Santa Viking (16 page)

Tears welled in her eyes, and her throat closed over. “Oh, Erik. You did that for these kids?”

“No, Jessie, I did it for you,” he said, stepping closer.

She’d been skittish all day every time Erik got near her, but now she opened her arms for him and hugged him warmly. “Thank you. No one’s ever done anything so nice for me before.”

He smelled like wood smoke from the fireplace, and evergreen boughs, and fruitcake. She smiled against his neck—the Norse brute smelled like fruitcake. And she was developing a compelling taste for fruitcake, darn it! Or was it a taste for Vikings?

He pulled back slightly. The fingertips of one hand brushed some unruly ringlets off her cheek, then trailed down to her throat, resting lightly on the pulse point. He gazed at her somberly as his head descended
 . . .
one infinitesimal inch at a time. She angled her lips to meet his kiss.

Unlike their earlier, frenzied touches, Erik acted as if he had all the time in the world now. Gently, gently he laid his lips on hers, exploring, coaxing.

All of Jessica’s senses heightened. She felt the heat of Erik’s body. She heard a Mormon Tabernacle Choir rendition of “Silent Night” on the radio in the background, more beautiful than the highest heavenly hosts. The fire crackled a seductive lure. The glittering lights on the tree outshone the very stars in the night sky.

Jessica never knew a kiss could be so expressive. And there was no doubt in her mind that Erik was using this gentle kiss to convey all the emotion she refused to recognize. With its shifting, changing textures, its feathery pressures and strokes, Erik’s kiss perfected all the nuances that a man’s lips could wield on a woman.

He
’
s showing me that he loves me.

Jessica scrunched her eyes closed tight at the wonder of it all.

And, God help me, I love him, too.

Cupping her face in both hands, Erik looked her fully in the eyes. The dog practically crossed its legs, yipping near their feet. “Wait for me, Jessie. We need to talk.”

She nodded, too benumbed to speak.

“I’ll be right back,” he said huskily over his shoulder.

His hand was on the doorknob when a car horn blasted loudly, coming up the drive. Erik turned to her in question.

She shrugged, unknowing.

They both stood on the porch, shivering, watching the red car come barreling up the drive at breakneck speed, way too fast for the snowy conditions. It fishtailed in the turn-around area before the steps.

“Oh, this is too much!” Jessica exclaimed as a tall, lean teenager in a black leather jacket and cowboy boots emerged from the driver’s side, grinning smugly.

“Is it
 . . . 
” Erik began to ask, “.
 . . .
could it be
 . . . 
?”

“Julio.”

“
Feliz Navidad,
everyone,” the witless kid called out, as if he hadn’t disrupted the lives of a whole bunch of people
 . . .
in fact, ruined their Christmas. Jessica clenched her fists at her sides, counting to ten before she ripped him limb from limb.

That’s when Erik tugged on her sleeve, pointing incredulously at the armloads of gaily wrapped packages Julio was grabbing from the back seat of Jessica’s car.

“I’m gonna kill him,” she gritted out.

Erik wrapped both arms around her from behind, locking her in place. “Slow down. Give him a chance to explain. Then let me kill him.”

“Hi, Aunt Jessie,” Julio said breezily as he walked by them, big as you please. “Don’t just stand there like an icicle. Bring some packages in.”

“Now, Jessie. Now, Jessie,” Erik cautioned, “he’s only a kid.”

As Erik dragged her by the hand down to the car and started loading packages in her arms, she pointed out, “That
kid
let me think I was carrying an empty pistol. That
kid
stole my purse and”—she glanced at the dozens of gifts piled in the back seat—“oh, damn, he must have maxed out my credit cards.”

Julio was back, beaming up at both of them as if he were a teenage Hispanic Santa Claus. “I did good, didn’t I, Aunt Jessie?”

Erik jammed a package on top of the pile in her arms, blocking her face before she could answer.

“I even got a laptop computer for Henry. Boy, are those things expensive. You really should get a larger max on your Visa card, you know.”

Jessica walked stiffly into the house, counting to ten, then twenty, trying to avoid her inevitable explosion. Behind her, she heard Julio ask Erik, “Who are you? Aunt Jessie’s new boyfriend? Man, I hope you’re better than that dweeb she was shakin’ the sheets with before. Think his name was Burp.”

