Home For The Holidays

by Elena Aitken

  Luna turned and whispered to Connor, “And I assume that’s Fernando?”

  He grinned and whispered back, “A safe assumption, I think.”

  Mrs. Valentine tapped on the microphone a few times, sending electronic feedback screeching through the crowd. She leaned forward and began to speak into the mic regally, as if she didn’t even notice the high-pitched shriek from the microphone.

  Maybe, Luna thought with a smile, she didn’t. Maybe it was a good lesson in pressing forward regardless of what other people thought, or outside forces trying to slow you down. Just do your own thing.

  “First of all, I want to wish a very merry Christmas to everyone here tonight. We’re a small community, Valentine Bay. But a close-knit one. And it’s wonderful to see so many familiar faces in the crowd, so beautifully lit by the colors of the tree lights.”

  She looked up from her cards at that, her eyes searching the crowd. After a moment during which nothing much happened, she leaned forward to the microphone again and spoke archly. “Well, apparently some people aren’t listening for their cues.”

  Just then, the massive tree in the center of the square sprang to colorful life behind her, and the entire crowd exhaled in awe.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Valentine said, her words magnified and strong. “Imagine how much more impactful that moment would’ve been had it happened at the correct time.”

  The crowd chuckled, and the speech continued, but Luna wasn’t paying attention to the words anymore. Instead, she was looking around at the beautiful and familiar faces, lit so beautifully by the multicolored lights shining from the stunning Christmas tree in the square.

  It was home. This place was home, and these people were home.

  She turned back to Connor, but he wasn’t looking out at the many faces in the crowd. He was only looking at one. Hers. And the look on his face took her breath away.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said, sliding an arm around her shoulders.

  “I—”

  The words caught in her throat. She realized with a flash of alarm that she’d been about to say, “I love you.” No forethought. No planning. It had just been about to fly out of her mouth as if it were the most natural thing in the world to say.

  And in a way...it kind of was. Because it was true. And she knew that.

  She just wished everything were that simple. It wasn’t.

  He leaned in closer, his eyes a mix of hungry and playful that sent her stomach spinning. “Hey,” he whispered, “what do you say we skip the caroling and go back to my place? I think we can make some pretty fantastic music of our own.”

  The answer to that question, at least, was extremely simple. “Hell, yes."

  Chapter 23

  Luna

  Walking through Connor’s front door, there was a charge in the air that Luna hadn’t experienced the first time she’d been there. She thought it must be something about knowing the reason they were there—it brought out the animal-lust side of her that she’d been getting back in touch with lately.

  It was like Connor flipped a switch inside her, one that turned her into a wanton woman, driven by desire and unrestrained by inhibitions.

  And she had to admit, she kind of liked the “new her.”

  As soon as Connor closed the door and locked it, he turned to her and she could see the hunger in his eyes. It sent a thrill through her body that completely counteracted the chill that had invaded it as they stood outside for the tree lighting ceremony.

  She didn’t just feel warm inside. She felt a raging heat that couldn’t be tamed.

  Connor stepped over to her and pulled her to him. Luna gasped and jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs around his torso like a boa constrictor, digging her nails into his back like a tiger. Damn. He was bringing out the whole animal kingdom in her!

  He cupped his hands under her ass to hold her up and she ground herself down into his palms. His tongue invaded her mouth and she pressed a hand to the back of his head to pull him closer to her.

  God, she couldn’t get enough of him. He was like a drug, and now that he was back in her system, she didn’t want to spend another day without him. Not even another minute.

  She pulled back just far enough to speak. “So, I have a feeling we’re going to satisfy a fantasy tonight,” she teased.

  He laughed, a low and throaty sound. “I have a feeling we’re going to satisfy more than one. But which was the one you had in mind?”

  She grinned playfully. “Remember when you said that we should ‘really do this in a bed’ sometime? Well, I’m pretty sure tonight is that time.”

  He dipped his head down and planted kisses up and down her neck, pausing just long enough between kisses to whisper a few words at a time. “Baby, we are going to use every part of that bed, all night long, again and again. Does sound good?”

  She was so lightheaded that she tossed her head back and moaned at his words, which drew a low chuckle from Connor. He licked her neck, moving his tongue slowly up her superheated skin and then whispered, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  She returned the low chuckle. “You can take that as a hell, yes.”

  He moved his hands away from her ass, then, and wrapped his arms tightly around her, holding her tightly against him—and she, in turn, held even more tightly to him.

  Clinging. That was the only word to describe it. She was clinging to him. She had to smile at the description as it popped into her head. Yeah, clinginess had never been her issue where Connor was concerned. Quite the opposite, in fact.

  And, she thought as he carried her up the stairs and to his bed, maybe the fact that she could smile at the thought now, find just a bit of humor in all the pain, meant she was growing past it, and that her issues with Connor were dealt with—or at least in the process of it.

  The hope of that thought filled her with almost as much warmth as Connor’s kiss.

