Page 19 of The Irishman's Christmas Gamble
She felt a little drunk from it all, as she feathered down the column of his throat and under the quilt, flattening her hand on the middle of his chest. His heart beat hard under her palm but the damned thick sweater once again prevented her from feeling what she wanted. However, she hadn’t gotten where she was by letting obstacles stand in her way.
She skimmed her hand down to the sweater’s ribbed hem, feeling the buckle of his belt and the denim of his jeans as she slipped her hand under the wool and the cotton tee shirt beneath that. She heard herself make a sound of satisfaction as she found the satin of his bare skin with a glaze of hair in the center. The wall of his abdomen contracted at her touch and he groaned, his breath ruffling through her hair.
“I can’t decide if I want to live or die right now,” he rumbled.
One hand wasn’t enough, so she levered herself up on one elbow, throwing her leg over his. He caught on fast and used his cradling arm to push her up and over to straddle his hips. She felt the ridge of his erection hard underneath her. But she took her time as she skated her palms and fingertips over the rolling contours of his abdomen, inching his sweater higher so she could see as well as touch. His skin was paler here, although she remembered how tan he would get in the summer, even in rainy Ireland, because he and his mates played shirts-and-skins. Despite his reddish hair, he didn’t burn, but turned a golden toast. Which was probably why he generally chose the skins side.
“Are the scars from cleats?” She traced a white slash of hard, smooth tissue along his side.
“And surgeries.” He twitched as she trailed her fingers along his rib cage. “When you play hard over the years, things stop bending and start to break.”
She pushed the sweater higher so that she bared the flat, dusky circles of his nipples. As she put her thumbs to them, feeling the different texture of the darker skin, he hissed in a breath. She glanced down to see his hands clenched around wads of the quilt underneath them. “Are you cold?” she teased.
He let loose a string of Gaelic. Her translation skills were rusty, but it was something to the effect that she was an evil witch sent to drive him out of his several-expletives mind. She laughed and flicked her thumbs over his nipples, now peaked from the cold and her touch.
He released the quilt and grabbed her waist, holding her down against him as he flexed his hips. Her thighs were spread wide over him, so the movement brought the rigid bar of his arousal against the sensitive spot between her legs. Just the one instant of pressure sent an electric streak searing through her, so she arched back without conscious thought, her fingers digging into his chest. The quilt slipped down from her shoulders, but she barely felt the winter air.
He growled and flexed again, making her gasp as her nipples tightened. She braced her hands flat on the slabs of his pecs and rolled her pelvis so she met his movement with hers. Their voices mingled in a wordless chorus of desire.
She started to protest when he released her waist, but then he shoved his hands up under her layers of sweater and shirt to find her breasts, cupping his hard palms over her aching nipples so that she pushed against him as heat rippled and pooled between her legs. A sound of frustration broke from his throat and he skimmed around to the back of her bra to unfasten the hooks with a confident deftness.
His hands were on her bare skin, kneading and tweaking and stroking, so that he focused every nerve in her body on the pleasure his fingers created. She arched and pushed and jerked under his touch as he controlled her like a puppet on strings he held.
“I need to see you. Just for a moment.” Before he could get his hands out from under her sweater, she’d yanked it up over her head and tossed it away. The winter air hit her overheated skin like the flat of a chilled steel blade, but the sight of Liam’s hands on her breasts and the expression of pure lust on his face sent her blood sizzling through her veins to counteract the cold.
“You’re more beautiful than all my fantasies,” he said, his touch gone gentle as he grazed his fingertips over one curve and then another.
“Now you.” She tugged at his sweater.
He let go of her to bend at the waist, lifting his torso off the chaise with a clench of sheer abdominal muscle power. He jerked his sweater and tee shirt up over his head before he eased back down onto the quilt. The arcs and indentations of his swelling shoulder muscles drew her eyes and her fingers. He was like an ancient warrior carved in marble, except the surface was soft and living and warm.
“You are Cu Chulainn come back to life.”
“Why did we wait for this?” he asked, his eyes gone dark and serious as he stroked the back of his hand down her cheek.
She shook her head as though she had no answer. But she did. Somehow she knew their coming together would shift her off balance. A shiver shook her, whether from cold or panic, she wasn’t sure.
Liam whipped the quilt up and rolled her under him as though they were back on the sled, except now they were face-to-face. His forearms were braced on either side of her shoulders, but he lowered himself to press his chest lightly against hers, so she could know the size and strength of him enveloping her. “More,” she moaned. “Crush me with your body.”
More weight came down on her, but she knew he still held himself over her. She opened her thighs so his hips nestled between them and let herself melt under and into him. She fisted her hands in his hair and pulled his head down, opening her mouth to him, inviting him in.
Their tongues touched and challenged and tempted. But it wasn’t close to enough. She wanted him moving inside her.
“No more waiting,” she said, wedging her hand down between them to push against his erection.
His exhalation whistled past her ear, and he shifted to his side, his face tight with strain and longing. “I wanted it to be on a bed strewn with rose petals by the light of a thousand candles.”
“Maybe it’s better this way. That we see each other naked by the light of day, clear-eyed and honest.” Although she felt at a disadvantage against his well-honed body.
“This time. The first time,” he said. “But not always. You don’t have to see everything in a harsh light.” He leaned in to kiss her with a sweetness that cherished her. And then he seized her shoulders and dragged her up and in, so his mouth could close over the tip of her breast and suck.
The sudden, potent contact on the sensitive skin sent a bolt of arousal to flare between her legs. She managed to yank his belt buckle loose before he took the hint and unfastened his jeans, sitting up in another show of rippling abs to shove them down to his ankles and off, along with his boots and socks. She barely had time to catch a glimpse of a green shape inked low on his hip before he had pulled the quilt back up.
His hands were at her waist, flicking open buckle and button. As he pulled the zipper downward, a powerful attack of shyness shook her. His body showed no trace of age, other than the scars, which only added interest to the balanced interplay of skin, muscle, and sinew. After the early years of making the chocolates herself, a time when her arms showed defined muscles and she stood for hours on end, she’d spent most of her time behind various desks. Now she used the gym at the club, as much to make sure it was up to the standards her members expected as because she enjoyed the exercise. But her stomach had lost the taut flatness of youth, curving ever so gently outwards. She was still proud of the roundness of her bottom, but her thighs showed signs of the effects of gravity and inactivity.
Of course, she’d had lovers over the years, but not recently. Like her billionaires betting on love, she’d become disillusioned with those shallow relationships. She wanted more…or nothing.
But maybe not this much.
