Red-Hot Santa (5 page)

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “But it feels…”

Good? Phenomenal? Incredible?

She barely heard his groan before he placed his hands on either side of her face and kissed her again, this time within an inch of her life.

Yes…

Red-hot sensation swept over her, making her feel everything, yet nothing at all except a deep, needful hunger for his tongue against hers. She tunneled her fingers under his T-shirt, running them along his sides before curving them against his back, holding tight. So good, so right. So hot…

She gasped when she felt him slide his hands under her shirt, his knuckles grazing her stomach before he cupped both her breasts through her bra, then worked his way under it. As his thumbs rasped over her stiff nipples, fireworks erupted, unleashing a flood of emotion that weakened her bones, leaving her completely dependent on him to hold her upright.

He ripped his mouth from hers and bent his head, licking each of her nipples, squeezing her breasts just short of the brink of pain before drawing her right nipple deep into the hot depths of his mouth.

Max stretched her neck and moaned as he licked and sucked, the pool of need between her thighs deepening, widening, until she was sure she had creamed through her jeans.

She breathlessly cradled his head in her hands and drew him back up, kissing him hard, unable to get enough of him. He tasted, felt, smelled so good. Better than any one man had a right to.

Unable to stop herself, she slid her hand down between them, not stopping until she cupped the hard ridge of his sex under his jeans. She moaned at the thick length of him. Needing to feel more, she popped the steel buttons, not stopping until her fingers were inside his boxers and she held his throbbing flesh in her palm.

Oh, sweet hell…

She stroked him almost reverently, then squeezed, as if claiming possession.

His low groan fed her need.

As if he couldn’t wait any longer, he opened the front of her jeans and pushed the denim over her hips, half taking her panties right with them. She stepped out of one leg and was about to step out of the other when he cupped her crotch, and stopped her breath.

He dragged his mouth from hers, his groan deeper. “God, you’re so wet, so hot…”

Fingers sought and found access to the source of her heat. When his thumb grazed her clit, she bit on her bottom lip to keep from crying out. When that same thumb worked back and forth over her slick vagina, then thrust up deep inside her, she couldn’t do anything but cry out, clutching his shoulders for dear life.

As she staved off orgasm with little hope of succeeding, she absently wondered why all this seemed so new to her…so powerful. Surely, she’d known her fair share of lovers, beginning with Johnny Denton on the couch in the basement of his parents’ house just before her eighteenth birthday. Sure, the event hadn’t been anything memorable…and thankfully she’d been curious enough to push on to her next lover, determined to discover what everybody was raving about.

But this…

This…

She cried out his name, coming so hard she was sure the only thing supporting her was his hand and the phenomenal things it was doing to her between her legs.

“Oh my God…” she murmured again and again.

She kissed him lingeringly as he continued to stroke her.

Then he grasped her womanhood solidly in his hand. “I want you.” His kiss gained momentum. “I want to feel you, be inside you…”

Yes.

Max wasn’t sure if she’d merely thought the word or said it, but her response was unmistakable.

He backed her toward the bedroom and she went, pushing back his denim shirt and tugging up his T-shirt as they went, not finishing one before moving onto the other while he did the same with her coat and top and bra. They reached for each other’s jeans at the same time, fumbling until they gave up and did their own, hers still wrapped around one ankle as they tumbled to the bed.

Hurry,
she wanted to whisper, before he changed his mind again.

Then, finally, he was sheathed and sliding into her to the hilt.

Max’s back came up off the bed and her lungs seized, refusing air, a dark, throbbing heat diving deep, taking hold of her, making her tremble. She didn’t think she’d ever known such a complete, utter connection with another human being. Until now. He filled her not only physically, but she felt inextricably joined with him in ways that transcended description.

He moved and a moan ripped from her throat from an untouched place she didn’t recognize. It might have scared her if it were anyone else but Jax. But it was Jax. And he was all she’d ever need.

JACKSON HADN’T FELT the need to come so fast since he was a teen groping one of the Pearson twins in the cab of Gram’s old Chevy truck.

No, not even then…

He took in the intoxicating expression of the woman under him thinking there was no way this could be his Max. Surely by now she should have batted him about the ears. Pushed him away and told him she was just joking.

But it was Max, and he was about to lose it totally…

Quick, what were the delay tactics he used to employ? Mentally disassembling his M-16 used to do the trick, but when he thought about his gun, all he could see was his thick shaft sinking into Max’s sweet flesh inch by inch.

He grit his back teeth together and froze, his arms threatening to give out from under him where he held himself above her. Please don’t let her move, please don’t let her…

She moved.

Damn molten lava, he was going to lose it…

He did.

And there was absolutely no way he could disguise the fact that he did. The requisite groan, giveaway stiffness and telltale jerking filled out the picture, putting him solidly back in that truck cab.

Only it wasn’t a Pearson twin he was with, it was Max.

He collapsed against her, his face buried in the bedding over her shoulder, in a state of shock. Hell, she had to think him either a complete dork with no experience, or selfish beyond compare.

He felt her hands on his back, then heard her quiet giggle in his ear.

Jackson raised his brows as he slowly tested his arms and lifted himself back above her. Giggling? Max didn’t giggle.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

Her smile was undeniable. “Don’t be. I’m flattered.”

She rubbed her ankles against the back of his calves, causing her slick muscles to contract as she did so. “Now if you were drunk, it would be another story altogether.”

Damn, but she was beautiful. The Max he knew, as well as the one he was coming—quiet literally—to know. Her sense of humor disarmed his horror at his quick draw…and her subtle shifting worked wonders on other areas of his anatomy.

