12 Men for Christmas

by Phillipa Ashley

  It could. Like hell it could.

  He felt dizzy with desire. Almost out of control, and that scared him. He thought about taking her there and then, on the bedroom floor, but he wanted this to last for him and for her, for the gorgeous, willing, soft, and luscious girl he was holding. The one wrapped in his arms, wearing nothing but a scrap of cream lace, a contrast with the caramel of her bare skin. Her nipples were already hard, but he demanded more from her. He set to work with his mouth, circling her nipples with his tongue and oh so gently nipping them until she moaned aloud in pleasure.

  He had never wanted to please a woman so much—or be so selfish. He had to explore every inch of her body, and to do that, he had to strip her naked. Totally, utterly bare. He slipped one finger inside the waistband of the tiny lacy thong and pulled it back teasingly.

  “Please…” she whispered as he kept his finger poised in the flimsy material.

  “Please yes, or please no?”

  “Yes…oh, please yes…”

  Slowly, way too slowly, he inched the lace down over the lush curve of her bottom, his thumbs gliding over her skin as he slid the wispy material over her thighs to her ankles and let it lie there, brushing her feet.

  “Step out of it.”

  He was standing now, and those dark eyes were drinking her in, a shameless appraisal that inflamed her sensitized body even more.

  “Well,” she asked, “are you satisfied?”

  He shook his head. “No. Not yet…your necklace…” He stood behind her, gently unfastening her gold chain and placing it on the bedside table.

  “Now?” she whispered.

  His voice was barely audible. “Not quite…your hair…”

  A fierce tide of arousal ran through her as he loosened her hair and let it fall onto her naked shoulders. Untangling it, he spread it apart over her bare shoulders, leaving embers of fire wherever he touched her skin. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered.

  “This isn’t fair,” she whispered as he pulled her into his arms again. “When I saw you naked, you still had your boots on.”

  “You’re forgetting something,” he murmured, kissing her neck and shoulders. “You left your shoes behind on the yacht, and know what? You wiggle your toes when you’re turned on.”

  He knelt down at her feet, his rock-roughened hands encircling her ankles and then sweeping over her calves and thighs in long strokes, sending wave after wave of pleasure through her. She gripped his shoulders as he reached the damp curls between her legs and touched her.

  There.

  Right there.

  On the hot, sweet spot that had nagged at her, exquisitely, all evening. Increasing the buzzing intensity of desire that had her squirming every time he looked at her.

  Oh… Emma knew she was dissolving as he slid one finger inside her. The hot, unstoppable rush of desire made her moan out loud.

  “Will…oh please, I—”

  “You are sensational.”

  As he knelt at her feet, his hands were holding the backs of her thighs. His head dipping until his mouth and tongue were pushing her to new levels of sensation, an exquisite tingling, building to a peak that centered in her swollen clit and oh…

  “Enough…Will, I can’t stand it…please…no more.”

  No more. No more because she had to be taken now, taken to his bed and driven into with all the power he had.

  “I—I want you inside me.”

  “You’re going to get me, sweetheart. And how.”

  He swung her into his arms and carried her over to the bed. Placed her onto the silk throw, the cool silk caressing her bare skin. She lay obediently in a pool of lamplight, wanting desperately to show him how much she wanted to be filled up but not daring to. Not yet.

  She didn’t know him well enough yet, not to open up that wide—to invite him, beg him. But he must have read her mind, because he was smiling down at her and urging her thighs apart with one big hand.

  “Wider than that, sweetheart,” he whispered, leaning over her now, his hands either side of her head. “Much more than that.”

  “What about—”

  “I’ll take care of it. You stay exactly as you are.”

  Will reached over to the bedside table for a condom and ripped open the packet. As he did so, trying not to make a hash of it, he knew that it was he who needed protection from her, and not the kind that came by the dozen—despite his best intentions, despite everything he’d fought against for the past three months. And he didn’t care. He wanted to let go so much, to give in to his feelings for her, and damn the consequences.