“I think I’m gonna like you, Julio,” Erik chortled. “What’d you get for Kajeeta?”

They’d entered the living room and were arranging the gifts under the tree.

“Ballet and tap shoes. And dance tights. But, man oh man, was it hard to find them things in an extralarge chunky size! I got Willie a bong pole, one of those stupid karate pajama outfits, and a Ninja turtle tape. And I bought that bad-ass Darlene a Walkman and a big carry-case of Revlon makeups. Now she can be a high-class slut instead of a low-class bad girl.” He grinned at Erik, fake-punching him in the arm to show he was teasing.

Then Julio added the topper. “Hey, anyone ever tell you that you look a little bit like a Viking Brad Pitt
 . . .
except younger?”

Jessica did laugh then. The whole situation was so ridiculous. But there would be a Christmas after all. She was still angry with Julio—furious actually—but he’d delivered their Christmas miracle. And for that she had to be thankful. So she couldn’t kill the messenger tonight, but tomorrow,
tomorrow
she would give him holy hell.

“I’m starved. I don’t know how women do it. Shoppin’ their booties off all the time. Man, it wipes a guy out. Is there anything to eat?”

“Fruitcake,” she and Erik said at the same time.

Some Xmas gifts are better than others
 . . .

A short time later, Jessica exited the bathroom and was shuffling along in her furry bunny slippers and flannel nightgown toward her bedroom. The house was silent now, except for the occasional creak of its aged “bones” and the whistling wind outside. Pleasantly exhausted, she mused that it had been one of the best Christmas Eves of her life, despite that misguided brat, Julio. And she had Erik to thank for it all.

So she shouldn’t have been surprised when she opened her bedroom door to see him lying on her bed. The light of the bedside lamp reflected on his sensually posed, half-reclining body propped against the headboard with two pillows, arms folded behind his neck.

Shirtless and barefooted.

Wearing a pair of jeans that were already enticingly unbuttoned at the top.

Every hormone in her body began to tango.

“Erik,” she squeaked out, “you can’t come in here. Aunt Clara’s in the next room.”

“So I guess you’ll have to be extra quiet when you—”

“Don’t say it,” she hissed.

“Nice slippers,” he remarked as she stomped closer. Then he gave her voluminous nightgown a sweeping assessment. “Sexy negligee, too.”

“Oh, get out of here.”

“What? You don’t want my Christmas present?” He held out a small package wrapped in Frosty the Snowman paper.

She eyed the gift suspiciously, trying hard not to notice the corded sinews ridging his extended arms, the hard tendons ridging his abdomen, the bulge ridging his
 . . .

Erik chuckled, and she averted her blushing face, taking the gift he tossed into her hands. He was sitting up now, watching her intently.

“God, I love your hair,” he said in a husky voice.

She put a hand to the unmanageable curls, which she hated, and her knees felt weak and buttery under his hungry gaze.

“Can I brush it?
Later?
”

Her knees did buckle then. She had to hold on to the bedpost for support.

“Open your gift, Jessie,” he urged.

“But I didn’t buy you anything,” she said with a moue of embarrassment.

“No problem! This gift’s for both of us.” A twinkle of mischief, not to mention dark, hard-core arousal, in his misty blue eyes turned her suddenly alert.

That’s when she began to suspect what the rogue had given her. A flutter of excitement teased across her skin as she unpeeled the paper. “Oh!” She put the tips of one hand to her parted lips as she gaped, openmouthed, at her gift.

The bottle of skin-warming oil.

Sex with a Viking
 . . .
Holy Thor!

“Oh, my!” she gasped, the bottle feeling sinfully hot in her hand.

“I’ll second that.” He threw his long legs over the side of the bed and stood. Then, boldly holding her eyes, he unzipped his jeans and let them fall to the floor. He wore no underwear. Stepping out of the pant legs, he drawled in a thick, thick voice, “It’s peppermint flavored. Do you like peppermint, Jessie?”

She couldn’t speak at first, overwhelmed by the beauty of this man
 . . .
this man she’d come to love in such a short time. “I love peppermint,” she whispered.

