Kissing Under The Mistletoe: The Sullivans (Contemporary Romance) (16 page)

Sliding his hand from her hair back down her
body, he realized he’d never lost control this fast. He could
barely focus on anything but how sweet her lips were, how soft her
skin was, how good her hair smelled, how much he loved her soft
moans of pleasure as she kissed him back with a desire that matched
his. He knew that if they didn’t get into her bedroom soon, he was
bound to take her their first time right here against her front
door. He gave her one last, hot kiss, then swept her up into his
arms.

He should have known she wouldn’t miss a beat
as she drew his mouth back down to hers. Somehow he made it through
the living room and down the hall to the door at the end of the
hall without just dropping with her to the floor like a wild
animal. Pushing her bedroom door open with his foot, he carefully
walked through with Mary in his arms and laid her gently on top of
her coverlet.

Wanting to remember every moment of their
first night together, he took a step back from the bed and gazed
down at the beauty before him. Mary’s long dark hair was spread out
across the pillows, and her dark green sweater and gorgeous flushed
skin were utterly enticing as she lay atop the red velvet
bedcover.

“Come be with me, Jack.” She shifted up on
the bed to reach out for him. “Please, I need you.”

As he went back to her, he made a silent vow
to give her everything she deserved—not only more pleasure than
she’d ever known before, but also the love he’d been keeping deep
inside just waiting for the moment when she appeared in his
life.

Mary’s lips curved with joy as she pulled him
down over her on the bed. He didn’t know how long they kissed,
rolling over with each other on the soft velvet, hands stroking,
mouths devouring in their hunger for each other. Her passion
matched his, and he found himself wondering if a lifetime could
possibly be long enough to fill such a deep well of need.

And then her hands were moving to the buttons
of his shirt, and he didn’t stop kissing her as he captured them
with his. Holding her captive against him, he gave a final nip to
her lower lip before lifting his head to stare down at her.

Already a stunning woman, with her cheeks
flushed and her eyes heavy with arousal, there wasn’t any painting,
any vista, any wonder in the world that could match her beauty as
she lay in bed beneath him.

Jack’s breath caught in his chest as he
looked down at her. “What did I ever do right to deserve you?”

“Everything. Everything you do is exactly
right.”

Shifting over her, he found the pulse point
at the side of her neck again and let his teeth scrape gently over
her sensitive skin. The way she arched against him put the silent
vow he’d made to go slowly their first time almost out of
reach.

Sliding his hands beneath her back, he lifted
the hem of her sweater. Her breath came quickly, her chest rising
and falling fast beneath the soft green wool as she shifted her
shoulders so that he could slide the fabric up to reveal the swell
of her breasts above her lacy bra.

“Beautiful.”

Forgetting all about stripping her sweater
the rest of the way off, he reached out and brushed his fingertips
over her soft flesh.

“Jack.”

His name shook on her lips as he lowered his
head to trace over her skin with his mouth. Her scent made his head
spin, her soft sounds of pleasure sending his heart racing faster
than it ever had before.

When he’d been stealing kisses from her, he’d
always been gentle. But now, as he gripped the softness of her
sweater in his fists, Jack couldn’t stop himself from roughly
dragging it all the way off. Excitement glittered in her eyes as
she stripped away her slacks from her legs so that they landed on
the colorful rug beside her bed.

If he’d been stunned by the flash of lace at
her breasts, the lace at her hips knocked every last bit of oxygen
from his lungs.

For a long moment he couldn’t think, couldn’t
move, couldn’t do anything but marvel. Lost in the wonder of her,
he didn’t realize Mary had taken his hands in hers until she lifted
them to her lips. One quick kiss to his knuckles and then she was
slowly opening his hands to slide them down over her jaw, her neck,
her collarbones, and then—sweet Lord, he wasn’t sure he’d manage to
make it through tonight in one piece—she placed them over her
breasts.

