The Irishman's Christmas Gamble: A Wager of Hearts Novella

by Nancy Herkness

  “Are the scars from cleats?” She traced a white slash of hard, smooth tissue along his side.

  “And surgeries.” He twitched as she trailed her fingers along his rib cage. “When you play hard over the years, things stop bending and start to break.”

  She pushed the sweater higher so that she bared the flat, dusky circles of his nipples. As she put her thumbs to them, feeling the different texture of the darker skin, he hissed in a breath. She glanced down to see his hands clenched around wads of the quilt underneath them. “Are you cold?” she teased.

  He let loose a string of Gaelic. Her translation skills were rusty, but it was something to the effect that she was an evil witch sent to drive him out of his several-expletives mind. She laughed and flicked her thumbs over his nipples, now peaked from the cold and her touch.

  He released the quilt and grabbed her waist, holding her down against him as he flexed his hips. Her thighs were spread wide over him, so the movement brought the rigid bar of his arousal against the sensitive spot between her legs. Just the one instant of pressure sent an electric streak searing through her, so she arched back without conscious thought, her fingers digging into his chest. The quilt slipped down from her shoulders, but she barely felt the winter air.

  He growled and flexed again, making her gasp as her nipples tightened. She braced her hands flat on the slabs of his pecs and rolled her pelvis so she met his movement with hers. Their voices mingled in a wordless chorus of desire.

  She started to protest when he released her waist, but then he shoved his hands up under her layers of sweater and shirt to find her breasts, cupping his hard palms over her aching nipples so that she pushed against him as heat rippled and pooled between her legs. A sound of frustration broke from his throat and he skimmed around to the back of her bra to unfasten the hooks with a confident deftness.

  His hands were on her bare skin, kneading and tweaking and stroking, so that he focused every nerve in her body on the pleasure his fingers created. She arched and pushed and jerked under his touch as he controlled her like a puppet on strings he held.

  “I need to see you. Just for a moment.” Before he could get his hands out from under her sweater, she’d yanked it up over her head and tossed it away. The winter air hit her overheated skin like the flat of a chilled steel blade, but the sight of Liam’s hands on her breasts and the expression of pure lust on his face sent her blood sizzling through her veins to counteract the cold.

  “You’re more beautiful than all my fantasies,” he said, his touch gone gentle as he grazed his fingertips over one curve and then another.

  “Now you.” She tugged at his sweater.

  He let go of her to bend at the waist, lifting his torso off the chaise with a clench of sheer abdominal muscle power. He jerked his sweater and tee shirt up over his head before he eased back down onto the quilt. The arcs and indentations of his swelling shoulder muscles drew her eyes and her fingers. He was like an ancient warrior carved in marble, except the surface was soft and living and warm.

  “You are Cu Chulainn come back to life.”

  “Why did we wait for this?” he asked, his eyes gone dark and serious as he stroked the back of his hand down her cheek.

  She shook her head as though she had no answer. But she did. Somehow she knew their coming together would shift her off balance. A shiver shook her, whether from cold or panic, she wasn’t sure.

  Liam whipped the quilt up and rolled her under him as though they were back on the sled, except now they were face-to-face. His forearms were braced on either side of her shoulders, but he lowered himself to press his chest lightly against hers, so she could know the size and strength of him enveloping her. “More,” she moaned. “Crush me with your body.”

  More weight came down on her, but she knew he still held himself over her. She opened her thighs so his hips nestled between them and let herself melt under and into him. She fisted her hands in his hair and pulled his head down, opening her mouth to him, inviting him in.

  Their tongues touched and challenged and tempted. But it wasn’t close to enough. She wanted him moving inside her.

  “No more waiting,” she said, wedging her hand down between them to push against his erection.

  His exhalation whistled past her ear, and he shifted to his side, his face tight with strain and longing. “I wanted it to be on a bed strewn with rose petals by the light of a thousand candles.”

  “Maybe it’s better this way. That we see each other naked by the light of day, clear-eyed and honest.” Although she felt at a disadvantage against his well-honed body.

  “This time. The first time,” he said. “But not always. You don’t have to see everything in a harsh light.” He leaned in to kiss her with a sweetness that cherished her. And then he seized her shoulders and dragged her up and in, so his mouth could close over the tip of her breast and suck.

  The sudden, potent contact on the sensitive skin sent a bolt of arousal to flare between her legs. She managed to yank his belt buckle loose before he took the hint and unfastened his jeans, sitting up in another show of rippling abs to shove them down to his ankles and off, along with his boots and socks. She barely had time to catch a glimpse of a green shape inked low on his hip before he had pulled the quilt back up.

  His hands were at her waist, flicking open buckle and button. As he pulled the zipper downward, a powerful attack of shyness shook her. His body showed no trace of age, other than the scars, which only added interest to the balanced interplay of skin, muscle, and sinew. After the early years of making the chocolates herself, a time when her arms showed defined muscles and she stood for hours on end, she’d spent most of her time behind various desks. Now she used the gym at the club, as much to make sure it was up to the standards her members expected as because she enjoyed the exercise. But her stomach had lost the taut flatness of youth, curving ever so gently outwards. She was still proud of the roundness of her bottom, but her thighs showed signs of the effects of gravity and inactivity.

