Baby It's Cold Outside

by Heidi Rice

  “I can’t believe,” he said as he laid his five tiles against the k, “you haven’t been kissed,” he emphasized as the tiles spelled out the word, “in a whole year.”

  Her gaze flew to his. The triumphant sparkle had disappeared as her eyes went all smoky—simmering with a heat that he figured had precious little to do with the fire.

  “Oh they’ve tried,” she murmured as she dragged her attention back to her stand and he watched as she used his d to make the word.

  He grinned. “I bet they have.” He used the t from tried and scored cool double points on the b.

  “Hey,” she protested. “No three-letter words. They limit the possibilities on the board.”

  Luke tutted. “That’s a shame, there are so many great three-letter words,” he smiled. “Like...sex and...yes,” he suggested. “What about four-letter words? Are they allowed? I know a few really good four-letter ones, too.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll just bet you do.” Then she sighed and he could see the conflict turning her gaze from smoky to stormy. “I have an f word,” she murmured. “Don’t flirt,” she lay the tiles down using the i in tried, “with me.” She crossed her arms. “I warn you, I obviously have no standards at the moment.”

  He grinned. “Ah, easy,” he teased. “Another great four-letter word.”

  She looked insulted for a moment but then she smiled, a sparkle coming back into her eyes as she leveled a playful punch on his shoulder. Which wouldn’t have been too cataclysmic had she withdrawn her hand right away and not looked at his shoulder like she might like to lick it. But her fingers lingered, and even through his shirt he could feel her touch right down to muscles deep inside his belly. They pulled at invisible strings that led directly to his groin.

  He drew in a ragged breath as time seemed to stop. His dick, still on army time, stood instantly to attention. He was thankful for the overhang of his T-shirt because his track pants sure as hell hid nothing. Then she dragged her hand away and the moment passed, but things had definitely shifted and he couldn’t help thinking they’d turned in his favor.

  Tamara struggled to keep the game clean as the clock above the mantelpiece marched toward midnight, but it was difficult when her opponent seemed to find a suggestive word on his stand every round.

  Come, breast, touch, and moan were all on the board taunting her. When talk and dirty followed each other in quick succession, she glanced at him sharply and the sudden smolder in his gaze seemed to have leaped directly from the fire. Her throat was parched and she pulled at the material around her neck as the air around her grew thick and sludgy. Thank goodness she’d shed the lei before they’d begun.

  “Hot?” he asked, and she wasn’t fooled by the innocent inquiry.

  Tamara slapped an n next to an o on the board and glared at him as she said, “No.”

  “Hey, two letters.” There was a smile in his eyes and he looked so damn sexy she wanted to grab his face and lay one right on his mouth, midnight be damned. “That’s no way to build a board.”

  Tamara didn’t care. She was hot. Very hot. So help her, she wanted to strip all her clothes off, and the glint in his eyes told her he knew it.

  “I’m still open to strip Scrabble if you want to lose a couple of layers. Or that massage. You seem a little tense.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Your turn.”

  Tamara was grateful when he returned his frank gaze to his letters. He seemed to stare for an age at his tiles and she started to get nervous at what exactly was running through his head. Then he lifted those blue eyes and speared her with a look she was fast coming to recognize as trouble. Her pulse rate trebled as the seconds ticked by.

  “Luke?” she prompted. The words felt tight and rough in her Cheeto-dry throat.

  “My turn?” he murmured. “Okay.” Then in one swift move he whipped his T-shirt up and over his head.

  Tamara stared at him flabbergasted. “Luke,” she squeaked.

  “My letters were crap,” he said innocently as he ditched them and plucked new ones from the pool. “It was my penalty. Plus…” He paused. “I was hot.”

  Oh Jesus, was he ever.

  The mature, responsible thing to do would have been to tell him to get dressed immediately, but firelight on acres of broad, tanned chest was too damn distracting and Tamara’s eyes demanded she take full advantage. Her fingers itched to join them.

  “Your turn.”

  Tamara dragged her gaze back to his face. “Wha...?” she asked, trying to clear a heavy fog from her mind and a jettison of hormones flooding her belly and rushing to the apex of her thighs.

  He smiled at her. “Your turn,” he repeated as if he were talking to someone who’d been a little short-changed in the brains department. But her gaze had already obeyed the powerful dictates of her body and was back to warm skin and toned muscles.

  “Can’t go?” he prompted. “That means I get another move, right, if you forfeit?”

  Tamara wasn’t capable of responding. In fact, she barely heard him as his throat bobbed and beckoned with each word from his mouth, his carotid pulse sure and steady.

  Finally she got the vampire thing!

  She nodded her head absently because he seemed to be waiting for some response from her, but when his gaze fanned across her mouth like the stroke of a feather, everything came back into sharp focus.

  “Luke,” she murmured huskily as the carnal intent in his eyes turned them to blue flame.

  It was meant as a warning but it came out sounding all breathy and needy. Like a plea. Luke certainly seemed to take it that way, because he didn’t back off. Suddenly he was looming closer, breaching the board-width distance between them, his eyes locked on her mouth. “You know this is date nine, right?”