  Seeing her lying there, ready and demanding, her cloud of dark hair spread against the white pillow, he couldn’t wait a moment longer to take her. He was fumbling hopelessly at his zipper now. He’d waited so long…

  “Let me…oh, please let me.” Her hands were wrenching frantically at his zipper and tugging at his trousers and shorts. He kicked them off, and finally, he gave her a close-up view of what she’d only glimpsed before. The hot, hard length of him.

  “Emma…sweetheart…”

  He buried himself within her with one slow, powerful thrust. It had been a while for her. He could tell that as she gasped at the pressure, and he didn’t want to hurt her but knew he was massively turned on.

  “Sweetheart?” His voice was low, barely a whisper. Asking a question, to which the answer was irrelevant. There was no going back now. He needed this like nothing he’d ever needed before.

  Small, determined hands grasped his buttocks, stung him with their nails, and urged him in deeper. He thrust again with much greater force and felt the rope holding him back, keeping him on the edge, fraying. She began to convulse around him in waves of exquisite, clamping pressure. Her fingers were digging into the flesh on his back, but he barely noticed. He could barely see or hear anything, only feel her contracting impossibly around him. Gripping him like a dark, velvet vise.

  The rope snapped, and Will let himself fall into oblivion with her.

  * * *

  It was too warm in Will’s bed.

  The morning sun was slanting through the windows, dappling the bed with bright patches of heat and light. Will’s naked body was hot and sticky against hers, and Emma would have thrown back the cotton sheet that was covering them except she didn’t want to wake him. Not yet. She wanted to stay like this for as long as possible and put off the moment when she had to leave his bed and go home. Maybe he planned to let her down gently but firmly. Somehow, she knew that was how he’d do it.

  But not yet, she thought. Please not yet.

  As she shifted slightly in his embrace, his arm tightened around her in a gesture of possession and protection that made her stomach flip. She tensed, still feeling the effects of a night of lovemaking after so many months on her own.

  Will had taken her beyond everything she’d ever known. Again and again during the long, warm night, tender but insistent, devouring every last ounce of her. The last time, he’d sat braced upright against the oak backboard of his bed. He’d guided her onto him as he stretched her to the limit and brought her to a shuddering climax that left her wrecked and limp in his arms.

  Now her cheek was resting on his bare chest, sensing the soft rise and fall as he slept. She knew him now. Knew all the little scars on his body from every misadventure. The big one on his knee from a bad climbing fall. And now she knew where the trail of hair that she’d spent so long admiring ended.

  It cried out to be explored, right now, with her mouth. He had his eyes closed as she traced a moist path that led from his nipples, down his chest, and over his stomach. As she reached his navel, she felt his body quiver. “Are you awake?” she mumbled from under the sheet.

  His reply was barely audible and very shaky. “No, sweetheart…still asleep, and I hope I don’t have to wake up anytime soon.”

&nb
sp; * * *

  Sometime later, Emma took a look at the clock on Will’s bedside table. It was midmorning and the sun was slanting, hot and bright, into the room. Swinging his legs out of bed, he started to pull on a pair of jeans. Even from the pillow, she could see the red nail marks on his back and buttocks and let out a little cry of guilt and embarrassment. “I’m sorry…”

  “I’m not,” he replied, knowing what she meant without turning around or asking. He zipped up his jeans gingerly and sat on the bed next to her. “Wildcat.”

  “Don’t tease me,” she pleaded, covering her face with her hands.

  “I consider it to be my role in life,” he replied, wrapping a tendril of glossy hair around his finger.

  She hoisted the sheet above her breasts, suddenly embarrassed by her nakedness. “And mine is to be another notch on your bedpost,” she ventured.

  “Make that four, sweetheart.”

  “And is that it?” she asked simply, her heart thudding in her chest. “Just notches on the bedpost?”

