Red Hot Santa

by Cherry Adair

  Protection. “Company?”

  Her nod was jerky as, for a few seconds, she concentrated on the wine she was swirling in her glass. Joe wondered if the woman ever relaxed. Hell. If she could relax. Filled with nervous energy, she eventually came to perch on the edge of a chair near the fire. Wired and ready to blow she twisted the stem of her glass between her fingers, then looked up to meet his eyes.

  “I’ve worked really hard overcoming this knee-jerk reaction every time I hear something behind me. A creak when the house settles, or when I see the glint of what I pray isn’t a knife.”

  Her gaze was steady as she looked at him. “I don’t want Dwight Treadwell to win, Joe. I don’t want to live in fear for the rest of my life because of what he did to me. I thought I’d done pretty well up until now. But knowing he’s somewhere out there—knowing that I’m no longer a random victim to him, but someone he specifically wants to kill—”

  “He won’t come within shouting distance of you, honey.” Joe kept his voice low and soothing, his gaze away from the frightened, erratic pulse of her heartbeat in her slender white throat. And that scar. Hell. “I won’t let you out of my sight for the duration. I promise.”

  Kendall rose and held out her hand. “Then come to bed with me, Joe. Keep me safe.”

  Chapter Five

  HER HEART POUNDED HARD AT HER BOLDNESS. BUT HER heart might as well be flatlining. When he didn’t take her outstretched hand she dropped it to her side, arranging her face into a mask of indifference. Her skin went sweaty and hot. Somehow she wasn’t surprised by his answer. The tightness in her chest made it hard to draw a normal breath. “Hey, don’t worry about it,” she told him brightly. “You’ll be sitting right there keeping guard while I sleep, right?”

  “Kendall—”

  She lifted her chin. His gaze flickered to her throat—the scar—then came back up to meet hers. All she read there was pity. An emotion she’d seen more times than she cared to remember. Thanks to Treadwell, she’d forever be the Surviving Victim. Little else seemed to matter to people. She almost remembered a time when people looked upon her with acknowledgment—praise even—for the way she’d picked herself up after her divorce. She’d made a life for herself—defined that life. And now that was gone. For good if that unwelcomed, familiar glint was any indication. “I know it’s early,” she inserted before he could come up with some lame excuse for not wanting to have sex with her. After all, what man would want to put his mouth anywhere near the red welt of a scar? It was a painful truth, one she wasn’t sure she could ever get used to. She added that to her mental list of reasons for wanting Treadwell to burn in hell.

  “But I might as well get in a few hours before we leave.” She fake-yawned. “Wake me when it’s time to go, okay?”

  The tremor she’d been battling since Joe had told her about Treadwell’s escape, intensified as she walked across the room to the high king-sized bed. Why was she mad at him? They didn’t know each other. He’d kissed her. So what? Probably just a mercy kiss—until he remembered the scar. She tossed the decorator pillows onto the floor with a little more gusto than was warranted, then pulled back the terra-cotta-colored velvet spread with jittery hands.

  She was nothing more than an assignment to him. A ship that passed in the night. A duty. Fully dressed, she climbed under the covers, lay on her side, and curled into a ball. Her fingers went to her neck. The scar always throbbed when she thought about that night.

  She usually slept naked, and while the leggings were thin, the sweater wasn’t. She was uncomfortable. She also felt antsy, annoyed, and sorry for herself, all of which pissed her off. She didn’t know who she was madder at: Treadwell for creeping back into her life like the rodent he was, or Joe for tempting her, but not being tempted enough by her, or herself for—she didn’t know for what. Which annoyed her even more.

  It was too early to sleep. She wasn’t even close to sleepy anyway. She lay still. Not moving, not twitching, not showing Joe that she was awake. That lasted, oh, sixty seconds. She had to straighten the uncomfortably riding up sweater. Then her legging twisted. . . .

  The room was warm, but she burrowed under the blankets anyway. Blocking out the flickering light. And Joe. She wanted to bury her head like an ostrich. The problem was, when she came up for air, the situation would be exactly the same.