  Tamara swallowed as her mouth burned hot and her throat caught fire. “Scrabble’s not a date.”

  “Sure it is. We’ve been talking dirty for almost an hour. Plus,” he lifted his gaze to hers, “you took my shirt off.”

  Tamara’s tongue swiped across her lower lip and she could have sworn she heard it sizzle. “You took your shirt off.”

  He smiled at her like he knew exactly what she was thinking and she swallowed again. “Only because you’ve been undressing me with your mind. I merely...” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Obliged.”

  Tamara’s gaze snagged the movement and panned out to take in the rest of his chest. The flickering light turned his skin to honey and played over slabs of muscle, both emphasizing and shadowing all at once. Had she ever seen anything this magnificent? “I can see that was a hardship for you.” She wanted to touch him so bad she curled her hands into fists to stop herself from reaching out.

  He looked down at them, all tight and tense resting on her thighs, and then back at her, his smile broadening, and she knew he did know exactly what she was thinking. He slid his palms onto her knees and her belly went into free fall. He reached for her fisted hands, covering them with his own, picking them up, placing her flattened palms on a smooth, warm pectoral each.

  Tamara sucked in a hot, ragged breath as firm male flesh melted to velvet beneath her touch. She glanced at him, noticing the bob of his throat. “It’s okay to touch,” he said, and his voice sounded as thick and unsteady as hers.

  And then, even as the proper schoolteacher inside rejected his suggestion, her hands moved of their own accord. They slid up onto his shoulders. His breath hissed out, his eyes fluttered closed. She traced the rounded contours before moving down his arms, his skin warm and supple, tensing then relaxing beneath her touch. Her heart fluttered in her chest as the round bulk of two biceps filled her palms and did funny things to places much farther south.

  Luke’s eyes opened, their gazes entwined, and her breath hitched in her throat. She could see the black of his pupils, so large, leaving only a thin rim of brilliant blue. They stared at each other, only the crackling of the fire and their breath disturbing the loud screech of anticipation. Luke brought his left arm up and h
er hand slid off into her lap. He tilted his wrist, consulting his watch briefly before letting it drop.

  “Guess what?” he said.

  His inquiry broke the spell and Tamara looked at him bewildered, removing her other hand as well, trying to figure out how she’d come to be touching him in the first place. But that didn’t seem to matter as Luke took over the touching now, his hand sliding up her neck, gliding into her hair.

  “What?” she croaked, her eyes fixed on his mouth as it came closer, the spell weaving sticky fingers around her again, pulling her into its web.

  “It’s almost midnight. Are you ready?”

  Tamara’s pulse tripped off the scale. “No,” she said, her voice all low and breathy.

  Luke halted his progress, his thumb lazily stroking along the slope of her cheekbone. “It’s just one little kiss,” he said. “What are you scared of?”

  Good question. But this didn’t feel like just a kiss. “That I’m going to want more.”

  Luke smiled at her, slow and sexy. “Would that be so bad?”

  Tamara didn’t know—she couldn’t think. Her body was vibrating with need. With the overwhelming desire to feel his mouth on hers. To feel his body on hers.

  He didn’t wait for her answer, returning instead to his inexorable journey closer. “Ten...nine...eight…” He counted aloud as his other thumb tilted the angle of her jaw. “Seven…six…five…” His sheer masculine focus on her mouth was utterly paralyzing. “Four…three…two…” His lips continued their descent, inching nearer and nearer until they were so, so close. “This is your last chance, Tamara,” he said, and she felt the merest whisper of his mouth against hers with each word. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

  Tamara was incapable of speaking. Incapable of moving. She couldn’t. She didn’t want to. All she wanted was his kiss. She made some kind of noise, something gurgly and incomprehensible but very definitely consensual, and it was all Luke needed.

  “One…Happy New Year, Tamara.”

  The kiss was light. Tentative. As if he was expecting her to bolt and giving her plenty of room to do so. Which, in those few, lonely, endangered cells that existed in the more evolved area of her brain, she truly appreciated. Because the rest of her was pure animal.

  She moaned and leaned into the kiss as her deprived system went into complete meltdown and Luke gave it the shot of testosterone she’d been craving. He tasted vaguely of beer—intoxicatingly male—but those damn insistent cells were yammering at the back of her brain it’s only supposed to be one little kiss and she dragged herself away before it escalated any further. She was breathing hard, her neck and face flushed, as he watched her through those flammable eyes and she savored the taste of him.

  “No?” he queried, his voice soft and faintly burred, and it was gratifying when he cleared it, to know he was as affected as she’d been by the kiss.

  “Gateway drug,” she murmured, desperately clinging to sensibilities that had been well and truly scrambled. She had to remember where she was and who she was with and not let a little horniness overrule common sense. A kiss at midnight on New Year’s Eve was forgivable. Acceptable, even. Doing Georgia’s brother on the rug in front of the fire in his parents’ cabin, not so much.

  Luke picked up her hand. “I’m not going anywhere, Tamara.” He placed her hand on his chest again, over his heart this time, and held it there. “You’re already under my skin.”

