Any Given Christmas

by Candis Terry

  He chuckled against her skin but didn’t hesitate to do exactly as she directed. Each tug and pull of his mouth caused a responding tug lower. Her thighs squeezed his hips and pulled him closer until she felt his long, hard erection press between her legs.

  “One of us is wearing too many clothes.” She reached for the buttons on his flannel shirt. Her fingers hurried each one through the buttonhole, then she slipped her hands beneath the soft, warm material to push it away. While it floated to the floor, she tugged the hem of the blue t–shirt from his jeans. He withdrew to help. Still unable to lift his arm over his head, he did a one-sided tug with his left hand and the fabric sailed to the floor.

  He reached for her.

  “Stop.”

  Disappointment darkened his eyes. “What’s wrong, honey?”

  “I just . . . want to look.” Her gaze ran over him like he was a playground. From his broad shoulders down the defined planes of his chest to the perfectly spaced muscular ridges of his stomach.

  “And touch.” Emma ran her hands down the fine light brown hair on his wide chest, hard muscles, and hot skin, then over his shoulders, taking care to lighten her touch at the angry scars dotting his perfection. With her fingers she traced the sexy narrow trail of soft, fine hair that circled his navel and disappeared beneath the waistband of his 501s.

  “And taste.” She kissed the center of his chest and he groaned in appreciation. Then she flattened her tongue against the bud of his erect nipple and gently sucked it into her mouth.

  “I want you so much,” he growled.

  Emma leaned back to look at him. He was a hot, sexy man. Dangerous. Yet somehow he made her feel safe.

  Foolish girl.

  He had her sitting butt-naked on top of her kitchen counter in broad daylight. She should be embarrassed. Mortified at her own behavior. His warm hand curled at the base of her neck, and she forgot all about being good.

  His mouth captured hers in a sizzling, wet kiss. The tips of her breasts brushed against the fine hair on his chest and created an ache deep inside while his talented hands teased the hot pulsing points of her body. She reached for the button fly on his 501s, pulled the metal buttons from the holes then slid the material down. When he was naked between her thighs, she wrapped her hand around his thick, hard shaft. He dropped his forehead to hers and a shudder rippled down his back as she moved her palm down his hot skin to the plump head, then back up. He pushed himself deeper into her hand and groaned.

  A feeling of power came over her. An amazement that she, a schoolteacher from Deer Lick, could make a football giant like Dean Silverthorne practically melt in her hands.

  She liked that feeling.

  He covered her hand with his and moved her palm up and down his erection.

  “I want you, Dean.”

  “I want you too.”

  “Condom?”

  “Anything for you, honey.” He smiled, released her hand, and reached into his wallet. “A little help?”

  “Anything for you . . .”

  He chuckled as she tore open the gold Magnum packet and rolled the thin latex down his long, hard shaft. When he pushed into her hand again she flooded with heat and dampness. She wrapped her legs around his waist and guided him toward her entrance.

  His head lifted and he looked into her eyes. He kissed her, eased himself deep inside, then stilled. He dropped his forehead to hers. “No regrets, Em.”

  He would leave. That was a given. Still . . . she pulled a deep breath of air into her lungs. “No regrets.”

  He withdrew slightly, then pushed until he was fully seated. She felt the head of his penis press against her cervix and then he withdrew. The push and pull friction nearly drove her over the edge.

  “No regrets,” he murmured as his hips pumped faster, as he reached between them and rubbed her sensitive spot with his thumb. She planted her hands on the counter behind her and he gripped her thigh as he moved deeply, possessively inside her.

  The back of her head bumped the cabinet. Her hand slipped on the counter and knocked the lid off the cow cookie jar. Each thrust made her crave him more, made her skin hot, made her breasts tingle. He increased the pressure on his thumb and shot her right toward the edge.

  She cried out his name. “Don’t stop. Please. Do. Not. Stop.” He moved, rotated, pressed. Oh, God. Fire swept from her heart down her body and she fell into a long, hot, breath-stealing orgasm. Her muscles contracted, grabbed at him, and pulled him in deeper.

