All the same, David lowered her gently into the hot tub. The warm, moving water seemed to intensify the raging need in her senses to an almost unbearable degree, but Holly hadn’t the strength to lift herself out.
Kneeling behind her, David took her hands in his and positioned them so that they were cupped behind her head. And then he began, idly, to toy with her breasts again, now bathing them with warm water, now caressing them, now plying the nipples between skilled fingers. Holly moaned and her own fingers uncurled, but she did not try to lower her arms.
“David,” she finally managed to say, “oh, David—make love to me—now—”
He drew her up out of the water and placed her on the tiled edge. Even in the half darkness, she could see the glittering hunger in his eyes, a hunger he appeased at her breasts until Holly was writhing with need, her body still slick and warm from the brief episode in the hot tub.
“I—”
“David,” Holly tangled her hands in his thick, dark, rumpled hair. “Now.”
“I might hurt you—the baby—”
The concern in his voice caused Holly to free her hands and capture his muscle-corded thighs instead, urging him toward her. “I need you, David. I love you. And we’ve already waited long enough.”
With a moan, he lowered himself to her and sought her solace with his manhood. His welcome was such that, with a rasped exclamation, he surged inside her, deeply but gently. Holly drew her knees up and felt his powerful hips moving slowly against her inner thighs.
She watched him until she could no longer bear the shadowy beauty of him and then closed her eyes. Patches of golden light exploded behind her lids as new feelings blossomed within her like flowers.
David, in turn, was nearly incoherent. “I thought this—would never—happen again—oh, God, Holly—how I need you—”
Holly muttered some wicked sweetness and her reward was a breathtaking increase in the pace of their lovemaking. Their bodies rose and fell in fierce unison, fever after fever raging within Holly and then breaking, each one making her wilder. Her fingernails raked David’s back, as his possession and her own became one and the same and they both cried out as the tender anguish bonded them, fusing them into one being with its heat.
David collapsed beside her, his body trembling, his breath a primitive, tearing sound. “Good Lord, woman,” he managed after some time, “I’m not sure I can bear up under a lifetime of that.”
Holly stretched languidly, an evil wanton in the warm, lush darkness. “You’ll ‘bear up’ just fine,” she said, winding a finger in the moist down curling upon his chest.
He laughed, turned her onto her side and gave her bottom a playful swat. “Vamp,” he said. “Just for that, I think I’ll carry you to my bed and prove your theory.”
“You couldn’t carry me if you had to,” challenged Holly in a sensuous, stretching purr. “Your knees are too weak.”
“Is that so?” he asked in a rumbling whisper. And then, as Holly had hoped, he rolled to his feet, pulled her after him and lifted her into his arms. Feigning a dark passion, he dropped her from shoulder height onto the bed.
“Ummm,” Holly crooned, stretching her arms upward. David came to her and never let her go throughout that long, glorious night.
Epilogue
Holly Goddard glared at her computer screen, muttering. This book had started out as a mystery, and her agent had liked what she had seen of it, but now it seemed to be taking an unexpected direction.
“It’s Saturday,” Holly grumbled to herself. “In some religions, Saturday is a day of rest.”
“Did you say something?” David asked from the doorway of the study they shared. He was wearing blue jeans, a maroon sweatshirt, a denim jacket—and a baby girl in the carrier on his back.
Born in late September, Miss Autumn Goddard was already spending most Saturdays in the park with David and Toby. Her cheeks were pink and her round, indigo eyes sleepy as they peered out of the tiny snowsuit she wore.
Holly was filled with such tenderness that she ached. She forgot the problems she was having with her novel and went to plant a kiss on Autumn’s plump cheek before lifting her out of the carrier to cuddle her for a moment.
“Where’s Toby?” she asked.
David grinned, sliding back the hood of Autumn’s snowsuit, revealing a head of curly, Holly-gold hair. He kissed the baby’s forehead briefly before answering, “Downstairs, doing his homework with Marcus.”
