The Millionaire's Snowbound Seduction

by Sandra Marton

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, because he needed to hear the words. ‘Tell me what you want, baby.’

  Holly caught her lip between her teeth. He was killing her with the touch of his hands, with the heat of his kisses. She was shimmering, glowing, turning into a flame more radiant than any that blazed on the hearth.

  She drew back in his arms and looked up at him. ‘Make love to me,’ she murmured. ‘Touch me. Kiss me, taste me…’

  The primitive sexuality of her words shot through him like a pulse of flame. The girl he’d been married to would never have said such a thing. Sex had been incredible between them, but he’d always been the one who’d initiated it, who’d whispered words that had brought a blush to Holly’s cheeks. She had been responsive, yes, but she’d never asked for anything.

  Instinct warned him that she would not hesitate to ask, now. It made what lay ahead all the more exciting.

  He unzipped her ski jacket and slipped it from her shoulders, doing it slowly, dropping his head to kiss her arched throat and brush his mouth over hers. Then he knelt before her and unlaced her boots. He slid them from her feet, one at a time; stripped off her socks; lifted each foot and kissed the tender arch, the delicate toes.

  He undid her jeans, and they fell in a rough tangle at her feet. She stepped free of them, and he reached forward and drew her sweater over her head.

  Now, she was almost naked.

  Almost naked, before a man for the first time in so many years. Holly trembled at the realization. There’d been opportunities, but never the desire. What would Nick say, if he knew she hadn’t been with a man since him?

  Her own vulnerability terrified her.

  Nick was just standing there, looking at her. Why didn’t he say something? Do something? Once, he’d never been able to keep from touching her. Had the years wrought so many changes? Was she a disappointment, after all this—?

  Her breath caught as he reached out and stroked his hand down her cheek, her throat, her shoulder…her breast.

  ‘Holly,’ he whispered. ‘Holly, my love.’

  Slowly, he opened the front clasp of her bra. Her breasts tumbled free and he saw her reach, automatically, to cover herself.

  ‘No,’ he said, and caught her wrists. ‘Let me look at you.’

  He could look at her for ever, if she’d only let him.

  She was so beautiful.

  Creamy skin. Perfect, rose-tipped breasts. The cambered slope that led to the gentle rise of her belly.

  He hooked his thumbs into her panties, slowly slid them down her hips. And he looked at her again, his eyes feasting on her breasts, on the graceful curve of her waist, the roundness of her hips, the golden delta between her thighs.

  Need for her raced through him like a flood through a ravine. He whispered her name and gathered her into his arms, lifting her, cradling her, as she put her hands on his shoulders and opened her mouth to the heat of his.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, against his lips. ‘Nick, please, oh, please…’

  He wanted to slow down. For her sake. Hell, for his. It was just the way it was when they were kids, on that hot summer day they’d ridden his old Honda to Gailey’s Pond and he’d undressed her, seen her, touched her for the very first time.

  This was different. There was no rush…

  With a ragged groan, Nick tumbled down to the blankets with Holly in his arms.

  ‘Now,’ he said, and his hands and hers fumbled at the zip on his jeans, freed his hot, aching flesh, guided it to hers…

  He entered her on one long, hard, heart-stopping thrust.

  She cried out and arched against him. His head fell back and he thrust deeper.

  And, after so many years of being alone and apart, they were one.

  * * *

  When he figured he had enough energy to stand, Nick got up and took off his clothing.

  Holly watched through half-lowered eyelids.

  ‘Mmm,’ she said. A smile played across her lips. ‘Very nice.’

  He flushed. She’d seen him naked a thousand times before. Still, there was the feeling that this was their first time together.

  ‘All testimonials welcome,’ he said, with a smile. He came down beside her and took her into his arms. ‘You’re even more beautiful than I remembered.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She said it so seriously that Nick’s brows lifted. ‘Thank you?’

  ‘Well…’ Holly blushed. ‘Six years is a long time. I haven’t gotten any younger, you know.’

  ‘Ah. Well, that’s true. I suppose a man can’t expect too much from an old broad of twenty-five… Hey!’ Grinning, he rolled her onto her back and pinned her hands gently over her head. ‘You’ve got sharp elbows, you know that?’

