Colorado Christmas (15 page)

“Are you sure about this?”

“Absolutely!”

He smiled at her enthusiasm.

This man is too good to be true,
a tiny voice kept nagging her. She recognized it as the
Voice of Experience
and pushed it away, thinking,
But he loves my son
.
He cares about people, about this town. About me.
They were powerful affirmations.

“I can sense you’re still not positive,” he said, breaking into her thoughts.

“Okay, I’m scared,” she admitted, her shoulders sagging with defeat.

“Of…me?”

“Of being hurt again.”

He kissed her temple and murmured, “Don’t be afraid. You’re safe with me. I’ll always keep you safe. You…and Nick.”

She stroked his cheek. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”

Will kissed her. A gentle peck to the end of her nose, a touch of his lips to her closed eyelids and then tender kisses to her mouth, exciting her, making her crave more. Ever so slowly, he drove the last of her inhibitions away. His tongue teased her mouth, then gained entry.

She gasped when he slipped his hand beneath her sweater, touching the bare skin of her back, stroking her—driving her wild with want, with need.

When he unclipped her bra and cupped her breasts, she delighted in his grateful sigh as they fell into his hands. She felt empowered, beautiful, desired. And still he continued to kiss her.

The exquisite sensation of his callused thumbs caressing her breasts made them swell beneath his touch.

Will smiled against her mouth. “You like that?” he whispered.

“You need to ask?”

With a growl of male satisfaction, he grazed her throat with his teeth.

She’d never experienced anything so sensual before. Will’s lovemaking made her
want
to feel wanton, to let her defenses completely down and succumb to whatever pleasures he wished to bestow.

Desperate to touch him, she reached beneath his sweatshirt and ran her hands over his back.

“Take it off,” he said against her throat.

She complied, pulling the sweatshirt over his head, then at the sight of his half-naked body in the lamplight, she pressed a kiss to his chest, savoring his male scent and the warmth of his skin.

“I
LIKE THAT,” HE GROANED
and held her close, enjoying her feminine softness. He needed Becky and told her so as he dropped moist kisses on her throat. She rewarded him with a sigh that spoke of her need and sent his libido into overdrive.

If they kept on like this, he wouldn’t make it to the bedroom.

He loved caressing her, teasing her, taking her higher with each kiss. “You feel beautiful,” he murmured and pulled up her sweater, exposing her to him. He kissed her breast, too impatient with need to strip her sweater off all the way.

“Oh!” she gasped as he drew an erect nipple into his mouth, driving himself nearly crazy with need. He had to put a stop to this
now!

With more self-control than he believed he possessed, Will pulled her sweater back down, took her hands in his and said, “We need to get a room.”

“I happen to have one upstairs,” she said, thrilling him with her eagerness.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked again. “I don’t want any morning-after regrets.”

“I’ve tried so hard to resist you.” She sighed against his chest, unable to meet his eyes. “And I can’t find one good reason to resist you anymore.”

“Hallelujah!”

She grinned up at him. “Why were you so persistent?”

“I fell in love with your red hair and green eyes. And your freckles.” He kissed the tip of her nose a second time.

“I…” Becky was flustered. “You’re teasing me.”

“Nope. I knew you were worth fighting for the moment you looked at me over the top of your glasses.” He winked and offered her a smile. “I had one of those naughty librarian fantasies and it needed exploring.”

“What?”

“The fantasy about the button-down, highly intellectual, sexually repressed woman who hides a smoldering sensuality.” He held her chin. “Guess I was right about you from the start.”

She gave him a playful swat.

“You’ve starred in lots of my fantasies, but the naughty librarian is the only one I can tell you about in polite company.”

Becky swallowed, recalling a few of her own fantasies regarding Will. They were definitely X-rated.

He kissed his way from her forehead down her nose to her mouth, then across her cheek to her earlobe. She giggled, loving the fact that he kept kissing her, as though he couldn’t get enough of her.

