  Anything was possible.

  But this was incredibly erotic. His lips grazed my throat, a gentle brush against my skin, and my nerves stood at attention—in all the good ways. He never took his hands off my shoulders as he deliberately placed a kiss on my neck. The soft touch, slightly moist, sent a shiver through me.

  “Andy.” Part of me wondered if this was a good idea. And the other part of me wanted to tell that part to shut the hell up.

  I rocked my head to the side, allowing him further access. His lips trailed up my throat, and he guided my head around so he could taste the other side. I burned down to my girly parts, and I reached for him, one hand on his back, the other sliding up into his hair as he licked and tasted my skin.

  He started guiding me backward, and I continued to hold on until something hard and cold met my back.

  Oh. The refrigerator. I owned one of those?

  Andy kissed up my throat, then he found my jaw, my cheeks, and then I saw his eyes. Darker than I’d ever noticed before, they burned with desire, with power and intensity.

  His expression seared me, a practically tactile sensation, flipping every switch in me.

  I wanted this man.

  Oh, how I wanted him.

  His hips ground into mine, and I could feel he’d grown a bit with age—I didn’t remember his bulge being that large when we were teenagers.

  Thanks for growing up!

  My hand slid down between us, and before I realized what I was doing, I put my hand on his crotch, feeling his hardness through his slacks.

  He let out a low moan.

  And then he devoured me in a kiss. This wasn’t a friendly kiss between two people who were comforting each other. This was a kiss to melt the ice in Antarctica. Every part of me started to burn, and I knew I was done for. I reached for his belt, sliding my hands into his pants…

  Oh my God.

  Commando.

  I got a head rush thinking about the fact that he’d been naked under his pants for the entire evening.

  He released our fiery kiss with a growl, and while my hand was still in his pants, I met his eyes.

  “So, you always go commando?” I asked.

  He arched his eyebrow. “Do you want me to?”

  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to look at you the same at the office if I knew you did.”

  “Then I don’t.”

  “Rats.”

  His hand grazed my breast under my jammies top. “You always run around without your bra on around me.”

  It wasn’t a question. “You’ve never noticed before.”

  “I’ve noticed.” His hand slid into the button hole, popping a couple of the buttons so he could touch me. In a flash, my pajama shirt was open almost to my bellybutton. His fingers grazed the sides of my breast just before he caressed my nipple. My head started to swim, and I swore I was dying and heading straight for heaven.

  I slid my hand up and down his cock—the thing was like a friggin’ steel bar, the skin like velvet, and the tip rock hard and ready.

  He let out a groan as he palmed my breast. His thumb did crazy caress-touches and I let out a whimper.

  “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time.” Leaning down, Andy took my bared nipple into his mouth.

  I tipped my head back and arched against him. Whatever it was he did, I didn’t know, only that it was completely incredible. My entire body was alive with flames as he nibbled and sucked and generally induced lots of moans from me.

  “Christ.” I couldn’t keep a hold of my prize, so I put my hands in his hair, letting the strands slide through my fingers while he continued. “Did you take a class or something?”

  Andy looked up at me. “You talk too much.”

  “I probably… Oh my God!”

  His mouth encircled one nipple, his hand on the other, making the synapses in my brain forget to fire. His kisses led down my body to my stomach. He nipped and teased the skin to my pants line. He blew a breath on my center, and even through the flannel, the heat gave me a head rush.

  Our eyes met, and though I swear I can’t read minds, I knew exactly what he was thinking.

  Horizontal. We needed to get horizontal ASAP.

  I pulled him back up to me. Nothing was said, just a long, slow, sloppy kiss before separating. He took my hands and led me to my bedroom.

  We walked into the room and he flipped on the light. I was suddenly blinded by both the light and the realization he wasn’t going to turn it back off.

  “No, wait.”

  He glanced at me.

  “I want the lights off.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve wanted to see you for a long time, Erica. You’re not stopping me now.”

  My cheeks flamed red. “Uh…” In my head, I had a thousand witty replies, but one look in those eyes and every one of them died on my lips. Smart-assisms would not keep us on this path, anyway.

  And I did want to continue. In the back of my mind, I knew that I’d wanted this probably for as long as he did—yet every time I’d ever considered such a thing, I’d shoved it away, shaking it off as quick as a blink. Friends weren’t supposed to want each other. At least that’s what I told myself.

  Yet here I was, desperately wanting him. The logical side of me started screaming this would change everything. The teeny-tiny romantic in me, though, wasn’t sure. Would it? Would it really?

  Of course it would.

  Sex changes everything.

  Was I ready to make this relationship move in that particular direction? Did I really want to do this?

  My insides churned in turmoil—partially because of what my body yearned for, partially because of the fear of what this would do to our relationship.

  He sat me on the bed, and my hands shook. He clenched my fingers, steadying them, and placed a soft kiss on my cheek. He walked around to my nightstand and flipped on my little reading lamp. Then he shut off the overhead light. It put off just enough light to illuminate without overpowering, and I felt a bit more comfortable.