  ‘You haven’t gotten any younger, either,’ she said indignantly.

  ‘Oh, yeah, I know it. My joints creak, my bones ache…it’s a hell of a thing, to be pushing thirty.’

  ‘You won’t be pushing it for another three years,’ Holly said, trying not to laugh. ‘And, if it makes you feel any better you look pretty good for an old codger.’

  ‘Just, “pretty good”, huh?’

  ‘Well, not bad.’

  ‘You could try being a little more specific.’

  ‘You’re pathetic,’ Holly said, lips twitching.

  Nick waggled his eyebrows. ‘A couple of minutes ago, you were whistling another tune, m’dear.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. For starters, I do not whistle.’

  ‘Whistle, applaud, sigh…what’s the difference?’ He grinned. ‘The point’s still the same. You were pretty well pleased a little while ago.’

  ‘What would you like, Nicholas Brennan? Applause? You’ll do anything to get me to stroke your ego!’

  ‘Well, you can stroke that, too,’ Nick said, with an evil leer.

  Holly burst out laughing. ‘You’re impossible.’

  His smile faded. ‘And you’re so beautiful you make my heart ache,’ he said softly, and kissed her again, with sweet deliberation. ‘I love you, Holly.’

  Holly felt her heart turn over. She clasped his face and brought his mouth down to hers.

  ‘Nicky,’ she sighed, ‘my Nicky…’

  His mouth closed over hers, and the sweetness of their kisses yielded to the fierce hunger that they’d never forgotten.

  ‘Nick,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, Nick, how I love you!’

  The words, those sweet, sweet words he’d never let himself dare hope to hear again, shot through him like a flame. Nick rolled her beneath him, sheathed himself in her.

  ‘Forever,’ he said.

  Holly’s eyes fixed on his. ‘Forever,’ she whispered, as he began to move.

  How could it be any other way? He was part of her, and she was part of him. That was the way it had been, the way it would always be.

  Nothing would ever separate them again.

  * * *

  They slept, awoke long enough to make love again, and slept some more.

  When they awoke next, the fire had begun to die. Nick fed it some wood while Holly, dressed in his flannel shirt and her wool socks, made a dash for the kitchen. She raced back, carrying a box of crackers, a jar of peanut butter, and a knife.

  ‘I am freezing!’ she squealed, burrowing under the blankets, and proved it by putting her icy feet against Nick’s thigh.

  ‘By God, woman, are you trying to freeze me to death?’ Nick reached down, caught hold of her feet, and rubbed them briskly. ‘I’d almost forgotten that you have no heating system of your own.’

  ‘Complaints, complaints.’ Holly bit into a peanut-butter-laden cracker, then held out the remaining half. ‘Here. Maybe some food will improve your disposition.’

  Nick grinned, bit into the cracker, and chewed. ‘You’re just trying to keep my energy levels up.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Holly licked peanut butter from her fingertips and flashed him a smug grin. ‘As if you have any energy levels left, now that I’ve had my way with
you…’ Her smile faded. ‘Nick? It’s as if the past six years never happened.’

  ‘I know. We must have said these same things to each other a thousand times, and laughed whenever we did.’ Nick leaned over and dropped a gentle kiss on Holly’s lips. ‘We had some good times, babe,’ he said softly. ‘Didn’t we?’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘Yes, we did.’

  ‘I have to be honest and admit that I’d pretty much forgotten the good times.’

  ‘Well, so did I.’ Holly shrugged her shoulders. ‘I suppose that’s only natural. I mean, when two people get a divorce…’

  Her voice cracked. Nick frowned, hooked his arm around her neck, and pulled her close.

  ‘That’s all behind us,’ he said.

  ‘Is it?’

  He felt, rather than saw, Holly’s sudden hesitancy. ‘Damn right it is.’ His tone was gruff, almost harsh. ‘What kind of question is that to ask?’

  ‘A reasonable one,’ she murmured, and looked down at her lap.

  ‘The hell it is!’ He clasped her chin. ‘Look at me,’ he said and, when she finally did, he glowered at her. ‘I love you. You love me. What else matters?’

  Holly shrugged. ‘We loved each other the last time around, too,’ she said, after a minute.

