The Trouble with Christmas

by Amy Andrews

  Nerve endings in his buttocks tingled as her gaze, as hot and urgent as her mouth had been that first time, devoured every inch of his dick. It was hard to believe that anything much could be heard above the howl of nature outside the cabin, but he could hear the unsteady timber of his breathing. And the husky rasp of hers.

  “Condoms in my bag on the table beside the couch,” she said.

  Grady raised an eyebrow. “Suzanne St. Michelle—did you plan this?”

  She shot him a lazy smile that curled deliciously in his belly. “No. I was cleaning out my bag earlier, trying to keep occupied and not worry whether you were dead in a ditch somewhere.”

  She was still smiling, but the fact that she had obviously been very worried about him curled around his heart. “As you can see…” He glanced down at his cock. “I am very much alive.”

  She reached for him, closing her hand over the taut girth of his dick. Grady sucked in a breath as the muscles deep in his pelvis shuddered and tightened. “Prove it,” she whispered.

  That was all the encouragement Grady needed as he slid out of her grasp and pushed to his feet, grabbing her bag.

  “Side pocket,” she said.

  Grady shoved his hands in the side pocket as he walked back toward her, his fingers immediately finding a foil strip and pulling it out. Dropping her bag to the floor, he tore off one of the condoms and tossed the rest on top of the bag as he opened the foil and hastily donned the protection. “Mmm,” she murmured. “I like watching you touch yourself.”

  His breath hitched at the desire in her eyes. “I like touching you better.”

  And then he was down on his knees again, between her legs and feeling so damn at home there, it stole his breath. She reached for him, her palms sliding onto his shoulders, and every nerve ending from there right down to his buttocks contracted and sparked to life as he settled over her, his dick gliding through the slickness between her legs, finding her center and, as he claimed her lips in a kiss that was deep and wet and long, he pushed inside her, sliding all the way home.

  She moaned against his mouth, breaking their kiss to pant, “God, yes…Grady,” and then she kissed him again and he was lost.

  Lost to the touch and the feel and the taste of her, to the tight, wet clench of her and the soft breathy sounds of her as he entered and withdrew in slow, easy strokes, caught in a rhythm that was purely theirs. His blood flowed thick and hot through his veins and pulsed with the tempo of their joining through his belly and his temples and his groin.

  The pleasure built slowly—so slowly—like musical notes layering one on top of the other to a crescendo, and Grady wrung every moment out of the build. Enjoying the feel of her under him, around him, reveling in every hitch of her breath, every moan, every desperate clutch of his ass pushing him closer and closer. When she started to tighten around him and gasp, “Yes, yes,” against his mouth, his own orgasm rumbled through his system, and when her back bowed and eyes flew open and she clamped tight around his length, he broke, too, their gazes locking as they came together, crying out into the night, two hearts and two souls intimately entwined.

  …

  Suzanne stirred a while later. She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep or what had even woken her. For a moment, she thought it was the vicious howl of the wind that seemed to have ratcheted up to banshee status—not an official meteorological term—but then she became aware of a pair of hot lips kissing her neck and an even hotter part of Grady’s anatomy pressing into the cleft of her buttocks.

  She vaguely recalled that he’d moved not long after they’d collapsed in a heap and that she’d made some kind of protest, but he had hushed her and said he’d be back and he’d returned shortly after, his arm sliding possessively around her waist as he’d spooned her, and she didn’t remember anything after that until now.

  Opening her eyes, the low flame and bright-red coals of the fire were the first thing she saw, the warmth on her face and body deliciously toasty. Sighing, she snuggled into Grady, squirming against him appreciatively. A deep groan caused her nipples to harden, and she shivered as his tongue stroked up the side of her neck to just under her ear.

  “You’re awake,” he muttered, his breath hot, goose bumps prickling over her scalp.

  “What’s the time?”

  “Just after one.”

  Suzanne rolled onto her back, and he shifted, propping himself on an elbow to look down at her, his other hand drawing circles on her stomach, striking sparks beneath her skin. “Sorry, I passed out.” She lifted her hand to smooth her palm along his soft, scratchy whiskers, which caused a few more sparks.

  “So did I,” he said, shutting his eyes briefly as she traced the pads of her fingers over each of his lids.

  “Yeah, but you’ve been working like a dog for the last two days.”

  He shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

  Something Grady had said earlier came back to her, and Suzanne dropped her hand. “I didn’t plan this, Grady. I hope you know that.”

  “I know.” His fingers stroked up her middle, from her belly button all the way to her mouth, brushing along her bottom lip. His touch was light, but she felt it everywhere. “It just happened.”

  “Yeah,” she acknowledged. “I guess we should probably talk about that.”

  Like they should have the first time they’d hit the sheets together.

  “Probably.” His fingers slid down her throat to play in the hollow at the base. “But honestly…right now I’d rather just spend the next however many hours we have making you come as many times as possible. The blizzard will be over soon enough and reality will intrude, including all the reasons why you and I doing this is a bad idea. So I’d rather not have to think about them now. I’d rather show you that it’s not just my hands I’m good with.”