Testing himself, he slowly withdrew. But when she might have rolled out from under him, he replaced the condom and thrust back in to the hilt, satisfied at her gasp and the way she arched her back.

He waited a moment for her to open her eyes. When she did, his grin was what greeted her.

“What?” he asked, leaning in to kiss her. “You didn’t think that was all there was?”

Her breasts trembled as he leaned in to take one of her pouty nipples into his mouth, then the other, swirling his tongue around the stiff nubs and then suckling them deeply, the control he was used to slipping gratefully back into place.

Oh, yeah. Now he was back on track. He kissed Max breathless and then stroked her both inside and out. This time he fully planned to be thorough about bringing her to orgasm, again and again and again…

5

MAX WAS SORE in places she hadn’t known she had. But rather than frowning, she had to fight to keep from grinning. In the company of her mom and aunt, it wasn’t wise to look too cheerful. They’d know something was up for sure and wouldn’t stop until they uncovered what. And Max didn’t plan to say anything to anybody about last night. Criminy, she was having a hard time convincing herself it had really happened…

It was midmorning and Jax had driven her home a few hours ago, well before her relatives had gotten out of bed so the story she told about Patience driving her home hadn’t sounded any alarms. That was a good thing, because in the years she’d been away from home her mom and aunt had become even nosier than they’d been before, grilling her for details on every aspect of her life…up to and including sex. It was a new approach that had left her slackjawed on more than one occasion since she’d returned home five days ago.

She sat at the old Formica kitchen table, running her fingertips over her extra large mug of coffee and staring through the window in the direction of the Savage farm. She couldn’t see it from where she was sitting, but she gazed toward it anyway, wondering if Jax was up yet and whether or not he’d left to return to the city.

The old farmhouse Max grew up in had once belonged to her great-grandparents, who had built it plank by torturous plank (as her aunt told the story). Her aunt Theresa had inherited it twenty-five years ago, not without a little flack from family members, including Max’s mom. But Theresa had stood fast and laid claim to the house as her inheritance, seeing to the upkeep and leasing out the surrounding land to local farmers to help toward the upkeep. Some people in town said it had cost her her marriage, but Max knew better. Of course, it didn’t help that her cousins, Theresa’s two adult children, bought into the rumors. It was more than the distance between Aunt Theresa and Denver that kept them from seeing each other more than once a month.

Max’s mom Cindy had lived at the house on and off ever since she’d left Max’s father twenty years ago, but mostly “on” for the past eight years, ever since Max had enlisted and been out on her own. Cindy had said she wanted to keep down expenses. Max suspected it was more for the company.

Cindy worked part-time at the feed/general store and part-time at the diner, while Theresa partially owned the only beauty shop in town and worked there. Neither of them left the house in the morning until they looked their “absolute best.” You never knew when opportunity would come knocking (her aunt still told the story of a hunky UPS delivery man who showed up first thing one morning. She was convinced she’d missed out on the love of her life because she’d opened the door in her ratty bathrobe, her hair in curlers. The delivery man was said to have raced from the driveway so quickly, it had taken ten minutes for the gravel dust to settle).

The two women were the biggest reason why Max never really made an effort to look feminine…or anything except presentable for that matter. For one thing, she’d found it next to impossible to get into the bathroom, since one or the other of them was always in it. But mainly, she hadn’t wanted to be like them. Over the years, she’d gone to great lengths to sabotage any of their attempts to dress her up when she was a teen by dyeing everything black and tearing stylish goth holes in anything she classified as “cute.” Which was just about everything they’d ever bought for her.

Sometimes it seemed that all the two of them ever did was talk about their exes and how bad they’d had it, gossip about other people’s love lives or gush about a guy they’d met, were dating or would like to date.

You’d think the sun rose and set on their romantic aspirations.

Max smiled and sipped her coffee, her mind sliding back to Jackson and last night. Wouldn’t it be amusing if she discovered she wasn’t really that different from her family after all?

“I know that smile,” her aunt said, coming into the kitchen.

Both the words and her own thoughts nearly caused Max to choke.

Theresa poured herself a cup of coffee and then took the chair opposite her. Her mother looked up from where she was reading a gossip rag to her right.

“Well?” her aunt asked, not about to give up.

Max put her cup down. “You’re the one who said you knew what it meant, so why don’t you tell me? Because I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”

Her mother folded the paper back to where she’d left off. “Oh, yes. You’re right. How could I have missed it? Theresa, dear, I do believe our darling Maxine has gotten laid.”

Holy shit!

Okay, time for her to go.

“Whose car do I get today?” Max asked, desperately trying to change the subject.

They exchanged a look and then a smile of their own Max wasn’t sure she liked. Actually, she was positive she disliked it.

“What time are you going to be back?” her mom asked after offering her car.

“I don’t know. I’m going into town to see about a job. Afterward, I’m checking into that truck Julie told me was for sale.”

“No rush,” her aunt said, watching her as she sipped her coffee.

“Where’s the job?”

“I’ll let you know if I get it,” she said, hightailing it out of the room as quickly as possible. “See you later. Text if you need anything…”

She slammed the door on one of their responses, shrugging into her coat once she was outside and then closing her eyes and taking a deep breath of the frigid air. She’d wanted to shake off the aggravation brought on by having two overly curious women in her life. Instead, she found herself smiling again. Extra wide and likely much like a neon sign announcing what they’d seen: she’d gotten laid.