  ‘Yeah, but we were young. Just a pair of kids.’

  ‘We had problems, Nick. I don’t think they had to do with our being kids.’

  ‘Sweetheart.’ Nick reached out and drew her into his arms. ‘We got married without your parents’ blessing.’

  ‘They didn’t try to stop us.’ Holly shut her eyes and laid her head against Nick’s chest. ‘You know that. They even came to the wedding.’

  ‘Yeah.’Nick gave a sharp laugh. ‘Some wedding.You and me, standing in the office of a Justice of the Peace, you clutching a bouquet of supermarket flowers—’

  ‘They were beautiful flowers,’ she said softly.

  ‘They were the only thing I could afford. Me in my one and only, super-shiny, too-short-in-the-pants, tootight-in-the-shoulders blue gabardine suit.’

  Holly smiled against his chest. ‘You looked gorgeous.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I’ll just bet. I know how ‘gorgeous’ I looked, baby. I could see it reflected in your old man’s eyes.’

  Holly pulled back and looked into Nick’s face. ‘My father’s approval—’

  ‘His disapproval, you mean.’

  ‘Whatever you want to call it, Nick, that was never a problem for me.’

  Nick sighed and drew her close again. ‘Look, the bottom line is that everything was stacked against us. We were young, we came from different worlds, I was broke…’ He lifted Holly’s face and smiled at her. ‘Fast-forward seven years. Here we are, young but not wet behind the ears. And I am a long, long way from being broke. As for those different worlds…’ He grinned. ‘Would you believe I’ve learned to eat raw clams without turning green?’

  Holly smiled. ‘I remember that. You were so sick afterwards.’

  ‘Well, sure. Your parents invited us to dinner, your father ordered for us… How could I have told him I’d never in my life seen a clam outside of a can of chowder?’

  Holly’s smile faded. ‘You could have. It wouldn’t have mattered.’

  ‘Not to you, maybe.’

  ‘Not to him, either. I admit, he wasn’t thrilled when I said I was marrying you—’

  ‘An understatement, if ever I heard one.’ Nick’s smile was forced. ‘Not that I blamed him. President of the biggest bank in town, member of the Chamber of Commerce… Hell, why would a guy like that want to see his daughter hook up with a loser?’

  Holly pulled out of Nick’s embrace. ‘He never called you that,’ she said fiercely. ‘And I wouldn’t have let him! You were never a loser.’

  A muscle tightened in Nick’s jaw. ‘I know what I was then, baby. And I know what I am now.’

  ‘Nick—’

  ‘I know what I want now, too.’ In one easy motion, he caught Holly and gently drew her down beside him. ‘You, sweetheart, ‘ he whispered, and kissed her. ‘You, in my arms, in my heart, in my life.’

  The words were sweet, but all too painfully familiar. Nick had said them before, when he’d proposed all those years ago. Then the words had been filled with dreams and promise.

  Where had it all gone wrong? When had the dreams died?

  ‘Nick,’ Holly said, ‘we need to talk.’

  ‘Later.’

  ‘Nicky. I think—’

  ‘I love it when you say my name that way.’ His lips teased hers. His hands moved over her body, cupping her breasts, stroking her skin. ‘I used to lie awake at night, after we split up, and sometimes I could swear I’d hear you whispering my name in the dark.’

  Holly’s breath caught as he bent his head and kissed her breasts. His lips closed around the nipple of one, then the other; his fingers drifted between her thighs.

  Don’t do this, a voice sighed inside her. Talk about what went wrong, or you’ll be right back where you started seven years ago.

  But this was Nick. Her husband, as much today as ever, because she had never stopped loving him. And she never would.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HOLLY didn’t want to wake up.

  The dream—this dream—was too sweet. The comforting weight of Nick’s arm around her waist. The heat of his body against hers…

  Nick stirred, murmured in his sleep. His arm tightened and he drew her back against him, closer into his embrace.

  Holly smiled. She wasn’t dreaming. Nick, the man she’d never stopped loving, was real.

