Santa's Secret (10 page)

He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d
been holding and gave her a smile that held all of his hope and pleasure and
excitement. “Okay.” He took her hand in his, and they walked along the path
back to the cabins.

Eva’s heart raced as they walked up the
snowy path. The further they got from the busy village centre, the quieter it
became. Families tended to spend the day in Santa’s Playground and visiting the
other attractions, and so the park was peaceful, the cleaning van moving away
as they neared, the staff having tidied the vacated cabins and the afternoon
arrivals not yet checked in.

Snow fell on them as they walked, the
flakes beginning to grow thicker as they neared the cabins. Rudi’s hand held
hers tightly, a physical reminder of their growing relationship, although their
gloves seemed to symbolise the fact that they were really strangers with a
barrier between them.

They’re just gloves
, she thought fiercely.
It doesn’t mean anything.

They didn’t speak as they walked this time,
but she could feel the promise of things to come hanging in the air between
them like a sparkling Christmas bauble.

Her thoughts raced along with her heart.
Should she? Shouldn’t she? She felt caught up in worries about what was right
and proper, and what Bridget would think, and of being disloyal to Damon, and
that it wasn’t fair on Oscar. There were so many issues to think about and
considerations to take into account, and she didn’t want to do any of that. She
wanted this man, this glorious Viking, to take her in his arms and hold her,
and kiss her, and beyond that she didn’t want to think at all.

Rudi stopped at the place where the paths
to their cabins divided and turned to her.

“Your place or mine?” she tried to joke,
but found it difficult to summon a smile, her nerves finally leaking through.

He pretended to consider it, however, and then
said, “My place has whiskey.”

“Your place it is then.” She was surprised
by the relief that washed over her. Oscar slept in her bed; she doubted Isabel
slept in his. It just seemed more…appropriate.

He opened the door and stood back to let
her precede him.

Eva went in, unbuttoning her coat. The
cabin was almost identical to hers, just a mirror image, with the bed against
the opposite wall. It had similar views of the forest, though, and she laid her
coat over the back of a chair and walked to the window, pretending to look at
the view while she took deep breaths to calm herself.

Rudi moved around the room behind her, and
she heard the rustle of fabric as he slipped off his coat, then the clink of
glasses and the sound of the whiskey being poured into them.

Then he appeared by her side and held out
the glass.

She took it and looked at the amber liquid.
He’d added a dash of water, from the colour, and a couple of ice cubes. She
swirled the whiskey over the cubes to cool it. She didn’t drink spirits much,
but her father drank Scotch, and once she’d turned eighteen and he’d offered
her a glass in the evenings, she’d got used to the taste.

Raising the glass, she inhaled the scent
and then sipped it, letting it sear down to her stomach, warming her insides.
Rudi did the same, and they stood looking at the snow, watching the way the
wind whipped the flakes into eddies that seemed to dance across the fields.

“Still no sign of the Northern Lights,” she
murmured, looking up at the cloudy, dark sky.

“We are saving that for Christmas Eve,”
Rudi said. He sounded as if he was smiling, so she glanced up at him. Yes, he
was, his gaze on her, those bright blue eyes studying her, lit with the mixture
of amusement and desire she was beginning to fall in love with.

He looked out, showing her his profile and
giving her the chance to study his strong features. His hair was a tad damp
right at the nape—he’d showered, she thought, the realisation filling her with
a similar glow to the whiskey. She’d done the same of course—had showered,
shaved under her arms and her legs and her bikini line, smothered herself in
cream and perfume, and tried on half a dozen outfits before finally getting
exasperated with herself and settling on jeans and her favourite cream Aran
sweater over a pink T-shirt. It wasn’t sexy particularly, but it was a bit cold
to be sexy, and she hoped it made her look cute, if nothing else.

Rudi sighed. “Isabel said you told her that
even though Santa isn’t real and reindeer don’t fly, Christmas can still be
magical.”

“Did I say that? It sounds like something
I’d say.” She smiled.

“It was a nice thing to say. I think she is
beginning to understand the difficulties of getting older and why we tell our
children the things we do.” He looked back at her. “You are such a kind person.
So calm and gentle.”

Unused to compliments, his words make her
blink. She tried to brush them off. “Clearly you don’t know me very well then.”
And she tried to cover up how flustered she felt by taking a large mouthful of
the whiskey. “We call this Dutch courage,” she said, looking into the glass.
“Why Dutch, I wonder? Do you call it Finnish courage here?”