  She tried to concentrate on just how damn freaking uncomfortable she was, trying to sleep in her clothes. There were only two other subjects to mull over, ponder, dissect, and agonize about. Joe. Or Treadwell.

  One aggravated her but made her feel protected. The other downright terrified her and made her painfully aware of how vulnerable she was.

  Would she ever believe herself completely safe? God, she hoped so. She’d done every single thing her therapist had told her would help. She’d taken self-defense classes, bought a gun, made sure she knew how to use it and when to use it. She’d faithfully gone to counseling for months afterward.

  A violent criminal victimization is a real-life classical conditioning experience in which being attacked is an unconditioned stimulus that produces unconditioned responses of fear, anxiety, terror, helplessness, pain, and other negative emotions. Any stimuli that are present during the attack are paired with the attack and become conditioned stimuli capable of producing conditioned responses of fear, anxiety, terror, helplessness, and other negative emotions.

  Intellectually she knew she’d be in a much better position to defend herself. This time. But her body was reacting as though she were once again in danger and under siege. Her teeth began chattering. How could she be sweating and cold at the same time? A sob broke through the tight constriction of her throat and tears scalded her cheeks as she curled into a fetal position and hugged herself. Oh, God. She was so tired of being afraid.

  “Hey now, what’s this?” Joe sat down beside her, peeling back the covers from over her head. “Ah, hell, honey. Come here.”

  She smacked his hand away, when what she really wanted to do was curl his fingers against her face and draw him to her. “Leave m-me alone.”

  “I wasn’t rejecting you, honey. It was just that—”

  Kendall punched him in the arm. Hard. “You egotistical—jerk. If I wanted some guy to sleep with me, I wouldn’t have to p-pay him.”

  In a quick move he hauled her out from under the cavern of blankets and into his lap, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. “Pay someone to sleep with you?” He sounded genuinely taken aback by her tear-choked comment. Stroking her hair gently, he whispered against her ear in warm waves of hot, moist breath. “From my vantage point, I’d say you’ve got the opposite problem. I’m considering demanding a bonus for my self-restraint.”

  Kendall pressed her face to his shoulder, curling her arms around his neck. Which made her one sad, pathetic puppy. She’d give him another hour or two to comfort her, then she’d tell him to go straight to hell. She neither wanted nor needed pity.

  His arms tightened around her. “Shit, sweetheart, you’re shaking hard enough to break apart. I promised you I’d keep you safe, didn’t I?”

  “Your contract probably stipulates that you get paid, no matter what,” she said against his throat. The thought didn’t exactly fill her with confidence. But the strength of his arms around her did. Joe Zorn was big and solid and his large body seemed to surround her, making her feel very safe indeed.

  “Well, yeah. But that would look bad.” The smile in his husky voice shimmered through her body like an electrical current, closing the circuit they’d started in the kitchen. Her toes curled.

  “On the other hand,” he said, pushing damp hair off her face, then raising her chin so they were eye to eye. His expression was dead serious, his steely blue eyes steady as he said, “Did I ever mention what an overachiever I am? Hell, hate to lose at anything. Particularly hate to lose when a pretty girl’s involved in the equation. And sweetheart, you are the prettiest girl I’ve seen in a lifetime.”

  His head
lowered, and with a small sigh Kendall closed her eyes, parting her lips to welcome him.

  She wanted him with a strength and desperation that should have frightened her. Instead she relished the hungry exploration of his mouth on hers. He nibbled and teased, catching lightly at her lower lip with his teeth, then played over the little sting with a hot sweep of his tongue. Her breath hitched, but his lips drifted away to stroke a burning path across her cheek, pause over her closed lids, then return to her eagerly waiting mouth.

  She welcomed his tongue, silky-smooth and wet, against hers as he tasted her, the subtle strokes and forays made more thrilling by his control. He didn’t plunder. He didn’t grab. Instead he savored, which made Kendall feel cherished. It also made her temperature spike and her pulse race with anticipation. Nor was he immune himself; she felt the fine tremor riding through his body as Joe kissed her.

  He buried both hands in her long, wet hair, cupping the back of her head in one palm as he gently teased her mouth.

