Kitabı oku: «The Complete Christmas Collection», sayfa 37

Chapter Six

Damien rose and stood with her and tried to think what to say. “Luce...”

She lifted on tiptoe, so her sweet mouth was so wonderfully, perfectly close. Her breath smelled of cocoa. “I haven’t had a lot of kisses. I mean, real kisses. On-the-lips kisses.”

He whispered her name again. “Luce.” Somehow her name was the only word he had right then.

She continued on the subject of kisses. “Two from you, so far. Two from a boy I met in Cardiac ICU at a very excellent hospital in Los Angeles. His name was Ramon. He was getting better, they said. And then one night, out of nowhere, he died. He had the most beautiful crow-black hair.” A single tear escaped the corner of her left eye.

He dipped his head, kissed that tear, tasted the salty wetness on his tongue.

She drew in a shaky little breath, put her hands on his shoulders as though bracing herself—and continued, “A boy named Troy kissed me in middle school. It was one of the few times I was well enough to go to school for a while. He kissed me out under the football bleachers. I promised to meet him in front of the school in the morning. But I got bad in the night and there was another surgery and I didn’t go to school again for three years.”

He made a low noise in his throat, a noise of encouragement, and he pressed his lips to the pretty arch of her left eyebrow.

She went on, “And then there was this boy in high school, a very pricey private school. I went there for three months in my junior year. Noah was rich by then....”

Her brother had started from nothing. Lucy’s illnesses had spurred him on to greater and greater success. He’d needed a lot of money to make sure she got the very best care available.

Lucy went on. “The boy in high school? His name was Josh and he lived in our neighborhood in Beverly Hills— This was before Noah bought the estate in Carpinteria. Josh took me to the homecoming dance and I kissed him at the door when he brought me home. He never called me after that. I called him twice, left messages with his mom. And then a few weeks later, there I was in an ambulance again. I was homeschooled exclusively after that. I never saw Josh again and I never kissed anyone else until last year.”

“You had a boyfriend last year?” He hadn’t known.

“Uh-uh. It was at one of Noah’s parties. A man named David, a business associate of Noah’s. David would have done more than kiss me, but I got cold feet—and don’t you dare tell Noah.”

“Never.” He growled the word and tried to recall if he’d ever met this David. He didn’t think so, which was probably just as well.

“Promise me,” she whispered.

“I swear on the blue blood of my Calabretti ancestors, on the honor of all the Bravos who came before me, that I will never tell Noah that you kissed a man named David at one of Noah’s parties.”

“Wow. Now, that’s a vow.”

“I’m so glad you approve.”

She gave him her best Mona Lisa smile. “But you need to seal it with a kiss.”

He didn’t even hesitate. There was no point. He accepted that now. Unless she called a halt, he was in. All the way. He bent and captured her mouth, tasted chocolate and heat and a sweet, slow sigh.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and swayed closer. He felt the giving softness of her breasts against his chest. Not the least childish, the softness of those breasts. “Dami...”

He pulled her closer still, not even caring anymore that she might feel him unfurling against her belly. He only went on kissing her, dipping his tongue into the moist heat beyond her parted lips, sharing her breath, the world a wonderful place that smelled of peaches and chocolate and something else, something of Lucy, fresh and clean and womanly, too.

After a while, he lifted his head. He gazed down into those shining brown eyes.

She whispered, “That’s three kisses from you. Give me another.”

He drank in the sight of her flushed upturned face. “You’re greedy.”

“I need a lot of kisses. I’ve been deprived.” And then she giggled.

That did it. That naughty little laugh of hers made him greedy, too. He swooped down and took her mouth again.

She cried softly, “Oh!” against his lips.

And then he kissed her long and slow and deep, sweeping a hand down to press the small of her back, pushing his hips against her, aching to have her, to feel her tight heat all around him.

She moaned a little, and she lifted her lower body up and into him. Eager. And so very sweet.

That time when he lifted his head, she took the lapels of his jacket and guided them over his shoulders. He allowed that, catching it as it fell, tossing it onto a far chair. She started on the buttons of his shirt.

He caught her hands, kissed them, one and then the other. “Anticipation is a fine thing.”

She tipped her head to the side and considered. And then she blushed again. “I’m rushing it, huh?”

“I want you right now,” he whispered. “I want to bury myself in you and hear you moan beneath me.”

Deeper color flooded upward over her throat, her chin, her plump cheeks. Her scent intensified. “Oh. Well. Okay...”

He bent and scraped his teeth along the side of her throat.

She let out a small rough little sound and clutched him closer. “Dami...” She made his name into a plea.

