Kissing Under The Mistletoe: The Sullivans (Contemporary Romance) (26 page)

“All of your fears came true.”

“With every awful word I hurled at you, it
was as if I was watching myself from a distance, knowing the
tighter I tried to hold on to you, the further you were going to
slip away.”

“I’m sorry,” Mary said, “so sorry we both
hurt each other so badly.”

Lucia gently wiped away the tears falling
down Mary’s cheeks. “Go to the closet and bring me the red box on
the top shelf.” The box was the size of a large hat and was quite
heavy. “Look inside.”

Inside the box was a photo album her mother
had put together of photos from Mary’s childhood. She smiled as she
looked at the photo on the cover—herself as a chubby-cheeked baby.
Her first thought was that Jack would love to see it.

“You and your Jack will have beautiful
children. Smart, lively, passionate girls and boys that will fill
your arms and hearts with endless joy.”

As they went through the pictures one by one,
Mary watched herself grow from baby, to toddler, to school-age girl
with skinned knees, to lanky teenager, to young woman. The last few
pages of the photo album were empty, and her heart clenched yet
again as she closed the leather-bound book.

“I never stopped collecting pictures of my
baby,” her mother said as she lifted a thick divider from inside
the box and revealed hundreds of glossy magazine covers and photo
spreads.

Mary was beyond amazed to find a print from
her very first photo shoot. “Where did you get these?”

“Your agent, Randy, mailed these to us. At
first, I think it was to reassure us that you had come to no harm
with him. But when your father wrote to tell him how much we
appreciated it, he mailed us a new package every week.”

“I can’t believe he never told me.” Then
again, if he had, wasn’t it possible that she might have insisted
he stop, simply because she’d nursed her anger and hurts for so
long that she couldn’t see beyond them?

“I should have come back long before now,
Mama.” Just as Jack had told her, family was what was important.
Both she and her mother had done what they felt they
had
to do, and both of them had made the mistake of
being stubborn or holding a grudge about decisions they’d made
while simply being true to themselves. “I never meant to stay away
this long.”

Again, her mother wiped away Mary’s tears,
even though she was crying, too. “You’re home now.” Lucia suddenly
smiled through her tears, as happy as Mary could ever remember
seeing her. “I’ve been thinking about your wedding,” she began, and
this time Mary knew better than to try to get her mother to save
her breath and rest.

Lucia Ferrer had been waiting for more than a
decade for this wedding, and Mary knew her excitement and joy over
the celebration would heal her illness faster than any pills or
hours of bed rest possibly could.

The moon had fully risen in the winter sky by
the time everyone in the house settled down to sleep. Mary had
waited impatiently for her father to finally tire and join her
mother in the master bedroom.

It had been less than a month since she’d met
Jack in downtown San Francisco, but there was no question in Mary’s
mind that she was utterly, completely addicted to him. She’d
enjoyed her solo walk through town and the time she’d spent
reconnecting with her mother, but though it had only been a matter
of hours since Jack had been holding her close on the airplane and
in the taxi, it felt like forever. And if she wasn’t mistaken, from
the way he’d been looking at her in the living room when her father
had insisted on one more round of cards, he was just as addicted to
being with her.

That evening, she’d told him and her father
about her conversation with her mother, about seeing the pictures
her parents had collected of her over the years. Her father had
teared up with the same tears of joy she’d been crying herself all
day. Jack’s eyes, and his hand over hers, had been full of so much
love for her that she could still hardly think what she could have
done right in her life to find him.

Now, Mary stepped out of the cooling bath,
dried off, then wrapped herself in the soft silk robe she’d packed
in her bag. Feeling like a naughty teenager, instead of heading for
her own bedroom, she tiptoed down the hall, through the kitchen and
living room until she reached the guest room on the far side of the
house. Her heart pounded hard with delicious anticipation as she
put her hand on the doorknob.

