'Tis the Season to be Kissed

by Amy Andrews

  Tamara wasn’t sure how long had passed before she came out of her buzz and became conscious of the world around her again—the sound of wood popping in the fire, the wind howling outside, Luke nuzzling his nose and cheeks along a collarbone.

  She dropped her arms, freeing his head. “I told you I’d disgrace myself,” she murmured, her voice as smoky as the fire. “We’re not even undressed.”

  He chuckled against her neck, kissing the hollow at her throat. “That’s just round one.”

  Tamara shivered as the sexy promise in his words stirred the remnants of her orgasm, leaving her hungry for more. She pushed against his shoulders and he fell back against the rug again. “Yes. Where was I before you so rudely interrupted me with an orgasm that just about blew my head off?”

  He tapped his mouth. “About here, I think.”

  Tamara shook her head. “Oh no, I think I was about here,” she murmured, lowering her mouth to his nipple.

  He let out a muffled expletive and Tamara smiled as she flattened her tongue against him, lapping it back and forth until the nub hardened and she rubbed her teeth against it. He moaned and she repeated the process on the other side.

  “And I was definitely heading in this direction,” she muttered after he was panting and shifting beneath her, licking down lower, following the dip of muscle that bisected his flat abdomen, finding his belly button, teasing there for a while before heading south again.

  She got to his track pants and looked up at him. Their gazes met and held as she pushed both his pants and his boxer briefs down off his hips. His erection—which had already given her so much pleasure fully clothed—sprang free and she maintained eye contact as she deliberately licked her lips and murmured, “Mmm.”

  It looked exactly as it had felt. Thick and long and hard. Just. What. She. Needed.

  She swallowed against the sudden dryness of her throat as she tentatively touched her tongue to the firm head. The rapid contraction of his abdominal muscles and the swift harsh suck of breath stroked heat all over. It left her salivating for more and she opened her mouth to take all of him.

  Luke’s eyes rolled back as her hot mouth closed over him and her tongue laved his head, swirling around its girth repeatedly. His hand found her hair and he curled his fingers into it, groaning out loud as she took all that she could into her mouth and sucked hard up and down the length of him.

  Fuck!

  Every cell in his body sizzled in unison as if he’d been hit with an electric cattle prod.

  He’d died and gone to heaven. Then her fingers found his nipples, rubbing them as her mouth and tongue got into a dizzying rhythm. He swore again as he strained not to thrust his hips. Strained to think clearly.

  He really needed to stop this. Really, he did.

  As with her, it had been a long time, and too much more of this would lead to his own disgrace—somehow not quite as cute where men were concerned. And after nine months of masturbation, he wanted to be deep inside a woman, this woman, when he came.

  But goddamn it, it felt so freaking good!

  Then she cupped and squeezed him and it jolted to his loins like a thunderclap. “No, no, no,” he said, dragging her back up his body, flipping her onto her back, kicking out of his track pants as he went. She looked up at him with a glaze to her smoky eyes and a mouth moist and wet from kissing and licking and sucking, and he wanted to tear her jeans off and bury himself inside her.

  “But I was just getting started,” she protested.

  He grimaced. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  And then he kissed her, hard and deep and wet just as she liked it, and she whimpered against his mouth. With her arms around his neck, he lost himself in the sighs and the moans and the taste of her.

  His hand drifted to her breasts. She arched her back as he stroked his fingers over the dusky tips, gratified as they puckered beneath his touch. His mouth followed, craving their taste as his hand brushed lower, finding the button and zip of her jeans, deftly dispensing with them, pushing beneath the band of her underwear to find the lush heat at her core.

  “Luke,” she cried out, arching her back as he dipped into the moistness, finding the nub as hard as the nipple in his mouth, stroking his finger over it.

  She shook her head, crying out again in protest. “No,” she panted, reaching her hand down to his and he felt her firm grasp pulling on his wrist. “I’ll...I can’t...if you do that I’ll...I need you in me.”

  He released his delicious mouthful and smiled at her, his finger still stroking her despite the grip of her hand. “Later,” he murmured against her mouth. “After.”

  And then he kissed her again. Her hand slackened from his wrist and she made a little whimpering sound that went straight to his dick. In a few strokes her hips moved restlessly against his hand. His breathing thickened as he sensed her agitation, his pulse ratcheting off the scale.

  “Oh God,” she gasped against his mouth. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

  She bucked beneath his hand and he looked down at her as she came. Her eyes shut, her head thrown back, her mouth gaping. “You’re beautiful,” he said, and his mouth returned to hers, greedily swallowing her cries, his desire feeding on them, stoking his own.