  My hands were still shaking.

  “Erica?” he whispered.

  “I’m fine… I am,” I said, shoving my shaking hands under my legs.

  He sat next to me. “Scared?”

  I nodded.

  “I am too.” Scared as he was, he still kissed me—it was a taste, a need that I could understand, identify, and something I desperately wanted. It seemed to shove the fear away, and I stopped trembling. I fumbled with my shirt, finishing off the last couple of buttons as we kissed. I stretched to pull it off when he stopped me.

  “Let me.” His hands were slow and meticulous at removing the material. I watched them move, and his fingers trembled a bit too. I wanted to cry—not tears of pain or worry, but of joy. He really was nervous. I felt like we’d rocketed back to high school, a couple of bumbling teenagers stealing a sacred moment while our parents were away.

  He pushed the fabric off my shoulders, his hands caressing my skin as he slid the shirt down. His fingers lingered on my arms, making little lighting trails with every barely-there touch.

  I shuddered under his ministrations.

  He leaned down and kissed me, his hands no longer on me, but pulling at the buttons on his dress shirt and revealing planes of lovely skin and square pectoral muscles. Dark hair spread across those pecs and led down to a mostly flat stomach, a small trail of hair pointing to the south, very erect pole.

  He stood up, unfastened his pants, but didn’t push them down. I reached up and ran a hand down his ch
est, feeling the skin. When I traced around his belly button, he sucked in his stomach and twisted his hips away from me. The fabric hung low, his erection holding the pants in place.

  I grabbed his barely-covered hips, pulling him straight in front of me, and started to place kisses around his belly button.

  His stomach was all the nice male flavors—skin, musk, man, all those hormone-inducing aromas. “I like your stomach.”

  “It’s not as cut as it used to be.” He tried to step away from me a bit, but I held him in place.

  “Neither of us are spring chickens anymore.” I placed a few kisses on his belt line, nuzzling against the skin.

  “Erica,” he moaned, his hands in my hair.

  I opened his pants, revealing his hard cock, and I swear the thing bounced in salutation. I couldn’t help smiling. I ran my hand up and down the smooth, velvet skin.

  “Why is it,” I said, blowing a breath on the head, “that the skin here is so much softer and smoother than any other skin on a man’s body? Or on a woman’s, for that matter?”

  “I don’t—”

  I licked the head.

  He let out a growl.

  I took him in my mouth.

  He blew out a breath, like he could explode any second.

  I slipped my hands around his hips and felt the lines of his butt, the way the roundness curved down into the back of his legs. I pushed the pants down farther so I could touch the muscles, where the hair started on his legs. He groaned, but remained perfectly still, his hands on my shoulders.

  I slid off him and glanced up. His eyes, though he was looking down at me, were lost—in a different place, the throes of ecstasy.

  “Hi.”

  He pushed me backward onto the bed, shucked his pants, and attacked me. The weight of him on top of me should have bothered me—most of the time, most men, it did.

  Not with him. It just felt, well, right.

  He nuzzled my neck, sending shivers through me, and so began his quest of covering every inch of my chest with licks and nips and kisses. I stretched my arms to my sides, my fingers digging into the afghans on the bed, the holes in the crocheted blankets becoming wonderful handles to keep me somewhat grounded.

  Andy had my pants off in one quick stroke—I knew there was a reason I loved my drawstring pajamas. I think I should find the person who invented them and write them a kindly worded letter at the—

  Holy hell, what was he doing?

  I looked down, and Andy pushed my legs apart, kneeling like a starving man at a buffet.

  And when he started his ministrations—licks, sucks, touches, caresses, kisses, I had no idea what all it was, I just knew it sent me into orbit. I moaned, I bucked and I cried out as he did his thing. I rocked my hips in mini thrusts against him, my body no longer under any particular mental control.

  As the orgasm built, I lost all concept of space and time. In the past, it usually took me forever to reach climax—at least without the help of my battery operated devices. But Andy knew exactly how to hit the right places and send me rocketing toward the stratosphere without help from anything mechanical.

  I cried out, my whole body shaking, but he didn’t stop until I’d finally crested and fell limp against the bed.

  When I was able to move my head again, I looked up and saw him smiling.

  “Have a nice trip?”

  “What day is it again?”

  “I have done my job.” He stood, his knees creaking as he did.

  I blinked. “You okay?”

  “Just getting older, babe.”

  “Next time I’ll get you a pillow, you old fart.”

  Andy laughed and jumped on me. We started to kiss; he rolled me around on the bed, first he was on top, then I was, our bodies hot for each other, and finally we rested with him pinning me down—in all the good ways.

  He smiled at me. “I’ll show you an old fart. Where are the condoms?”

  I raised my eyebrow. “What makes you think I have condoms?” I always kept my own stock. I was a control freak like that. And Andy knew it. We had joked about our preferences on those occasional late nights watching movies.

  “Because you’re you.” He rocked his hips into mine, and I lost all forms of smart ass retorts running around in my brain.

  “Top drawer of the nightstand.”