Making sure to open the door quietly so that
the hinges didn’t creak and give her away, she almost forgot to
close the door as she stared in wonder at the beautiful man waiting
for her on the bed, the sheets at his hips leaving his chest
gloriously bare. Jack was smiling at her, but desire was simmering
just beneath the surface.

“I thought my father was never going to let
you go to bed. All this time I believed my mother was the one
desperate for me to marry. Now I realize my father was quite
possibly even more desperate for a son-in-law.”

She’d spoken in a whisper, but she and Jack
were so attuned to each other that she knew they could probably
have read each other’s lips—or minds—if they’d needed to.

“Your father is a good man. He’s agreed to
teach me some Italian. Want to hear what I’ve learned already?” She
laughed softly at the list of sports terms he rattled off in
perfectly accented Italian.

When she stood at the bed and slipped off her
robe, he said, “But he forgot to teach me how to say ‘You’re
beautiful.’”

“Sei
bellissima.”

After Jack repeated the words she’d just
taught him, he reached for her. “Come to bed, Angel.”

Sliding beneath the covers into his open arms
made an already amazing day even better. “You and my father are so
much fun to watch together, especially when you’re communicating
with increasingly wild hand gestures.”

“Funny you should mention my hands, because
I’ve got a great idea for what I could do with them tonight.” Jack
slowly skimmed his large, warm hands down over her curves, from
breasts to hips.

Mary was a heartbeat away from being lost to
everything but sensation, to everything but how much she loved him.
Forcing herself to keep her eyes from fluttering closed with
pleasure for just a little while longer, she said, “My mother is
just as excited about you as my father is. In fact, she’s hoping
that we’ll—”

“Get married.”

“Well, yes, of course she’s expecting that,”
Mary said with a tap of one finger to the top of her engagement
ring. “But more than anything, she’d like for us to—”

“Have the wedding here in Italy.”

Would he ever stop surprising her…and
pleasing her in equal measure?

“That’s exactly what she’s hoping. And it
would truly be a dream come true for her if we decided to have the
ceremony—”

“Just before Christmas.”

Awareness finally dawned. “My father must
have said something to you, didn’t he? Did he draw you a picture of
a bride and groom standing in front of a Christmas tree?”

Jack grinned. “Actually, I’m the one who drew
him the picture. It seems your mother and I had the exact same idea
for how to make this a perfect Christmas.”

Mary’s heart skipped a beat as she shifted
against him so that she could look into his eyes. “You did?”

Jack’s expression grew serious. “I know I
only just convinced you to wear my ring, and that most people wait
a year between getting engaged and getting married, but I’ve been
waiting my whole life for you.” He stroked the back of his hand
over her cheek. “I don’t want to wait anymore.”

“I don’t want to wait, either.”

“So you’ll be my Christmas bride?”

Tears threatened even as she teased, “Just as
long as you promise not to dress up in a red suit and long white
beard for the ceremony.”

The next thing she knew, she was lying back
on the bed and his big, strong body was levered over hers. “How did
you know that’s what I was planning to do at our wedding?” he
teased back.

“You’re not the only one who can read
minds.”

“How about we do a little scientific
experiment then?” he asked, her skin heating from the sensuality
underlying his question. “Tell me, what am I thinking about right
now?”

She made a show of mulling it over as she ran
her hands down from his broad shoulders over his well-defined
abdomen to his hips. “You’re thinking about kissing me right here,”
she said as she lifted one hand to her face and lightly touched the
tip of her index finger to the center of her lips. “Did I guess
right?”

“You did.”

Running his hands back up her naked curves,
he slid them into her hair. As he lowered his mouth to hers, she
met him in the middle, more desperate for his kiss than she’d ever
been for anything in her life.

The first touch of his lips to hers was
gentle. Sweet. But the long hours apart had taken their toll on
both of them, and though pure love was at the heart of every moment
they shared, and they knew they needed to make love as quietly as
possible in her parents’ house, desire’s demands couldn’t possibly
be ignored.