“Soldiers in the Thirty Years’ War drank
Dutch gin, which is where it came from,” he said. “And it was English soldiers
fighting in the Dutch republic in the seventeenth century who named it ‘Dutch
courage.’”

“You’re full of interesting information,”
she said, remembering what he’d told Oscar about the reindeer.

“I am like an encyclopaedia,” he agreed,
“so therefore you should believe me when I tell you how beautiful you are,
because I know everything.” His eyes twinkled.

Standing just inches from him, she was
struck again by how big he was; he seemed to tower over her, tall and broad.
The blue jumper made his eyes seem even more like a summer sky. What was his
body like beneath it? Somehow she knew it would be firm and muscular. Her
fingers itched to lift the woollen garment and slide beneath it to touch his
skin.

She didn’t move though, too nervous, caught
up in her thoughts that tangled her emotions like a web.

Outside, the snow fell, casting them in a
silvery light. Inside, Rudi moved a little closer to her until their bodies
were nearly touching. One hand in his pocket, he lifted the hand holding the
glass and ran the back of his fingers along her cheekbone. “So beautiful,” he
murmured.

She moistened her lips with her tongue, and
with that he gave her a slightly exasperated look, blew out a breath, then
dipped his head and kissed her.

Eva caught her breath and closed her eyes.

His lips were warm and firm. They moved
across hers slowly, soft gentle butterfly kisses meant to relax and explore.

He kissed her mouth, then up across her
cheekbones, along her nose, brushed his lips over her eyelids. Everything
tingled, from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. His mouth returned
to hers and he continued his gentle pressure on her lips, his teeth grazing
over the sensitive skin a very little, making her shiver.

When his tongue stroked her bottom lip, she
inhaled, and he lifted his head. “You want me stop, my Christmas Eva?” Smiling,
he lifted his other hand out of his pocket and cupped her face.

She shook her head, feeling as if she were
in a dream. “No.”

He finished off his drink and put the glass
on the nearby table. Eva did the same, gasping as the large mouthful of whiskey
seared down inside her, and he took the glass and put that on the table too.

He placed his hands on her shoulders and
turned her ever so gently so her back was against the window, then moved
forwards until his body just touched hers, filling her senses until all she
could see, all she could think of was him.

Then he kissed her properly.

She’d never been kissed like it. So slowly,
so sensuously, as gentle as the falling snow and yet it fired up her blood and
made her heart hammer against her ribs.

He pinned her to the glass, leaning on her
as he deepened the kiss, and Eva’s heart pounded. She slid her hands up his
chest, wanting to feel the muscles she was sure lay beneath the jumper. As if
he’d read her mind, he pulled back, grabbed hold of a handful of the jumper
behind his neck, yanked it over his head and dropped it to the floor. Not
bothering to smooth his ruffled hair, his lips immediately found their way back
to hers as he pulled her into his arms and crushed her to him.

She gasped, and when her mouth opened, he
swept his tongue inside, tasting her, setting her alight. It felt so intimate,
so incredibly hot… She couldn’t believe this gorgeous guy, this sexy Viking,
was holding her, liked her, seemed to want her so much.

Desperate to touch him, she rested her
hands on his chest, feeling his defined muscles beneath the shirt.
Wait,
she told herself,
slow down…
But her hands wouldn’t stop, moving from
button to button and popping them through the holes until she could move the
sides apart to reveal what lay beneath.

She pushed back a little to inspect him,
needing to see what he looked like. He’d said he spent time in Italy and Spain,
and that must account for the light tan, she thought, having expected the very
pale skin of the Scandinavians to lie beneath. But he was lightly bronzed and
beautiful, the muscles sculpted and just a bench press off a six-pack, his pecs
and ribs sprinkled with an attractively masculine scattering of brown hair. His
flat nipples were small and tight, and as she brushed her thumbs over them, he
inhaled and let out a deep, sexy growl.

“My turn,” he stated firmly, and she let
him take hold of the hem of her Aran and lift it over her head. Her hair lifted
and fell as he dropped the jumper to the floor, and he sank a hand into it,
lifted it and ran his fingers through it.

“Like melted chocolate,” he murmured,
letting it run through his fingers. He slid his hand down, running the back of
his fingers along her cheekbone until his thumb brushed her mouth. “You are so
sensual, Eva, in everything you do, do you know that? When you eat, you savour
every mouthful, every morsel. When you put your fork in your mouth, and you
pull it out ever so slowly as if you have not eaten for a month and every bite
is just the best thing you have ever eaten… Do you know how sexy that is?”

