She shuddered at the invasion, filled fuller than Santa’s sack. Her eyes watered, her lips twitching in complete satisfaction. The rightness of the moment rolled over her; the completeness of being so close to Eric burned in her chest. She’d never felt so loved, cherished, adored as she did in this moment. Better than any night with Josh.
“Callie.” His voice was rough above her, restrained longing and concern dotting his words. He pulled out of her, slipping slowly from her until only the very head of his cock remained, resting at her entrance. “Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head, tears sliding down her cheeks and falling to the sheets. His fingers brushed down their salty trails, gathering the moisture and soothing her with the caress of his fingertips. “No, it’s just this…” She swallowed, her words as ragged as last year’s toy. “This night…I…”
His lips descended on hers, swallowing her avowal, concurring with the sweet swipe of his tongue. His kiss calmed her, assuring her he understood, he agreed, even if she didn’t know how to form the words.
He thrust back into her, plunging deep, hard, as if he were driving home. Callie arched up, meeting his thrust the best she could in her bindings. Each impalement added to the heat and pleasure gathering in her core, coiling tighter, shuddering faster, tempered only by the sadness she couldn’t completely relieve.
Tonight would be her last time to be with Eric. The last night to feel this impassioned, this loved, this cherished. She turned her head aside, camouflaging two fresh tears as they raced down her cheeks.
Eric roared helplessly, every nerve in his body zapping with electricity. Fire billowed down his spine. Her pussy was tight, hot, wet, like warm figgy pudding. Being inside her was the best thing he’d ever felt. Right. Perfect. Where he should have been for far too long.
The words crawled up his throat, threatening to drop out like Santa from the chimney, unprepared and unexpected. Yet unlike the gifts Santa delivered, Eric wasn’t sure the words would be as joyously received. Did she want love from him? Did she want commitment? Or was this only about sex? About having someone she felt comfortable enough with to be so uninhibited? She’d just broken off a long relationship. The bitter, soul-crushing breakup had ripped apart her confidence. Could she be ready for such commitment and emotion again?
Eric’s hands explored her flushed body, capturing her breasts, massaging them, pulling on the hard cranberry tips until she quivered. He buried his face in her neck, breathing in the spicy vanilla scent dappled along her skin.
At least for tonight she was his. For tonight he had her under his control, the power to illustrate how he loved her, to brand her forever with pleasure.
“Come,” he commanded directly into her ear, feeling her shiver beneath him, her pussy clenching at the order.
“No.” Her words were harsh, spit out between moans as he nibbled her neck, biting just enough to adorn her with his teeth.
Eric pulled back, amazed. He’d never heard a woman deny her orgasm. Not when she was so close. Not when she wanted it so much.
It shouldn’t surprise him. Everything about being with Callie was different, how much he felt, how much emotion she created within him. No other woman had ever pushed him so far, sawing at his control the whole way, and making him love every second of it.
“No?” he questioned, plunging back into her, fast, deep, making her back arch and her legs shake.
“Why not?” He increased the depth of his plunge, forcing her to feel every inch of him. He slammed into her, enjoying each whimper and moan. The returning challenge filled her eyes, an expression he hadn’t seen in six months.
“I want you to come with me.”
Eric smiled, his heart throbbing. His arms shook as he moved farther over her, meeting her gaze. He swirled his hips, shifting to touch places deep inside no one else had. She bit down on her full bottom lip, fighting to keep from screaming out, drawing a snicker from him that morphed into a howl as her pussy gripped him tight. “Whatever the lady wants.”
He sped up his thrusts, gritting his teeth as she quivered around him, slamming into her to the hilt as her thighs clasped him. Her tiny toes danced behind his knees, curling against him as she cried her pleasure. His vision turned black as his ears filled with the pounding of his blood and the echo of her screams. His balls tingled, tight and hard, like peppermints.
“Please.” Her wrists twisted, the very tips of her fingers stroking the crook of his hips, pushing him over the edge. He thrust into her fast, hard, demanding. He screamed, bells ringing in his ears, lights glistening in front of his eyes as bright and beautiful as a fully decorated Christmas tree.
Her long, silky legs rubbed along his hips, shifting restlessly as she blubbered his name, shattering beneath him. Her pussy rippled around him, each clasp like another present under the Christmas tree, a gift she gave him and he returned as he bucked through every echoing spasm.
Eric slumped down on her, sweaty skin to sweaty skin. The velvet ribbon, still wrapped around her, clung to his chest and stomach, stimulating his skin with its satin brush. He needed to untie her, he wanted to, to feel her arms encircling him, her fingers combing through his hair, exploring his back, but he didn’t have the energy to move, content and satisfied as he’d never been before.
Beneath him Callie sighed, her body soft and replete. She nuzzled her head into the arch of his neck, placing one sweet kiss against his skin.
Eric’s heart thumped, his chest tight and tender. He’d finally found home. Everything he ever wanted, everything he ever needed in one astonishing redheaded present, wrapped with a velvet bow. She was the best Christmas gift he’d ever received, and he didn’t plan on letting her go.
Chapter Five
They slept in a tangle, one of his legs pushed between hers, his arm wrapped around her chest, one large hand capturing her breast as if staking a claim. Her supple back pressed into his chest. The smell of sex surrounded them, filling the room.
Eric smiled, slowly waking. He’d never felt so good in his life. Sure, the night had been filled with mind-blowing sex, but it was more than that. He’d felt more, enjoyed himself more than he had with any other woman. Because he was with Callie.
She was amazing in every way. He’d never been with a woman as giving, loving, and responsive as she’d been last night.
And he had no intention of losing her.
Beside him, she shifted in her sleep until his cock was cradled between the cheeks of her silky butt. His dick, already hard, stiffened further. He groaned, soft and low, and was rewarded with the gentle song of her laughter. Sweet as a child’s on Christmas morning.