He caught her earlobe between his teeth and worried it lightly. Then he whispered, “Will you be guided by me?”

Another sound escaped her, more tender than rough. She shifted her fingers up into his hair, pulling his head down into the warm woman-scented curve of her throat. “Yes. Please. That’s what I want. For you to teach me.”

He took her shoulders then and gently held her away from him—just enough that he could meet her wide, dazed eyes. “First of all...”

“Yes?” Breathless. Hopeful. Impossibly sweet.

“We don’t have to hurry.”

She groaned and then pressed her lips together.

He touched her hair. Like living silk. “Say it. Whatever you’re thinking. Don’t hold back.”

She winced. “Well, it’s just that, um, yeah, we kind of do have to hurry. I mean, it’s already Saturday morning. I’m flying home tomorrow. We need to get this done.”

He wanted to laugh at her total frankness, but he didn’t. He held her gaze. “As your friend, I must warn you against men who say ‘trust me.’ But trust me.”

She laughed then. “Oh, Dami.”

“Do you trust me?”

She didn’t hesitate. “I do. Absolutely.”

“Good.” He caught her hand. “Come with me.”

* * *

Dazed, amazed, excited and very nervous, Lucy went where he led her.

To his bedroom.

It was a large room with a high, coffered ceiling from which hung a giant iron chandelier. The bed had an intricately carved headboard and finials shaped like crowns. The turned-back sheets were cobalt-blue satin, the bedding in deep blue and gold and red.

Unreality assailed her. Alone with Dami in his bedroom. Who knew?

He turned on a torchère lamp beside the bed nice and low. The chandelier was on, too, but also low. She could see clearly enough, but everything was soft and shadowed. Which was great. The pleasant dimness eased her nerves.

At least a little.

He took her shoulders again, his long fingers warm and sure against her bare skin. Still, she shivered at the touch, scared and also excited for what was to come.

“Second thoughts?” he asked.

Her mouth went dust dry. She swallowed to try to get some moisture going. “No. Really. I want to do this, I truly do....”

His smile was way too knowing as he stepped back from her and began to undress, first dropping to a chair to remove his shoes and socks, then sweeping upright again and getting rid of everything else. Quickly, so gracefully, all his beautiful clothes were gone in what felt to her like an instant, as she just stood there staring.

At least the saliva had flooded back into her mouth.

He was a magnificent man, honed and tanned, with a broad, deep chest and shoulders and a belly you could scrub your laundry on. Her gaze trailed down over hard, narrow hips. The muscles in his long thighs were sharply defined. Even his feet were beautiful, long and perfectly shaped.

She did more absurd gulping as she let her glance stray upward again. This time, she allowed herself to look directly at the most private part of him. He definitely wanted her. His manhood curved up, thick and fully aroused, from the dark nest of hair between those powerful thighs.

That he wanted her was good. Excellent— Well, except for the definite largeness of him. She couldn’t help it. She wondered what all virgins probably wondered.

“Seriously, Dami. Are you sure it’s going to fit?” The words were out and hanging in the air between them before she stopped to think how ridiculous they would sound.

But he didn’t laugh at her. He only brushed a finger slowly down the outside of her arm, bringing the goose bumps to bloom where he touched. And he said in a low rumble, “I promise you, Luce. We’ll take all the time we need. You’ll see. It will fit. That’s how it is with men and women. We are made to fit.”

“Well, of course I know that. But it’s still, um...yikes. You know?”

He went very still, waiting—and watching her so closely, his eyes that strange deep black-green right then, dragonfly green. He asked, “Do you want to stop? Any time you want to stop, all you have to do is say the word.”

“No. Uh-uh. I absolutely do not want to stop.”

One corner of his sinful mouth quirked up. How did he do it? How did he stand there in front of her without a stitch on looking so comfortable in his own skin he almost didn’t seem naked at all?

His finger started moving again, across the slim rolled-satin belt at her waist, pausing at the jeweled butterfly pin. He traced the shape of it and then he let his finger trail upward. He touched her breast just with that single finger. He found her nipple beneath the satin, inside the thin cup of her strapless bra. He rubbed his finger up and down until the nipple hardened.

Lucy gasped. She couldn’t help it.

And then he used his thumb, too, rolling it a little, until she felt a certain flooding of heat down low, felt a thin, shimmering cord of desire forming, connecting her breast to her core. She drew another ragged breath as he moved to the other breast and repeated the process.

Then he leaned close. He licked her at her temple. The moisture made a cool spot, right there where her pulse beat above her ear.

He blew on that spot, increasing the coolness. And then he whispered, “Take off your belt....”