  He grasped her hips tighter, dropped his head back, and thrust one final time with a deep, throaty groan. When their breathing returned to somewhat normal, he wrapped his arms around her and brought her against his chest. His heart pounded against hers. “Damn, honey,” he said between breaths, “you keep that up and you’re going to make me fall in love with you.”

  Emma turned her head, pressed her cheek to his warm chest, and tried not to think about how that made her feel. Or that no matter how she felt she would have to let him go.

  “You’re killing me, Em.”

  Dean glanced at the woman next to him dressed in Hello Kitty pajama bottoms and a skimpy bra-less tank top. They were watching his alma mater beat the snot out of Michigan in the Rose Bowl. Or he was trying to watch. The soft and pretty distraction on the sofa beside him was far more stimulating than the one-sided butt-whomping the Trojans were giving to the Wolverines. Over the top of her silky blond hair Emma had stuck a Green Bay Packers ball cap, the team his Stallions were matched against in the divisional playoffs. “You live in the hometown of the Houston Stallions quarterback and you don’t own a team cap?”

  “I don’t like the Stallions.”

  “And why not?” he asked, biting into a spicy nacho chip.

  “Their quarterback is full of himself.”

  The second bite halted before it even got to his mouth. “Are you serious? The guy has the sixth-highest career passer rating of all time.” Speaking of himself in third person was weird.

  “Tom Brady has the fifth-highest. And he’s better-looking.”

  “Brady!” He tossed his tortilla chip back onto his plate. “He’s a girl.”

  She laughed. “What do you mean, he’s a girl? He’s married to a supermodel.”

  “Have you seen the guy’s hair?”

  “He says his wife likes it.”

  “See? Like I said. He’s a girl. No man lets a woman pussy him into wearing long hair if he doesn’t want to.”

  “Maybe he loves her and just wants to make her happy.”

  “If he wasn’t such a girl, he’d know how to make her happy.” He grinned, enjoying every second of this back-and-forth banter. Most of the women he dated didn’t know a pigskin from a pig’s ass, let alone a QB’s stats. Emma impressed the hell out of him. Not to mention he liked kissing her a whole lot. “How do you know all this stuff anyway?”

  A smirk lifted the corners of her mouth. “I live in the hometown of the Houston Stallions quarterback, where everyone talks football stats. I’ve been collecting data for years, just waiting for the bigheaded butt to fall from the town’s enormous pedestal.”

  “Oh, really?”

  She nodded. Dean grabbed the Packers cap off her head and tossed it to the chair, where it landed on her cat, who’d been staring at him like he was a fresh sardine. The cat wiggled from beneath the cap, hissing and spitting like he had been attacked by a cougar. “Your cat hates me.”

  “I believe that was established the first time you came over.”

  “Right. I’m still trying to get the cat drool out of my coat sleeve.”

  She stroked the cat’s head and laughed. “Maybe you could try to make friends with him.”

  “Yeah. That’s never going to happen. I’ve got to practically overdose on antihistamines before I even come over here.” Not that he minded. He stretched his arm behind her on the sofa and thought of all the things that made Emma special. “You mentioned your grandmother raised you. I’d like to meet her.”

&nbs
p; She leaned back and looked at him. “Why?”

  “To tell her she did a good job.” Emma looked down at her hands. “Uh-oh. Did I say something wrong?”

  “I appreciate the gesture but it really wouldn’t matter. My Memaw has dementia.”

  “I’m sorry, honey. How bad?”

  A small shrug lifted her shoulders. “Some days she doesn’t even recognize me. She puts up a good front. If I give her enough cues she can play along like she knows what I’m talking about. But as soon as I’m done talking she asks who I am. Most of the time now she thinks I’m the sister she lost when they were just teenagers.” An almost imperceptible sigh squeezed from her lungs. “She’s still here, but most of the time it feels I’ve already lost her.”

  Dean tightened his arm around her shoulder and drew her closer. “So it’s just you, then? No other family?”