The little vixen was awake. She was doing this on purpose. Two could play at that game. He gripped her breast tight, kneading, rubbing against her nipple until it was hard and attentive against his palm. She sighed beside him. Her body bucked, riding his thick thigh between her legs. Her fingers gripped the sheet cresting her shoulder, decapitating several snowmen as she released a long, keening cry.
Eric’s heart heated and glowed, brighter than Rudolph’s nose. After last night, their spots on the naughty list were no doubt sealed. Her quieting sighs of completion filled his ears. Yet not enough. He already wanted to hear her whimper and moan again. He planned to spend all Christmas Day making her come over and over, any way he liked, every way she wanted.
Callie pulled back from him, her red hair brilliant in the full morning sun. The smile on her kiss-swollen lips mirrored the brightness of her glittering green eyes. She looked liked a rumpled angel, hair tousled, skin still flushed pink from their loving last night. She stretched her arms above her head, a satisfied sigh slipping from her lips, like that of a woman who’d spent all night long in bed with a lover. If Eric had anything to say about it, that look was going to become permanent.
She leaned over, kissing him on the cheek. A chaste expression, given all they’d shared, but he felt so good he didn’t care what she did as long as he got to pick next.
“Thank you.” She pulled back, meeting his eyes. “This was the best Christmas gift ever.”
Eric froze, colder than the North Pole. She thought this was just a present. True, he’d said something to that extent during their night together, but it had only been part of the game, the dominating Santa. He hadn’t meant it. He couldn’t believe she didn’t realize that. What they’d shared last night had been much more than a gift. It had been life changing, world fulfilling. More than he could have ever dreamed. How could it have not meant as much to her?
“You’ll have to open your present to know for sure, but I believe you won this year.”
Eric couldn’t have cared less about their bet. He couldn’t even consider New Year’s. He couldn’t think past the blinding pain stabbing between his eyes, deep in his heart.
“I’m going to go take a shower, then we’ll do breakfast, okay?” She rose from the bed, pulling the sheet with her. Wrapping the flannel around her body, she left no scrap of flesh for him beneath her smooth shoulders.
Last night he’d seen every part of her, tasted and explored until she whimpered and begged. Yet this morning she hid from him, sneaking back behind the cape of friendship that had concealed her for four long years.
Eric wasn’t interested in breakfast. He wouldn’t be able to hold it in even if he did eat. He was sure it would fall out of the hole forming in his gut, the crater that expanded with each second she looked at him as if today was any normal day. Like he hadn’t spent the night buried inside her.
He heard the door to the bathroom shut, the tinkling of the shower mist as it hit the fiberglass and tile while Callie waited for the water to warm. Eric’s body started to warm as well, heating with an anger that expanded faster than gingerbread.
She couldn’t do this to him. She couldn’t be so open and giving with him, showing him how much he loved her, deeper than even he’d known, and then tell him it was only for a night. After four years of friendship he deserved more. After four years of loving her from afar he needed more.
And he was going to get it.
Callie stepped into the shower, pushing her face under the hot mist, washing away the tears covering her cheeks. More fell, dropping down her face, indistinguishable from the jet’s spray. This was her moment to mourn, before she left the bathroom to spend the rest of their friendship pretending everything was the same. That she wasn’t half-dead, wilted like a tulip in December.
She didn’t know how she’d held it together until she escaped into the shower’s hot, stinging spray, but she was thankful for it. She’d been close to breaking into tears since the moment she woke to the bright golden sunlight, her night with Eric over.
She should be grateful for what he’d given her. One night with the man of her dreams. It was stupid to want more, but her heart had always been a dunce. Especially when it came to Eric.
If they had any hope of salvaging their friendship after everything they’d done last night, she had to hold it together. He couldn’t see her cry. He couldn’t know how much it hurt never to be with him like that again.
Eric was a kind and caring friend. If he knew her pain he might stay with her just to ease it. She couldn’t be with a man who didn’t truly love her. Not again. That he might only be with her out of pity was more painful than losing him entirely. At least this way she’d know, for this one night, he’d wanted to be with her, to give her a gift, out of friendship and love, not duty.
She heard the door jolt open, shaking in the frame, only to be slammed shut seconds later. Callie’s heartbeat multiplied, her body frozen forward, afraid of the shadow stalking behind her. Metal rings scraped the shower rod as the curtain was yanked open. The water splashed her face as she dipped her head under the jet. Praying the dunk would remove the remaining trace of the tears still lingering in her eyes, stinging behind her vision as Eric angrily reappeared, depriving her of solace.
Two large feet pounded the shower floor behind her. Eric grabbed her upper arm, using his whole strength to pull her back, spinning her to face him. Her stomach flopped at his rough treatment. His eyes dark, clouded with lust, and an anger she couldn’t understand.
He pushed her up against the tile wall, clasping her thighs in his hard grip. “Eric,” she screamed as he reared into her fast and deep. One hand grabbed her throat, pushing her head back against the white tile. The other held her hip, steadying her for his fast, deep, demanding thrusts.
Callie shouldn’t have been turned on by his anger, his rough hands and brutal grip, but she was. Heat coiled tight within her stomach, flaring in her pussy, throbbing in her clit as he drove into her. Her eyes rolled back, reveling in his punishing rhythm.
She reached for him, the tips of her fingers slipping along his shoulders, but the rest of his body remained infuriatingly beyond her reach. She desperately wanted to explore him. He hadn’t allowed her the chance last night, keeping her tied, torturing her with pleasure until she was too exhausted to reach for him. Now that he’d given her this gift, this one more opportunity, she needed to touch him. Her one last moment to feel him, explore him, make love to him.