  She reciprocated by combing her fingers through the cool, silky strands of his dark hair. She scored her nails gently against his scalp, causing him to draw in an out-of-rhythm breath, but he didn’t stop what he was doing.

  Suddenly dizzy, she realized Joe had shifted them to a prone position, her head supported by his hand, his body sprawled half over hers. Even through two layers of clothing, his body burned with a furnace heat. His arms were like steel bands surrounding her. Not a cage, but a haven.

  “I want you more than my next breath.”

  And that breath, Kendall noticed, was gratifyingly ragged. A shudder ran through her body as his mouth crushed down on hers. She yanked and pulled at his sweater for what felt like an eternity until she was able to bunch it up, slip her hands underneath and strip it off of him.

  His chest was tanned, broad, and lightly furred by crisp dark hair. She rubbed her face against him like a cat. If she’d been capable of purring she would have. She struggled to reach his belt buckle, determined to get his pants off, but kept getting sidetracked by where next he was going to put his mouth on her.

  “Hold it. Hold it.” He levered his upper body off hers and she reached for him blindly. But he only wanted to pull her sweater over her head. “Did you make this?”

  “I’ll knit you one just like it if you hurry and get the blasted thing off me.” She tried to help, then realized rather muzzily that she was hindering him in her haste to be naked. She relaxed, letting him tug the garment over her head unimpeded. Hurry. Hurry!

  His eyes glittered as he stared down. Who knew when she’d dressed this morning that by evening she’d have a strange man staring at her bare breasts.

  He drew in a sharp breath.

  She’d forgotten the scars. She tried to pull her hair over her chest, but she couldn’t lift up her body enough to get it out from under her. Shit! She was lying on it.

  Before she could murmur a protest, he trailed a finger down the pale, velvety valley between her breasts and murmured thickly, “Beautiful.” And he didn’t care about the scars. A wild surge of emotion flooded her, and tears stung behind her eyelids.

  Kendall cradled his head in her hands. She brought his mouth down to hers, meeting his tongue thrust for thrust as his warm fingers closed around the cool globe of her breast. His thumb teased her nipple until it was rosy and hard. Gliding his palm down to span her rib cage, Joe lowered his head.

  The warm silk of his hair brushed her breasts as he opened his mouth, drawing a peak deep into the hot, wet cavern of his mouth. She let out a cry as he nipped his teeth delicately over the tight bud, then stroked it with his tongue. He paused to look up at her. “Don’t hide from me.” His voice was soft, thick with desire. “Every part of you turns me on. Every creamy inch of your body makes me hot. There’s not a part of you that I don’t want to touch. Taste.” His hands were everywhere.

  “Lift up— God,” he said reverently as he pulled her leggings off to expose a small triangle of sheer black lace. He placed his warm mouth on her mound, then lifted his head slightly so he could draw away the final barrier.

  “One of us is over . . . dressed,” she murmured as he brushed his slightly stubbled jaw across her lower belly. There were scars there, too. Thin white lines that she knew he could see in the dancing light of the lantern.

  His skin gleamed and she couldn’t resist sinking her fingers into the crisp dark hair that V’d from his chest down to a narrow ribbon to disappear into his jeans.

  She reached for his belt buckle again, but he saved her fumblings by standing to practically rip his pants off his body. The firelight behind him limned the dark silhouette of his body in bronze as he kicked off his boots before stripping. It was a spectacular show. He grabbed his pants up off the floor and dug in a pocket for his wallet. Kendall hadn’t given a single thought to birth control. He pulled out a small foil square.

  “You carry condoms around with you?” Not that she wasn’t eternally grateful, but the fact that he was such a Boy Scout gave her pause. Was he always ready for a quick lay? Worse yet—when had she become a quick lay?

  “Let me put it this way,” he told her stretching out beside her and pulling her back into his arms, the small package in his hand. “Condom. There’s no plural about it.” He trailed the foil up and over her breast making her nipple ache for a firmer, more personal, touch. “And this damn thing is so old I’m not going to guarantee its reliability. Still game?”