As she let him feel the hard beat of her
heart, then lifted her hands from his so that he was the only one
still touching her, Jack knew she wasn’t just silently telling him
she wanted him to make love to her…she was also saying she trusted
him enough, for tonight at least, to put her heart in his
hands.

Notorious for his steady hands as he soldered
the wires on a circuit board, Jack couldn’t keep his fingers from
shaking as he moved to slide the straps of her bra down off her
shoulders. She trembled beneath him, just as unsteady but with him
all the way as he finally uncovered one perfect breast and then the
other.

It was pure instinct to cup Mary’s soft flesh
with his hands and lower his head to take first one peak and then
the other into his mouth. She tasted even better than she looked,
and as he drew on her with lips and tongue, she arched into his
hands and mouth to let him have even more of her.

Reaching behind her, he flipped open the
latch on her bra and tossed it to the floor to join her clothes.
Her skin was rosy and damp from where he’d been kissing her, and
when he brushed his jaw across her aroused nipples, her hips came
up against him in a silent plea for more. Her stomach muscles
quivered beneath his lips as he ran kisses down the center of her
body. When bare skin was replaced with lace, he drove both of them
crazy by tracing the edges of her panties with both his fingertips
and tongue. She was even softer here, her scent spinning through
him.

Lace scratched against his tongue as he
covered her with his mouth, and then he was being just as rough
with her panties as he’d been with her sweater in his desperation
to have her completely bare and open to him.

Again, his name fell from her lips in a
whisper of breath and need, and he answered the sweet plea with a
slow brush of his tongue over her. A moment later, his fingers
found her hot and slick, and when she shuddered and cried out his
name, Jack was so lost in the pure sensuality of the way she moved
beneath him that he nearly fell over the edge with her even though
he was still fully clothed.

Slowly, he kissed his way down her legs, from
the incredibly soft skin of her inner thighs to the sensitive spots
behind her knees, then over her toned calf muscles, until he was
pressing soft kisses to the arches of both feet. With his hands, he
massaged her muscles, making her moan from the pleasure of his
touch. He could have spent all night working his way back up her
body with his hands and mouth, finding all of the spots he’d missed
on the way down, but when she took his hands in hers, he let her
pull him back up over her.

Her kisses made him dizzy enough that she
easily rolled them over so that he was on his back and she was
gorgeously naked over him. Silently, and with intense focus, she
began to work open the rest of the buttons on his shirt. When she
had the fabric completely open, instead of moving it off his
shoulders, she leaned in and pressed a soft kiss over his
heart.

Jack had never known a woman as beautiful, as
intelligent, as gracious as Mary. And he’d never known lovemaking
like this before, either. Because with every kiss, with every touch
he and Mary gave each other, heart was as important as heat.

That kiss over his breastbone was the first
in a sweet path of damp heat she made across his chest, neck and
jaw, until she’d made it high enough to cup his face in her hands.
When she rocked into him and they moaned into each other’s mouths,
he was too greedy for another one of her beautiful climaxes to even
think about taking things further.

“Again,” he urged, following his words with
caresses that had her eyes closing as she levered up over him again
to rock closer, faster, harder against him. And as her breath
hitched and her hands gripped at his forearms, she was so
heartbreakingly beautiful that he knew she really was an angel.

His
angel.

Jack could have listened to the sweet sounds
of her releases all night long and might have done just that had
she not reached for his belt buckle. The light brush of her
fingertips over his abdomen was almost too much to handle by that
point, and he had to tense every muscle in his body to keep from
losing control as she finally pulled the leather open and slid down
the zipper.

She didn’t tease him as she stripped the rest
of his clothes and his shoes and socks away, but when her elegant
hand came around him a beat later, a hard hiss of air whistled out
from between his clenched teeth.

Jack wanted their lovemaking to be as much an
equal adventure as everything else they did together, but he was
too close to the edge to let her keep touching him like that
tonight. In one quick move, she was back beneath him, her hands in
his on either side of her head as he kissed her.

