The Mammoth Book of Hot Romance

by Sonia Florens

  Greta cried out, her voice a mixture of delight and shock.

  Freezing, he stared at down at her. “Did I hurt you?”

  “If you don’t move, and soon, I will hurt you,” she said.

  Hooking his arms under her shoulders, he braced her body and drove into her. This time, when she cried out, he caught it with his lips. Moments later, when she fell blindly into orgasm, he swallowed those cries as well.

  * * *

  Long moments passed as they struggled to level their breathing out. Greta lay on her side, staring into Rip’s dark, velvety eyes and tried not to think about what she had just done.

  Wicked, wicked girl, she thought. She wanted to be ashamed – or at least, part of her felt she should be.

  But all she could feel was a vague sense of disbelief … and pleasure.

  She had teased him. Deliberately. Without even fully realizing what she was doing.

  And he had loved it.

  “What are you thinking about?” he murmured, his voice low and husky.

  Greta frowned, perplexed. “Shouldn’t it be the woman to ask that?”

  Rip chuckled. “Are there rules? You just lie there, looking confused, and so I wondered why.”

  With a sigh, she inched forwards and rested her head on his chest. She tried to tell herself it was because she was tired, and this was a rather comfortable spot to be. Nice and warm … she was so tired of being cold. It seemed she had been cold since they’d arrived in Boston.

  But the truth was that she needed a respite from those insightful, knowing eyes.

  “I just don’t know what to make of all of this,” she said quietly.

  “Who says you need to know that right now? Can’t you figure it out as we go along?”

  As we go along … like this was some journey they might take together.

  But Greta wasn’t ready to take this sort of journey with any man.

  Not even with Rip. Although in her heart, she wanted to. Wanted to try, at least.

  He stroked her back and she snuggled closer against him. “There’s time enough to figure all that out, isn’t there?” he murmured, pressing his lips to her temple.

  Look at me, he said. See me.

  Who says you need to know that right now? Can’t you figure it out as we go along?

  … time enough to figure all that out …

  Greta lay in his arms, brooding as the sun rose high in the sky.

  It was morning … the best time to go and take a peek around the warehouse, a chore she had avoided while she waited for Rip to recover.

  She couldn’t avoid it any more. But she culdn’t work up the energy, or the interest to move.

  See me.

  How could she do anything but that?

  She had a terrible feeling that she was going to see him in her mind each time she closed her eyes for a good long while.

  It disturbed her, scared her even.

  It was a vulnerability, one she wasn’t equipped to handle. He thought they had time to figure it out, but she knew better.

  No amount of time would ever lessen the fear she felt blooming inside. Now that the heat had passed, now her soul was quiet, and she could think, memories swamped and darkness threatened to choke her.

  Time couldn’t help her.

  After all, if three hundred years hadn’t eased her pain, why should she expect things to change now?

  She was afraid. Rip sensed it, even as she slipped away.

  He understood fear and, because he did, he didn’t chase her down the street, the way he wanted. No, pursuit wouldn’t work on this – getting her to trust him – that was what he needed.

  He had to bring her to trust him. On her terms.

  It would take time.

  In the best scenario, they had all the time in the world.

  Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, Rip stood. He wasn’t a patient man, though. He wasn’t certain he could wait that long.

  A note to my readers: I hope you enjoyed this prologue to Rip and Greta’s story. You can read the rest of their story in Candy Houses. You can find more information about their story and the rest of the Grimm series at my website www.shilohwalker.com

  Fire and Ice

  Portia Da Costa

  It’s Christmas Eve, and I’m home alone, wrapped in my fleecy throw, and tucked up in front of the television with a lovely bottle of wine. Not for me the purgatory of fractious family shindigs that turn into Armageddon over the mince pies. I’m just happy on my own, doing my own thing, chilling out but toasty.

  Of course, there is someone with whom I’d like to spend Christmas. Someone I’d gladly share my blanket and my wine with … but if he was here, you can forget about the television.

