[Holiday Encounters 01.0 - 03.0] Boxed Set

by Amy Lamont

  I lifted up on my toes and kissed the edge of his jaw. “Happy you like it.”

  “I like you.” He pressed a soft kiss to the corner of my lips as his hands continued to roam.

  This time the flutter left a warm pulse of need in its wake. What this man could do to me with only a few words.

  His hands rubbed up and down over my ass. “Fuck, what do you have on under this dress?”

  I pouted up at him. “That’s supposed to be a surprise. For later.”

  He froze, his eyes shooting to mine. “Don’t think I’ll be able to wait that long, princess.”

  I pushed his chest, for all the good that did. It was like trying to push a mountain. “You’re going to have to wait. We can’t be late. I’m in the bridal party.”

  He slid his hands over the red satin and down the sides of my legs. He used his fingers to start inching my long dress up. “I just want to see.”

  I rolled my eyes, but had to struggle against the wave of desire that fought to pull me under. God, would I ever stop feeling this needy, aching longing for him? “I’m onto you, buddy. I know you’re after more than just a peek under my dress.”

  He grinned down at me and the look was so boyish, something I’d only seen from him in the last few months, my heart flipped over in my chest. I fought the urge to do a happy dance because I knew with a confidence that shocked me that the new lightness, the ease that Hunter never had before, was there because of me. I gave him that.

  And with that, all my resolve flew out the window. So what if I showed up to the wedding of one of my best friend’s with sex hair if it meant I could put that look on Hunter’s face?

  I stepped back and Hunter’s hands dropped to my waist.

  I bit my lip provocatively and gave him a flirtatious look from underneath my lashes. “You have been a good sport about all the wedding activities, though.”

  He nodded, his smile growing wider. “I really have.”

  I laughed and shook my head at him. “Hands off. You just get a peek now.”

  Hunter pulled his hands off my body and held them up, palms out in front of him. I giggled. He looked like he was being held at gunpoint instead of being offered a view of my goodies.

  I reached behind myself to the zipper of my dress.

  I eased the zipper down and then slipped the straps off my shoulders before lifting my eyes to Hunter’s. His jaw clenched and his hands dropped to his sides, clamped into fists as if he fought to keep from reaching for me.

  I gave him my sex goddess smile, the one I’d discovered after a few months with him, and with a small push and a wiggle of my hips, the silky material slithered down my body to pool at my feet.

  I stood in front of him wearing a black bustier that pushed my breasts up as if they were on offer, and hugged my torso down to my hips. The bustier was made of a floral lace meant to allow teasing glimpses of the flesh underneath. Paired with it, I had on tiny black lace panties that left most of my ass bare, and thigh high black stockings topped with lace. All meant to tempt and seduce, and from the look on Hunter’s face, it succeeded.

  I could see the moment Hunter’s control snapped. He shot forward and grabbed my hand.

  “No, wait.” I shook myself free of him and took a second to gather up my dress and lay it neatly over the foot of my bed, smoothing it out as I did so. I might not mind facing Paige’s wrath if we were a few minutes later than her strict schedule allowed, but no way was I showing up with my dress a mess.

  From behind me, a choked groaning sound came and a private little grin touched my mouth. Hunter must have gotten a glimpse of everything my panties didn’t cover.

  As soon as I finished, before I could turn back to him, Hunter was at my back.

  “I should punish you,” he said in a low voice close to my ear.

  I turned my head to look at him over my shoulder. “For what?”

  “You were going to make me wait until after the wedding to see all this.”

  I twisted to face him. “It was supposed to be a surprise. I take it you like it?”

  He growled. Growled. I wanted to laugh out loud. He made me feel like the most desirable, most amazing woman on the planet. Like nobody but me could do this to him.

  I leaned forward and nipped his chin. “Do you know how much I love you?” I whispered.

  He froze for several long beats, and then his arms clamped around me, sweeping me off my feet as his mouth crashed down on mine. He stroked his tongue along my lips until I opened for him and then plunged inside. I moaned into his mouth and met his tongue with mine, as he carried me across the room.

  He dropped me onto my desk, and before I could think or act, he tore his mouth from mine and bent to strip my panties from me. He dropped to his knees and had his mouth on me in an instant. And he didn’t fool around.

  He used his hands to open me to his mouth as he found my clit with his tongue and teeth. He sucked it into his mouth and I arched up off the desk, crying out loud. He slid two fingers into my already damp center, and I bit down hard on my lip to keep from crying out again. I shook with my need and within minutes he’d pushed me close to an explosive orgasm.

  But before I went over the edge, he stood and undid the button and zipper on his pants. He leaned into me and nipped my earlobe. “I can’t wait another minute, baby. You’re making me crazy.”

  “Don’t wait. I want you inside me.” My breath came in pants and I tilted my hips up to meet him.

  In one swift thrust he slid into me to the hilt. My head fell back and my eyes drifted closed as he grabbed my hips and pounded into me. I fought to open my eyes so I could watch him, see every expression that crossed his face as he drove himself into me.