  Of course, she’d had lovers over the years, but not recently. Like her billionaires betting on love, she’d become disillusioned with those shallow relationships. She wanted more…or nothing.

  But maybe not this much.

  “What is it?” Liam’s fingers were hooked in the waistband of her jeans, but he did not push them down.

  He was too attuned to her moods, even after all these years.

  She shook her head. “I’m not as religious about working out as you are.”

  He closed his eyes and groaned. “I’ve waited years to touch you like this. Do you think I care if you can bench-press a hundred pounds?”

  “But you are so spectacular.” She let her gaze travel over the hard muscle of his bare shoulder.

  “Well, I won’t argue with that.” His grin lit up his face. “Now let me show you just how spectacular you are.”

  He slid down so the quilt covered his head and found her breast with his mouth again. This time he went slowly, laving the tip, licking around the lower swell of it, sliding his teeth gently around the nipple, until he succeeded in making her forget anything other than the hot, wet ache between her legs and her need to have him fill it.

  She shoved her jeans down over her hips while he burrowed under the covers to pull off her boots and socks. He kissed his way up the inside of her thigh, using just the moist tip of his tongue to send tingles dancing over her skin. She appreciated his unselfish intentions, but she wanted him now. So she twined her fingers into the thick waves of his hair and drew him back up to face her. “I’ll take a rain check on that,” she said, and kissed him as a thank you. “I need you inside me first.”

  “We’re not rushing this,” he said, his breath warm against her lips. He scrabbled around under the quilts before coming up with a condom.

  She took it out of his hand. “I don’t need this. Do you?”

  “Clean as a whistle,” he said, his voice barely a rasp.

  And then she was on he
r back, with his beautiful, dear face just over hers. Her thighs were open around his hips and the tip of his cock just touched her.

  “Frankie,” he said, kissing her eyebrow. “Frankie.” He kissed her eyelid. “Frankie.” Her temple. “Frankie.” The top of her ear.

  And she knew why. Because this had taken so long to happen. Because this was the only way they didn’t yet know each other.

  She bent her knees and opened herself fully to him. He moved into her slowly, so slowly. She held her breath as she felt him easing in, stretching her, filling her. Learning how this felt, how he felt inside her, part of her. No, he’d always been part of her. Would always be part of her. A small, hot tear burned its way out of the corner of her eye, trickling down to sink into the hair at her temple because it was so perfect, this joining.

  “A stór, am I hurting you?” He stopped moving.

  She swallowed hard. “No, no, please, I want all of you.”

  He gave in to her wish. He was there, deep within her, his weight holding her in place so she could feel the beat of his heart, the breath he sucked in as he went fully in, the vibration in his muscles as he braced himself over her.

  “This is where I belong,” he said, holding her gaze with his. “Here. Nowhere else.”

  She curled her hands over his shoulders, loving the solidity of him. For several long moments, they needed nothing more than this connection, this new knowledge of each other. Then, on a long sigh, they both began to move, languidly at first, shifting angles in tiny adjustments to see how they best fit together.

  But it was too good. The tension built and tightened inside her, as he slid in and out. She released his shoulders and shifted her hands to dig into the muscular arc of his backside, tilting her hips to urge him on. He straightened his arms, raising himself up to drive into her faster and harder. “Yes, yes, yes!” She moved with him to bring him in deeper.

  He thrust in and ground his hips against her. For what seemed like an eternity, she balanced on the edge of her climax, every molecule of her body pulling in to her core before it all exploded outward like a supernova, sending her arching up and back as her muscles clenched and released, clenched and released.

  “Frankie, a rúnsearc!” Liam bowed back and shouted as he pushed into her again. And she felt the liquid of his release, the pulse of his cock, sending another orgasm tearing through her.

  He stayed, holding her in place with his weight, while the throb of his cock and the aftershocks of her climax gentled and subsided. At last, he let his arms bend, settling over her and then bringing them both onto their sides as he slipped out of her.

  He cradled her against his chest, tucking the rumpled quilts back around her. His heart was pounding against her ear, proving that he had been as affected as she was. She curled her hands in between herself and Liam, wanting to crawl inside him to hold onto the intimacy as long as possible.

  She drifted, remembering moments and sensations, her body floating down from the high of their climax. The Gaelic he’d shouted as he came echoed through her mind. A rúnsearc. My secret beloved, the most passionate of endearments. She pushed it away. If it had been wrung from him simply by the power of their orgasm, she didn’t want to know it. If he’d meant it, that was even worse.

  No, she would allow herself this day, this night, to be together with him in every way. Tomorrow would come soon enough.

  The sun had sunk low enough on the horizon that the surrounding buildings cast shadows over her terrace. She shivered. “As hot as you are in every way, it’s too cold to stay out here without clothes,” she said.

  “You must be hotter than I am because I wasn’t noticing the chill at all.” He ran his hand down her back to squeeze her bottom. “Let’s get you bundled up for the trip inside.”