  He looked at her strangely, and for a moment, she thought she’d shattered the intimacy between them. Then suddenly, he pulled the sheet off her. “Come on. Get up. I want to show you something.”

  “Where’s my dress?” she asked as she climbed out of bed. “I haven’t brought anything else to wear. You didn’t tell me I wouldn’t be going home.”

  He caught up his discarded shirt from the floor and draped it around her shoulders. “Put this on,” he said, and she slipped her arms into the sleeves and rolled them up. She left the top buttons open to let the morning air cool her hot skin. The tails brushed the tops of her thighs.

  “Perfect.” Will nodded, feeling the effect as his jeans tightened around him. “You are absolutely perfect.”

  “What about my underwear?” she asked innocently.

  He bent down and picked up the scrap of lace still lying in front of the mirror. “You mean this? I’d hardly call it an item of clothing.”

  “Do you disapprove?”

  “Come on outside before I show you just how much I approve.”

  Emma took her lacy thong from his hand and put it on, trying to smooth down the shirt tails as far as she could. “What if someone sees us?”

  He held out his hand. “They won’t. There are eight acres of grounds around us. No nosy neighbors—unless someone has binoculars on us from a yacht.”

  She let him lead her down the staircase into the hall and into the kitchen, with its farmhouse table and range cooker. “I’ll make us breakfast when I’ve shown you this,” he offered, guiding her into a small boot room from where a door opened into the garden. He ushered her outside.

  Chapter 11

  Emma had never been anywhere quite like it before. It was simply breathtaking. The broad stone terrace she was standing on overlooked lawns surrounded by shrubs and woodland. At the end of the lawns was the lake, sunlight dancing off the wavelets, the jetty he had carried her along pointing out into the shimmering water.

  “Oh…”

  “Like it?” he asked, almost hesitantly, and then he smiled as she squeezed his hand. “This way,” he said, stepping down onto the lawn. “You’ll be OK on the grass without shoes.” The cool dew tickled her toes as she padded over the springy turf down to the lake. They halted where a small stream flowed out into the dark water. “Here,” he said, ducking under the overhanging branch of a willow tree.

  Reaching into his pocket, he took out a penknife and handed it to her. This easy familiarity was not what she’d expected…but so very much what she’d longed for.

  Now she hoped she would be wrong about him again. That this hadn’t been just another one-night stand. That she would find out why he’d treated Kate so cruelly. That he had a reason she could forgive and might be ready to let another woman into his life.

  Her.

  She cradled the knife in her hand, then gazed at him expectantly. “What am I supposed to do with this?” she laughed. “Learn bush craft? Build a fire?”

  “Carve your notches on the tree.” He smiled. “Four. And your initials.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  A smile spread over his face. “Deadly.”

  “I…I…don’t know if I can.”

  “Just do it,” he urged, taking the knife. “Here.” He flattened his palm against the trunk of the tree. “I’ll make the first notch.” He flicked open the blade and scored a mark firmly in the bark before handing the knife back to her. “Go on.”

  It was trickier than she thought. She had to press deeply to make a mark, and it took longer than she’d expected to do all four. She stepped back and giggled, seeing the grooves and knowing what each one stood for.

  “Now your initials,” he ordered, “and before you say it, I know what they’ll be.”

  “No way,” she cried. “I’ll put my middle name too. That won’t look so silly.”

  She found the initials were even more difficult. They were hardly recognizable but at least she’d tried: EAT. Emma Anne Tremayne. There, she’d done it. She took a step back, satisfied. “Is that all right?”

  All this time, Will waited patiently, offering the odd word of encouragement.

  “Perfect, actually.” He grinned, getting a smack on the arm for his nerve. “Now it’s my turn,” he said, retrieving the penknife and quickly scoring three letters. “There…W…M…T.”

  “What does the M stand for?” she asked.

  “Ah. Now that I’m not telling you.”