  He kissed her as she jerked wildly and clutched convulsively at his arms. He kissed her until she quieted and then he pulled back, dropping lighter kisses on her nose and cheeks and forehead. Her eyes fluttered open and they looked soft and dreamy, her pupils enormous.

  “You want to move this to the bed?” he asked.

  “Can’t move,” she murmured. “I think I just burst a blood vessel in my brain.”

  He laughed, his hand tracing patterns over her belly now. “That’s why they call it mind-blowing.”

  She smiled at him and his lips tingled as she traced his mouth with her fingertip. “You know the kindergarten teacher in me thinks it’s only fair that I”—her hand found his aching erection and grasped it firmly—“share such a pleasurable experience with my playmate.”

  Luke sucked in a breath as she ran her thumb around the sensitive underside of his head. “I couldn’t agree more,” he murmured, breathing hard as he met her kiss halfway, a surge of lust fueling his ardor as she sucked up his kisses and palmed him mercilessly.

  He broke away as heat spiraled to his loins and dug urgent fingers deep into his buttocks. He pushed himself to his feet before he did something really stupid and drove himself into her with no protection.

  Condoms. Now!

  “Hey,” she protested, looking up at him with those dreamy eyes again, and she looked so damn wanton lying there naked from the waist up, her zipper undone, her underwear on display, the firelight playing across her dusky nipples, her damn pink toes begging to be sucked.

  “Condoms,” he said, thinking of the box he’d bought at an airport drugstore about a thousand hours ago now.

  Tamara heaved in a breath at the pure beauty of him, his erection, standing thick and proud, adding to his potency. And then he turned away and she was given a view from the back that was just as magnificent.

  Not even the addition of a Scrabble tile detracted from it. She laughed. “You have an m stuck to your butt.” He looked over his shoulder. “Mmmm,” she teased. “Very appropriate.”

  He smiled as he flicked it off then frowned down at her. “Don’t just lie there,” he said as he riffled through his duffel bag. “Take those damn jeans off.”

  Tamara was surprised her jeans hadn’t just fallen off under the heat of his gaze. But she didn’t argue, wriggling out of the fabric and her underwear as quickly as a pair of skinny jeans allowed in a horizontal position. She felt her whole body flush as he stopped to watch her every wiggle. His breath hissed out when she finally lay completely naked before him, his nostrils flaring as he whispered, “Nice. Very nice.”

  And then she opened her arms to him and he was on top of her, their limbs entwined, their mouths fused. She was ready, more than ready, opening to him immediately,
moaning as he settled between her hips and rising to meet him as he pushed inside her, hard and big and perfect and so damn good after so long.

  They found a rhythm right away, building and building, stoking and stoking until they were both panting and ready and sweating from the heat of the fire and the blaze of their passion, clinging to each other, and she was begging him for release, begging him to come. When he placed his hand between them and touched her where he’d touched her twice already, she came apart in an instant. He kissed her as he followed, roaring out his pleasure.

  Blood throbbed through her head and surged in her belly and the pulse of it was a like a wave that pounded and pounded and pounded against the shore until it rippled and ebbed and gentled to a soothing lap in the shallows and they collapsed against each other, exhausted from the ride.

  The fire was lower when Tamara woke a little while later, her back snuggled into his front.

  “Good, you’re awake,” he murmured against her neck, his fingers stroking lazily along her hip. She could feel his erection thick and hard, nestled against her bottom.

  She squirmed against him. “And so are you.”

  She felt his smile against her shoulder. “Are you freaking out?” he asked.

  Tamara shook her head. She wasn’t. Strangely it felt very right here in his arms. “No. Are you?”

  “Nope,” he said, and it was so sure and calm and certain she believed him.

  “Why,” he murmured a couple of minutes later, breaking the mesmerizing spell of the fire, “are we lying on this hard floor when right through there is that big old feather bed?”

  “Beats me,” she said, stretching languorously. “Of course I don’t think I’m capable of walking...”

  He laughed. “I can help you with that.”

  And before she knew it he’d picked her up fireman-style and slung her over his shoulder. She squealed and he swatted her playfully on the butt. She returned the favor, seeing as how she had a bird’s-eye view of his magnificent cheeks.

  In four strides, they were at the bed. He tossed her on top, and she felt her belly heat and her nipples scrunch as he looked down at her like he was deciding which part to devour first. It was a look that stripped her even more naked than she was. It took her right back to basics and ripped away all her inhibitions.

  “Come to Georgia’s party with me,” he said.

  Tamara’s heart kicked in her chest. She wanted to, she really did. But it could go a hundred kinds of wrong. “I don’t have time in my life for a guy who’s just looking for some company on New Year’s Eve and a date to his sister’s birthday bash.”

  “That’s not me,” he said.

  “Luke...”