  He scooted up just enough to reach the nightstand and pulled the drawer open. “Hello, what do we have here?”

  I turned and looked, and realized he was holding my red vibrator. “Uh, nights get cold and lonely?”

  He smiled, hitting the buttons, and watching the way the head rotated and the little nubby vibrated on it. “We may have to play with that later.” He stuffed it back in the drawer and pulled out a condom. “For now, though, you got me.”

  “For now?”

  “I’m no battery operated device,” he said as he suited up. “But I bet I can make you scream again.”

  “You think?”

  He slid into me in one hard stroke, and I let out a cry.

  “Yes, I think.”

  Chapter Eight

  Sunday

  Bacon?

  Where in the hell did bacon come from?

  I rolled over, feeling the indentation on the bed, the place where Andy had slept last night. Because, yeah, we did get to sleep.

  Eventually. I hate to speculate what time it was, though.

  From the amount of sunlight bursting in the room, I was pretty sure it had to be after ten. It made me wonder why Andy wasn’t at church. I climbed out of bed, grabbing the nearest thing to me. Damn it was cold—thank God the garment happened to be my flannel pajamas.

  I padded out into the kitchen to find Andy, dressed in his slacks only, cooking breakfast.

  Didn’t he get cold?

  I climbed on a barstool at the kitchen bar and felt my mind being turned into sludgy, post-coupling, twenty-something stupidity. “Hi.”

  And I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

  He turned and glanced back at me. “Hi.” He raised his shoulder toward the coffee pot on the cabinet. “I made some coffee.”

  “What time is it?” I walked into the kitchen and noticed Andy drinking from my favorite blue mug. I wasn’t going to argue—he did give me multiple orgasms last night. He could have whatever cup he wanted.

  I grabbed another cup from the cabinet and helped myself to the coffee.

  “A little after eleven.”

  I took a sip off the steaming brew. “Where’d you find bacon?” I asked, watching him expertly cook the food.

  “Stuffed in the back of your freezer. You really should clean that thing out.”

  “Bite me.”

  “Later.”

  I drank more coffee as Andy dished up the bacon. “Shouldn’t you be at church?”

  “Normally, I would be. I’ll make up for it this week.”

  “Why?”

  He glanced at me. “Christmas Eve service.”

  “Well, I don’t want your mom hunting me down for turning you into a delinquent.”

  A smile tipped the corner of his mouth. “My mom already thinks you’ve done that.”

  I groaned. “Even your mom thinks we’re sleeping together?”

  “We are.”

  “Before today.”

  “I think she assumed we were, but was too polite to ask.” He sopped up some of the bacon grease with paper towels and pulled eggs out of my fridge. “These any good?”

  “Should be. I just bought them.”

  He cracked a couple open. “You still like them over easy?”

  I smiled. “Yeah.” It wasn’t uncommon for us to have breakfast together; we’d crashed at each other’s house enough times over the last year or so that breakfast wasn’t too weird. At least it shouldn’t have been.

  Still, there was this thing hanging in the air.

  “So what are we going to do about last night?” I asked.

  “What about it?” He let the eggs cook and faced me, taking
a sip off his own coffee.

  “Well, I can see you’re not in awkward, run away mode, so I’m thinking you’re not terribly upset about this turn of events.”

  “Why should I be?” He crossed his arms. “I meant what I said last night. I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time.”

  “This is me you’re talking to. We don’t have to do pretenses with each other. We know what we’re doing. What we’ve done.”

  “So what’s the big deal?”

  “Is this going to be a friends-with-benefits kind of thing, or are we just chalking it up to a night of emotion, tucked away and forgotten?” I personally didn’t know if I liked the idea of either option. I mean, friends-with-benefits could get messy.

  And I liked having Hawkins around—I didn’t have to put up a front with him, like I did in a lot of relationships. Did I love him? Sure I did. I’d cry if he died. I wasn’t completely heartless. But I wasn’t in love with him.

  Gooey, floaty, dancing with stars in the eyes wasn’t my kind of love.

  I was a practical gal.

  “What do you want?” His lips, set in a grim line, made me wonder exactly what the right answer could be.

  I ran my fingers down the side of my coffee mug, tracing the stripes. “I don’t know.” I replied with the most honest answer I could give him. “What do you want?”

  “For you to be happy.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You gotta be more specific. I’m happy with coffee and a bagel.”

  “I know. There were four kinds of bagels in your fridge.”

  “I’m a simple gal.”

  His eyes were dark. “I want you.”

  I gulped.

  He turned back to the skillet, his attention on the eggs as he finished them. He put them on plates and handed me one, including several pieces of bacon. He didn’t come out of the kitchen, instead setting his plate on the counter across from me, cutting himself a piece of egg.

  My guts were rocking around at a million miles an hour, and as good as my eggs looked and as awesome as the bacon smelled, I just didn’t know if I could deal with him wanting me.

  “What do you mean, want me? You want to qualify that?” I asked, my voice shaking as I spoke. I kept hearing that old adage—be sure you want to know the answer when you ask the question.