"Rob, I want it very much."
She stared at him, her eyes wide as if she couldn't believe she'd actually told him of her desire. He couldn't quite believe it either. Had he fallen asleep while she was in the shower, and this was just a dream? Had he died and gone to heaven?
"I shouldn't have said that," she said quickly, not looking at him, instead plucking at her blanket. "It's just that this night has been so—emotional. And seeing you has brought back so many memories. I—I don't want things to be awkward. And I don't want you to think that I—"
As Erica rambled on, Rob threw back the covers and rose, striding the short distance to her bed.
She lifted her head, her mouth snapping shut when she saw him, towering over her, wearing nothing but some now very ill-fitting boxers and a smile.
"I'm not thinking anything," he said, "other than that I want you, and if you want me, too—well, we should do something about that."
He reached for the covers, tossing them back. Then he tugged at the blanket that enveloped her. The edges peeled away like she was his very own Christmas gift. Carefully, he spread the blanket open until she lay bare before him, all shower-fresh skin and breathtaking curves.
"Rob," she whispered as he gazed at her.
"You are so beautiful." He couldn't remember anyone looking as beautiful as this woman. The gentle swell of her breasts topped with nipples the color of sugarplums. The flare of her hips. The curve of her stomach, indented by a small belly button. The dark golden curls at the juncture of her thighs. Hell, even the tiny dimples in her knees. She was flawless.
Then his eyes rose to her face, and it was the expression in her eyes that truly stole his ability to breathe. Their golden green depths were bright with hunger—hunger for him.
He crawled onto the mattress and pressed a kiss to her dimpled knee. Then he worked his way up to her soft belly, sampling her golden skin as he went. He lingered at her sweet breasts, licking those sugary nipples, toying with their delicious hardness.
Erica whimpered, her body squirming under his, her soft skin a silken friction against his. Her hands kneaded the muscles of his shoulders and back. Her legs tangled with his, sliding up and down their length.
His cock, still confined in his boxers, throbbed in response to the repeated strokes of skin against skin.
He ignored it, ignored his need. He was more desperate to hear Erica's moans of satisfaction. To rediscover all the places on her luscious body that made her scream.
But first, he had to taste her mouth again. To kiss the only woman who could make him vibrate with just the pressure of her mouth and the flick of her tongue.
He captured her lips, tasting her heat. She responded with a pleased moan and sank her fingers into his hair, clutching him, pulling him closer. They tasted each other, the need building in them both, their embrace becoming more needy, more fierce. Her hips rocked against him, her legs bending to cradle his hips, to invite him in.
He pulled away, trying to slow the pace, to make this last.
"Let's see what I remember," he said, then kissed her neck. At a point near her earlobe, he licked her. The tip of his tongue teasing the small spot.
She rewarded him with a gasp and a shiver.
He smiled against her neck, then slid down her body.
And wasn't here? He nipped the sort, fragile skin at the side of her stomach, just above her hipbone.
She cried out, her hands knotting into his hair, her hips lifting off the bed.
"Rob, you're killing me!"
"Really?" He nibbled her again. She jumped again, gasping.
He grinned, then slid lower. He stopped between her thighs, resting his chin lightly on the springy curls there.
"And as I recall, I used to do something down here that really made you scream."
She stared down the length of her body to him, her eyes heavy-lidded with passion, her lips parted, rosy and damp.
"You are evil, do you know that?" There was anticipation rather than reproach in her breathy voice.
He beamed, then shifted to nudge her legs wider apart. He pressed his mouth to the curls and the moist heat hidden just beyond them. His tongue delved, slipping deeper, lapping over the hot, silky flesh, finding the tiny seed of her clitoris.
She gasped as he stroked it, using the tip of his tongue to flick over her again and again. He spread her even wider, then his lips joined his tongue, suckling her.
Her hips writhed against him. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. Her legs locked around his torso. She groaned, the sound so deep within her, he swore he could feel the vibration against his tongue.
He groaned, too, her response agonizingly arousing. It was a heady experience, that he could make her feel this way. That he could bring this gorgeous woman to the brink of her sanity.
He drew on her clitoris again, then he grazed the swollen nub, just a fleeting scrape, with the edge of his teeth. And just like that, she screamed and bucked under him, her orgasm shuddering through her in repeated waves. He continued to taste her until her shudders diminished.
He skimmed back up her body.
"Hmm, I'm not sure. Was that the right spot?"
She cuffed his arm and then laughed, the sound still shaky from her release. "Yes, you conceited oaf, you. That was definitely the right spot."
He grinned and tenderly caressed her wild curls from her cheeks. God, had he ever enjoyed anyone or anything more than this woman?
"But before you get too sure of yourself," she said with a devilish grin of her own. "You did forget one spot. One very, very important spot."
"I did?"
She nodded, and she pushed at his shoulders so he would rise a little, and she snaked her hand down between their bodies. She pushed at the waistband of his boxers.
"But I think you'll need to lose these to get there."
He rolled off her so she could work the clothing down his hips.
When the boxers were cast away, he started to move back on top of her.
"Oh, no," she said. "You got to look at me, so I get to look at you."