  Suzanne swallowed at the blatant imagery he’d invoked. The man sure knew how to negotiate. But this was classic avoidance and 100 percent the Grady she’d come to know. The guy who didn’t talk or dwell or analyze anything that couldn’t be changed. Who didn’t look back. Who moved forward. Who got on with things.

  Just like he would when she left.

  “You should use words more often,” she teased, a smile nudging her mouth because whether he was indulging in his usual avoidance or not, if all she went back to New York with was this one night, then it was better than some people got in a whole lifetime. “You’re good at them.”

  He chuckled. “I prefer actions.”

  His hand slid to her breast, and her nipple hardened beneath the stroke of his fingers. He followed it up with the hot, wet suck of his mouth, and Suzanne arched her back and surrendered to him as he kissed and nibbled and sucked all the way down her body, teasing her map-of-Texas birthmark with his tongue before settling between her legs and licking right along her center, causing Suzanne to moan so deep and sonorous, she wouldn’t have been surprised had a pod of whales come crashing through the front door.

  And when she climaxed, which she did so damn quickly, the wild nonsensical mutterings falling from her mouth were so foreign, they might as well have been Portuguese. But she was barely conscious of them as she buried her fingers in his hair and rode his tongue all the way until the end, until she was gasping and panting in the aftermath.

  He took his time kissing his way back up her body so by the time his lips were brushing along the ridge of her throat, she’d finally come back to herself.

  “See,” he said, lifting his head, his smile big and smug, the firelight softening the hardness of his features. “It’s much better when I don’t talk.”

  He looked cocky and sexy and his dick was still hard and pressing into her side and damn if she didn’t want to show him how the two—sex and talking—weren’t necessarily exclusive. Pushing on the center of his chest, she followed as he fell to his back; then she straddled his hips, settling herself over his ha
rdness, her hair falling lightly against her shoulders.

  “If you were a woman,” she said, reaching over to snag a condom off her bag about a foot from his head, “you could do both.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “That a fact?”

  “It is,” she said and proved how skilled she was by giving a running commentary as she opened the foil with her teeth and pulled out the condom and applied it to his cock with expert precision.

  He sucked in a breath as she positioned him at her center. “Impressive.”

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet.” And slowly but surely, she sank down over him, taking all his rampant hardness into the tight sheath of her sex, reveling in the stretch and the fullness as she took him all the way to the hilt.

  “God.” He groaned as his hands glided up her ribs to her breasts, cupping them. “You’re beautiful.”

  His fingers brushing her nipples was exquisite, and she wanted nothing more than to let her head loll back and enjoy, but she was trying to make a point. “I have a plain face, and I’m too curvy,” she dismissed.

  “No,” he whispered. “You’re perfect.”

  Suzanne’s breath caught in her throat. He said it so reverently, she actually believed him.

  Looking down at herself, at the way his work-calloused hands covered her smooth, pale breasts so possessively, was arousing on a whole new level.

  She’d never wanted to be possessed by a man before, but hell if she didn’t want to be branded all over by this man. She moved then, circling her hips, needing to steer them away from useless thoughts she didn’t know what to do with. Sliding her finger to the puckered wound near his collarbone, she said, “Tell me what happened.”

  He squeezed her breasts, pinched the nipples. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “I’m a little busy here.”

  Suzanne smiled as she leaned into his hands, angling her body for freer movement. “Multitask,” she murmured as she eased herself off him a little, then back down again, her pulse tripping, her body shuddering at how damn good he felt sliding in and out.

  He shuddered, too. “Wrong place, wrong time,” he said on a harshly expired breath.

  She rocked forward again, moaning, her voice a rough pant. “IED?”

  “Car bomb.”

  God…a car bomb. Suzanne couldn’t even stand the thought of it as she took him inside her again. “Did it hit anything vital?”

  “No.”

  “How long were you in the hospital?”

  He didn’t answer for a beat or two, and they just stared at each other as Suzanne took full advantage of her position to ride him. His hands were firm on her breasts, his arms extended, his elbows locked, which allowed her to lean in hard, to get just the right amount of leverage to slide up and down the length of him.

  She pulled off him almost all the way, and he groaned and said, “A few days.”

  “A few days?”

  Suzanne was so shocked, she rocked back onto him with a quick snap of her hips.

  He grunted as she stared down at him. “It’s not much more than a scratch.”

  A scratch? Yeah right. But she didn’t stop rocking, greedy for every magnificent inch of him. He was solid and very real between her thighs. He was okay. “You went back after that?”

  “Cleared for duty…” He shut his eyes and pulled in a couple of short breaths. “A week later.”

  Jesus. That sounded ridiculous. “But you left eventually, right? Why?”

  “After three tours, my time was up.” He opened his eyes. “And I was sick of being shot at.”

  Suzanne gave a half laugh, circling her hips now, causing her to shiver as Grady’s dick hit a completely different spot. “Was there anybody else injured? With the car bomb?”

  His eyes locked on hers, intent. Serious. “Two.”

