by Cindy Gerard
The first touch of steely male heat to giving feminine warmth stole their breaths. The delicious press, the enticing thrust of man seeking woman, of woman gloving man sent heart rates soaring.
She moaned his name. Let her eyes drift shut on a long, slow surge of sensation as he entered her.
“Look at me,” he told her, easing up on his elbows and cradling her head in his hands. “Look at me when I come inside you.”
With a slumberous sigh, she obeyed. With a shudder of longing fulfilled, she let her hands drift, fingers splayed wide down the length of his back, then lower, to cup and encourage the driving ebb and flow of his hips.
And all the while, she boldly held his stormy gaze, watched building passion cloud liquid blue eyes to a smoky cobalt, watched studied concentration lose out to a wildly savage plunge into the dark, animal side of desire.
For a desperate moment, she clung to that part of herself that he demanded she give over to his keeping. But only for a moment. Helpless to deny him, she willingly let go and joined him in a wild free fall as he filled her with his heat and his soul, and tumbled them, heart to beating heart, over that dangerous, glorious edge of oblivion.
A gentle beacon of moonlight fell through the tall arch of west windows, illuminating the bed and the beauty lying beside him on tangled sheets.
Greg lay on his side, his head propped on one palm, watching her sleep, watching her stir as he spread his fingers wide over the shallow concave of her belly. Her skin was silk. He couldn’t get enough of the feel of it. The fluid heat, the resilient softness.
She stretched like a cat under his caress, lifting her arms above her head, an unconsciously seductive motion that thrust the rosy pink tips of her breasts toward him in an irresistible invitation. Even though he’d had her less than an hour ago, his sex stirred, his hand reached to cover the beautifully quivering tip of her nipple. Instantly, she pebbled against his palm. Deliciously, she murmured her appreciation of his touch.
“I’d forgotten how utterly sensitive and responsive you are,” he whispered, watching her breast as he massaged it with his hand, shaped it to his pleasure, teased the turgid nipple with the gentle abrasion of his thumbnail. -
She rolled into his caress, totally uninhibited, completely committed to the pleasure he gave, to the pleasure he took. “I’ve never forgotten how it feels to have you touch me.”
He lowered his mouth to her breast, blew softly, then flicked with the tip of his tongue. “Like this?”
She shivered. “Yes.”
“And this?” He lifted her breast m the cup of his palm, took her into his mouth, feasted, then slowly slid his broad hand down her torso.
“Oh, yes.”.
He lingered for a moment at her hip point before delving between the vee of her thighs to separate, probe then finesse her most sensitive flesh to throbbing wetness.
He felt her whole body tense, lifted his head to see her fingers wrap around the spindles in the headboard as she rode with his caress, rocked with the rhythm.
“More?” he murmured lowering his mouth to the underside of her breast, then her belly, nuzzling, gently biting, intentionally tantalizing as he pressed a string of kisses to the inside of her thigh.
“Yes. Oh, please...” she managed on a thready breath as he moved between her legs and possessed her most vulnerable flesh with his mouth.
Until she moaned.
Until she writhed.
Until she helplessly whimpered his name and he lost his mind for the taste, the heat and the need to be one with her.
Breathing hard, needing her now, he rose to his knees above her, spread his thighs wide and dragged her, as weak as a rag doll, up to meet him. He lifted her until she was straddling his lap. Then he lowered her onto his heat and felt the fever swamp him. With her hands desperately gripping his shoulders and his fingers digging into her hips, he lifted her again, then lowered her with a swift, shattering penetration.
She let her head fall back on a moan. Tangled blond hair trailed down her back like a fall of shimmering gold as she gripped him deep inside and cried his name. On a ragged breath, he swore hers and set a rhythm as wild as a Texas dust storm, as elemental as life, as essential as the relentless beat of their hearts.
Wanton and lush, she poured over him, met him plunge for plunge, rode him stroke for stroke, then shattered in his arms as she peaked again and again, crying out in delirious accompaniment to his ragged breaths and gasping climax.
