An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication
www.ellorascave.com
Full Moon Xmas
ISBN # 1-4199-0458-2
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Full Moon Xmas Copyright© 2005 Sherri L. King
Edited by Kelli Kwiatkowski.
Cover design by Syneca. Photography by Dennis Roliff.
Electronic book Publication: December 2005
This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.
Warning:
The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. Full Moon Xmas has been rated E–rotic by a minimum of three independent reviewers.
Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).
S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.
E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature.
X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.
FULL MOON XMAS
Sherri L. King
Chapter One
Three days until Christmas
The snow was coming down heavier now, and it was all Terra Gillead could do to see the road ahead of her through the flurries. She tossed one long dark lock of hair back away from her face and focused on the road. Sleet, interspersed with the snow, made the steep, winding roadway even more treacherous than it normally was. The heater in her car wasn’t working again, and her fingers were numb where they clenched the wheel at ten and two. She should have remembered her gloves.
The snow was blinding white, reflecting the brightness of her headlights straight back at her. The road felt squishy—slippery—beneath the steady rolling of her tires. It would only get worse as she made her way farther up the steep mountain slope. She decided it was best to speed up now before too much snow accumulated, making it even more difficult to navigate the road. She was only a few miles from her house—it shouldn’t be too difficult a drive. Her foot eased down on the gas, just a little, and she began to make better time.
It was difficult to believe, but Christmas was already upon her. She had only just that day sent off the last of her packages. The trunk of her car was filled with goodies from her day of shopping—which had ended a lot later than she’d anticipated—with groceries for her Christmas feast, and a couple of presents for herself, from herself. Not to mention the Indian blankets she’d picked up from the post office—she’d ordered them over a month ago and they’d only just arrived yesterday. They were made of buffalo hair, tightly woven, warm and cushy as hell. She couldn’t wait to put one on her bed.
The soothing sounds of Andean Nation filled her car, lulling her as the stretch of road lulled her into an almost hypnotic state. Not quite dreaming, but not quite awake, she sighed wearily and her breath misted in front of her face in the cold car, clouding the windshield with a hazy fog.
She didn’t see him.
One minute she was driving steadily along, if a little fast given the treacherous weather, and the next, she was seeing the form of a man lying in the road in a heap. She swerved wildly to miss him and her car went into a terrifying spin. She screamed and tried to regain control of the car, to turn into the spin as she had been taught, but it was no use. She let the car have its way, praying that she didn’t run over the man in the snow. After what seemed like an eternity, the car slid to a slow stop and she let out a sob, so relieved that she had made it through without a scratch.
“Oh my god, ohmygod, ohmygod,” she said over and over like a mantra, hyperventilating. She rocked back and forth in her seat and fought against terrified tears. “I didn’t just do that,” she wailed. “Oh god.” She unbuckled her seat belt and opened her car door all the while talking to herself in an effort to find some semblance of calm in the face of this emergency. She stumbled clumsily from the car. “Shit—what the hell is he doing in the road like that? Oh please let him be all right. Jesus, what was I thinking, driving that fast in this mess? I could have hit him. I’m an idiot! Please, please let him not be hurt.” Her words streamed together into one long, rambling sentence and her voice shook as much as her frozen hands. In fact, her whole body was shaking uncontrollably.
Moving cautiously, she walked around the car and saw the man’s limp form sprawled inelegantly on the ground, just as she’d first glimpsed him. He looked as if he’d been hit by a car, but any tire tracks must have long since been covered by the heavy snowfall. His shoes had been knocked from his feet—he was completely barefoot, without even the protection of socks—and for some reason this was the most horrific thing to her. She looked around, dazed, trying to see where his shoes might have landed.
The man groaned and rolled over. Terra screamed again, covering the sound at the last minute behind her hand to keep it silent so as not to scare the man any further than he already must have been. She gathered her failing courage and bent down to the man. She brushed his thick, long, golden brown hair away from his face and gasped softly.
He was beautiful. There was no other word to describe him. Oh, he wasn’t beautiful in the traditional sense, not at all like the current metrosexual trend, instead he was all man, from the top of his head to the tips of his bare toes.
The man groaned again, jolting her out of her admiration of his body. “Sir,” she started. “Can you hear me?”
He groaned again and the lids of his eyes trembled as if he were trying to open them, but couldn’t quite accomplish the feat. Terra took the opportunity to look over him thoroughly—not as she had before, surprised by his beauty, but assessing to see how badly he was injured. She couldn’t say for sure, but it looked as if the only external injury was a bloody gash in his head, right at his hairline.
“Wait here,” she said, brushing his hair with her hand once more in an attempt to soothe both him and herself. She shrugged off her coat and draped it over him, tucking the edges in about him. “I’m going to go call for help,” she said and rose hurriedly.