  “Nope. Just me.”

  He let that filter through him, wondering what it would be like not to have Kate or Kelly to talk to, bounce ideas off, or debate with until he was convinced they were both abandoned by aliens. He’d lost his mom and that left a huge hole in his life. With the exception, of course, that she insisted on popping up in the back seat now and again. Thank God he still had his dad. He didn’t know what he’d do if he’d lost him too.

  Emma had no one.

  He looked down into her face, where crinkles of distress spread from the corners of her unique blue eyes. “I’m sorry, honey. I can’t pretend to know what that’s like, but I imagine it must be very hard.”

  She nodded. “Especially around the holidays.”

  “I’d still like to meet your Memaw.”

  Her gaze lifted to his. “We’ll see.”

  Her response sounded exactly like that of a schoolteacher.

  “It depends on how good you are.”

  He laughed as the corners of her luscious mouth curled upward. “Is that so?” Before she could squeak, he had her flat on her back beneath him. “I can be good. Or I can be bad. Really, really bad.” He silenced her giggles with a press of his lips to hers. He swept his tongue inside her mouth, where she tasted like spicy cheese sauce. He liked spicy cheese sauce.

  “Which do you prefer?” His hand slid up beneath her little tank top and he rolled her puckered nipple between his fingers. His cock hardened. God, he couldn’t get enough of her. He loved the way she smelled. The way she smiled. The way she tasted. And the way she made love to him with such unadulterated passion.

  He’d had plenty of beautiful women before, but none who’d wrapped themselves around him the way she did. None that had ever snuck into his jaded heart and made him start thinking of things he had no business thinking. None who’d ever made him want to sit on a sofa in her living room while her cat made his nose itch and he only half-assedly watched one of the biggest college games of the year.

  Damn, he liked Emma Hart.

  Before he got carried away and carted her off to the bedroom, he kissed her forehead and looked down into her eyes. “When do you go back to school?”

  “Tomorrow.” She looked up at him and a little crease formed between her eyes. “Why?”

  “I wanted to know if you’d help me.”

  “With what?”

  “Getting this charity and camp started. I’d like to have it up and running by this summer.”

  “Summer? That’s not that far away.”

  “That’s why I need to get started now. I need to hire the right person to get it going.”

  “Hire?” She rolled from beneath him and sat up. “So, you’re really not asking for help, you’re looking for someone to do it for you?” She leaned away. “You had no intention of investing any blood, sweat, or tears into making this camp happen, did you? You just plan to pay someone to do it for you.”

  “You make that sound like a dirty word.”

  She shrugged.

  “I don’t have time, Em. I have to get my shoulder back in shape, and that’s going to take months of concentration. Besides, I make enough money to hire the best.”

  Emma stood, folded her arms beneath her breasts, and looked down at him. “I should have known.”

  “You should have known what?” He patted the sofa beside him. “Come sit back down and let’s talk about this.”

  She shook her head. “I should have known you’d take the easy way out. Men—”

  “Stop.” He dropped his head back with a groan. “Are we seriously going to have another men like me conversation?”

  “Keep giving me ammunition and I’ll keep firing it back at you.” Her jaw tightened as she lifted her chin.

  “Come on, honey. Come sit down. I don’t want to fight.”

  A humorless laugh broke from her throat. “You fooled me, Dean. You had me believing that this camp was a passion for you. But the only passion you really have is for your football career, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve fought hard for that career,” he said. “I’m not about to just walk away from it. Or apologize.”

  “No one’s asking you to. But if you’re going to name a charity after your mother, I’d think you’d at least want to put in the effort to make sure it happened the way you envisioned.” Her lips curled in disappointment. “So your mother would be proud of what you’d accomplished instead of just how much money you paid someone else. Where’s your pride?”

  Damn it. He had pride. And his mother was proud of him. She’d told him so. She wouldn’t care who put the organization together, as long as it got put together. Would she?

  At his silence Emma turned and walked toward the hall. “I need to take a shower. Maybe,” she said, biting that perfect bottom lip, “when I come out you could be gone.”