  When they reached the bedroom, Connor laid her down gently on top of the comforter and kissed her again, running his hands all over her body as he did.

  Losing herself in the kiss, she let him undress her, barely doing enough to even help him. She liked the feeling of being led and taken care of. For so much of her life, the driving force had been INDEPENDENCE, with more than just a capital I. It had been all caps. And written in blazing neon.

  For all those years that she’d sought that independence so fiercely, though, there’d been one major thing missing from the equation: the fact that it was also freaking awesome to lay back and let yourself be taken care of every once in a while.

  And she knew now that letting herself depend on Connor, at least a little bit, didn’t make her any less capable or...and here was that buzzword again...independent.

  That would’ve only been true if she couldn’t survive without him. Well, she obviously knew that she could. She had for many years. But—and this was the important part—she just plain didn’t want to!

  She’d never have Connor’s fingers brushing through her hair the way they were right now if she had to live without him. Never feel the soft touch of his lips on her neck again, like the way he was peppering her with kisses at the moment. Never feel his strong and demanding hands roaming her body the way they were just then, giving her a promise of what was to come.

  And, yeah. That would just be plain unacceptable.

  Her breath was coming so fast as Connor removed one article of clothing after another that she thought she might be in danger of hyperventilating.

  Her head was spinning, but she knew that might have nothing to do with the fast, shallow breaths she was taking. It very well might just be her body’s natural reaction to being touched by Connor. And she realized that if she just let go, resigned herself to losing control, and just went with it...it was freaking awesome.

  How many other things in her life, and her relationship with Connor, might she discover were freaking awesome if she could just summon up the courage to let go and embrace losing control?

  Fin
ally, Connor had taken off every single thing she wore except her bra and panties. He leaned back a little and took in the sight of her body, running his fingers lightly over her taut belly and long, elegant legs. Gooseflesh rose everywhere that his fingers had made contact, like little trails left in the wake of his touch.

  Her body squirmed in response to him, in a way that was a force of its own. Again, she reflected, that idea of relinquishing control and all the amazing things that were on the other side of it. She felt like a sex goddess when she let her body move the way it wanted to when Connor touched her. It was nothing she could’ve achieved if she’d been trying...it just was. All she had to do was get out of the way.

  She reached up and ran her hands up and down his arms, willing him to come closer. The ache that had been growing deep in her belly had nearly reached a breaking point. She had to feel him pressed against her, skin to skin. She couldn’t wait another second.

  Perhaps sensing her need, which was so raw it verged on desperation, he leaned back down and kissed her again. His passion was more than evident in the way he moved his lips, rough and demanding, and only getting more so as her kiss responded to his with growing fervor.

  As he kissed her, he reached around behind her back and unhooked her bra in one smooth motion. She moaned against his mouth as she felt the release of the elastic tension, knowing it meant that her breasts were about to be on full display to him.

  She loved the way Connor looked at her naked body, like a wild animal hungry for its prey. She could feel that gaze on her skin like a tangible touch, and her entire body shuddered at the knowledge that she was about to feel it again.

  He broke the kiss off then, just long enough to slide the lacy garment off and toss it to the side. When he resumed kissing her, though, he didn’t return his lips to hers.

  Instead, he placed little kisses all the way down her neck and chest, continuing to move further down her body until he had sucked first one and then the other of her nipples into his hot mouth.

  He suckled on them gently and played with the stiff peaks with his tongue, swirling around them and flicking them in turn.

  Luna couldn’t believe how close to coming she felt, and Connor hadn’t even moved his mouth down below her waist yet. It was a real nod to the power of chemistry, that was for sure.

  But, then again, it also didn’t hurt that he had a very talented tongue.

  Then, just when she thought that the pleasure couldn’t get any more intense, he upped the ante by taking each nipple in between his teeth and giving them playful little bites.

  With each small nip of his teeth, she felt a shudder rocket through her that was unbelievable. It was almost as if she was losing control of the muscles in her legs and arms, that was how violently they trembled and shook.

  “Ah!” she cried, the scream tearing from her throat and rocketing into the air in the bedroom. Just hearing the sound of her own voice, sounding so unlike her normal self, caused fresh waves of pleasure to crash over her.

  Yeah. Other people could use music as the soundtrack to their erotic adventures. She’d take the sound of her own screams of pleasure any day.

  As she was still reeling from the feelings that Connor’s mouth on her breasts had sent through her, he upped the intensity yet again by sliding his hand down inside her panties and parting her lips with his fingers.

  The shudders that went through her in time with the gentle strokes of his fingertips up and down her slit were earth-shaking, and her breath was now coming in nothing but short gasps for air.

  “Oh my God, it feels so good,” she moaned. “Please don’t stop touching me. Never stop touching me.”

  The words spilled from her mouth without the filter of conscious thought behind them. They were just the semi-formed ramblings of a brain that had been short-circuited by erotic pleasure, but she didn’t even feel embarrassment over them. In fact, she felt empowered to do and say anything that felt natural.