When it was over, she cried. Huge, wracking sobs of elation, exhaustion, of a frightening and dizzying sensation that the responses he could wring from her threatened a complete loss of self.
Her raw whisper eddied across the sheen of perspiration beading his shoulder as he cradled her against him, his hand knotted in the tangle of her hair. “Too much. I need... I need you too much.”
“Not enough,” he countered gruffly as he eased them down onto the bed and gathered her close to his side. “Never enough,” he murmured against her hair and wondered why, even in the face of the love they had shared, even as he held her in his arms, he felt a hollow, foreshadowing sense of loss.
Anna awoke alone. Not even Gregory’s warmth remained in the bedclothes. But his scent lingered. The scent they had made making love. She curled herself around his pillow, feeling a delicious soreness in her limbs, a decadent sense of satisfaction and, unbelievably, an ache for the want of making love with him again.
She’d made a decision as she’d drifted off to sleep before dawn. Nothing was going to compromise this new intimacy they had rediscovered. Not yet. Four years ago, her four short days and nights with him had been the happiest of her life. It didn’t seem so much to ask for four more. Just four more days of loving him, of being loved by him, before she risked losing him again, as she feared she would when she told him the truth about William.
After seeing them together, she had little concern about Gregory embracing William as his own. How he would react to what she had done, however, gave her heart-clenching moments of doubt. She had kept father from son, son from father. Was there any explanation, no matter how valid, that could bring back the lost years? Was there any excuse that could justify what both had lost?
Her reasons had been compelling. Her sacrifice great. But would Gregory see it that way? Would any man be able to set aside pride, outrage and honor and forgive her for what she had taken from him?
Soon enough, she would have her answers. But not today. A few more days. It wasn’t all she wanted. It wasn’t all she needed. But it would be enough to see her through the rest of her life if she were forced to live it without the only man she had ever loved.
Greg had left her sleeping. He’d left her with reluctance. But despite the fact that they had stayed awake most of the night making love, he’d left her in his bed with a surge of energy unlike any he’d known. And he’d felt charged with the Christmas spirit.
Anna didn’t know it but the press had not relented. They prowled the perimeters of Casa Royale like the coyotes who roamed the range, lurking predators who waited to feed on whatever scrap of cast-off information they could ferret out with their telescopic lenses. Greg made sure that distant pictures were all they got, stationing men he trusted to keep Anna’s confidence at every entrance. Daily, they turned back, and sometimes strong-armed, overachievers into leaving—peacefully or otherwise. Until they gave up or some other story beat out that of “The Princess and the Lone Star Prince,” as they had taken to calling the two of them, it wasn’t safe taking Anna or William off the ranch.
He, however, was on a mission. To avoid being recognized, he borrowed Alexandro’s truck and hat. Then he successfully sneaked past the paparazzi. After making some phone calls from his cell phone on this quick, unplanned trip to Midland, he finished his business there in record time and made it back to Casa Royale, loaded down with packages by late afternoon.
She was waiting for him—as he could only now admit, he had imagined her waiting. In his home. Rushing in
to his arms, both of them oblivious to Juanita’s secret smile as she turned her back and returned to the kitchen.
He barely beat the arrival of the truck bearing the huge Christmas tree he’d ordered on his way to town that morning.
“Whoa!” Tito exclaimed, as he and William came tearing out into the drive, William screeching to a halt, his small feet lost in a pair of scuffed and scarred cowboy boots that Tito had outgrown. “Look at that tree!”
“Yeah. Whoa,” William mimicked, as he had taken to mimicking everything his hero, the older, wiser, five-year-old Tito said and did. Clearly though, William didn’t know whether to be more awed by the size of the tree or by the crane truck that had brought it.
“What have you done?” Anna asked, her eyes dancing in delighted amazement of Greg’s indulgence as yet another truck pulled in behind the first one with a pair of smaller, eight-foot blue spruces aboard.