He stood statue-still, five feet away from her, exuding virility. Chiseled bones created stunning curves and planes in his marvelously sculpted face. His blond hair was clubbed back at the nape, as usual, with a dark rubber band. Not an ounce of excess fat marred his well-toned body, from wide shoulders, to rippled abdomen, to narrow waist and hips, to flat stomach, to
 . . .

Something primal quickened deep inside her.

.
 . . 
to his erection, which stood out in rampant declaration of his need for her
 . . .
his carnal intentions.

Breathlessly she waited for his next move.

There was none. Except for a slight tilt of his head.

And she understood what he wanted.

Jessica was not used to this kind of foreplay. Oh, she’d had lovers before
 . . .
not a lot, but a few. And she’d enjoyed sex some of those times, though the men she’d known were usually the aggressors, and she a docile participant. Willing, but never the seducer. Always the seducee.

Erik was insisting on more from her. Much, much more.

Do I want to make love with him?

Oh, yes!

Do I want to please him?

Definitely!

It would only be this one night.

Of course.

Then he’ll leave.

They always do.

One night.

“Jessie,” Erik hissed. A single word. Raw and soul- wrenchingly impassioned.

She kicked off her bunny slippers.

He smiled.

She released the ribbon of her ponytail and let her hair spill out over her shoulders and down her back.

He sighed.

Clutching the fabric of her nightgown, she began to draw it slowly upward, exposing first her calves and knees and thighs.

His smoldering eyes followed the hem.

She paused at the juncture of her thighs, took a deep breath to overcome her innate shyness, then drew the nightgown up to her waist.

His lips parted as his eyes locked on that part of her. His ragged breathing was loud and heavy in the silent room.

Licking her dry lips, she gathered courage and pulled the garment the rest of the way upward, over her head.

“Oh, Jessie.”

Hunger. His gorgeous blue eyes devoured her with a primitive hunger that almost frightened her with its magnitude. His erection was even larger than before, turgid.

He crooked his fingers, coaxing her closer.

She moved halfway.

He closed the distance, still not touching her. Just looking. Then he held a hand out, palm upward, and she realized she still held the warming oil clenched in her hand.

Already, before he’d even touched her, Jessica was fiercely aroused. She didn’t know if she could stand to wait. She might splinter apart, way too soon.

Taking the bottle in his hand, he unscrewed the lid and sniffed deeply, grinning at her—a teasing grin of anticipation. Then he winked with wicked promise.

For the first time in her life, Jessica felt like swooning.

Shaking a drop of the slick oil onto his forefinger, he traced her lips, parting them. The pungent odor filled the air, and the flavor of candy canes teased her taste buds. Almost immediately, she forgot about the taste and smell, however, as her lips and tongue grew warm, throbbing with an odd heat.

He kept his body a good foot away from her. When she reached out to embrace him, he shook his head, pressing her arms to her sides. “No, sweetheart. Not yet. I want the sensations to center only on the oil. And the erotic places I touch.”

Places?
She groaned.

“How does it taste, Jessie?”

“Wonderful.”

“How does it feel?”

“Tingly.”

He laughed. “Can you feel the heat?”

“Ye-e-es,” she breathed.

“Are you sure?” he said, his neck craning forward. “I’d better check.” With the tip of his tongue, he traced the outline of her lips, then the seam. “Open for me,” he demanded, and, before she’d barely complied, his tongue was filling her mouth, exploring. Stroking, in and out. Stroking. “Ummmm, delicious,” he murmured against her, his mouth covering hers wetly.

“I can’t stand it,” she cried at last, as her bones turned to jelly with the intense waves of excitement sweeping from her heated lips to her breasts and downward. Yes, downward.

“Good,” he rasped out and turned her so her back was to him, her head lolling on his right shoulder. His steely erection pressed against the cleft of her buttocks. Gently drawing her hair off her face, he anointed the pulse point at the curve of her neck. When it, too, turned warm, he nipped the spot with his teeth, then soothed the abused skin with slow licks of torture.

She tried to turn. “I want to hold you. I want you to hold me.”

“Not yet. Put your hands behind my neck,” he urged. Then he sketched an oily line from her armpits to her hips on either side, over to the center where he rotated the tip of his forefinger in her navel, then up through the middle of her body to her collarbone. A hot pulse followed wherever he touched, like a line of ignited dynamite powder. He did the same to the backs of her knees, and the insides of her thighs, even the sensitive arches of her feet.