Marcus was Toby’s newest and “bestest” friend; since he and Holly had moved into David’s condo, the very day of the wedding, the two little boys had been a package deal. If you wanted one, you had to accept the other.
“Don’t you have any homework to do, counselor?” Holly teased as she carried Autumn into the bedroom that adjoined her own and David’s. “You have a big case coming up this week, if I remember correctly.”
David dodged the question by disappearing into the kitchen, but he was back soon enough, Autumn’s nap-time bottle in hand.
Holly had already undressed their daughter, changed her diaper and bundled her into a cuddly pink sleeper. Autumn extended her tiny hands at the sight of the offered bottle and was asleep after a few gurgling swallows.
“About your case,” Holly prodded, in the living room. Dammit, if she had to work on Saturday, then David was going to be right there in the study with her, plugging away at Snider vs McCulley.
Showing not the slightest sign of industry, David sat down on the raised hearth of the fireplace and stared indolently down at his right sneaker, his chin resting on one knee. “I’ve got that case down pat and you know it.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes,” David replied flatly, his eyes sparkling as they met hers. “You have to work so you want me to suffer right along beside you—misery loves company and all that.”
“I’ll be misery and you be company,” Holly grumbled, assessing the situation. Toby was downstairs, visiting Marcus. Autumn was asleep. She blushed at the course her thoughts were taking.
David grinned. “And you’ll love me?” he leered.
“Anytime I get the chance,” Holly admitted.
He assumed his best attorney manner, frowning pensively, standing up to pace back and forth along the hearth as though it were a jury box. “What about your book, Mrs. Goddard?” he demanded soberly. “How do you intend to meet your deadline if you don’t write?”
Holly shrugged, her legs curled beneath her on the navy blue sofa. “I made up the deadline myself. There’s no reason to be picky, here.”
“Picky?” David boomed, looking suitably shocked, even horrified. He shook his head as he continued to pace, his hands locked behind his back. “Have you no dedication, Mrs. Goddard? No ambition? No—”
Holly giggled at the picture he made. “Don’t tease me, David,” she wailed. “My plot is so hopelessly snarled that I’ll never get it undone and my characters won’t do anything I tell them to!”
David stopped, bending slightly to peer into Holly’s face. “Exactly what kind of scene are you trying to write, anyway?” he demanded in that same ponderous, lawyerlike tone.
Holly gave him a once-over from beneath coyly lowered eyelashes. “A love scene, of course,” she purred.
“Aha!” he cried, pointing one index finger into the air. “In that case, Madam, we are able to ascertain the exact nature of your problem!”
Holly pretended to peer around him. “We?” she echoed.
“Speaking as the prosecution, of course,” he admitted.
“Of course. And what, pray tell, is the ‘exact nature of my problem,’ counselor?”
“Research, of course. A pitiable, contemptible lack of research.”
“I see,” Holly said, assuming a look of deep chagrin.
“No, Madam,” David went on sternly, “I don’t think you do see. This is a matter of the gravest importance.”
Holly giggled again. “You don’t really say things like that in the courtroom, do you?
”
“No,” David confessed. “I saw it in an old Henry Fonda movie. Now, exactly how do you plead? Guilty or not guilty?”
Holly deliberately batted her eyelashes. “Of what am I accused, sir?”
He sank to his knees before her with a comical thump, his eyes gleaming. “Neglecting your research,” he replied.
Thinking of the weeks after Autumn’s birth when there had been no lovemaking at all, and the hesitant quality in David’s touch even now, Holly’s playful mood was dampened. “Or perhaps of neglecting my husband?” she prompted softly.
He bent forward and kissed her. “Never that,” he whispered.
“I know it was hard for you—”
David laid an index finger to her lips. “Having a baby was no piece of cake, either, I’ll wager. Still, Autumn is almost two months old. Time is passing us by. Maybe we should start another baby right away.”
Holly laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love you, you maniac.”