The boys went ballistic when they saw it. Greg loved every minute of it. Right down to helping set up each of the smaller trees—one in Alexandro and Juanita’s family room and one in the great room of the main house. The third tree, the largest, was positioned in a sheltered corner of the garden, where anyone at Casa Royale who passed within ten yards could see it trembling in the breeze, hundreds of lights blazing.
“It’s all very beautiful,” Anna said later, after Juanita and Tito had gone home and William had fallen asleep, worn out from tossing tinsel and sitting on Greg’s shoulders to drape garland and hang ornaments. “You didn’t have to go to such trouble.”
He pulled her closer to his side where they sat on the plush sofa, doing some indulging of his own in the classic brilliance of the beautifully decorated tree. “I enjoyed it,” he said, matter-of-factly. “It was fun. Made me feel like a kid again.”
She angled her head around to look at him. “You have good family memories.” It wasn’t a question as much as it was a conclusion that appeared to please her.
“The best.”
“I’m glad.” She laid her head back on his shoulder and snuggled, staring peacefully at the glittering tree. “And now William will have some, too.”
Greg’s mellow mood was shattered by a sharp and edgy unease. Unease intensified to anger as he digested not so much what she had said as what she hadn’t. William had no good memories of Christmas. None except those that he was sure Anna had tried to make for him.
And what, he wondered, resting his chin thoughtfully on top of her head and staring, unseeing, at the tree, had Anna and Sara endured?
Nine
Because the press kept their vulture’s vigil at numerous points along the heavily guarded ranch entrances, Greg called in some family markers and convinced everyone that the Hunt family Christmas celebration should take place at Casa Royale this year. In truth, it hadn’t taken much effort. Everyone was concerned about Anna and William—and curious about Greg’s protectiveness and attention toward the princess and her son.
Juanita was beside herself with excitement over the prospect of cooking for the entire family—which included the extended families of everyone living and working at Casa Royale and any relatives they chose to invite. Anna was ecstatic over the impending arrival of the twins and Josie and Blake, and visibly nervous about how Gregory’s parents would feel about her and William’s imposition on their son’s life.
“My father quit questioning what I do and why I do things long ago. And my mother—my mother is a typical mother. As long as I don’t break any laws, and it makes me happy, she thinks everything I do is perfect.”
She hugged him hard and smiled up into his eyes. “How lucky you are to have such a wonderful family.”
Greg touched a thumb to her cheek, gently ran it down to her jaw. She’d never again mentioned the phone call from her mother. Some stories, however, were revealed without the telling. And what little she’d shared with him about Sara had given him a wealth of insight into what had gone on in that stone-cold palace when she was a child. He wished desperately that he could make up to her the good memories she didn’t have and that he had taken for granted.
“You say that about my family now,” he said with a chuckle and every intention of building good memories for her from this day on. “But you haven’t encountered the entire clan together under one roof.”
And under one roof, Anna was soon to find out, the Hunt men and their women were a delightful experience.
Christmas Day dawned clear and unseasonably warm. Only the whupp, whupp, whupp of the chopper blades that heralded the arrival, by helicopter, of Gregory’s family matched the thunderous beat of Anna’s heart.
She waited in the garden until the chopper touched down and the blinding whirlwind stirred up by the rotor blades settled. Nervously, she ran a hand over her hair, then checked her reflection in the patio windows. Gregory had given her a gift last night when they’d celebrated Christmas Eve together. The pants and tunic were tailored from raw silk, a subtle shade of marbled jade.
“Like your eyes,” he’d said when she’d opened the gift. “I’m tired of seeing you in hand-me-down jeans. When things settle down, we’ll have to remedy that.”
When things settle down. His words had stayed with her long after William, exhausted by the excitement of Santa’s long-awaited arrival, had fallen asleep. Long after the two of them had made sweet love and she’d drifted into a restless slumber haunted with doubts about the possibility of things ever settling down—not in the way he meant.