She pushed him back on the mattress, and her eyes and her hands began to explore his body. Laying her full palms on his burning skin, she brushed down over his chest. Over his stomach, fanning out to shape the hard muscle of his thighs.
"I seem to recall you had a few favorite spots, too," she murmured, her fingertips grazing the thick curls around his arousal.
"When you touch me, everywhere is a favorite spot," he assured her raggedly.
She laughed, then pressed open-mouthed kisses over his chest, teasing his nipples, before traveling lower. His stomach tightened, need contracting his muscles as taut as a bow, as she dipped her tongue into his navel, then licked a hot path down toward his erection.
She raised her head then, but her hands circled him, holding his cock in a firm, wonderfully torturous grip. Her mouth lowered, her lips pressing to the tip in a heart-stopping kiss. Then he watched as one of her hands released him, only to be replaced by the slow glide of her mouth over him.
"Oh, God. Erica!" he breathed, his head falling back on the pillow as her hot, wet mouth moved up and down him. Her tongue licking him like he was her own personal candy cane.
With each steamy stroke, she urged him closer to the edge. Toward a chasm of glorious release. But he didn't want that. Not this time. Not for the first, and maybe the last, time that he would ever make love to her again.
Quickly, he reached forward and captured her, lifting her bodily so she was fully on top of him, face-to-face.
Shock made her eyes impossibly big. "Did I do something wrong?"
He laughed at that. If she only had a clue. "No, you did it too right."
He rolled and pinned her under him.
"I have to be inside you," he muttered roughly. "I have to feel you tight and hot around me."
Her eyes still wide, she nodded. "Yes."
He positioned himself to enter her, the head of his penis nuzzled by the curls
of her sex, when somehow, a moment of reality seeped into his passion-frenzied mind.
"Contraceptives?"
She blinked up at him as if he was a lunatic. "What?"
"Do you have any condoms?"
She immediately shook her head. "No."
"Me neither. Are you on the pill?"
She gave him a pained look, then shook her head again.
He groaned, dropping his forehead to hers. This was absolute torture.
Then he raised his head. "Donny and Alex. Maybe they have some condoms."
"You would go ask them?"
"To make love with you? I'd start knocking on doors one by one all the way down the hallway until I found some."
Her eyes filled with amused dismay. "Go ask Donny and Alex first."
He leaped off the bed, tugged on his cold, wet trousers, and rushed out of the room.
It took him only a few moments to locate Donny and Alex's room and to pound on their door.
After a few moments more, the lock clicked and the door opened. A sleepy Donny stood there, annoyance on his face until he recognized who it was.
"Hi," Rob greeted. "You wouldn't happen to have a couple of condoms, would you?"
Donny stared at him, then grinned. "Well, well, someone is having a Merry Christmas."
Yes," he agreed wholeheartedly. The best Christmas he'd had in years.
"Wait a minute." Donny let the door swing shut.
Rob waited, tapping his bare foot on the hallway carpet.
After what seemed like an eternity, the door opened again. "You're in luck." He held up a strip of three condoms.
Rob immediately grabbed them. "Thanks. You're a lifesaver."
Donny sighed. "Well, at least someone is having a nice Christmas. Have fun."
Rob practically sprinted back to his room. He planned to have more than fun.
When he entered the room, Erica still waited on the bed. Her bare skin glowed in the lamplight, her hair a golden halo against the pillow.
She levered herself up on her elbow as he walked toward the bed. "That was quick."
"Not quick enough," he said, unfastening his trousers, letting them fall to the floor.
"Did you get one?"
"No," he said. "I got three."
She grinned as he held them up. "I knew I liked those guys."
"They are definitely growing on me, too," he agreed. Then he crawled up her body, done thinking about his new gay pals. Done thinking about anything but Erica.
His lips found hers, pressing her back against the pillows, showing her with his tongue how he longed to enter her body.
She groaned, her arms coming around his neck, then roaming down his back to his buttocks.
Despite the slight delay, his body was still ready. And every touch made him feel like he would combust if he didn't get inside her—soon.
As if she'd read his mind, she spread her legs, cradling him. "Rob, please. I need you now."
She ripped open one of the condom wrappers, and they rolled the latex down his erection, her fingers holding it, his hands guiding her.
Positioning himself over her again, he entered her with a slow, steady glide of his hips.
"Rob," she gasped, arching her back. "Oh, my God!"
Then they began to move, their motions synchronized. Each instinctively knowing what the other needed. Rob thrust over and over, her body clasping him in a precise fit. His hardness filling her completely.
As if they had been made for each other. Only each other.
"Rob," she moaned, her breath coming in pants. "Now! Now!"
She spasmed around him. Contracting muscles, searing heat. His body answered her, his orgasm ripping through him, violent and overwhelming. And nothing short of heaven.
Erica curled against Rob, her hand stroking up and down his belly, the fine hair bisecting his stomach soft against her fingertips, the muscles underneath hard. He felt wonderful.
She felt wonderful. More satisfied, more content than she had since—the last time she'd made love with him.
As if he were reading her mind, he suddenly asked, "Have you dated much—I mean over the years?"