She did it, fumbling a little, removing the vintage pin and unhooking the clasp beneath. He took them from her and set them on the bedside table.

“Luce.” He licked her temple again, caught a bit of her hair between his lips and tugged. Then he pressed his mouth to her hair. She felt his warm breath sift over her scalp. “Luce?”

“Yeah?” Her own voice sounded...different. Tentative. And breathless, too. She wished fervently to be more experienced, not to be so obviously out of her depth. Her wish was not granted.

And somehow Dami made that seem all right. “Please turn around.”

She remembered to breathe again and the air rushed into her hungry lungs as she ordered her feet to move. Three careful steps and she was facing away from him, staring at the shadows in the corners of the room, at the waiting blue satin sheets on the wide carved bed.

He touched her shoulder, as though to steady her. And then he took down her zipper in one long, slow glide. The dress dropped around her ankles.

He wrapped one of those big hard arms around her and kissed the side of her neck. “Step out of it. Careful, now....” She lifted one satin stiletto and then the other, cautiously stepping free of the gown. “Don’t move,” he warned softly. He let go of her long enough to scoop the dress up and deposit it safely over his clothes on the bedside chair.

Then he wrapped both arms around her. He pulled her against him, his heat and hardness all along the back of her, his manhood pressing into her, making her moan, making her little red panties wet.

He cradled her breasts. It felt...so good. She let out a long sigh, and her head fell back to rest against the hard muscles of his chest. “Should I...take off my shoes?”

He kissed her ear. “No. Leave them on. There is nothing so fine as a beautiful woman in red satin shoes.”

A beautiful woman. He meant her, Lucy. And she knew it was just Dami, just how he was. He had all the right words to make a woman want him, and he didn’t hesitate to use them—and somehow when he used them, he made her believe him. He made her absolutely certain that she was every bit as beautiful and desirable as he kept saying she was.

He continued to caress her, first dipping his thumbs into the cups of her bra, easing the semisheer fabric out of the way so her breasts came free. She looked down at his big dark hands holding her breasts, rolling the nipples. At the narrow white gleam of her heart-surgery scar.

And it was so wonderfully unreal, so perfectly erotic. So totally thrilling in an otherworldly kind of way. Her hips were moving, rubbing back against him. And he kept on touching her.

Her bra fell away. She let out a small cry of surprise. He only growled low in his throat and scraped his teeth along the ridge of her shoulder, easing his mouth into the curve of her throat, sucking a little.

She brought her hand up and back, hungry to touch him. Wrapping her fingers around his nape, she eased them up into his thick dark hair.

Time flew away. His hands were everywhere and she gloried in their knowing, hot glide over every inch of her. She had his strong, tall body at her back to steady her. And she was suddenly liquid and moving, rocking slow and loving it, as his hands moved lower, pressing at her belly, fingers easing under the elastic of her panties, finding the heart of her.

One finger drifted in where she was wet and hot and hungry. He worked such shimmering magic on her willing flesh. She was wild by then, completely outside herself. Her panties were gone, ruined—he had taken the narrow elastic on both sides and torn it so he could more easily remove them from between her shaking thighs.

And then she was naked except for her red shoes, naked with Dami, standing in front of him, her hips rocking back against his hardness, in the dim light by the wide bed.

He took her thighs and gently guided them wider, using his strong legs to support her as he did it so she didn’t stumble in her high heels. And then he was there again, his brilliant fingers stroking her, doing the most amazing things to her wet, needful flesh. He eased one finger inside. And then another, stretching her in the most delightful, thrilling way.

And she was...riding. Riding his strong hands, riding his big body behind her. She was making such a racket, moaning and sighing. And she didn’t even care. Didn’t care about anything but his hardness at her back and his fingers within her. And the low words he whispered to her. Hot, wicked encouragements, praise for her heat and her wetness, her body’s hunger, her greediness...

There was a light. A light that curled through her, burning, somehow liquid. It grew outward in a widening coil. It filled her and flowed out the top of her head, streamed from her fingertips, poured through the soles of her red shoes.

And then it intensified. It was all heat and wet and it was centering down in the core of her, gathering tight where he stroked her, where he made her body open for him, open and burn.

She felt the moment. She knew it, the secret thing she’d never shared with a man before: her climax. It shuddered through her, over her, drowning her in waves of glory.

Dami stayed with her, those wonderful fingers seeming to know what to do, when to keep stroking her. And when to go still, to hold her, to press just the right spot as the pulsing became a shimmer again, a slow, lovely fade into something so perfectly, wonderfully easy and loose.