  “There’s more to this than a one-night stand and a family party, Tamara, and I think you know that.”

  She wanted to believe him. She could face any potential fallout from Georgia if Luke was by her side. “Are you sure? I’m sick of men who aren’t.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Tamara felt the shell she’d built around herself this last year crack wide open. She believed him. He was standing buck naked in front of her and it was like she could see right into his soul. And hell if he wasn’t utterly magnificent inside and out. Heat flared and sizzled like New Year’s Eve fireworks along already-sensitized nerve endings.

  “Luke...?” She placed her foot on his bare thigh.

  He quirked an eyebrow. “I see some dirty in your eyes.”

  Tamara blushed at his accuracy and smiled hesitantly. “Do you think you could...maybe...call me ma’am...next time we...?”

  She held her breath for the two seconds it took for his broad devilish grin and hot Lucifer gaze to pin her to the bed.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he murmured.

  And he proceeded to do so. Well into the night and a brand new sparkly year.

  Acknowledgments

  It’s very difficult for a girl from the Australian tropics to write a snowy Christmas story when my December reality is forty-degree heat and lots of lolling around in a pool. Add to that two American characters and I was a little out of my depth. So I must thank the team from Entangled for helping me to keep both the setting and the characterization authentic. There was many a funny “what does that mean?” e-mail from both sides as we navigated our two different kinds of “English.” Particular thanks to Liz Pelletier, who was so enthusiastic about this project, and to Heather Howland, my champion.

  I’d also like to acknowledge the American country music band Lady Antebellum, whose version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” was the trigger for the online brainstorming session where the four books in this anthology grew wings. I saw them as the opening act for Keith Urban when they came to Brisbane and it’s great to see them coming back to Australia with their own tour. Love their music!

  Lastly I’d like to wish all the lovely readers out there a happy and peaceful festive season. We write for you!

  About the Author

  Amy Andrews is an award-winning romance writer who has written 32 romances for Harlequin. She wrote her first book at the age of 22 whilst unemployed and freezing her butt off in the UK, largely because it allowed her to stay in bed with her electric blanket. One 12-year apprenticeship later, she finally got “the call.”

  To date, she’s sold a million books and been translated into thirteen different languages. In 2010, she won the Sexy category in the prestigious Australian Romantic Book of the Year Awards, affectionately known as the R*BY.

  In what she euphemistically likes to call her spare time, she works part-time as a pediatric intensive care nurse and was on the national executive board for Romance Writers of Australia for six years, during which time she organized two national conferences and undertook a two-year term as president.

  She’s been married for twenty-two years and has two teenagers who only admit to her being a writer when they have to explain to their friends why there’s no food in the house. She lives on acreage on the outskirts of Brisbane with a gorgeous mountain view.

  Keep your Indulgence going with these classic contemporary romances...

  A Cinderella Christmas Carol by Hope Tarr

  There’s nothing Starr Starling hates more than Christmas. She just wants the holiday to end, but when she wakes up Christmas Eve night to the ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Future—all in the form of the super-hot Matt Landry, the new art director—and her off-limits employee—she knows she’s in for a long night. Though he’s seven years younger and all kinds of forbidden fruit, he’s the form the Powers That Be decided she’d be receptive to. Because they have a message for her: learn the true meaning of Christmas spirit or risk being alone for the rest of her life.

  The Billionaire’s Christmas Baby by Victoria James

  A baby on the doorstep is the least of Hannah Woods’s problems—she has to find the baby’s uncle, or the child will end up in foster care. She sleuths her way to the reclusive CEO’s doorstep only to find six feet of holiday sexy—and a door slammed in her face. But when Jackson comes around and urges they marry for little Emily’s sake, Hannah finds herself falling for the jaded billionaire and wishing for a holiday miracle of their own…

  His Unexpected Family by Robyn Thomas

  Newly widowed with a new baby, Ren Jamieson is putting her life back together after her thrill-seeking husband’s death. But when she’s called to show a high-end property to a prospective client—a commission she desperately needs—she meets a man who makes her pulse pound like nothing she’s ever known… Torn between her growing feelings for Cole and the risks of loving yet another adventurer, Ren will have to choose between keeping her feet on the ground…and taking the most dangerous leap of her life.

  Holiday Affair by Annie Seaton

  Staid professor Lissy McIntyre believes that choosing a mate should be based on common sense, not runaway passion. And Lissy would certainly never pick a rolling stone like Nick Richards for long-term love. But a red-hot, tropical romance? Oh, yeah. He’s got a b
ody just made for sinning and his sizzling kisses leave her senseless. But what will happen when she discovers that her new neighbor and co-worker is the same man she shared one night of forbidden island pleasure with?