  Suzanne ground down hard against him, her pulse hammering. “Bad?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t have to tell her they hadn’t made it. It was in the finality of his tone. She leaned into him more, easing off him a little but not intentionally, just to get closer. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “So am I,” he said, then thrust, hard and high, wrenching a gasp from her throat and a groan from his as he vaulted up, his chest pressing to hers, his arm snaking around her waist, his lips so close to hers, they were almost brushing. “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  And then he kissed her—hard—his tongue tangling with hers as he fell backward, bringing her down with him, his hands splayed on her ass, his thrusts deep and sure, fucking her like Armageddon was knocking at their door, fucking her till the pleasure rained down and they were spent.

  …

  It was light when Suzanne woke hours later. She half expected to find Grady up and about, but he was lying on his back beside her, sleeping peacefully, the discarded foil from the third condom they’d used about two hours ago an inch away from his elbow. She smiled, remembering Grady’s voraciousness. Remembering hers.

  She was struck again by how much younger he looked in sleep. His mouth wickedly tilted, his frown smoothed out, his jaw, covered in delicious whiskers, relaxed. She wanted to touch those whiskers, to trace her finger along his mouth and his cheekbones, to run it down the hard ridge of his throat and lower, to the ridges of his abs and lower again to the flaccid fullness of his cock, still impressive.

  A tingle of desire squirmed through her belly. She knew she’d only have to touch him and it’d spring to life. But…the man needed sleep. He hadn’t exactly had a lot of that last night, not to mention the previous two nights, and she’d bet her mom’s most expensive piece of art that Grady had rarely, if ever, slept the day away.

  So she’d leave him be for now.

  Judging by the unrelenting noise of the wind, they had all day to, how had he put it? Making you come as many times as possible. She shivered at the carnal eloquence and deliberately rolled away from the temptation of Grady, getting to her feet and heading for the bathroom.

  Returning fireside a few minutes later, she stepped into her underwear and put on her pajama shirt, planning to check on her parents but getting distracted, once again, by a naked Grady, whom she blatantly ogled. Her muse, which had been MIA since her parents had arrived, suddenly perked up. Now that she could paint. Grady reclined and, in the buff, his work-honed body looked all long and loose and relaxed, that slight uptilt to his mouth suggesting the kind of satisfaction that came only from the type of carnal activities in which they’d indulged.

  The title? Waiting out the weather.

  Her muse whispered heady sweet nothings in her ear, which Suzanne steadfastly ignored—painting Grady had gotten her into this mess in the first place. Turning her back on him, she crossed to the window near the Christmas tree. It was blindingly white outside, from the foot of powdery snow that had fallen overnight to the stuff that was currently being whipped around by the relentless wind, but Suzanne could still make out the cottage door and was relieved to see no red cloth tied to the knob.

  Leaving the window, she made her way across the cabin to the one opposite that overlooked the porch and the front field. It was, as expected, a total whiteout. The dark line of fencing and the bare trunks and branches of trees were the only flashes of muted color visible through the windswept flurry of horizontal snow.

  Suzanne shivered. There was a wildness and a beauty to nature that was compelling, something so elemental that a person couldn’t help but be drawn to it. Suzanne could see why so many of the great painters through the ages had put it on canvas, capturing it in all its beauty and its terror.

  She could even see how an artist could paint the same scene over and over again, as so many of them had. Nature was so changeable. Depending on the time of year, or even the time of day, it never stayed exactly the same. She just wished she felt similarly compelled. Wish
ed that it excited her muse the same way. Looking out at the harsh reality of this winter landscape, she felt a lot of things—small and awed and…human.

  But she didn’t want to paint it.

  Grady, on the other hand… She glanced over her shoulder at him, and her muse purred. She actually purred!

  Sighing, Suzanne headed to the fire, removing the screen to build it up, throwing bigger logs on it and topping it with a handful of pine cones because they burned so prettily and smelled like Christmas.

  “Good morning.”

  The low, lazy greeting shot a shiver up her spine and wrapped around her heart. That voice wouldn’t be a terrible thing to wake up to every morning.

  She turned, and her breath caught at the rugged beauty of him. It didn’t matter that she’d already ogled the bejesus out of him; she just couldn’t get enough of him stretched out naked like this—for her eyes only.

  Paint him, her muse whispered. Paaaaaint him.

  Taking a deep breath, she smiled at him and let her muse have her way. “Can I paint you?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Grady, trying to clear the heavy malaise of sleep from his head, blinked at the suggestion. Was she serious? But he could see that she was, as the hot flick of her gaze raked his body in what he assumed was her critical eye—professional and businesslike.

  Not that his dick knew the difference.

  If she stared at his junk any harder, there’d be no way she could paint another of those little wieners on him. Which was something, at least.

  “Haven’t you already painted me enough?”

  She shook her head, her teeth biting into her bottom lip as she continued to peruse his body like maybe she wanted to put the paint on him rather than a canvas. “No, not like that. Not like the other times.” Her gaze met his. “You, as you are now. Lying on this rug, sleepy and lazy and…”