  Carefully, not wanting to wake him, she turned in his arms and studied his face. Everything about him was just as she remembered. The dark hair, tousled now by sleep. The black lashes, so full that they lay against his cheek. The nose, with its sexy little bend. The high cheekbones, so prominent in the pool of light cast by the lamp on the table beside the sofa…

  Holly’s eyes rounded. Lamplight? Lamplight?

  ‘Nick!’ She shot upright in their improvised bed.

  ‘Mmm.’ Nick reached up and lightly cupped her breast.

  ‘Nicky. Come on, wake up.’

  ‘I am awake, baby.’ He clasped her shoulder and he drew her face down to his. ‘Want proof?’ he whispered, his voice raspy with sleep and desire.

  ‘You’re incorrigible,’ she whispered back, but her smile belied her words.

  Nick kissed her again, rolled onto his back and drew her close. He caught her hand, guided it to him. ‘Is that the medical term for this condition, Doc?’

  ‘Nick.’

  ‘Mmm. That feels nice.’

  It did. It felt wonderful. What she was doing to him, what he was doing to her…

  ‘Nick.’ Holly pulled free of his embrace, sat up, and gave him the sternest possible look. ‘Here you are, fooling around—’

  ‘Another medical term?’

  ‘Fooling around,’ she said severely, gently slapping his hand away, ‘while I’m trying to give you important news.’

  Nick sighed. ‘We’ve landed men on Mars?’

  ‘Nick, for goodness’ sakes—’

  ‘The power’s back.’

  ‘No! Honestly, you’d think…’ Holly blinked. ‘You know?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Nick grinned. ‘The heating system went on with a roar about an hour ago.’

  ‘And I slept through it?’

  ‘Yup.’ He sat up and threaded one hand lazily into her hair. ‘C’mere and give me a kiss.’

  ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

  ‘What for? Besides, I doubt if anything could have wakened you.’ He gave her a grin so sexy it made her pulse quicken. ‘I can’t imagine why, but you were out to the world.’

  Holly blushed. ‘Exhaustion,’ she said primly. ‘From that drive through the storm yesterday. You know. Delayed reaction.’

  ‘A likely story.’ Suddenly, his smile faded. He swept her hair behind her ears, then captured her face between his hands. ‘It was incredib
le,’ he said softly. ‘Making love with you again…it was everything I remembered, and more.’

  Holly smiled. ‘I love you.’

  ‘Again.’

  ‘I love you. I love you. I—’

  Nick kissed her. When he drew back, he was smiling.

  ‘Do you remember the first time we made love?’

  ‘How could I forget? We drove up to Cape Cod.’

  ‘It was a moonlit night, in early fall. And the beach was deserted.’

  ‘We went for a walk, down by the water.’

  ‘And then into the dunes.’ Nick’s voice roughened. ‘You said you were cold, and I put my arms around you.’

  ‘You kissed me,’ Holly whispered. ‘And kissed me again.’

  ‘And you slipped your hands inside my jacket, up under my shirt…’

  Holly put her arms around Nick and kissed him. ‘I’ve never forgotten that night.’

  ‘That was the night I told you how much I loved you.’ He looked into her eyes and smiled. ‘I love you even more now, sweetheart. And I don’t want to lose you again.’

  ‘I don’t want to lose you, either. But—’

  ‘No “but”s’. We’ll make it this time, baby.’

  ‘Will we?’ Tears glistened in her eyes. ‘I couldn’t bear it if we failed again, Nick. I couldn’t!’

  Nick kissed her mouth, her eyes, her tear-stained cheeks.

  ‘We won’t,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

  She knew he meant it, but she knew, too, that a thousand things could go wrong between a promise and reality. They had to talk about what had separated them the first time…

  But Nick was touching her, caressing her. After a while, there was nothing to say that couldn’t be better said with kisses.

  * * *

  Nick shouldered open the front door. His arms were full of things: the carton of groceries he’d taken back out to his truck, his computer, his cellphone, his wireless fax. He dumped the stuff on the hall table, took off his jacket and ran his fingers through his hair.

  It had started snowing again. He wondered if another storm might be rolling in, and smiled. Actually, he didn’t much care. What could be better than getting snowed in with Holly? Ellen expected him back at the office first thing Tuesday morning, and yeah, there was business to attend to, but nothing—nothing—would ever be as important as the miracle that had happened here this weekend.