“No, I mean. The gift. Did you get the gift wrapped?”
As I grasped his meaning, my eyes darted toward Dani moving away to speak with Sasha. “Shhhh. Holy shit, Captain Subtle. Yeah, it’s tucked away.”
“She can’t hear a thing,” Ian muttered. He dropped his voice and leaned closer. “Where’d you hide it?”
“Nadir and Juni brought the oven and installed it while we were all here. As for the main gift, Taylor and Jada have been hiding it since I figured Sophia wouldn’t keep her mouth shut. He’s gonna come by in the morning when I plan to surprise her.”
Ian leaned back and smiled. Something about his smug face made me uncertain. Wary.
“What?”
“Nothin’.”
“You know something,” I accused.
“Nothin’ you need to know. Carry on.” Wearing a lopsided grin, Ian ambled off to catch his wife in a hug around her waist. She swatted him for startling her from behind.
When I located Dani again, I saw her standing in a huddle with Sasha and Jada. Their voices were too low for my shifter’s hearing to pick out above the holiday music — not that I would intentionally eavesdrop on their conversation.
Something’s going on.
Dani had bought something for me, too. Something the rest of my teammates were in on.
As the hour grew late, our party dwindled down until only Dani and I remained at Ian’s. The girls handled the kitchen clean-up while Ian and I picked up the living room. The lack of childish giggles prompted me look around in search of the children. Of all the things I learned as a new parent, the golden rule was to treat silence with suspicion.
“Where’s Mateo?” I asked, confused. “Y’all see where he got off to?”
“He was here a moment ago,” Dani said. “Seriously only a minute ago.”
“Oh, calm down. He’s still here in the house somewhere. The door alarm beeps whenever it opens,” Ian said to placate us.
We searched under the Christmas tree, the dining room table, and even peeked into the guest room where Mateo had once hid beneath the bed with a box of graham crackers.
“Aww,” Leigh said from the doorway of Sophia’s bedroom. She waved me over. “Russ, look.”
I stepped into her little girl’s room to find my son tucked beside Sophia in her toddler bed. I grinned. “Smart kid.”
“May as well let him stay overnight. I know it’s Christmas and all, but no point in taking him out into the cold when he’s safe and warm here.”
“You sure? I hate to stick you with two excited kids come morning time.”
“Tell you what, leave our present for him here. If he wakes up before you get here he’ll have something to open,” Leigh suggested.
Dani hugged her friend. “Thanks. We’ll owe you two a child-free night.”
We said our goodbyes and returned home, bundled up against the chilly night. My breath frosted in the air with each exhale and the dying grass crunched beneath our feet.
“Feels like it might frost tonight.”
“I told you the weather report warned about it.” Dani snuggled in closer beneath my arm. Our walk was short, at least, only about a half mile by the road. Warm air wrapped us in its heated embrace the moment we stepped inside.
“Home at last.” Dani shrugged off her coat.
Trigger didn’t leave his heated bed to greet us. On cold nights, my aging dog moved as stiffly as any elderly human man.
And it broke my heart to see him in pain. I’d trained him to remain in bed instead of rushing over to greet us, and sometimes, I thought I saw the appreciation in his big brown eyes.
“Hey, boy.”
We received an enthused tail wag and gentle whine, then Trigger laid his head down again to return to sleep. Dani crouched beside him and scratched his ears.
“Merry Christmas, big guy. We’ll see you in the morning.” She rose and headed for the kitchen. “Want some cocoa?”
I caught her around the waist and spun her in a 180 before she made it through the doorway. “Nope, only you.” My palm slipped down to glide over her ass.
“Don’t you wanna get warmed up?”
I grinned down at her. “I can think of better ways to warm up, sweetheart.”
She slanted a gaze up at me through her lashes, a coy smile playing across her lips. “We do have an empty house for a change.”
“That we do.”
I needed to touch more of her, unfulfilled with a mere grope or squeeze of her covered rear. I kneaded the handful I’d claimed, squeezing it and pressing her close to my stiffening cock.