Not wanting to spoil the day with the threat of what tomorrow or the next day could bring, and unable to stand the waiting any longer, Anna rushed outside and hurried across the fifty yards that separated the heliport from the house. The sight of Josie stepping down out of the copter, little Edward in her arms, brought happy tears to her eyes. Blake followed and helped his mother to the ground, baby Miranda sleeping comfortably against her shoulder.
“Anna!” Josie hurried toward her. “Oh, it’s so good to see you.” She laughingly transferred Edward into Anna’s arms after they embraced. “You look good. You look—happy,” she finally concluded with a considering and satisfied grin.
Gregory’s mother, Janine, joined the two women, all smiles as she turned a sleeping Miranda in her arms for Anna to see. “Hello again, my dear. And Merry Christmas.”
Gregory’s father, Carson, echoed his wife’s sentiments. “So when do we eat?”
The lot of them laughed, including the pilot, who turned out to be Lawrence, the owner of the very proper voice belonging to the overseer of Gregory’s Pine Valley mansion. They all trooped toward the house, where Juanita, Alexandro and Ramon waited by the door, their hands full corralling an excited William and Tito, who were wild to get closer to the chopper and the dangerous rotor blades.
“This was a wonderful idea, Gregory,” Janine volunteered as they entered the garden. She smiled and gave him a speculative look when she saw the mammoth tree glittering in the sunlight. “It’s been too long since we’ve made the trip to Casa Royale.”
Her animated face momentarily closed like a shuttered window when she spotted William. She stopped abruptly, then recovered. Smiling at William, she transferred the still sleeping Miranda into Blake’s arms. “And who, may I ask, is this attractive young man?” Her eyes were alight with warmth and curiosity.
“This is Wild Bill—William to his mother,” Greg volunteered, absently touching a hand to William’s dark hair.
“William, is it?” Janine said softly. Her gaze left the little boy’s face for a mere moment to connect briefly with Anna’s, then Greg’s. “Well, you are a handsome one, aren’t you?” She touched a gentle and lingering hand to his cheek before manufacturing a huge smile and turning the full effect on Tito and Ramon. “And you two, my goodness how you’ve grown. Big and strong like your father. As handsome as your mother.”
“Merry Christmas, Mr. and Mrs. Hunt,” Alexandro and Juanita said in unison, accepting the older woman’s warm embrace.
“Everything smells wond
erful, Juanita.” Janine strode briskly toward the kitchen. “Now what do you need me to do?”
Without another word, she disappeared through the great arch toward the delicious aromas of a full-blown Christmas feast—leaving Anna wondering, and worrying, if Janine Hunt’s eyes were as wise as they appeared to be.
It turned out there were twenty-five for dinner. Alexandro’s parents and his brother and his wife made the drive from Odessa. Several of the hands, loners either by choice or circumstance, shyly joined the festivities. They ate, drank wine and acted properly surprised when Santa arrived by horseback, looking suspiciously like Alexandro, who had slipped down to the barns on the pretense of checking on the horses.
There were presents for everyone—but the most treasured of all were the shiny new cowboy boots that fit William perfectly and looked terrific with the brand-new hat Gregory had given him Christmas Eve.
The dishes were long cleaned up and twilight was approaching when Anna wandered out to the garden for a moment alone.
“It was a lovely day,” Janine said, walking quietly up behind her.
Anna turned at the sound of her voice to meet eyes of a clear, stunning blue, so like Gregory’s.
“It was very generous of you to share it with us,” she said, knowing, with a catch in her heart that their meeting here was not accidental.
“And what do you have to share with me, child?” Janine asked with a directness that even her soft Texas drawl couldn’t diminish.
There was nowhere to look. Nowhere to hide. And yet Anna couldn’t find the words she knew she must confess. She’d seen Janine’s face the moment she had set eyes on William. Her question confirmed that Janine had known then what only a mother knows, what only a mother could have realized in that split second of recognition.