  That’s how comfortable she was with Connor. That’s how well they knew each other, and how much she knew that he would care for her and protect her...no matter what semi-literate sentence fragments came tumbling out of her mouth in the heat of the moment.

  Hell, maybe even because of them!

  By the time his two fingers plunged inside of her, she was so primed for the invasion that her inner walls clamped down on them immediately.

  The friction that created as he moved his fingers inside her was perfection, and brought her straight to the brink of climax.

  Every single one of her nerve endings snapped to attention with every stroke of his fingers inside her, every slight movement of his palm against her mound. She knew that just the tiniest feather-light stroke in the right place—either physical or mental—would be enough to send her spinning off into the stratosphere.

  She relaxed her head into the pillow and just let the sensations wash over her. She wasn’t going to try to hold back, and by the same token, she wasn’t going to try to force it. She was just going to let her body respond in its own time and way.

  As soon as she released the reins on that last small holdout area, deciding to let her body rather than her mind be in charge, she discovered that that was the final piece of the puzzle—the feather-light trigger that would send her rocketing over the edge.

  She arched her back as the climax tore through her, yet another wild cry tearing from deep within her chest, and dug her fingernails into Connor’s back.

  Although the brain-melting quality of the orgasm kept her from being aware of much, she did have a vague thought in the back of her brain as her nails sunk into his flesh: that she kind of liked the idea of leaving her mark on him. Of “branding” him as hers...although the next time she wanted to leave some physical evidence of herself on him, maybe she’d choose something a little less painful. Like a hickey.

  When all of the pleasure-scattered pieces of her brain converged back into conscious awareness, she opened her eyes and saw Connor looking at her, smiling with gentle affection.

  She returned the smile, a little embarrassed after having been so uninhibited. “Were you watching me?”

  He nodded. “Your face. It’s so expressive. That’s one of the reasons I love making you feel good. You don’t even have to tell me that I am. Your face tells me everything.”

  She flushed with pleasure. It was one of her favorite things, when Connor said something so intimate and personal to her. Something that showed how well he knew her, and how deeply they were connected.

  She wanted to give him everything in that moment, was so deeply moved by the desire to make him feel the same depth of pleasure and connection that he had just given to her that she didn’t even wait until her breathing had completely slowed or the rivulets of sweat had stopped running from her hairline to make the next move. She simply had no patience for it.

  Instead, she sat up and, without a word, started taking his clothes off, undressing him the same way that he’d done to her. After all, if she was going to let him know how he’d just made her feel by returning the favor, so to speak, that wasn’t something that was going to get done with his clothes still on.

  Chapter 24

  Connor

  Holy shit, was there any feeling in the world that could rival this one—of Luna taking off his clothes with her adept but trembling fingers? He didn’t think so.

  His cock was so hard that she had to tug and work the fabric around to get his boxer briefs off over it.

  When it was finally free, she eyed it hungrily, even letting out a low-pitched purr, like she was a tigress eyeing a fresh piece of meat. Which, he guessed, in a way was kind of true.

  When she had him completely naked, she dropped to her knees. He could tell by the look of pure longing in her eyes that she was every bit as eager to get his cock into her mouth as he was to thrust it in there.

  God, his muscles were shaking so much that he wasn’t sure how much longer he could stay on his feet.

  As if she’d re
ad his mind, she pushed him back onto the bed, and he fell onto it, bouncing a little as his ass hit the springs.

  She was on him then, pouncing like a wild animal. Damn. Something had really gotten into her tonight, he thought. Something that had invaded her spirit with wild, jungle energy. And, fuck, he was all about it.

  Her mouth lowered to the head of his dick and she closed her lips around it, slowly sliding her mouth down his shaft until finally he was pressed right up against the back of her throat, and she’d taken all of him in that she could take.

  She held still for a moment and the tension he felt building up in his body was almost more than he could take. He’d never forgive himself if he busted a nut right then and there, before she’d really even done anything except close her mouth around him, but fuck she wasn’t making it easy to resist.

  Finally, she started up a slow sucking rhythm with her lips and tongue. His throat closed as the pleasure overtook him. Fuck, he really didn’t know how much longer he was going to be able to stand this. It was like she knew his body instinctively. Like she was somehow psychically connected to his deepest desires.

  He opened his eyes to look down at her. He wanted to get the visual of her head bobbing up and down on his shaft, and what he saw didn’t disappoint.

  At the moment his eyes focused on her, she pulled her head up and traced her lips back over his shaft ever so slowly, then swirled her tongue around the head of his dick before lowering her mouth back down to the base of his dick again.

  She repeated the sequence, and then did it again, never gaining speed but rather maintaining her maddeningly slow pace until he felt like he just might roar—and not from pleasure, either, but frustration.

  When he’d reached the absolute edge of his ability to deal with the achingly slow pace of her strokes, he started thrusting himself upward as her head moved down, meeting her halfway. Before he knew it, the building excitement had run away with him and he raced ahead of her pace, setting a new one of his own—a much more frantic one.