The man reached out and grabbed her ankle in an iron grip. His eyes opened and Terra found herself staring into the clearest, goldest eyes she’d ever seen. They fairly glowed.
“No doctor,” he growled. His voice was deep and gritty with a hint of some exotic accent. “No help,” he said.
“But you need medical attention right away,” she insisted, trying and failing to free her ankle from his tight grip.
“No doctor, no hospital.” He tightened his grip even harder. “Promise.”
“I promise,” she lied, knowing instinctively that he wouldn’t let her go until he heard the vow.
He let her go, releasing her so suddenly that she stumbled backward before catching herself. His strange eyes closed once more and his features smoothed, as if he slept, dreaming.
Terra slipped and slid her way back to the driver’s side of her compact little car. She turned the caution lights on and rummaged through the glove box, finding and grabbing her rarely used cell phone, her fingers shaking so badly that she could barely dial the numbers. She listened for the dial tone…waiting…
Nothing happened.
She looked at the face of her phone and noted with dismay that it didn’t have any juice. Swearing a blue streak, she smacked her phone against her thigh and checked once more with blind hope—no luck.
“Oh hell, what do I do now?” she asked herself, the sound of her voice startling in the stillness. She curled her fingers into the palms of her hands and breathed onto them in an attempt to regain some feeling.
It was too cold to leave him out here while she went for help. And besides, she couldn’t just abandon him on the side of the road, no matter the weather. He was hurt, there was no way she would abandon him.
She walked away from the haven of her car and knelt down by him once more. Prodding his shoulder gently, she tried to rouse him enough to enlist his help.
“Sir, I’ve got to get you in my car. Can you help me do that?” she asked softly.
The man groaned and opened his eyes, but only barely. “No doctor,” he said again.
Terra nodded. “No doctor,” she said. “Even though I know I probably shouldn’t move you, I’ve got to get you off the road and somewhere warm. Come on.” She knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t stop. Her lips were trembling from the cold—she could only imagine how cold the man was as he lay, barefoot, in the snow.
She slung his arm around her neck and pulled him up into a sitting position. “I need your help,” she said, face close to his. She couldn’t help but notice how delicious he smelled—like the forest on a rainy day.
“Come on,” she said, hoisting him up with all the strength she had to spare. They made their way slowly to the car. Terra opened the back passenger door and eased him into the tight space. “Just lay there. We’ll get you home and warm soon,” she said, regaining her place behind the wheel.
“Shit, I hope this is the right thing to do,” she murmured to herself as she started the car and began the ascent once more—slower this time in the heavy snow.
* * * * *
There would have been no way in hell she could’ve gotten him up the porch steps and into her living room, had he not helped. He was still woozy—she could tell that much easily enough by the way he swayed on his feet—but he was able to walk from the car to her couch with only a little support from her. However, as soon as he touched the couch, he collapsed onto it and promptly passed out.
Terra tried to turn on a lamp and realized with much dismay that the power was out. Damn. Terra knew she had to get a fire going in the woodstove before the cold settled into the house, and set about to do just that. As soon as she had the fire lit and burning, she gathered her many oil lamps and lit them, illuminating the living room with warm, soothing light. She made her way back to the couch, where the stranger lay so still that she worried for one terrifying second that he might be dead. When she saw his chest rise and fall she let out a whoosh of pent-up breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding.
She bent down next to him and brushed his hair back from his face to better see the gash in his forehead. It had already stopped bleeding. Terra wondered just how long he’d been lying out on that road in the freezing ice and snow. The road was a remote one, leading to only a few cabins along the side of the mountain. It was possible he’d been out there for hours. She hoped he didn’t have any more serious injuries.
Terra would have to search him from head to foot, and hope.
His clothes were wet and clinging to his every contour. It took nearly all her strength to remove his black leather coat and tight, earth-brown T-shirt. Terra looked over the heavy muscles of his shoulders and chest, heart pounding despite her attempts to remain unmoved by the half-naked man on her couch. He looked all right. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Once she was sure he wasn’t badly injured, her thoughts turned wholly carnal.
There was such strength in his body. He looked like a bodybuilder with all the tight, bulging muscles on his chest and arms. His skin was golden and smooth, not a blemish to mar its perfection. The wild, untamed scent of him was stronger now that he was half naked and she breathed the perfume deep into her lungs, savoring it like a fine wine.
She shook her head over her fanciful notions and tried to ignore her raging libido. It was impossible. She had to touch him. Hands shaking, she ran them over his massive pecs and down over his hard, washboard stomach. God! He was so smooth.
