Merry Christmas, Baby(30)
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

“I typically have to know someone better before I—” She struggled to find the right word.

“Make fried chicken for them?” he helpfully supplied the euphemism.

She chuckled, lowered her gaze. “Yes. I ordinarily have to know someone a little bit longer before I…make f-fried chicken for them.” He loved her smile, the way her ripe lips curled just so. Her lashes were long and lush and painted shadows beneath her eyes. He loved that, too.

He grinned down at her. “So what you’re trying to tell me is that I’m special.”

“Something like that, yes,” she confirmed.

“You’re pretty damned extraordinary yourself,” he told her. And she was. She was smart and creative, funny and warm-hearted. Aside from being unbelievably attracted to her, he genuinely liked her, Silas realized. She’d been an instant friend, which was rarer than this phenomenal appeal. He might have thought about that little realization and its significance if she hadn’t chosen that exact moment to nuzzle her nose along his throat.

Sensation bolted through him, snapping the thin line of restraint he’d been holding on to. He drew back and kissed her, let his lips slide purposefully over hers, feeling the petal softness of her mouth against his. She bloomed, opening for him, and he slipped his tongue into her mouth, delving into the soft recesses, tasting her, sampling her, dragging her into the pit of lust he’d found himself in since meeting her.

She responded in kind, wrapped her arms more tightly around him, sliding her thumb along his jaw, behind his ear, into his hair. Her mouth was hot and languid, insistent and lazy, and he couldn’t get enough of her, couldn’t hold back. The intensity of the need—the unnamed emotion attached to the need specifically—should have terrified him, yet it didn’t.

She breathed a sigh into his mouth that was part surrender, part relief, and with a little jump, wrapped her arms more firmly around his neck and her legs around his waist.

A minute later, she’d directed him to the bedroom and thirty seconds beyond that, he had her nak*d. Curly black hair spilled over a stark white pillow. Pale pink n**ples pouted for his kiss. A smooth belly, the flare of womanly h*ps and a thatch of dark curls between her creamy thighs called to him.

Beautiful.

Achingly so.

Though he’d been sexually active since his teens and had never doubted his ability to please a woman, he was unaccountably nervous, felt like an anxious virgin hiding behind a large erection and more bravado than skill all over again. She was small and perfectly made, and he wanted to do this right, to make her thankful that she was breaking her rules for him. More than anything he knew he was going to want more of her fried chicken and, irrationally, he believed additional helpings were dependent upon this performance.

He bent and took a dusky nipple into his mouth, shaping her breast in his hand as he did so. She sighed a gratifying mewl of pleasure and tunneled her fingers into his hair. She arched up, giving him more, a silent offering, one he was more than willing to take. He licked a path to her other breast, circling the nipple with his tongue before pulling it deeply into his mouth. She made that noise again—the one that made him want to beat his chest and roar—and then slid her hands down over his back, tracing his spine.

The feel of her small, capable fingers against his skin sent gooseflesh skittering along the backs of his legs, and when her hand glided ever so innocently over his hip, then found its way between his legs, he almost came undone.

Or just came.

She worked him against her palm, skimming the tip of his engorged penis with her thumb, then clasped him once more and worked the skin along his dick from root to tip. Every stroke of her soft hand against him sent sensation hurtling through him, made his balls tighten and toes dig into the mattress. Taking a page out of her book, Silas slid his own hand down her abdomen, found the dewy curls between her thighs and deftly parted her nether lips. She was hot and wet against his fingers and the first brush of his thumb over her cl*t made her buck against his hand.

He smiled, rather pleased with himself.

She palmed his balls, pulling another hiss from between his teeth, and his smile capsized. She leaned forward and kissed his shoulder, dipped her tongue into the hollow of his collarbone—who knew that was an erogenous zone?—and then slid her wonderful lips along his throat. She nipped at his ear and worked herself against him as he slipped a finger deep inside her. She gasped again, every sound of pleasure an affirmation that this was right. She stroked him harder as he massaged her clit, then she shifted and lifted her hips.