  “Why not?” she teased, high on the happiness of the moment. “It can’t be that bad. Is it an old family name like Montgomery?”

  “No.”

  “Marmaduke.”

  “Of course not,” he replied, sounding insulted while his eyes sparkled with laughter. He began to stride quickly up the grass slope back to the terrace.

  “Mabel!” she called after him as he closed rapidly on the house.

  “Now you’re being silly.”

  Emma had to run to catch him, her feet sinking into the damp turf. “Will, wait!” she cried, grabbing his arm. She was a little out of breath. “I want to ask you something.”

  “I won’t tell you my name,” he declared, catching her in his arms and kissing her. “No matter what you try.”

  “It’s not that… It’s more important than that,” she said, eager to seize the moment. That pulled him up. He looked…she wasn’t sure what—caught off-balance? She decided to take a chance.

  “Go ahead, sweetheart. Ask me anything.”

  “It’s Lakeshore House.”

  There it was in his eyes; Emma knew she hadn’t been mistaken. There was a definite look of relief and a slumping of the shoulders as if he’d been expecting something else.

  “Lakeshore House?” he echoed.

  “Yes—big hotel by the water. You know very well what I mean.”

  “I can’t seem to recall the place,” he said, acting puzzled, rubbing his still-unshaven chin.

  “Don’t be so annoying. Of course you do. You were outside it in the Range Rover when you gave me a lift to the Wordsworth Center. After you’d patronized me for ten minutes, of course.”

  “Oh that. Now I remember. You weren’t very nice to me, Emma, and you had a tight jacket on. A tight skirt too. Your bottom looked sensational in it.”

  “Stop it,” she ordered, her face reddening. “This is serious. I need to know. You’re buying it, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe,” he conceded.

  “To turn into second homes, expand your empire. You’ll make a fortune.”

  “Maybe,” he repeated. “Maybe not. If I get it.” He paused on the terrace. “Emma, are you really interested in my empire, as you call it, or is this conversation leading somewhere else? Conversations often do with you.” He sat down on a wrought-iron bench and pulled her onto his la
p. “In fact, I wish you’d come right out and ask what you really want.”

  If I thought you would give me a straight answer, I would, she reflected. If I knew you wouldn’t run away, I’d ask you everything I want to know. Despite sharing his bed, understanding his body as intimately as her own, she didn’t really know him at all.

  Her arms encircled his neck as she carried on. “I…just wondered why you need to make even more money because…you don’t really need to, do you?”

  “Emma…”

  She heard the warning in his voice but pressed on. No going back now.

  “Because I’m no fool, Will. I know how much this house is worth. I mean, it’s amazing. Beautiful. But you already own a big company…and if you’re buying a hotel…”

  “Where is all this going? I don’t want to talk about business right now—and neither do you, sweetheart.”

  “It’s not about business. It’s about you—and me. My ideas, anyway.” She kissed him gently to stifle any objection. “You don’t think we need to raise any funds for the calendar, do you, Will? That’s why you’re so against it…why you wanted to sponsor it? Because, let’s be honest here, you could have paid for a new base all by yourself. Couldn’t you?” He started to protest, but she stilled his lips with a finger.

  After a moment’s silence, he said again, quietly, “Possibly.”

  “I don’t believe you. In fact, I think you have already paid for some of it—maybe almost all of it. I’ve seen the target for the fundraising, and even I know it’s not nearly enough.”

  She saw that he wasn’t smiling anymore, but he didn’t look angry. He stroked her thigh thoughtfully, so she tried again, “It’s time for you to be honest with me, Will.”

  “What, about the base or the hotel?”

  “Both, preferably.”

  He sucked in his breath. “OK. The hotel. If—and it’s a big if—I do get it, I want to turn it into an outdoor center for inner-city kids. A place where they can have a go at climbing, canoeing, rappelling—all the kind of stuff that makes life worth living. Especially rappelling…”