Lilian Darcy – The Baby Made at Christmas (страница 7)

“We can.”

They grinned at each other in the low light. People called it “vanilla sex,” and didn’t mean that in a good way, but vanilla was a pretty popular flavor, after all. The feel of his weight poised over her, the hard heat of his body cradled in her opened thighs, the way she could hold him, wrap her arms all the way around and feel the strong, muscular cage of his chest. It was all so good, and it didn’t need to be inventive.

They didn’t need props or role play or gymnastics. Not tonight, anyhow. Not this first time.

Because she knew instinctively that it was going to be the first, not the only, and he seemed to know it, too.

He rolled her so that she was on top, and she arched upward to let him find her breasts again, with his hands and his mouth. He lavished them with hungry attention, cupping and stroking, covering her hardened nipples with his hot mouth. He lavished her with attention everywhere, in places she’d never thought of before. The creases between her arms and her body, the small of her back.

When he entered her, she was slick and swollen and ready, and the feel of him sliding against her had her whimpering and crying out so fast. It came out of nowhere. It came out of all those minutes and minutes of kissing.

But then he pulled back and swore, and it went away. “What did we forget?”

She understood, and swore, too. “I have some...”

“Good, because I don’t.”

“...as long as they’re not expired.”

“Hope they’re not.” He added after a moment, “And yet I’m sort of glad there’s a chance they might be.”

“Huh?” She was trying to reach for her bedside table drawer, but he wasn’t letting her. He was pulling her back against him, trying to pillow her head against his shoulder. “You’re glad they might be past their use-by date?”

“Yes, because I’m glad you... Well...” He hesitated, sounding gruff. “Hope you don’t mind this, maybe it sounds too old-fashioned. I’m glad it doesn’t happen like this for you all that often, I mean. Is that okay to say?”

“Of course, if it’s the truth.”

“We’re all about plain sex and honesty?”

“Sounds good so far.”

“Does,” he agreed, still gruff.

“So is it okay for me to say I’m glad you don’t carry them in your jacket wherever you go?”

“Haven’t needed any for...probably six months.” He thought a moment. “No, longer.”

“Good to know.” They lay there for a moment. “Although this whole discussion does seem like it might have killed the mood.”

“Not letting anything kill the mood,” he said.

“No?”

“I mean it! Find those suckers!”

She did. They were right in the bottom of her messy drawer, and they hadn’t expired. There was still a whole week left on the clock.

“See?” he said when she told him.

“See what?”

“See how this was meant to happen?”

“Why, yes, now that you mention it, I do....”

So it didn’t kill the mood, it simply changed it, and somehow they went from all that incredibly serious kissing in the kitchen, into a pillow fight kind of feeling. Getting the sheets and comforter into a tangle, pushing half the pillows onto the floor, laughing and chasing each other all over the bed until they were both breathless.

Until once again he was poised on top of her, looking down into her face with those dark eyes, his erection safely sheathed this time. She looked up at him, stroked the wave of thick dark brown hair away from his forehead, traced the lines of his parted lips with her fingertips and watched as he lowered himself and slid in, came back to the rhythm and push that had brought her so close so fast, before.

They never looked away. She hadn’t known that it could be so intense, watching each other. Or so intimate. She gripped his back, wrapped her legs around him, as if their locked-together gaze was a taut thread that would break if she didn’t hold on to him as hard as she could. In his face she could read the building of his release, and even at that moment they didn’t break eye contact.

He pressed his lips tight together, closed his eyes for a fraction of a second—dark lashes sweeping down, then up—and the wave of his climax broke against her body while she panted for breath, then cried out and moaned against the sudden crush of his mouth on hers.

Neither of them spoke for a long while after they were still. She lay there with his body still flung over hers, her limbs encircling him, his softening heat still filling her. After a little while, he eased aside as if he could tell the moment he began to feel too heavy on her.

He touched her lightly and almost methodically, as if to check that everything was still there and whole, cupping each breast in turn, making patterns with his touch along her sides, down to her hips, running the flat of his hand over her stomach, resting his palm against the mound that felt so swollen and sensitized.

“Four seasons in one day, weren’t we, do you think?” he said softly. “Like the weather in the mountains.”

“We were, a bit,” she agreed. “Which season is this?” She stretched and wriggled against him.

“Summer,” he answered at once. “Warm and sleepy and happy. Sun on our skin.”

“Mmm, I like summer. And winter.”

“I like them all.”

“Me, too. I like the point when it changes. First snowfall. First hint of fall. That tiny shift, but really the whole earth is turning.”

“Yes, when you feel something new in the air, and you know it’s just the start.” Was he still talking about the seasons? She wasn’t sure if she was.

Deliberately, she brought it back to concrete detail, instead of words that could have two meanings. “Love the snowmelt swelling the creeks and rivers.”

“Love a hard frost turning the leaves in one night.”

“And hiking through those deep drifts of gold and brown, when the air smells all peaty and fresh.”

“You’re a real outdoorsy gal.”

“I am.”

“Like that. Like my women athletic.”

They talked, not saying anything very much, until they fell asleep.

Chapter Four

That was day one.

Christmas took over most of day two.

Lee awoke early in the morning to hear Mac calling his family in Idaho, standing in her kitchen and keeping his voice down. “C’mon, sis, I knew you’d be up with the kids,” she heard him say.

Upstairs, the Narmans and their guests were up with the kids, too, and she knew she needed to touch base with them right away, to see what they wanted for cleaning and catering over the next few days. She called the cleaning company first, to confirm availability, using the boss’s home number, and booked them in tentatively for eight this morning. It was only six-thirty now, but the cleaner was happy to hear from her. He could charge a mint for working on Christmas morning.

Lee jumped in the shower for a two-minute scrub and then dressed quickly. Mac was still on the phone. “Doing my second job,” she mouthed at him, pointing up at the ceiling. He nodded.

The Narmans were very happy about the cleaners coming at eight. Most of the party was still in bed, just two sets of bleary-looking parents in pajamas and robes up and about, watching their impatient, early rising kids dive into the contents of several bulging stockings.

“Catering, no, not for today,” they told her. “You filled the refrigerator with everything we needed for last night—thanks so much. And for Christmas dinner we’re eating out.”

They talked through a few more details—they wanted a four-course spread for twenty people catered for later in the week, and someone had broken the glass shower door in one of the bathrooms, so could she arrange to get that replaced? Then Lee did a quick collection of bottles and cans and empty pizza boxes, and took out four bags of trash.

She was taking the final bulging bag to the little wooden trash hut that kept out bears and raccoons when Mr. Narman, Sr., found her and presented her with a list of eight more “little details” that needed her attention. More shopping, another repair job, reservations at various restaurants to make on their behalf and several more items.

“Is it always like this when they’re around?” Mac asked, when she told him she would probably be tied up most of the day, and then there was her dinner with friends to go to. She’d made coffee, and pointed to the cereal packets and the toaster and the bread.

“Pretty much. But they’re polite about it, and it’s such a good arrangement for me. Very cozy when they’re not around and I get to go upstairs.”

“Oh, you get to use the house?”

“Yep.” She grinned. “Laze in front of the open fire and drink champagne in the Jacuzzi.” She kicked off her boots and stretched her neck and shoulders in preparation for diving into all those phone calls.

“You were a cat in your previous life, I can tell.”

“Oh, you can?”

“The way you stretched and purred when you said that. The way you’re just slightly trying to get rid of me because I’m crowding your space.”