  He separated one quilt from the tangled pile and wrapped it around her. “You dash and I’ll grab our clothes on the way.”

  She was about to say that she could handle her own clothes. But something stopped her. Something that whispered it would be nice to let another person take care of her for a moment. He wasn’t cold—he’d said so—so why be bullheaded about pulling her weight? “See you inside!”

  She bolted for the French doors, the soles of her bare feet burning with cold by the time she’d gotten across the frigid tiles of the terrace floor. Slipping inside, she went straight to the fireplace to hold her feet out one at a time to the flames.

  Liam burst through the door, his arms full of quilts, clothes, and boots. “Jaysus, it’d freeze the bollocks off a polar bear out there.”

  He dumped his burdens, including the quilt that had been draped over his shoulders, on a chair and strode toward Frankie and the fire, in all his naked, muscle-rippling glory. She didn’t pretend not to ogle him every step of the way, and once again she caught the flash of a green tattoo on his hip.

  “You have to pay for looking.” He grinned as he took one corner of her quilt out of her hand, and wrapped it around his big body.

  As he huddled in beside her, his chilled skin grazed hers. She yelped. “‘Tis like diving into the bloody Irish Sea in January.”

  “You’ll warm me up fast.” He snaked his arm around her waist to pull her into him. She let her eyes close as their skin pressed together, savoring the contrast of his hard contours against her softer curves, the delight of it quickly warding off the shock of that first contact.

  “Liam, what’s the tattoo on your hip?”

  Chapter Seven

  Liam had forgotten about the damned tattoo. It was so much a part of him, he never gave it a thought. But he knew Frankie. She would lock those laser-focused eyes on it the first time she got a chance and ask the question he didn’t want to have to answer just yet.

  He couldn’t lie to her, though.

  He willed himself not to tense up. “It’s a shamrock, of course.”

  “When did you get it?”

  That was easy. “My first year at football…soccer academy. The ink was a statement of my ambition to make Team Ireland.”

  “Is there only the one?”

  It was all one image, just added to over time. “One tattoo. My coach was pissed enough about that one. He told me my body was a fine instrument, not a canvas for amateur artwork.”

  “Good God, what would he say about David Beckham?”

  “It would blister your ears off, for certain. But he’s passed on, so he’s not obliged to comment on Becks’ body art.” He’d skated past that one, but just barely.

  “I’m sorry. I can tell you liked him.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

  He put his other arm around her and held her there against his chest. “You could tell I liked him from two sentences. And you wonder why I tracked you down.”

  Frankie raised her eyebrows at him. “You sound like a bloodhound.”

  He laughed. “Always the romantic.”

  She was so small in his arms. And soft. Frankie, soft. She’d always seemed more like a fire-tempered rapier, flexible but razor-sharp, slicing through anything that got in her way. But she’d opened herself to him, given herself with a generosity and lack of reserve he hadn’t considered dreaming of. Her body had seared itself into his mind, into his skin, into his soul.

  And he knew he had to fight for this with everything he had.

  The heat from the fire soaked through the quilt, and he felt the beginning of sweat sheening his skin and hers. “How about we finish decorating the tree?”

  “Nude?” She sounded intrigued, not shocked. She reached down and ran her palm over his cock, making it swell with pleasure. “Can I hang an ornament here?”

  “They don’t make a hook big enough,” he said, running through his new team’s roster in his head to keep himself under control.

  She chuckled, and stroked down the length of him again. He clenched his jaw to keep from groaning out the lust her touch sent torching through him.

  “Let’s go to bed then,” she said, before giving him a heavy-lidded look and faking
a yawn. “I find I’m exhausted from all the exercise and fresh air.”

  When Frankie went after something, she never did it by halves. “You’re not fooling me with the yawn, woman. You’re after my elite athlete’s body, you are.”

  “And are you complaining?” She ran her hand over his cock yet again, making it pull tighter.

  “Well, one part of my body isn’t.” But he knew she would find the tattoo, and he would have to give her an explanation.

  “That’s the only part that matters for my purposes.” Somehow she whipped the quilt away from him, so it was wrapped only around her. “Go ahead of me to the bedroom,” she said, her eyes lit by a lascivious gleam.

  “So you can ogle my bum?”

  “I’m going to ogle every inch of you,” she said.

  “In that case.” He turned and sauntered toward the hallway.

  He heard her sigh. “I love the way your muscles move under your skin. Like a Thoroughbred racehorse. All that power and grace.”

  “I’m not sure I like being compared to an animal.” But her words made his cock rise higher. He could feel her gaze like a brush of fingers over the skin of his back.

  “Not even to a stud?”

  “Ah, when you put it that way.” He stepped through her bedroom door and turned to catch her and snatch the quilt away from around her. “Now, you have to walk in front of me to the bed.”

  He watched in shock as a tint of pink flushed her cheeks. “Are you blushing?”

  She lifted her chin but didn’t quite meet his gaze. “I’m forty-nine years old. And not an athlete.”