  “So good, baby,” he gritted out as he ran his mouth across my jaw and down my neck. He leaned back slightly and looked down, his eyes grazing over my swelling breasts and down over my belly to the spot where we were joined. “So beautiful.”

  My inner muscles clamped down on him as a long, low moan broke from me.

  “Love you, Katelyn,” he said, his arms sliding around me and pulling me more tightly to his body. The new angle drove him deeper and I raised my legs higher to wrap around his waist. “Love you so much, baby.”

  I held on tightly to his shoulders, clutching the jacket of his tuxedo, and tucked my face into his neck, inhaling the clean, masculine scent of him. My heart squeezed in reaction to his words, while my body throbbed to the rhythm he set as he moved inside me.

  He filled every part of me—my senses, my body, my heart—until I burst wide open for him. White-hot fire coursed through me as I held him, calling out his name as I came, riding the waves of my orgasm out right there on top of my desk.

  As I started floating back down to earth, Hunter continued to move inside me. His short, deep thrusts sent tiny trembling aftershocks through me. I raised my face from his neck, my eyes going up to watch his face, so beautiful as he found his own pleasure. He moved once, twice, and again as the skin across his cheekbones went taut. I could feel every muscle in his body tense as he let go inside me with a guttural groan.

  “Love you, princess.” He kissed my temple, one hand sliding over the lacy material covering my back and the other sliding up under my hair to hold my neck.

  “I love you, too, Hunter Lawson.” And I still marveled that I got to say that to him out loud and without fear of him rejecting my feelings.

  “I guess I better get you to the church.” He eased himself out me while I steadied myself on his shoulders. “Sit tight.”

  He gave me another light kiss on my temple and then a more lingering one on my bare shoulder before he stepped into the bathroom.

  In a minute, he was back with a warm washcloth and gently pressed it between my legs, cleaning me.

  “I love the idea that you’ll be carrying some of me with you for the rest of the day,” he said as he nuzzled my neck.

  I smiled and leaned my forehead against his temple. We’d tossed away the condoms, u
sing just my shot for birth control, not long after we’d admitted our feelings for each other. I trusted Hunter implicitly.

  And he still hadn’t lost his wonder over being able to slide inside me with nothing between us. Something about his reaction made me feel completely cherished.

  After a long moment where we simply held onto each other, reveling in the closeness, he pulled back with a sigh. “I guess I better get you back in that dress.”

  He helped me hop down off the desk, and went and picked my dress up from the bed.

  “Seems a real shame,” he said, letting his eyes skim over me in just my bustier and stockings one last time.

  I bent and stepped into my panties before grinning up at him. “Don’t worry. I have it on good authority you’ll be seeing more of it later.”

  “How much later?” He helped me back into the dress, stepping behind me to ease my zipper up.

  “Well, there’s the ceremony at the church, and then photos over at the park, cocktail hour and the reception.”

  He groaned, making me laugh.

  “Maybe if you and my brother behave yourselves, you and I can find a few minutes for some alone time during the reception.”

  I shook my head thinking of my brother’s reaction to Hunter and I. I’d been so nervous he’d be totally against me hooking up with his best friend. But when we shared the news, he’d responded by clapping Hunter on the back and welcoming him to the family. Then his hand tightened on Hunter’s neck and Logan’s grin had widened into a completely evil grin as he leaned in and said, “You hurt her, I’ll kill you.”

  And that had been it. It was as if Hunter and I had always been a couple. Hell, in Logan’s mind we probably were since he’d known how we both felt about each other.

  Hunter pressed a line of kisses over my shoulder and neck. I could feel his smile against my skin.

  “I knew there was a reason I loved you,” he said.

  “Because I give in to all your pervy ideas?” I teased.

  His arms closed tightly around me. “You say that like you don’t come up with pervy ideas of your own.”

  I giggled and turned in his arms, raking a critical gaze over him. “How come you look perfectly put together after that. I must look like I just…just…”

  “Got well-fucked on your desktop?” He pulled me close and pressed a smiling kiss on my lips.

  My face heated and I pushed my fingers against his mouth. “You don’t have to say it like that.”

  He gave one of his low chuckles that never failed to send a zing along my nerve endings. “How can you still be so shy after all these months? You would think it was the first time I had you up on that desk.”

  I rolled my eyes at his teasing. It’s not like I could protest. In the last eleven months, he’d had me on pretty much every flat surface in my apartment and his. If my friends knew all the things that went on in our kitchen, they’d never eat in there again.

  I tugged out of his arms. “Let me go fix myself so we can get on the road.”

  He snagged my hand and turned me to face him. His face was suddenly serious as his eyes roamed over me. “You look beautiful. You always look beautiful.”

  I swallowed hard at his tone and the tender expression he wore, something inside me melting at his words.

  “Hunter.” The word came out on a whisper.

  He stepped close to me again. “I was going to wait until later or tomorrow or…I don’t know, some perfect time.”

  I moved my eyes up to his, confused.

  “But I can’t imagine a more perfect time than right this minute.” He slid his hands down my arms and gripped my hands. “Katelyn Murphy, I think I’ve loved you since I first set eyes on you standing in your parents living room with that goofy shirt, shiny braids and those big blue eyes looking up at me.”