  Since he asked the question with his lips against her throat, and his hand sliding purposefully up her inner thigh, Kendall managed only to push out the word, “Now!” He brushed his lips around the curve of her ear, causing every nerve in her skin to come alive, and nudged her knees apart. “Is that an all systems go?”

  She wanted to say something clever and witty, but she barely had enough breath to demand, “I want you inside me. Now.” And just in case her urgency wasn’t coming through loud and clear, she slid her hand down his hip, then wrapped her fingers around his penis. He was hot, silky, and hard. She stroked her thumb over the head until he groaned. “I want to explore every glorious inch of you, Miss Metcalf, but that pleasure will have to—” He groaned as her fingers tightened around him, “—wait.”

  Like the rest of him, Joe was a big guy. He had big—hands. He slid two fingers inside her, moving them in intense circles, massaging and testing her readiness. Kendall shuddered, moving her hips against his hand in jerky, involuntary motion. She was wet, swollen, and desperate, and several stages beyond ready. “Talk about chatty—”

  With a huff of laughter, Joe withdrew his hand to settle his narrow hips between her spread knees. She had a moment’s pause to feel the sheer size of him—there—before he pushed inside.

  He hissed out a shuddering breath as he buried himself to the hilt in one powerful thrust, then lay still. And Kendall was grateful. The sensation of Joe inside her was so piercingly sweet, so monumental, that she couldn’t move either.

  “Okay?” he asked, voice rough against her ear.

  She smiled against his throat. “Better than.”

  “Wrap your legs around me.”

  “I was getting there,” she groused, her voice thick as he pushed himself impossibly deeper. She walked her heels up his back, feeling gloriously invaded, and kissed his jaw as he started to move.

  Pinned down by his not inconsiderable weight, her legs tightened as he moved his big, powerful body inside hers. She felt alive, supernaturally so as she ached and burned and shuddered in his arms.

  Their lovemaking transcended anything Kendall could ever have imagined even in her wildest dreams. Their bodies were perfectly matched. Yin and yang. The waves of pleasure crashed and churned until she went blind and deaf, her entire being focused on where they were joined. She was being helplessly urged higher and higher, impossibly higher, on a tidal wave of sensation.

  The wave broke, huge and powerful, flinging her into sweet oblivion.

  Chapter Six

  JOE ROSE AND PUL
LED ON HIS JEANS. HE DIDN’T HAVE TO explain why, and even though she was disappointed, Kendall didn’t have to ask. He handed her his sweater. “As much as I’d rather have you warm and naked, put this on. Hang on a sec—” He leaned over to brush a kiss to each breast before she covered them. It was sweet and silly and her heart swelled with emotion as she finished pulling his sweater down over her warm body.

  She closed her eyes briefly. The soft merino wool smelled of him. Joe sat beside her on the bed, using both hands to slowly draw her damp hair out from under the neckline.

  “Can you come back to bed?” Kendall asked hopefully. He was playing with her hair, lifting and dropping the long strands as if fascinated by the color and texture. Apparently there was a direct route from the hair follicles on her scalp to all her girl parts. She wanted him again with a need that surprised her.

  His hesitation was almost negligible before he stretched out beside her on top of the covers, tucking her against his side. Kendall rested her head on his chest and draped her arm over his waist. She snuggled her cheek against the crisp hair underlain by his hot skin. He smelled so incredibly good she wanted to bottle him.

  “Will you sleep?” she asked, letting her fingers explore the deep grove of his spine and the bands of taut muscles and satin-smooth skin of his back. Touching him was sheer pleasure.

  “Tomorrow. But you go ahead. You said you needed at least five hours to fire on all cylinders. You have time. Get some rest.” He reached over and repositioned his gun on the bedside table beside him, then pulled the covers up, tucking them around her back.

  Kendall found the perfect spot to rest her cheek in the curve of his shoulder. Joe glided his hand under the sweater to rub her back in slow, lazy circles and her muscles relaxed as she hovered close to sleep.

  It seemed as though she’d just closed her eyes, but she woke with a scream and bolted upright in bed. Disorientated and shaking, she looked around the dimly lit bedroom as if she’d never seen it before.