Next he poured a more generous amount of the fluid on one of his palms and rubbed both palms together. He used the wide, callused surfaces to paint her breasts—under, around, the tops, everywhere but on the aureoles or taut peaks where she wanted the heat most. With a mewling cry, she attempted to guide his hands to the aching nipples, but he resisted, chuckling.

“Come,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her to the side of the bed. He seated her on the edge and placed several pillows at her waist, forcing her backward. Her elbows were braced on the bed and her breasts were arched high—a continual vibrating thrum in their warm depths. Then he parted her legs and knelt on the floor between her thighs.

“Erik, no. I don’t like this. I feel expos—oh
 . . .
oh!”

Finally, he was attending to her nipples, drizzling the warm oil around the aureoles, then over the pebbled points themselves. She let out a soft cry as the area turned immediately hot and pulsing.

“Shhh, babe. Just a little longer,” he crooned, leaning forward to take her right breast deep in his mouth, suckling rhythmically, while the palm of his left hand drew wide, pressing circles on her other breast.

She tried to rear up off the bed.

He wouldn’t let her.

She tried to buck him away with her hips.

He wouldn’t budge.

Then he reversed the positions of his mouth and hand.

And she became a keening mass of quivering arousal. Her skin and nerve endings heightened to the point of ecstatic meltdown. She had no control over her flailing hands and trembling thighs.

In that condition, she was scarcely aware that he’d pulled back and was streaming the erotic oil between her legs.

“Oh, no! No, no, no,” she protested as she felt the waves of an overpowering climax began to ripple from her womb, down through that hot channel that he was lubricating with the oil on two fingers. When he lowered his head, still with his fingers inside her, and took the nub in his lips, sucking softly, she gave up the fight.

Tears were streaming down her face.

Erik noticed and stopped, sitting back on his haunches. His lips and fingers were slick from the oil, and her.

“Are those happy tears or sad tears?” he asked with concern.

“Happy tears, you brute.”

“Good,” he growled, standing, and looped his hands under her thighs, lifting her tush off the bed. Then he bent his knees, entering her with a slow, slow, slow upward stroke.

Before he’d fully penetrated, she climaxed around him with violent spasms of pure, shattering pleasure.

When she finally emerged from her delirium of satisfaction, she lifted her lashes slowly to see Erik still poised above her. Perspiration beaded his upper lip and forehead. A muscle twitched at the side of his compressed lips.

“Kiss me, Erik.” She strained her face upward.

With a grunt of sheer male surrender, he lunged into her and brought his mouth down on hers, hard and openmouthed. Then, in a frenzy of movement, he tossed the pillows aside, lifted her hips, and slid her to the middle of the bed.

Jessica tried to caress his shoulders and back, to return his rapacious kisses, but Erik was too out-of-control. His hands and mouth were everywhere, caressing, plucking, sucking, biting, kissing, pressing, pinching, licking.

And her body, which should have been confused by all these conflicting messages, filled with the sweetest burn in the world, overflowing with liquid pleasure which moved closer and closer to the boiling point.

Abruptly, he stopped.

Panting for breath, he rolled them on to their sides, and lifted her topmost leg onto his hip. Unbelievably, he filled her even more completely.

“Jessie,” he gasped out, waiting till her lashes fluttered open. When he had her full attention, he whispered, “Can you feel my love flowing? From here”—he pressed a palm against his chest—“down to here?”—he touched the place where they were joined, and Jessica almost exploded with utter ecstasy. “And up inside you”—he moved out and then in for emphasis—“to here?”—he breathed, resting his fingertips against her heart.

“Oh, Erik, don’t spoil this by speaking of love. I don’t need the words. Really.” She tried to kiss him into silence.

He tore his mouth away angrily. “It’s love, Jessie. Even if you won’t admit it.”

Then, with an efficient movement, he rolled over, and she was on top of him, straddling his hips.

“If you can’t say the words, show me, Jessie,” he coaxed. “Love me with your body.”

And she did. Oh, how she did!

Jessica hadn’t known she had the expertise to make a grown man cry for mercy.