He had his arm around her waist again. And then he was turning her, scooping her up high against his chest.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and offered her mouth to him. He took it in a slow, thorough kiss as he laid her down on blue satin and then stretched out beside her, easing an arm under her head, gathering her into him, her cheek against his chest, her hand over his heart.

His lips touched her hair again, a kiss both tender and firm.

She closed her eyes for a time. The room was so quiet. His body was big and warm, her own personal heater.

When she looked again, he was watching her through eyes that were black now, limitless and so deep.

She lifted up on an elbow and gazed down at him. He returned her look out of the center of some wonderful stillness. She marveled, “Dami, this is just how I pictured it, only better. I mean, what you did to me was so hot. And now I’m lying here naked with you in this big manly bed of yours.”

“My bed is manly?” He seemed pleased.

“Oh, definitely. Yes. But the point is, it’s okay, you know? You and me, naked, together. It’s comfortable, easy. Good.” By then she was waving the arm she wasn’t leaning on. One wide sweeping gesture bopped him on the nose. “Oops.”

He only laughed. “I’m glad you’re happy. But please don’t break my nose.”

“Sorry. I promise, I’ll be careful.” It seemed only natural to let her hand drift lower. He was still hard. She traced the muscles of his belly—but hesitated to touch that most manly part of him. She couldn’t help asking, “Does it hurt to be so big and hard?”

He gave her that beautiful half smile of his. “In a good way, yes.”

“Do you need...?”

His smile went full-out. “Over the years, I find more and more pleasure in this particular sort of suffering. I enjoy the ache. I find that getting there really is a lot of the fun, that sometimes the longer it takes, the more satisfying the conclusion.”

She really did want to touch it. “Is it all right if I...?”

“Yes.” Gruff. Low. Like the purr of some big sleek wild animal, no less dangerous for being easy and loose, relaxing in his lair.

She explored at her leisure, loving the smooth, silky feel of his skin there, the flared mushroom shape of the head. He lay very still as she touched him and his breathing changed, becoming faster, shallower. When she bent to kiss him, he let out a low groan.

That made her smile as she lowered her mouth on him and took him inside. He whispered encouragements. She knew she wasn’t doing that good of a job. But he never complained. He eased his fingers into her hair, curving them around the back of her neck as she took him in and then let him out nice and slow. He didn’t try to take control. His hold was loose, gentle. And she liked that so much.

It made her feel powerful and sexy and womanly. Her mouth surrounding him, her hand wrapped around him, she was running that show.

Running it all the way to the finish, as it turned out. Beneath her hand, she felt him pulsing. His body stiffened. He let out a low, deep moan. “Luce, you should let me...”

No way. She was doing this and she was doing it right. She stayed with him, swallowed him down. He tasted like sea foam, musky and salty. He held her tighter against him right there at the end, and he growled out her name in a way that sent a hot thrill zipping through her, because she had done it, given him pleasure, just as he’d done for her.

She kissed her way up the muscular center of him, feeling naughty and bold.

He took her and turned her and tucked her against him. “Sleep.”

“Huh? But we only just got started.”

He chuckled. “Greedy.” He sounded pleased about it.

“Dami, there’s only so much time and I have so much to learn.”

“Sleep,” he said again.

So she closed her eyes—not for long, she told herself. Just for a little while....

* * *

When she woke, he was kissing her.

She looked down and his dark head was tracing the length of her scar as he feathered kisses along it. He kissed her breast, found another scar—a small horizontal one from years ago when she’d needed a temporary pacemaker after surgery.

He went lower. He kissed the little cluster of drainage-tube scars.

And lower still...

The things he could do with his mouth, with his tongue...

No doubt about it. She had made the right choice to come to him to get up to speed on making love.

He did it again, brought her all the way to the top of the world and then over the edge, with his mouth that time. And then he took her hand and pulled her up out of the bed and led her into the kitchen. He made them more of his delicious hot chocolate. They sat together at the table sipping cocoa without a stitch on. It was strangely erotic, like those dreams you sometimes have where you’re naked someplace you would never go without your clothes on.

Once she’d finished her chocolate, he told her to get dressed, and when she had everything back on but the panties he’d torn, he said, “Now I want you to return to your room and get some sleep. I’ll come for you at eleven.”

“But, Dami, we haven’t... I mean, it’s been amazing. But we’re not finished yet.”

He bent close and whispered in her ear. “Don’t wear any panties.”

Her breath caught on a gasp. “You mean...?”

“For all day and into the evening. No panties. And don’t cheat. Wear a dress or a skirt. No tights, either.”

The place where her panties should have been was suddenly damp. “Oh, Dami. You are very bad.”

“So I’ve been told. No knickers, and whenever you notice that you’re without them, think of me.”