“Please,” she said. “I need—”

Truer words had never been spoken, Silas thought. He needed, too. He snagged his wallet from his pants at the foot of the bed and took out a condom, opened the packet and then swiftly rolled the protection into place. His gaze tangled with hers as he nudged against her, poised at the entrance of her womanhood. He didn’t know what stopped him, why he paused. He only knew that it was imperative that she see him, that they commemorate the moment with a shared look. Her eyes were feverish and glazed, her mouth swollen and rosy from his kisses, her n**ples erect and waiting. She was beautiful and perfect and right, and when he pushed into her, seated himself firmly between her milky thighs, he knew he’d never felt more at home anywhere.

And instinctively he knew he never would again.

DELPHIE’S BREATH ESCAPED in a long, desperate hiss as Silas came into her. He was big and hard and felt so unbelievably perfect. She’d heard of hot, mindless sex before, but had never truly had it until right this instant. From the moment he’d kissed her she’d completely lost control. She’d fed at his mouth, clawed away his clothes and squirmed shamelessly against him, utterly desperate to feel him inside of her. To put her hands on his bare flesh.

He loomed over her like a dark angel—black hair, black eyes and a smile that was as wicked as Satan himself. He looked at her as though he didn’t know what to make of her, as though she were a mystery he had to solve, as though he desperately wanted a peek inside her head as well as a trip inside her body.

And she loved it. Relished it. Savored it.

She rocked her h*ps beneath him, taking him farther into her body and watched as he set his jaw. It made her feel powerful and less reckless because this was without a doubt the most out of control she’d ever been.

She didn’t do this. She didn’t do complete strangers.

But he didn’t feel like a stranger. He felt perfect.

He bent his dark head and pulled her breast into his mouth once again, laving her budded nipple with his tongue.

Her feminine muscles clamped harder around him and a purely masculine sound escaped between his lips. It was music to her ears. She licked a determined path along his neck and breathed into his ear, then nipped at his earlobe and grinned when she felt him swell inside her.

He moved faster, pumping in and out of her, while feeding at her br**sts. He was everywhere at once—on top of her, inside her. She found his mouth again, kissing him as he upped the tempo between their joined bodies.

She felt the first flash of impending release build in her sex and held him tighter. She grabbed the twin globes of his ass and drew her legs back, giving him better access.

He pushed harder, faster, then faster still and she could feel her breath getting stuck in her throat and she gasped and bucked wildly beneath him.

She needed— She wanted—

He reached down between them, found the little kernel of pleasure nestled at the top of her sex and pressed.

She came.

She dragged in a huge breath, but couldn’t let it go. Lights danced behind her closed lids, every muscle in her body contracted and she fisted around him, coming harder than she ever had before in her life.

The orgasm was brighter, better and more satisfying than anything she’d ever experienced. She felt herself tighten around him again, then he set his jaw and pushed her harder, her tingling br**sts absorbing his manic thrusts.

Three seconds later, he growled low in his throat and shuddered violently. His eyes closed, seemingly from the weight of pleasure, and a slow smile shaped his lips.

After a moment, he looked down at her, a wonderingly confused but satisfied look on his face. “Well,” he said. “I’m glad we got that out of the way.”

“Out of the way?” she repeated, feigning offense though she knew exactly what he was talking about.

He carefully withdrew, disposed of the condom with a tissue from beside the bed, then curled up next to her.

“Yeah,” he said. “Because next time I intend to do a proper job of it.”

She laughed and pressed a kiss against his nak*d shoulder. “You mean to tell me you didn’t give me your best?” she teased.

She felt him chuckle beside her. “I can always do better.”

If he did any better she didn’t know if she’d survive it. “I like a man who wants to improve.”

He slid a finger beneath the swell of her breast, making her shiver. “And I like a woman who’s so into me she doesn’t remember getting nak*d.”

“How do you know I don’t remember?”

“That telling frown I saw just a minute ago. It’s the same look my dad gets when he walks into a room and then forgets what he went in there for.”