For a week, Mary had clearly believed she
needed to fight what was meant to be, and Jack had worked to hold
on to his rapidly disintegrating patience until she felt that she
could give herself to him without reservations. But now the time
for waiting was long past. And yet, even as she whispered to him
that she was protected and she lifted her hips to welcome him into
her, in the moment that he moved between her legs, Jack wanted to
stop everything so that he could tell her how much she’d already
come to mean to him.

But for tonight Jack knew he’d have to use
his body to tell her everything he felt in his heart, instead.

The pleasure built with every stroke, with
every thrust, with every kiss. Damp skin against damp skin, heated
breath over aroused flesh, they were perfect partners in
passion.

And as they moved together, with desire
driving them higher and higher, Jack knew that every breath, every
dream, every prayer had led him here, to the warmth of Mary’s arms
around him.

* * *

The velvet coverlet and sheets lay tangled
around their bodies as they held tightly to each other, still
breathing hard, Mary’s head cradled in the crook of Jack’s arm.
Outside her bedroom window the rest of the city was sleeping. Warm
and safe in her bed with the most wonderful man she’d ever known,
sleep should have finally come to claim Mary, too. But so much had
happened tonight, much more than just lovemaking that had left her
breathless. It would be a long time before she could settle down
enough to get some badly needed rest.

Tonight she’d trusted Jack with her body, but
though that might have been enough for another man, she knew Jack
wanted much, much more.

He wanted her to trust him with her heart,
too.

Not just for one night but forever.

For a few hours, she’d been able to drop her
guard and allow desire to take the place of decisions. Jack’s
touch, his kisses, had brought her fully to life in a way that no
other man’s had before him.

Come morning, she’d have to decide if she
could let what was between them continue to grow…and risk letting
herself fall in love with him.

She’d known from their very first kiss that
making love with Jack would be wonderful. But nothing could have
prepared her for the extraordinary sensations of his mouth moving
across her skin, the sensuality of his hands caressing her…or the
perfection of coming together with him until she lost hold of where
she ended and he began.

Nothing could have prepared her for the
wonder of feeling as though he was her very first, her only.

And nothing could possibly have prepared her
for the way the heart she’d been so careful with had opened wide
with reckless abandon.

Fortunately, looking at their entwined
fingers resting over his chest helped to calm her racing heart. As
if he could read her mind, he lifted their hands to his lips and
softly, slowly, kissed each of her fingers.

Raising her gaze to meet his, she was hit
with yet another shock: Jack wasn’t hiding a single emotion from
her. And—
oh God
—what she saw in his eyes
echoed what she felt in the deep, secret part of her heart she
thought she had locked down, sure it was the only way to prevent
ever being hurt again.

Through the haze of her post-pleasure brain,
Mary couldn’t lie to herself: From that very first moment he’d
spoken to her, from the very first press of his lips against hers
under the mistletoe, had she ever had a choice about falling for
Jack Sullivan?

Suddenly finding it difficult to breathe,
Mary tried to move from his arms, but he wouldn’t let her go.

“I promised you I’d be patient,” he reminded
her softly. “I’m not going to break my promise.”

Didn’t he see that just because he hadn’t
said the word
love
aloud, it didn’t mean
his body, his expression, his heart beating steadily and hard
against hers, weren’t saying it to her even now?

Mary had been on her own for all of her adult
life and had carved out a successful career in a supremely
difficult field. Yet, as Jack held her on her bed, she finally had
to face her own weaknesses…and accept just how far and deep her
fears ran. Fears that had plagued her since the day she’d walked
away from everything she’d known as a teenager.

One night. Couldn’t she have one night to
take a break from the confusion, from the doubts?

Maybe it wasn’t fair to ask Jack to give her
that when he was already giving her everything else, but Mary had
never felt this safe, this cherished, with anyone else.