“Tell me about your other fantasies.” She gasped when he nipped the side of her throat.

Will gazed into her eyes. “All right, but I’d rather we continued this discussion in the bedroom. Naked,” he said, lifting her into his arms and carrying her up the stairs as if she weighed nothing. “Because you’re a woman who should be made love to and often, Scarlett, and by someone who knows how.”

“Oh.” Becky brought her hand to her chest. “I seem to be having one of my Rhett-Butler-ravishes-Scarlett fantasies.”

Will rewarded her with a huge grin. “Why, Miss Scarlett. Ah do believe you’ve shocked me. A young lady like you, havin’
fantasies.”

She laughed, feeling completely at ease. “I have a confession to make. I fell in love with your dimples that first day in court.” She touched a fingertip to one as he lowered her to the bed.

“Now, Scarlett,” he said as he reached for the hem of her sweater. “You know ol’ Rhett doesn’t have sissy things like dimples.”

He stripped off her sweater and bra and tossed them behind him. His shirt followed. Becky laughed. This was some fantasy and she was eager to play along.

Soft moonlight filtered through the curtains, outlining Will’s body. He was magnificent.

He kissed each wrist, then pinned her hands above her head, making her feel totally exposed and vulnerable.

She loved this role-playing of characters so different from themselves. Rhett Butler, the ultimate alpha male, and Scarlett, the beautiful, frivolous seductress. Secretly, Becky had always wanted to be more like Scarlett. Will was offering her the chance.

With his free hand, he stroked her, his eyes following his hand’s slow progress down over her throat, between her breasts, across her abdomen. She swallowed.

He trailed his hand lower, over her jeans….

Needing to feel his skin against hers, have him caress her in places no man had touched for so long, she struggled to release her hands from his grip but he held her fast and teased her some more.

“Oh, my…Scarlett, these seem to be rather thick pantalets you’re wearin’ today,” he said in a deep, gravelly voice, then bent to kiss her.

She used the distraction to pull her hands from his grasp and undo the top button of her jeans.

Will ran a finger up and down her zipper, taunting her.
“Scarlett, what’s this here newfangled contraption you have in your pantalets?” he asked and lowered his head to undo her zipper—with his teeth.

She gasped as his hot breath brushed against her, then she lifted her hips and took her jeans and panties off in one smooth motion. She wanted Will so much she couldn’t wait another moment. “Now,” she whimpered.

“Scarlett, my dear, you be a good girl and just wait till ol’ Rhett has had his wicked way with you,” he said and kissed her bare tummy. When he poked his wet tongue into her belly button, Becky collapsed in a boneless heap, surrendering to his mastery.

She combed her hand through his hair, savoring the softness of it and the delicious sensation of his mouth moving lower. And when he spread her thighs and began to taste her, sending flares of ecstasy arcing through her body, she nearly wept.

“Why…Rhett,” she said, her voice breathless.

“Hush, Scarlett,” he murmured.

Will had a very clever tongue, she decided as the delicious sensations spiraled, intensified and exploded into waves of exquisite pleasure.

When she finally recovered her senses, he was hovering over her wearing a huge grin.

“Did you find that mighty pleasin’, Miss Scarlett?”

“Oh, Rhett,” she cooed in her best southern-belle accent, lifting the back of her hand to her brow as if to ward off a faint. “I can’t think about that raht now. If I do, I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow could be a long way off with what I’ve got planned for tonight, my dear,” he said, pretending to twirl his mustache, a lascivious look in his eye.

“Sir,
you are no gentleman,” she told him in a stern Scarlett voice. “Now get up, you varmint, and let me have
my
way.”

B
ECKY AWOKE
in the afterglow of a night’s lovemaking. It had been intense. Beautiful. Will was everything she could have wished for in a lover, and so much more.

She’d made herself vulnerable by putting her trust in someone else so completely and been repaid with the most precious gift.