With my other hand, I followed the silhouette of her body in the tight dress then hiked it up to pull the garment over her head. Although Dani wore light padding in her bras, I felt the stiffening nipple beneath straining for freedom when my fingers returned to the satin cup.
I couldn’t see them yet, but I knew the panties beneath her leggings had to match her bra. Red satin trimmed in black lace fit snugly over her upper torso, containing full breasts I hungered to take in my mouth.
It didn’t take much effort to coax Dani into the bedroom. With her kitchen plans forgotten, I kissed her hard, sucking the tip of her tongue when it slipped forward between my lips. Throughout the walk home, anticipation for spending time alone with my mate had left me in a state of semi-arousal. As her fingers skimmed my zipper, it changed to a full-fledged hard on, throbbing beneath her touch and yearning to be set free.
I groaned into Dani’s mouth and playfully nibbled her lower lip. “I love you and I love the family we’ve made here, Dani. You’re the best thing to ever happen to me.”
“And you’re the best thing to happen to me, Russ.” She continued to press her fingers against the bulge in my slacks, teasing over it in up and down swipes, feeling the hardened outline.
My deceased wife Katie would always hold a special place in my heart, but my Dani and Mateo had become my future. They’d given me a second chance at happiness.
“Let’s have another one, Dani. You asked me a couple weeks ago about what I want for Christmas. That’s it. I want us to make another baby, as long as you want it, too. I want you off the pill.”
FOUR
Dani
“Another baby?”
“A little brother or sister for Mateo.”
Russ slid one of his hands over my clothed thigh, his touch leaving a heated trail even through the fabric. Desire struck like a jolt, originating from his palm and centering straight toward my aching core. My panties dampened, and from the way Russ’ nostrils flared, he knew it.
“Tell me you want the same thing, Dani. Tell me what you think.”
“You know what I think.”
“Maybe so. Doesn’t mean I don’t wanna hear you say it.”
“I love you, Russ.” My fingers crawled up his shirt, releasing each button I encountered along the way. “Our family means everything to me, and I want to add to it. It’s just…”
“What is it, Dani?” His large palm curved against my cheek.
“You promised me you were retired and finished with all of this top secret agent stuff. I’m so proud of you for doing so much to keep our country safe, but I worry. I worry every time you’re gone that this’ll be the time you don’t come back.”
Russ shook his head. “I know I promised, and I felt bad every time something popped up needing my expertise, but when I tell you it’s over this time, I mean it. This is the end of it, Dani. The absolute end, darlin’. Ian talked to the bigwigs in D.C. and told them he and I were officially retiring from active work. We even found a new guy to take my place. Maybe he’s a little green, but eager to get his feet wet. I may help with training now and again, but it’ll always be stateside. I’m a desk man now, just like Ian.”
“You’re okay with that?” I whispered, hardly daring to believe.
“Sweetheart, I‘m more than okay with it. My place is here, with you and Mateo. You’re my home.”
Grabbing twin fistfuls of his o
pen shirt, I pulled him down to me for a searing kiss, his full lips against mine. Russ tasted like eggnog laced with brandy over the subtle, familiar flavor that was all him and him alone. His tongue swept into my mouth as he took control.
A stark difference separated my husband’s usual personality from his wilder side. Once he cut loose and released the bear inside of him, he underwent a rapid change. It dulled his tender nature until the restraint was lost, leaving behind a frenzied, lust-hungry man in place.
As he dragged black cotton leggings down my thighs, a few stitches popped at the seam. He moved with haste, rumbling low in his chest. The sound alone tightened my core and sent a delicious zing straight to my clit. I burned with need for him, twisting on the bed in a rush to undress.
The bear in Russ became wild, a hungry and eager creature with strong, dominating hands. I didn’t have the chance to wiggle out of my cheery, scarlet and black holiday panties. He tore them and bared my freshly-waxed mound. Smooth skin made every second of contact hypersensitive, my body responsive to even the warm breath exhaled over my dampening skin.
“Russ,” I whispered.