She rested her chin on his chest to look at him. He looked sinfully tousled, his dark hair curling over his forehead, his eyes dark and intent. She forced herself to stop admiring him and to focus on his question.
"A bit. I had two relationships that were pretty steady. But nothing that ever got too serious." She'd never let them. She'd always held herself back. Until this moment, she'd have said her hesitation to commit was because she was being choosy, making sure everything was perfect. Now, she realized, it was because she just couldn't give her heart. Rob had it—even when she believed he was forgotten.
"What about you? Any close calls?"
He smiled at her wording. "No. I was too busy with my work to get serious. Just casual dating."
"And casual sex?" The question was out of her mouth before she thought better of it. "You don't have to answer that."
He lifted his head, his expression serious. "No. That's a valid question. I haven't been a monk over the years, but I tended to date women who knew where I stood, and who were fine with that arrangement."
Erica nodded, then turned her face away from his, pressing her cheek to his chest. She wished she'd never asked. She didn't want to think about Rob with other women. And she didn't like that she had just joined the ranks of those ladies. A woman who knew the score—who knew that she could never have his heart the way his career and his success did.
His hands caught her under the arms, and she found herself pulled up fully onto his chest, her face aligned with his.
"I need to kiss you," he stated, lifting his head off the pillow so he could capture her mouth. He moved his hands from her arms to the sides of her head, pulling her harder to him, deepening the kiss. His mouth devouring hers. A possessive kiss, a demanding kiss.
When he finally released her, her heart was racing, her blood pounding. And all the places he'd just finished lavishing great attention on throbbed for more of his undivided attention.
"I could spend the rest of my life right here with you," he murmured, stealing smother kiss.
His words aroused her to the point of pain. How she wished he truly meant those words. But she nestled her head under his chin and allowed herself to bask in his words all the same. "Me, too."
The radio broadcaster announced that Santa had been sighted over the area, and that all the local boys and girls would be getting the presents on their Christmas lists.
Erica felt like she'd almost gotten hers. She'd gotten Rob, not for forever, like she wanted, but she wasn't going to dwell on that now. She still had the rest of the night to enjoy her gift.
"It's our song," Rob said, drawing her back from her thoughts.
She listened. "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" by Perry Como. She laughed, picking up her head to grin at him. "We had to be the only teenagers in the eighties who lost our virginity to Perry Como."
He grinned, too, his dimple deep and so adorable. "Even now, this song makes me horny." To demonstrate, he rubbed his pelvis against her. His very erect penis nudged the juncture of her thighs.
She moaned, wriggling down just a bit to better position herself against him.
"I need to make love to you again," he murmured against her ear, the vibration of his voice exciting every nerve ending in her body. "I need to be inside you."
She whimpered, but didn't waste any time and reached for another condom. She straddled him, her legs on either side of his narrow hips. Rising up, she rolled the latex down his girth, then positioned him so the head of his penis spread her labia.
She hovered there, giving him just a hint of the wet heat that soon would surround him, and in turn, teasing herself with a sample of the heavy, hard thickness that would soon fill her. Perfect and right.
"Erica," he murmured, watching her perched above him. His eyes roamed over her face, her breasts, and her belly, down
to where they made contact but didn't quite join. "God, you are gorgeous." He smoothed his hands up the fronts of her thighs.
His words made her heart swell, her vagina constrict. She lowered herself a fraction of an inch. The head entered her, stretching her.
He groaned, jerking his hips slightly to slide deeper.
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked with feigned sternness, although the effect was not what she hoped, as her breathing was uneven with want.
"Nothing," he said contritely, dropping his hips back against the mattress.
"Good boy. Santa will be pleased that you're such a good boy."
"Oh, Santa is definitely pleased with me." His hands massaged the tops of her thighs. "Very pleased."
She smiled and slipped down a little more. "Good."
He closed his eyes, a ragged, needy moan escaping his parted lips.
Another fraction of an inch, but still she didn't accept his full length. Then a bit more.
Rob growled, his eyes dark and ravenous. She grinned down at him, feeling powerful that she could drive him so mad.
Then the hands on her thighs left, one sliding up to her breast, the other slipping between her thighs. He found her pebbled clitoris, pressing a fingertip against the nub. Need shot through her.
Then his other hand began to pluck at her distended nipple, in repeated gentle, rolling squeezes. Her need rocketed.
"Two can play at this game," he warned, his eyes dark with hunger.
He twirled and tweaked and swirled and stroked until her breath came in loud gasps. Her need soared, building quickly, intensely. She couldn't stop herself, couldn't tease any longer. She needed him in her, hard and deep.
She impaled herself on his rigid length, screaming at the devastatingly incredible feel of him buried within her. Rocking up and down, she squeezed him, stroked him, like he had her.
It was Rob's turn to shout out, his hands gripping her hips, directing her in a rapid, relentless motion.
Their movements became more frenzied, more desperate, until it was simply too much, too intense. She splintered, shards of ecstasy ripping through her. She didn't know if she screamed; she didn't know if she called Rob's name. She was aware only of Rob and the fierce orgasm shaking her.
Anthology - The Night Before Christmas Page 17