Now his jeans. They would be difficult to remove, but it must be done. She couldn’t let him lie there in wet clothes and catch pneumonia on top of everything else. At least, that’s what she told herself as her still-trembling hands moved to the button of his fly. She peeled the denim from him as she might have peeled the skin off a peach. And what she revealed stole all her wits.
God! He wasn’t wearing any underwear!
She looked him over, at all the bare skin she’d revealed, and trembled. He was big all over. His cock, though flaccid amidst the bed of dark pubic hair, was very large. He was so thick and so long that he stole her breath away—and he hadn’t even laid a hand on her. She shivered at that the very idea of him touching her. Sighing, she realized she could look at him for hours.
But she didn’t have hours. She brought her mind back to the task at hand and searched him thoroughly, eyes missing not one inch of his form. She struggled to turn him over, to check his back. He had lived a hard life. It was apparent in the scars on his back and legs. But the scars were old and healed so she ignored them, though she felt some sorrow that he’d clearly suffered so.
The only other injury she found was a large, ugly bruise on his right leg, but otherwise he seemed totally unharmed. That didn’t mean much, she knew. He could have sustained other injuries she couldn’t see. But there was no getting back out in the storm tonight and her phones were all cordless—useless without power. She would have to keep close watch over him through the night and hope for the best.
Terra put her coat back on and ran out the front door to her car. She slipped and slid on the frozen ground, but somehow managed to maintain her balance. She gathered her purchases and took them inside, shaking the snow from her hair as she entered the house. She dropped her bags at the door and grabbed one of the buffalo-hair blankets. Approaching the man cautiously, Terra laid the blanket over his sleeping form and tucked the edges around his body, careful not to jostle him.
The gash on his head needed dressing, so she gathered what first-aid supplies she had on hand and knelt once more beside him. She gently dabbed the wound with peroxide and wiped the blood from his skin. Finding a large square of gauze, she used the last of her medical tape to affix it to the wound. It wasn’t a professional job by any means, but Terra felt sure it would do for now.
Using the remaining buffalo-hair blanket and a pillow from her bed, Terra made a pallet on the floor by the woodstove and lay down upon it. She didn’t want to leave his side again, so she reached under her sweater and slowly removed her bra. She would sleep in her clothes, but she would have this small comfort.
As she peeled the cotton of her bra away, it scraped over her nipples, and they grew instantly erect. A quick glance at him showed that he was still asleep. She breathed a sigh of relief and massaged her breasts to relieve the tight, desperate ache that reached from her chest straight to her womb.
She faced the man on her couch, eyes never leaving him, even as her lids began to grow heavy. Despite her best efforts, she was asleep within moments, the stress of the past few hours catching up to her all at once so that she was powerless to fight off her fatigue. Her last thoughts were about how incredible sexy the stranger was, how powerful and male, even while passed out. She wondered what he’d be like when he was awake and she trembled, drifting off into oblivion.<
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* * * * *
Two days until Christmas
Terra awoke with a start as her lights came on. Daylight was already growing outside and snowbirds were twittering outside the windows. Unbelievably, considering how uncomfortable her pallet had been, she had slept the whole night through without once waking.
She glanced at the couch and gasped as memories of the night before bombarded her. Letting out a sigh of relief to see that the man was still breathing, she approached him on quiet feet. First things first, she needed to check and see if he was still all right. She looked him over—determined not to lower the blanket to see his glorious nudity as she so longed to do. His hair had dried to soft, brown waves, interspersed with bright gold strands. But for the gauze on his head, there was no way to tell he’d been through so much in the past twenty-four hours. He was, simply put, lovely.
Curiosity got the better of her, despite her resolve. She shifted silently and lifted the blanket. Afraid that he might have suffered frostbite—something she hadn’t thought to look for the night before—she examined him closely, growing breathless at the sight of his sleeping member. She checked his toes and legs, trying to ignore that most masculine part of him, and realized with a start that something was different.
His bruise was gone.
The big black and green bruise that had marred his right leg was no more.
Terra stared in fascination at the smooth, unblemished flesh of his leg. How had he healed so fast? She knew she hadn’t imagined the injury—she’d seen it as plain as day. Yet it was gone. She couldn’t believe it.
Curious now, she checked beneath the gauze on his head and almost cried out, putting her hands to her mouth to choke back the sound lest she wake her charge. The wound was now only a faint pink blemish on his skin. There was no angry, bleeding gash. Terra traced her fingers gently over it, feeling the newly formed skin, smooth as silk beneath her touch. It occurred to her just how strange the moment was. There was a naked man on her couch, and his delicious body had just performed a miracle of swift healing within a matter of hours.
White Hot Holidays 7: Full Moon Xmas Page 1