When we’d bonded as mates, Russ had been unaware of what his bear was doing, following his animalistic instincts. I couldn’t remember much beyond earth-shattering, heart-stopping sex and almost passing out against the kitchen counter. Table. Wherever we’d done it.
“I want you to recall every second of this,” he muttered against my thighs. He followed his words with a sharp nip.
As I lay sprawled on our bed, I took immense pleasure watching Russ strip from his party clothes. Dark slacks fell to the floor, leaving him clothed in only a forest green flannel shirt and his snowman boxers. He shrugged the former off to reveal his chiseled upper torso. Broad shoulders and powerful biceps bulged with muscle, my husband the model of masculine perfection from head to toe.
He yanked my bra down, spilling my left breast from the cup. The rounded, heavy globe bounced and quivered, exposure to the cool air tightening its tender peak. He circled the tip of his index finger around my areola while holding eye contact with a smoldering gaze.
Enthusiasm made me so hot for my husband, moisture gathered rapidly in my core, making my center ache for relief. I wanted to feel his hands on my breasts. His mouth on my tight nipples. His cock thrusting inside me to reclaim what was his.
I shifted on the bed, eagerly moving toward the middle, but Russ seized me by the thighs and dragged me to the edge as he lowered down and crouched.
“Oh, God,” I breathed out. My stomach filled with nervous, expectant flutters as he dropped to one knee.
Everything about making love to a shifter tended to become primal and raw, their personalities wrapped in their animalistic psyches. He breathed in my scent, inhaling deeply as his nose skimmed over my skin and his strong fingers curled over the tops of my thighs. When the first glide of his tongue teased over my lower lips, he had to hold me in place. I trembled with anticipation.
“I love the taste of you, darlin’,” he breathed out. He exhaled over my slick folds, a precursor of things to come.
He licked me everywhere but where I wanted it most. I curled my fingers in his thick hair and tried to nudge him toward my desire, but he resisted my efforts. Russ’ warm breath huffed across my delicate flesh, parting my labia before delving within my pussy. His tongue plunged in and out with deft thrusts, but even his skilled strokes barely fulfilled a fraction of what I wanted.
I had to have his cock. I pictured the long and thick stiffness of it aching with his pulse, the sight of it long burned into my memory.
“Russ, please,” I begged. “I need you.”
“Patience.”
He made it sound so easy. I was burning up inside, like a fire had consumed part of my soul and begun to radiate outward from my clit. I whimpered softly, creating what had to be the most pitiful sound to ever leave my lips. “How do you do this to me?”
“Skill.”
I dragged in a few heavy breaths, twisted, and unfastened my bra, fumbling at first with the three hooks. Instantaneous relief swept over me, my breasts tender, nipples too stiff to tolerate the lace trim skimming against them.
“You have no idea how much I’m holdin’ back right now, darlin’.”
“Then don’t.”
Answering me with a teasing pet, Russ circled the pads of his index and middle finger over my nipple. Both erect peaks stood tight and pebbled, the tender brown flesh contrasting against his fairer skin when he leaned forward to take one into his mouth.
I had hoped the humid warmth would sooth me — it didn’t. He flicked the upraised point with his tongue and delivered a playful nip that sent pleasant tingles coursing through my nerves. By the time he mirrored his actions on the other breast, I was putty in his hands.
Heat bloomed at the apex of my thighs, where my clit throbbed with unyielding urgency. Russ had become a master at sensual torture, and he never missed a chance to keep me on the very edge. One inch at a time, he descended my body, lavishing kisses over my skin in a sensual trail from my sternum to the top of my slit.
My husband’s firm lips lowered to my clit and sealed around the tender button. Like a jolt of lightning had electrified my every nerve, I jerked in place. One strong hand slid up my body until his work roughened palm grasped my breast.
“Oh God, Russ. Don’t stop, baby. Please don’t stop.”
I was a bowstring ready to snap, tension pulling my body tight. My toes curled, my thighs quivered, and my heart slammed in my chest. Each breath rasped in and out from my lungs, desperate pants and mewling cries.