  Innes McKenzie is my boss, my unbelievably gorgeous boss, and the one I can thank for the yummy wine. He’s just the sort of guy to remember a casual conversation from months ago, and take note of my favourite tipple for future reference. He’s like that, thoughtful and inventive.

  The African Queen is on the box now, another Christmas favourite. I try to imagine Innes on a riverboat covered in grease like Bogart, but it’s a reach. My boss is cool and immaculate and as beautiful as an angel. A very manly angel, naturally, and needless to say, I’m head over heels in love with him.

  I can’t help but wonder about his Christmas. I picture his apartment as a place as immaculate and elegant as he is, maybe done out in white with monochrome silver decorations. He and some groomed, smart-sexy woman are eating a gourmet Christmas dinner, and later, they’ll retire to his wide, expensively sheeted bed for some intense, gourmet sex.

  Mm, my mouth waters … Innes à la carte …

  His rich fruity wine is slipping down a treat now, and in my mind it’s me in that snowy bed with him, writhing and grappling with my hot, elegant boss. I’ve never seen Innes with his clothes off, of course, but imagining him is a pastime I often indulge in.

  Inside my fleecy cocoon, I shimmy and wriggle, pretending that a naked and perfect Innes McKenzie is touching me … here … there … everywhere. His skin is warm, his blue eyes are as brilliant as lasers … and his rampant cock is as magnificent as the rest of him.

  I open my legs, sliding in my own hand in lieu of his.

  At work, he always moves in a very neat, spare, precise fashion, and I suspect that in bed he’s just the same. No action wasted or overdone, everything efficient, full of meaning, accurate and fiery.

  I’m wet now, thinking about him and mellowed by the wine. I start to moan, and Bogey and Hepburn are forgotten as my arousal circles around the imaginary totem of Innes McKenzie.

  He likes me, I know that. But relationships in the same office are frowned on at work. For the hundredth time, I consider a transfer, but then I wouldn’t see Innes every day.

  “Innes … Innes …” I moan, my pleasure rising as dark desire burns in those blue, imagined eyes. They glitter in my mind and I’m moments from the brink, almost there, with him, in my dream world.

  Then my mobile phone rings and snatches the orgasm from my grasp.

  “Bugger, hell and damnation!”

  Who can it be? I’ve told my family I’ll visit at New Year, and everyone else that I’m having quiet, opt-out Christmas. But clearly somebody didn’t get the message or thinks I’ll change my mind. Maybe it’s my mum, checking up to see if I’ve finally got the boyfriend she so wants for me.

  My phone shrills again and I snatch it up. I wrinkle my nose because my fingers smell of me.

  “Cally Hobbes.” I try to inject a bit of peace and goodwill to all men into my voice, rather than sound like a young female Scrooge.

  “Hello, Cally,” croaks a voice I’ve never heard before.

  I say I’ve never heard it before, but I have actually. Every working day. But I’ve never heard it sound quite like this. It’s my Innes, but his vocal cords seem to have been recently sand-blasted.

  “Hi, boss. Are you all right? You sound a bit husky …” He sounds more than husk
y. He sounds absolutely terrible.

  “I’m OK,” he lies, in a gravelly near-whisper so unlike his crisp, sexy tones. To me, he still sounds sexy in a backwards about ways. “Thanks,” he adds, in afterthought. He must be ill. His manners are usually unshakeable. “I was wondering if you could do me a gigantic favour, Cally? As I’m at home, I thought I’d do a bit of work on the Simpson merger, but I don’t have my files here. Is there any way you could possibly pick them up and bring them round? You can just slide them into my letter box and I’ll come down and get them. I’ve got a mild lurgy of some kind and I’d hate you to catch it too.’

  It’s no mild lurgy. It’s a forty-eight-hour flu bug that’s going round the company. I had it a fortnight ago, when Innes was at an overseas conference.

  “It’s OK, boss. It sounds like the flu … and I’ve had it. I’ll collect the papers and bring them round. Is there anything I can get you? Aspirin? Cough mixture?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m fine, Cally … really I am.” I detect a spark of life in his voice. “But are you really sure I’m not keeping you from anything? It’s Christmas Eve. Shouldn’t you be with your friends or family?” He pauses and, weirdly, it almost seems as if he’s tentative … something that’s totally unlike my super-confident boss. “Or your boyfriend …”

  “Nope, I’m footloose and fancy-free at the moment, boss. And I’m visiting my family next week.” My turn to pause … “So until then, I’m completely and utterly yours.”width="1em">I wish.