  Tamara furrowed her brow, her gaze falling to where his hand covered hers. His heart pounded sure and steady beneath his warm flesh. A heart that had already known too many horrible things. God, but she wanted him. All of him. She wasn’t sure when this thing had gone from a stolen midnight kiss to something more—she just knew it had.

  It was crazy. “We hardly know each other,” she whispered, looking into his earnest gaze.

  He smiled. “We’ve been on ten dates.”

  It took a few more seconds for her to let go. For the tension to drain from her body. For the decision to be made. “Goddamn it,” she muttered, sweeping the board aside with her other hand and launching herself at him.

  Chapter Six

  Midnight

  What the hell.

  They were the words that came to Tamara’s mind just prior to Luke pulling her into his lap as she reached for him, their lips slamming together on a rush of tangled need. His shoulders were broad and round, his back smooth and warm, his hair soft-spiky, like plush velvet against her palms, his thighs hard against her bottom.

  His mouth was hot. Very hot.

  And his erection was huge.

  She ground herself down against it and his groan curled her toes. She pulled back, dragging in air through a throat thick with lust.

  “Oh God,” he panted. “Please don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts?”

  Tamara shook her head. Perhaps she should be, but she wasn’t. And once she committed to something, she always followed through. She was just that kind of girl.

  She smiled at him as she reached for the hem of her shirt and hauled both it and her thermal top off in one easy movement. “Nope,” she murmured as Luke’s pupils dilated and his nostrils flared. He reached for her but she shoved hard at his chest, satisfied when he fell back against the rug.

  He reached for her again but she batted his hand away. “I want to touch you,” he croaked.

  Tamara looked at him stretched out before her like her very own road map. Dips and hills and valleys crying out to be explored. “Later,” she said, running her finger from the hollow of his throat to his belly button. “I want to touch you first.” She swirled her fingertip around the sexy little dip, trailing it lower, to the edge of his track pants. “That all right?”

  His throat bobbed and Tamara knew exactly where she was going to start. “Only because you asked so nicely...”

  She lowered her torso along the length of his, smiling at him as her mouth hovered over the perfection of his, evading him as he lifted his head, heading straight for the heavy thump of his carotid. His head fell back as she licked along its length, her tongue tingling at the faint buzz of his whiskers and the surge of blood coursing slow and thick through his system.

  She grazed her teeth along the hard ridge of his throat, and his deep groan vibrated against her lips and fanned across her pelvic floor. She lifted her head. His eyes were closed, his mouth parted in a sexy kind of abandon, and her nipples, despite the heat of his chest, reacted accordingly. As if he were ice rather than hot, sizzling flesh and blood.

  His eyes fluttered open and Tamara felt a hand clutch her gut and squeeze at the blue heat shimmering there. “That all you got?” he murmured.

  She smiled and shook her head. “Patience, young man.” For the last year she’d denied herself this very basic need and tonight she was looking to play.

  She lowered her mouth toward his, finding the heat of his lips, stroking her tongue along their perfection. His mouth opened beneath hers and it was her turn to moan as he lifted his head off the ground and blistered her mouth with a truly apocalyptic kiss. His hands stabbed into her hair, pulling her lips hard against his. His tongue invaded, hot and insistent, and she opened to him, giving her all.

  The kiss went on for long sizzling minutes. Hard, deep, wet. Building tension and anticipation in every cell. Turning everything liquid. Tamara moaned as his tongue wreaked havoc.

  It should be illegal to kiss this damn well.

  He led and she followed, helpless to do anything else as lust and desire and longing mixed in her belly, tingling painfully between her legs. She ground herself against his erection to ease the ache and he groaned into her mouth—deep and guttural—sending a shot of high-octane lust right through her system.

  His rampant thickness felt so good as she rubbed against him, but left her wanting more. Much more. Wanting it all. She gasped against his lips as the tingle became a burn. As it started to ripple outward, Tamara stopped. She pulled away from his mouth, breathing hard.

&nb
sp; “Don’t stop,” he muttered, and his big hands palmed her butt, holding her firm.

  Tamara shook her head. “It’s been a long time...I’m going to disgrace myself if I don’t.”

  He rocked his hips against her. “And that’s bad, how?”

  Tamara shut her eyes, pushing herself into a sitting position, her palms flat against his chest, as he rocked again, pushing the denim seam of her jeans onto just the right spot.

  “Luke,” she breathed, her pelvis moving with his.

  “Yes, Tamara, yes,” he murmured, his hands clutching convulsively at her hips as he stroked again.

  The buildup hit warp speed and everything started to unravel deep inside. She opened her eyes, staring down at him, finding him looking up at her, watching her as she spiraled.

  “I’m going to...” she gasped. “I’m going to...”

  And then he curled up and caught a nipple, sucking it deep inside his hot, wet mouth, and Tamara came hard, wrapping her arms around his head, trapping him against her chest, shamelessly demanding he take the taut peak deeper, harder, as she rode his erection for all she was worth.

  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.