He pushed me over the edge with a flick of his tongue. I cried out and my entire body seized. Bright bursts of color filled my vision, pulsing in time with my orgasm. Russ never stopped, lapping up my juices like they were the sweetest honey.
“Russ?” I breathed out when he flipped me onto my stomach. One arm looped around my waist and dragged backward, lifting my ass and raising my stomach from the bed.
He nuzzled the back of my neck, his stubbled cheek chafing and tickling my skin. Something about the way Russ positioned behind me struck a sense of Déjà vu. Dominating and affectionate, two contrasting emotions emanating from my lover as he stroked over my puffy folds with his fingers then took his cock in one hand.
The tip of him glided between my legs down the wet crease of my swollen lips. I squirmed in place, imagining his steely girth filling me, stretching me, never tiring of how he felt once we joined.
In a single stroke, Russ seated his length inside me. We joined in a seamless fit, bodies attuned to each other and accustomed to our natural rhythm. His pelvis slapped against my ass, and the very tip of him nudged the back wall of my pussy. I was stuffed so completely, stretched around him like a glove molding to every veined inch of the heat throbbing inside me.
The last rippling spasms of my previous orgasm raced through my body as a new pressure built. Every thrust prolonged my pleasure, increased it, and drove me toward renewed ecstasy.
Russ tugged my hair back as he pounded my walls with quick and decisive strokes. The tight grip forced an arch to my back, bending my spine toward him. I saw us in the bureau mirror and the sight alone, my husband’s athletic frame covered in a thin sheen of sweat and muscles flexing, was enough to bring me close to a second climax. I groaned, but the lewd sound of our bodies crashing together drowned out the enraptured sound parting my lips.
“Russ!” I cried out. The tension wound with desperation, a tight wire stretched from my core to the tips of my toes, to my fingers and down my spine. “Please, baby!”
His balls tapped a methodic rhythm against my aroused clit. Noisy, wet collisions of our bodies told me I was near the breaking point. Another tug on my hair pulled me up away from the sheets when I began to sag toward the mattress, and then he nibbled my ear, his scruffy jaw reddening the skin at my throat.
“Come for me again, Daniela.”
“I don’t want to. Not yet.�
��
He groaned behind me and moved in a shallow rhythm, thrusting in and out of the clenching grip my body had formed.
“Fuck, you feel so good, Dani. You’re always so hot and tight for me, always the best I’ve ever felt.”
“I better be the only you ever feel.”
“Can’t imagine anyone. But. You.” He punctuated each of the last three words with a forward crash of his hips. “Only you.”
Everything shattered at once on the last stroke. I came undone and every nerve ending sizzled like bright sparks of electric fire. Rapture forced a keening cry from my lips as my clenching core exploded into molten heat.
My climax became wild and vivid aftershocks trembling through my pussy. The moment reduced me to a state of panting and writhing on the bed while I clamped around him in an impossibly snug grip. I couldn’t still the involuntary movements surging through the rest of me, my body charged with sensation beyond anything ever experienced since our lovemaking in his kitchen. The crystal clear memory of it had come back to me at once.
It continued as Russ achieved his release, painting my shuddering channel with his seed. The first hot burst startled me and intensified the experience.
“Russ,” I whispered amidst breathless pants.
My hair stuck against my sweaty skin, dark wisps drifting into my face. A few seconds passed, and it felt as if I’d only blinked, but my entire position had changed and I was no longer on my hands and knees.
Russ had sprawled on his back and gathered me against him, although I apparently didn’t notice he was moving me. Or care. What mattered was the security of his arms, his embrace warm, comforting, and protective. I burrowed into his muscular torso and pressed my face to the side of his neck.
“Leigh told me she passed out when Ian bonded to her,” I mumbled. “I was kind of jealous.”
“Heh, I don’t think I did it right last time. It wasn’t intentional anyway. I felt bad months later when I realized what I’d done without your permission.”
Sugar, Spice, and Shifters: A Touch of Holiday Magic Page 73