  “I can’t thank you enough, Cally.” He breaks off for a coughing fit, while I try to fool myself there are nuances of meaning in his shattered voice that have nothing to do with gratitude. “You’re an angel,” he gasps when the cataclysm is over. “A true Christmas angel. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  And I know what I’d like to do with you, boss man.

  After he gives me his address and rings off, I leap out of my fleecy burrow, thanking a fairy godmother I never knew I had.

  This has got to be the best Christmas present ever and Cinders shall go to the ball!

  Forty minutes later, my taxi pulls up outside the large old building where Innes has his flat. I managed to catch the security man at work and get in for Innes’ papers, and now I’m here with them, plus an emergency care package for my boss.

  I’ve got lemons, honey and whisky to make toddies. I’ve got all the medicines that I dosed myself with when I had the same bug. I’ve even got one or two Christmas snacks and treats for when he’s feeling better and his appetite returns.

  I’m ridiculously excited. I’ve never been to Innes’ home, and I’m dying to see if it’s as stylish as I imagine, as stylish as he is. Not that I’m really interested in his furnishings and décor …

  As I ring his speakerphone, I’m actually trembling, stupid as it seems, and I have to wait for an answer, until Innes’ hoarse voice growls out, “Cally, is that you?” He sounds crabby, but I make allowances. The man is ill.

  “Yep, it’s me, boss. I’ve got the papers and some other stuff.”

  “What other stuff?”

  “Oh, nothing much … Can I come up?”

  “It might be safer if you didn’t. Just shove them in the letter box and I’ll come down in a little while.” I can almost hear him despairing of his own manners. “And thanks, Cally, really. You’re a star. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.”

  But I’ve come this far, and I’m not going to be fobbed off. It occurs to me for a moment that he might not consider himself presentable – he’s so fastidious – but my desire to see him is too strong. I squelch my qualms and prepare to squelch his objections and his masculine pride. “They’re too bulky for the letter box,” I lie. I haven’t even looked. “I’ll just come up for a minute and leave them. I won’t linger, if you’re feeling ill.

  Silence. Then, “OK … All right.”

  He sounds grumpy and ungracious. He must be really ill, this curmudgeon just isn’t him. He’s always composed and civil and friendly. For a boss, he’s always on the side of us lesser mortals.

  The lock uncouples and I push my way into the hall and make my way up the stairs. It’s an old house, but elegantly appointed and at any other time I’d linger to admire it. But today, oh God, it’s like an icebox. Bone-chillingly freezing, as cold as outdoors. A horrible thought occurs to me … Are the actual apartments as cold? If so, no wonder Innes sounds so rough. If he’s ill and frozen, it’s not surprising his temper is frayed.

  On the landing, I locate his door. Raising my hand to knock, I pause then try the handle. The door’s unlocked and I push it open and step inside – where the meat locker chill hits me in the face. Along with another shock …

  I don’t know what I was expecting. I’d been envisioning the sick Innes as looking suave and immaculate, as always. I’ve pictured him in jeans and a beautiful sweater, maybe with a scarf as a concession. Or maybe a sexy, high-end robe – thick and de luxe, very masculine, worn over classy sweatpants or something.

  But in reality, he looks like a deranged wild man shambling through a disaster zone of tissues, abandoned blankets and empty coffee cups and half-drunk glasses of Lemsip. There’s even a tangle of forlorn, un-hung Christmas decorations on the coffee table.

  “Oh my God, boss, you look terrible!”

  It’s out of my mouth before I can stop it, and Innes scowls as if it’s hit home. He does look dreadful, though. For him …

  “Well, thanks for that.”