“And I love you. But, as a writer, that doesn’t excuse you from doing proper research.” He stood up, drawing Holly with him, pulling her against the appealing, granitelike length of him. His face was serious, though, despite his earlier teasing. “Tell me the truth. Does it...does it hurt when I make love to you?”
She stood up on tiptoe to kiss his chin. “No. It feels glorious.”
“Really?”
“Would I lie about something as important as research?” She slid her arms around his waist and felt him tremble as their bodies touched, her soft curves a temptation to his hard lines and angles.
“I certainly hope not,” he gasped, gazing deep into her eyes, finding things she might have hidden once but was willing to share now. His hands came tentatively to burrow into her silky hair. “Oh, Holly,” he breathed. “Holly. Every day, I wake up and I think I can’t possibly love you any more than I already do. And every day, you prove me wrong.”
Holly’s eyes misted with happy tears. “Do you love me enough to help me with my research?” she whispered.
David laughed and swatted her firm, round bottom with both hands. “Oh, at least that much. I’m in the mood to be magnanimous here.”
Holly gave him a long look. “Then what’s holding you back? Carry me off to your bed and slake your savage passion at my heaving breasts.”
David grinned and feigned a beleaguered look. “God, I hope that isn’t a direct quote from your manuscript, woman,” he teased. “If it is, you’d better go back to writing about crumpets and tacos.”
Holly wriggled against him in reply, and he groaned, lifting her into his arms. “If we’re going to research savage passion, I guess we’d better get started.”
Their passion was not savage, but tender, mounting with every kiss, every caress, every surrender of a garment. Though they had made love several times since Autumn’s birth, David was still afraid of hurting her.
As Holly lay beneath him, her blouse and bra gone, her breasts proudly bared to him, David bent his head and kissed each impudent peak. “Allow me, Madam,” he taunted in a rumbling voice, “to slake my savage something or other.”
The kisses felt so good that Holly stretched, crooning and thrusting herself upward for more. “Please, do,” she said and she whimpered with pleasure as he began to lose his restraint and enjoy her freely, now nibbling, now suckling with the fierce hunger Holly craved.
Finally, leaving breasts moistened and tuned to passion by his lips and his tongue, David traced a path of kisses over her collarbone and up her neck to the sensitive hollows beneath her ears.
“Are you taking notes?” he demanded, working his way back down to a breast, attending to it briefly, and then moving on to the heaving ridges of her rib cage.
“C-copious notes,” Holly choked as he circled her navel with a leisure that was positively torturous. She moaned with sweet despondency as his kisses continued. “Th-that isn’t at all p-pertinent to my wo-work, sir.”
He chuckled, the sound far away and yet so near as to be a part of Holly. “Want to bet?” he asked, his hand stroking her inner thigh, pressing her legs to part.
Research was the furthest thing from Holly’s mind then—moments later, she didn’t even have a mind, for she had been driven out of it. Only later, after a series of shattering releases, after David had finally given in to her pleading and entered her, his body at once taming and exalting hers, was she free to grope her way back toward sanity.
He lay beside her afterward, his head pillowed on her breasts, his legs still entangled with hers. Smiling to herself, Holly wound a lock of his hair around her finger and speculated, “I think I’ve got it. I know what I was doing wrong now.”
“Believe me,” David rasped, still too weak, apparently, to rise from her breast, “you didn’t do anything wrong.”
Holly laughed. “I was talking about my book, silly.”
David growled with pretended outrage and rolled onto his back, hauling Holly up to sit astride him. It was so good, this easiness between them, this lack of restraint or caution. Tears of sheer joy blurred Holly’s vision.
David frowned and caught them on his thumbs when they fell. “What is it, love?”
Holly was anxious to reassure him, and she gave a sniffling laugh. “I’m afraid I’ve used you shamelessly,” she confessed.
“How so?”
“I’m not writing a romance; I’m writing a mystery. The love scene I was talking about consists of one kiss, nothing more.”
David glared at her, pretending outraged honor. “Wench,” he said in gravelly tones, “you’ll have to pay for that.”
“I will?” Holly questioned, the picture of innocence. “How?”