She rolled over to gaze at him. Will lay on his back, his arms flung over his head, the sheets pushed down, scarcely covering his nakedness. A smile curved her lips as she described him in one word:
potent.

She pulled the sheet up to cover him in the early-morning cold. Will seemed to like sleeping with hardly any bedding and she liked to snuggle under the blankets. That was something they’d have to work out in the future—

She sat up. Her sudden indrawn breath woke him.

“What’s up?”

She turned away, reached for her robe and drew it on. Will tugged at her hand and pulled her back down on the bed.

“I asked what’s wrong?”

“Who said anything’s wrong?” she replied, unable to face him.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

Wrapping her robe tightly across her breasts, Becky forced herself to face him. The man was magnificent, she thought.
But they didn’t have a future.

He leaned on one elbow, the muscles of his chest taut, his biceps tensed, a frown creasing his brow.

“Sweetheart?” He reached for her but she flinched away, then cursed herself for being so transparent.

“I take it this is your manifestation of the ‘morning after’?” he asked, sitting up and scrubbing at his face. Then his eyes bore into her. “Despite what you said last night, you’re having regrets.”

“Of course not,” she answered and turned away, before he read the lie in her eyes. What was she
thinking
last night when she’d invited him in? She’d let her guard down, succumbed to her growing feelings for him and, in doing so, had crossed the boundary between employer and employee. She’d
used
him.

If she couldn’t be trusted to make judgments about her personal life, what hope did she have in making judgments on the lives of others?

“Yeah. You
are
having regrets. Big ones,” he said bluntly.

Becky could hear the disappointment in his voice. When she felt him get out of bed, a deep emptiness filled her heart.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t help feeling this way.”

“Precisely what way is that?” He’d come around the bed to stand in front of her. Naked.

Becky averted her eyes. “For one foolish moment…I let my body rule my head. The whole town will find out about this and, once they do, so will everyone who matters in Denver.”

“What the
hell
are you saying?” he demanded, grasping her chin and forcing her to look into his eyes. They blazed black and furious.

“You’re my employee. You’ve been a defendant in my court. You don’t even have a real job—”

“What?”

“You can’t deny that. Any of it. Once it gets out that we spent the night together—and knowing how small-town grapevines work, that won’t be long—I won’t be able to hold my head up in public and I’ll never get appointed to a better position back in Denver.”

“You’re
ashamed
of me?”

“What? No!” She threw up her hands in exasperation. “I’m angry with myself. I can’t believe I was so
stupid.”

Will paced to the other side of the room. She watched, mesmerized by his masculine beauty, her heart breaking with the certain knowledge that she couldn’t both have the job she craved
and
Will. They were mutually exclusive.

He snatched up his jeans and pulled them on, buttoning them as he glared at her.

At least he was now partly clothed. She couldn’t talk to him while he was naked. He was too exposed physically and she felt too exposed emotionally.

“For a start,” he said as he returned to the bed, “I’m not going to be taking out an ad announcing that we’re lovers.”

“But—”

“No!”
He cut her off. “You’ve had your say, and now you
can listen to me.” He paced the room again, yanking his hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration. He turned back to her. “Despite what you think, no one in this town cares about our private business and anyone who does is irrelevant. Same for anyone in Denver.” He turned back to her and demanded, “Are you ashamed of being seen with me?”

“No, of course not! I already told you that.”

“You figure because I don’t have a ‘job’—” he held up his fingers and drew quotation marks around the word “—that I’m beneath you?”

Becky was slower to answer this time and Will jumped on it. “That about says it all, then, doesn’t it?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Really? Then exactly how
did
you mean it?” He raised his hand when she started to answer. “No, save it. You’re regretting that you slept with a ski bum who’s appeared before you in court
and
happens to be your employee. Well, you can cross one of those off the list, because I quit!”

“You can’t do that! What about Nicolas?”

“I didn’t say I was quitting on Nick. I just quit the job. The one where you pay me to sleep with you.”