  My heart stuttered in my chest.

  “I didn’t think I’d ever have a chance with you,” he said. “And then one day, eleven months ago, you turned up at my bar and turned my life inside out.”

  I bit my lip and could feel hot tears prick the back of my eyes.

  “There were a few moments, I wasn’t sure we were going to make it.”

  I blinked at his words and a single tear escaped to slide down my cheek. I knew exactly what he was talking about. I’d resisted telling my parents for several months after Hunter and I started seeing each other, afraid of their disapproval or jinxing our new relationship.

  But then I realized that hiding the relationship from my parents confirmed a lot of Hunter’s old fears. He thought I was ashamed of him, and it was driving a wedge between us.

  I’d brought him to dinner with my newly reconciled parents the next night. Turns out my fears there had been pretty silly, too. They loved Hunter. And it didn’t take him long to prove to them he wasn’t looking at me like another notch on his bedpost.

  “But we seemed to always find a way.” He twisted my hands around and pulled them up so our clasped hands rested between us. “And I think we’ve proven more than once that we’re willing to put each other first.”

  I nodded at his words, my throat too clogged with emotion to respond.

  We had. After a few months of trying to see each other while I worked and went to school in the city and he tended to all his business interests upstate, we knew something had to give. And we knew neither of us wanted the thing we sacrificed to be our relationship.

  Hunter talked to my brother about bringing a third partner into their business. But it turned out to be unnecessary. Logan announced he’d be leaving the Army and he’d be a full partner in their business instead of a silent one.

  And I’d had enough of juggling a job that made me miserable with school and trying to see Hunter. I’d applied to a school upstate where I could finish my Master’s and found a job that started after the New Year.

  “There seems to be just one area where we still disagree.”

  Was this going to be another one of those conversations where Hunter tried to convince me to move in with him? Ever since I set the plans in motion to move closer to him, he’d been trying to get me to go look at houses with him.

  I tilted my head and looked up at him. I knew it was silly and old-fashioned of me. But for some reason, despite the fact that Hunter and I had made love more times than I could count, I didn’t want to just live together. No matter how much time I spent on the back of Hunter’s bike or playing pool with him at one of the biker bars he owned, my inner biker babe was overruled by the good girl. Miss Goody Two-Shoes wanted it all and living together with the only man she’d ever even considered loving felt like too much of a compromise.

  “Hunter,” I started.

  He shook his head and gripped my hands more tightly to his chest. “Don’t say it. You’re right. I guess all this wedding talk got to me.”

  My eyes widened and all I could do was stare at him.

  “I want our first place together to be one where I can carry you over the threshold and know that you’ll always be there with me.”

  I started trembling as his words penetrated.

  “Katelyn, I love you. I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have you. And I would love nothing more than to have you by my side for the rest of our lives.”

  He eased his grip on my hands so he could turn them and move both of my hands into one of his larger ones.

  My eyes stayed glued to him as he tucked his other hand into his pocket and sank down onto one knee in front of me. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and held out a small black box toward me. “Will you marry me?”

  I couldn’t tear my eyes from his. For one brief second a wave of fear flew through me. This had to be a dream.

  But as I looked into his dark eyes, the ones filled with a tenderness he saved only for me, I knew I wasn’t dreaming. I couldn’t hold back a second longer. Tears streamed down my face as I flung my arms around his neck. “I would love nothing more than to be your wife.”

  He surged up from my bedroom floo
r with his arms clamped around me. He slanted his mouth over mine and kissed me with a thoroughness that left me breathless.

  He finally tore himself away long enough to pull the ring from the box and slide it onto my finger, despite how hard my hand shook.

  Once it was in place, I rested my hand against his chest, loving the feel and the weight of his ring on my finger. The symbol that told the whole world I belonged to Hunter Lawson.

  He leaned his forehead against mine. “We have a wedding to get to.”

  I offered him a dazzling smile. “We do. I better go fix myself before Paige sends out a search party.”

  He grinned and kissed the tip of my nose. “Go ahead. I’ll wait.”

  I pressed a light kiss against his mouth before heading back to the bathroom to do damage control. I knew I could take him at his word. He’d be right there waiting for me when I was ready.

  A glance over my shoulder at him brought a rush of such a tangle of emotions, it was hard to decipher all of them—love and happiness and thankfulness. And I smiled a secret smile because I knew my waiting was over.

  I had everything I ever wanted.

  THE END

  Holiday Encounters Book 3

  Getting Lucky with the Rock Star

  Amy Lamont

  Chapter 1

  Paige

  I woke slowly and snuggled into the warm body against my back. For once a blaring alarm wasn’t responsible for jerking me from sleep.

  That thought alone had me cracking an eye open to peek at the digital clock on the nightstand.

  5:03.

  I sighed and let my eyes drift closed once more. I had twenty-seven minutes before the alarm on my phone signaled the end of blissful sleep.

  But as I nestled under the midnight colored comforter, sleep didn’t come back to claim me. Surprising considering ever since I started medical school and my job at the hospital this fall, sleep was one of my most sacred commodities. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t sacrifice to get a few extra minutes of shuteye.