He shifted slightly and then entered her with an authority that made her gasp with pleasure. His hands rose with brazen idleness to cup her breasts. And that was answer enough.
Holly began to move upon him, slowly, sweetly, a creature of fire and instinct. “You are completely—oh, God—without conscience—”
David matched her pace and then began to set one of his own. “Completely,” he agreed, pressing his head back into the pillows and closing his eyes. Several glorious, heated minutes passed, and then they were both crying out for each other, even though they were already joined, seeking each other with desperate hands and hoarse, tender words.
The finding was sweet indeed.
* * *
Turkeys. David’s fancy refrigerator, with its sliding opaque door, was covered with construction-paper turkeys. Holding a fussy Autumn against her hip with one arm, Holly opened the appliance’s door with the other and reached inside for milk.
The draperies had not been drawn, and as Holly sat at the table, rocking her hungry daughter in her arms while the bottle heated, she looked out over the sparkling lights of the city, thinking.
Impatient for her midnight feeding, Autumn flung back her gossamer-tufted head and wailed.
“Shhh,” Holly whispered against a tiny neck scented of talcum powder and baby lotion. “You’ll wake up Daddy and Toby.”
Autumn was unimpressed with that possibility. Her wail intensified to a series of piercing shrieks. Chuckling softly, Holly took the bottle from its warmer and did the gyrations required to hold a furious baby and test the heat of the milk at the same time.
“This looks like a job for Super-lawyer,” yawned David, clad in a velour bathrobe, as he took both baby and bottle from Holly and plopped down in a chair. A moment later, Autumn was imbibing greedily.
“Fine thing,” Holly scoffed with mock indignation. “I do all the work and you get the credit.”
David only grinned, watching his daughter with such adoration in his eyes that Holly wasn’t sure she could bear it. Or the feelings inspired in her.
“There was a letter from Craig today,” she said quietly, leaning back against the counter, her arms folded. She felt like a housewifely bundle of chenille and love.
David’s eyes darted to her face, wary. “Oh? How is he?”
“He’s getting better,” Holly answered gently. “They haven’t decided yet exactly what to try him for. It might be a long time before they do.”
There was a silence; obviously David didn’t know what to say. And Holly didn’t want Craig or anyone else to stand between them.
She went to David and made a place for herself on his knee, unsettling the ravenous Autumn only slightly. Wrapping one arm around David’s neck, Holly intoned, “Kiss me, you fool!”
He laughed and responded accordingly.
* * * * *
THE FIVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS
Dear Reader,
It was a thrill to create this wonderful Christmas story involving Morgan Trayhern and his family! Just as they are to you, Morgan and the people who work for the black ops company Perseus are like extended family to me. This story was a joy to write.
Many of you have asked about Morgan and Laura’s children and if they will have their own book after they grow up (along with Noah Trayhern and Aly Trayhern’s children). Indeed they will! Some of their stories will be found in my Black Jaguar Squadron series (Harlequin Romantic Suspense) and my forthcoming black ops Shadow Warriors series (Harlequin HQN and Harlequin Romantic Suspense). Of course, the real mover and shaker at work behind the scenes of this novella is Laura Trayhern, who created the Five Days of Christmas celebration for the employees of Perseus—and is doing a little matchmaking this holiday!
In this story we get to meet a very tired black ops mercenary, Colt Hamlin, who has simply seen too much on his last mission to Kosovo. He’s resting up—actually, hiding out—in Montana. Until Laura Trayhern coaxes him out of hiding by matchmaking him with her son’s high school teacher, Abbie Clemens. Abbie had lost her black ops husband a year earlier, so in another way she’s emotionally hiding, too. But Laura has a sixth sense about the two of them and makes sure they meet and have to work together during the Five Days of Christmas celebration.
Sit back, relax, prop up your feet and enjoy their story, and say hello once again to Morgan, Laura and their family. I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I did penning it.
A Proposal for Christmas: State SecretsThe Five Days of Christmas Page 20