  “You’re going to make me miss the rest of the game?” he said, knowing it was a lame excuse.

  “Do you want me to tell you how it ends?” She glanced at the TV and the landslide score in the top corner of the screen, then back at him. “You win.”

  Like usual.

  The words were unspoken but there all the same. Fine. If that’s the way she wanted it. He stood, grabbed his jacket from the chair, and brushed the cat hair off the sleeve. The evil elf cat hissed and Dean wanted to thump him between his pointy ears. Instead he reached down, took a risk, and gave him a quick pat on the head as if to prove to Emma he wasn’t the bad guy she tried to paint him to be.

  He opened the front door and looked back at where she stood in the hall. “I don’t want to leave this way.”

  “All good things must come to an end,” she said.

  “I have a doctor’s appointment this week. I’m going back to Houston.”

  “Have a nice trip.”

  His head came up. “That’s it? A few hours ago you let me get up close and personal, and now you’re kicking my ass out with a have a nice trip?”

  “What do you want me to say, Dean? You knew this was temporary. I knew too.” She gave him a smile so bogus it made his stomach turn. “So, thank you, it’s been fun. I hope your shoulder heals and you’re able to rocket passes into the end zone very soon. Please lock the door behind you.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The following afternoon, Emma sat at one of the bistro sets in the Sugar Shack, sipping hot coffee, reviewing her class agenda for the following day, and working on an assignment for her Issues in Special Ed class. Dark clouds hovering in the sky outside the big window were swollen with snow and the gray weather only added to her mood. After two weeks off from school, her kids had been a bit wild and out of control. With little sleep the previous night, her morning had dragged by. By the time the afternoon bell rang, she needed a serious caffeine fix. No one in Deer Lick made better coffee than the Sugar Shack. But it would take more than that to make her forget about the ache floating around in her heart.

  Yesterday, Dean had no sooner put his mother’s car in reverse and backed out of her driveway before she’d wanted to run after him.

  How had she allowed herself to build up such a need for him? Sure, it had been a lo
ng time since she’d had sex. And there weren’t many men who could make love the way Dean Silverthorne did—not that she’d had many men. But it had been about more than the sex. Lately, she’d discovered him as a man with a heart and soul. Even if he seemed to be a little misguided at times.

  She’d known about his life, both professional and personal. His escapades were out there online, in magazines, and on entertainment news shows for everyone to see. And judge. But during the time she’d spent in his arms, he’d seemed differently. Instead of a spoiled superstar, he’d been warm and tender. Caring and wonderful. Somehow she’d lost her edge. She’d allowed him to find a vulnerable space in her heart and he’d crawled inside.

  It hurt like hell to know it had all been an act and she’d been right about him in the first place. And in that moment of clarity, she’d realized it was better for her to close the door and let him leave than to hold onto the hope that he’d hang around.

  “Look what I brought you.”

  Emma looked up as Kate slid a plate filled with a mountainous slice of chocolate chip cheesecake in front of her. “Wow. How’d you know I’ve been dying for a sugar fix?”

  “Actually, I just thought you looked like you could use a friend.” Kate smiled as she perched herself on the chair across from Emma. “But before you think I’m ready for sainthood, my intentions aren’t all that noble. Actually I needed a sugar fix. Dad’s gone home and I still have to decorate a sheet cake for Barbara Klautmeir’s sixtieth birthday. I thought maybe you could help me.”

  Known for her way-out and often X-rated cake designs, Emma asked Kate, “What crazy idea have you come up with this time?”

  “An old-fashioned record player with a Tom Jones record spinning on top.”

  “Tom Jones? Why not Frank Sinatra or Elvis?”

  Kate shrugged. “Special meaning. You want to help?”

  “I have no idea how to decorate a cake. Besides, I have this yummy slice of cheesecake to eat.”

  Kate handed a spoon to Emma, then whipped out another spoon from her apron pocket. “Correction. You have half of a yummy slice of cheesecake to eat.”