  To offset the biting cold, he’s wrapped himself in the duvet off his bed, and he’s padding around in his bare feet, the idiot. His usually immaculately groomed blond hair is all mad curls and tufts and his handsome face is frighteningly pale, but with hot flags of a fever flush across his cheekbones – yet somehow he still manages to look gorgeous, devastating virus or not.

  “I’m sorry … I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that I’ve never seen you ill and you look … different.”

  He hitches up his slithering duvet. Oh God, he’s shaking … “Well, come on in and shut the door. Wouldn’t want to let the heat out, would we?” he finishes savagely, grabbing me by the arm and hauling me inside.

  “But this place is like a deep freeze. What’s happened to the heating?” I set down my tote bag in a chair and move aside some cups and newspapers and a bunch of tinsel to put the files he asked for on the coffee table.

  Innes throws himself down in another chair, as if he’s finding it hard to stay on his feet. “Everyone in the building’s gone away for Christmas, including the landlord.” He rearranges himself inside his makeshift tent-come-shelter and pulls it up around his ears. “The guy who usually does the central heating has got an emergency job on, and none of the others I’ve rung will come out until after Christmas.”

  “But don’t you have a gas or electric fire?” I look around. The place has obviously been remodelled from its original configuration and I can’t see a fire.

  “If I had one, I’d have it on, obviously.” His voice sounds really odd, and I realize his teeth are chattering.

  Poor thing, he looks so miserable. How awful it must be for a confident, self-sufficient man like Innes to be rendered so powerless by illness and circumstance. He shrugs in his cocoon and suddenly gives me a shamefaced grin that melts my heart and sends a sensation like warm honey seeping along my veins to pool in certain places.

  Dear God, I’m a horrible person! I’m getting the hots for a man who’s probably quite seriously ill!

  “Sorry, I’m being such an ungrateful bastard,” he rasps, ‘Forgive me, Cally. You’ve been really helpful and I’m being an arse.”

  Helpful? I suppose so. But I’ve got other motives. I can’t believe my luck that circumstances have brought me here, alone, and put me in this strange position of power over the very man I adore.

  “You are a bit, but I’ll forgive you because you’re poorly.” I stride across the room and take him by the arm. “Come on, where’s the bedroom? Let’s get you t
o bed.”

  Wearily he hauls himself up, but for a moment a brighter glimmer flares in his eyes, and they look even bluer than normal. It might be the fever … but it might be something else. He might be ill, but he’s still a man. My heart thunders.

  “Now that’s a very tempting offer …” His voice doesn’t have its usually strong, decisive ring, but there’s a lot more life in it than there was a moment ago, and suddenly he waggles his sandy eyebrows at me. “Sorry, Cally. Must be the lurgy talking. Forget I said that.”

  “No problem … now show me where your bedroom is.” I’m smiling as I follow his shuffling steps. Surely he wouldn’t have said what he said, if deep down a part of him didn’t mean it …

  We navigate our way out of the living room, along a little corridor and into his only marginally tidier bedroom, where the denuded bed reveals the home of the duvet. I hustle Innes towards it, but he hesitates. He looks vaguely perplexed in the soft light from a couple of wall lamps.

  “Come along then. What are you waiting for? Get in and I’ll spread the quilt over you.”

  He gives me an odd, almost wicked look. “OK, Nurse Ratchet …”

  I flap the sheets, still waiting for him to comply, but when he shucks off the duvet to climb underneath them, it’s my turn to get a shock of chills and fever.

  All this time, he’s been stark-naked beneath his quilt.

  My jaw drops and delicious guilt surges through me like a tidal wave.

  Even in his flu-ridden state, naked Innes is spectacular: lean and athletic, with long limbs, long muscles and a crisply defined six-pack worthy of a male pin-up. He’s a veritable feast of male pulchritude, but to my greedy shame I zero straight in on his cock, which is also long and crisply defined.

  “Get under the sheet. You’ll freeze to death,” I command, my voice not quite steady. Innes complies, his moment of possible bravado a thing of the past as he flops on to the bed and bundles the sheet around him like an Eastern bloc washerwoman. Still stunned by what I’ve seen, I fling the duvet in his general direction, my aim so addled it goes over his head too.