Mary didn’t know who nipped at whom first,
just that she needed more than gentle or sweet. She needed to
devour and be devoured, needed to fill her senses with as much of
Jack as she could take in tonight. With tongues and teeth, they
both took what they needed so badly. There were no boundaries, no
rules left between them, their passion so pure and true that they
each gave more than they took.

They were both breathless when they finally
pulled apart. He was hot and hard against her, and it would have
been so easy, so good, just to open herself up to him and take him
inside. But when he asked, “What else am I thinking?” she knew it
would be even better to hold out just a little while longer, until
anticipation hit its breaking point.

“You’re wondering what it would feel like if
you ran your tongue over the swell of my breasts—” she lightly
swept her fingertip over her skin “—from here to here.”

On a growl of assent, he lowered his head to
her chest. The warm, wet slide of his tongue across her very
sensitive flesh sent thrill bumps running over her skin, and she
clutched at his shoulders, trying to bring him even closer. But
instead of just licking across her breasts once, he followed the
same path back and forth, one time after the next, until she was
nearly delirious with need.

“Jack.”

He lifted his head to gaze down at her, his
pupils dilated with his own need. “If you can guess my next move
right, I’ll give you a special prize.”

Her brain felt fuzzy now, her limbs heavy
with desire. Somehow she managed to reply, “I like prizes.” Her
hands trembled as, feeling naughtier than ever, she slid them
beneath her breasts and cupped them. “You’re thinking of using more
than your tongue now, but it’s driving you crazy trying to decide
where to taste first.”

“You really must have ESP,” he murmured as he
covered her hands with his. And then his tongue was laving an
incredibly sensual figure eight around her nipples, coming closer
to them with each seductive trip. When he blew lightly over the
tightly puckered, damp skin, she couldn’t remember ever feeling
this aroused before.

When his lips closed over her nipples. Mary
barely remembered in time to tamp down on her moan of pleasure as
he used the pads of his thumbs to caress the soft flesh in his
hands at the same time.

Teetering on the edge of release already, she
gasped, “Is that my prize?”

“No,” he said as he moved down her body to
lay one kiss after another onto her overheated skin. “This is.”

His mouth was warm and hungry as he lowered
himself between her legs. At the same time that the sensuality of
what they were doing together rocked through her, he found her
hands with his and slid their fingers together.

If she’d been close to coming apart before,
it was the love that he gave her even during the naughtiest sex
that sent her hurtling over the edge. Her lungs burned as she tried
to gasp in air; her skin was slick with sweat, and her heart was
racing as if she’d just sprinted from one end of town to the
other.

The intensity of the final San Francisco
photo shoot with Jack, combined with the anguish of her father’s
phone call, the long red-eye flight to Italy, and then the
emotional reunion with her mother and her trip into town, should
have left her limp and exhausted. But instead of her climax using
up the last of her energy, Mary suddenly felt stronger than she’d
ever been.

Tugging on Jack’s hands, she pulled him back
up her body, then rolled them over so that he was the one beneath
her. Mirroring the kisses he’d given her, she started at his mouth,
then moved from his face to his chest, then down lower still,
mirroring the way he’d been loving her minutes earlier.

“Angel.”

She ran her tongue over him and his fingers
clenched hers as she took, tasted, gave. She loved knowing how
close she brought him to the edge, that she could make him lose
control with every press of her lips against his hard heat.

But as he effortlessly dragged her back up to
spin them again so that his heavy weight was over her once more,
she knew the time for teasing, for ratcheting up anticipation to
even higher heights, was long past.

She gasped as he slid into her, then lost her
breath entirely as she arched to take him deeper. Her name was on
his lips, a caressing whisper across her overheated skin in the
moonlight that was streaming in through the window.

Her climax spiraled into his, and feeling
safe and comforted and cherished with Jack’s hands in hers and his
loving eyes dark and intense as he gazed down at her, Mary drank in
the perfect beauty of knowing she’d finally come home.