She blinked, puzzled at his words, almost
certain he must be making fun of her. Sure, she enjoyed her food, but he made
it sound as if just watching her eat turned him on. He must be joking, surely?

His lips curved. “You do not believe me.”

“No,” she said huskily.

“You should be told how beautiful you are
all day, every day.”

Emotion tightened her throat, made tears
prick her eyes. “Rudi…”

He pressed his thumb to her lips, halting
her protest. “Every day,” he confirmed.

His gaze met hers. Sincerity shone in his
bright blue eyes, along with warmth and genuine affection.

“You don’t know me,” she mumbled beneath
his thumb. “Not really. I’m bad tempered and grumpy in the mornings, and I bear
a grudge, like, forever, and I’m flighty and have a butterfly mind, and—”

The thumb obviously hadn’t worked, so he
kissed her instead. He pulled her into his arms and wrapped them around her,
holding her tight, and kissed her until everything tingled and throbbed, until
all her worries and doubts had flown away.

He pulled back and grasped the hem of her
T-shirt, waited for her nod, then lifted it over her head and let it drop to
the floor.

Eva watched his gaze drop to her breasts,
her body warming in response to his heated stare. She’d wanted to do the same,
to study his body, to treat herself to a view she hadn’t had in a long time, so
she let him do the same, and gave him time to just look. He skimmed light
fingers down from her shoulders over her breastbone, then traced the generous
swell of her breasts, displayed in the best bra she’d brought with her, a white
lacy affair with pretty half cups.

Mumbling something in Finnish, he kissed
her again, pushing her back against the window, but he’d obviously forgotten she
had no protection between her skin and the glass because the cold made her gasp
with shock, her mouth opening under his.

He laughed, said “Sorry,” and before she
could say anything, placed his hands under her bottom and picked her up,
wrapping her legs around his waist.

As Rudi picked Eva up, she gasped again as
if afraid he’d drop her, but he held her tightly and walked across the room,
kissing her soundly. His whole body thrummed with passion and longing.

Before he’d met Vanessa, he’d never been
the sort of guy to indulge in one-night stands and much preferred to date for
at least a few weeks and usually longer before moving to the bedroom. He’d
wondered how awkward they were going to feel, two almost-strangers, brought
together out of loneliness and mutual need. But to his surprise, he didn’t feel
embarrassed or awkward or indeed anything except a deep desire for this woman
who was opening up to him like a flower after the first snows, and who clearly
wanted him as much as he wanted her.

They reached the bed, and he turned and sat
carefully, lying back so she sat astride him.

She pushed herself upright. “Rudi, I’ve
just thought…”

He traced his fingers around her breasts,
still enclosed in their lacy white cups. “Yes,
armas?
”

She raised her eyebrows. “What does that
mean?”

He thought about it, not realising until she
remarked on it that the word had come out in Finnish. “Sweetheart.”

“I thought that was
rakas.
”

He was touched that she’d taken the trouble
to remember the word. “
Rakas
is more for one’s children. Like…sweetie.
Armas
is more for one’s lover.”

She smiled and blushed prettily. “Um… Anyway…
Would have you have… I mean, I never thought to bring….Well, why would I?” She
gave a nervous laugh. “I mean, it’s not the sort of thing… I don’t just carry
them in case… Oh dear.”

He chuckled, knowing where she was going.
“I have protection if that is what you are asking. Do not worry.” He had a
couple of condoms in his wallet. They’d been there for a while so hopefully
they weren’t out of date, but they should suffice, he thought. He extracted his
wallet from his jeans, took a condom out and threw it onto the duvet.

She leaned forwards over him, her hair
falling around his face as she bent down to look into his eyes. Her face looked
serious, maybe every wary.

He rested his hands on her ribcage, his
thumbs stroking beneath her bra. “Are you okay?” He’d prepared himself for
this. “Having second thoughts? Because that is all right; I want you to be
sure.”

Her gaze dropped to his mouth. Suddenly he realised
it wasn’t wariness in her eyes. The pupils had dilated, and her breathing had
quickened.

It was desire.

“No,
armas
,” she said huskily. “No
second thoughts.”

She lowered her lips to his, and he let her
kiss him, let her nibble his lips, discover with her tongue, tantalise and
tease him until he grew hard as a rock beneath her. She kissed down his neck,
over his chest, flicked her tongue over his nipples, touched her tongue to his
skin and nuzzled with her nose as if using all her senses to explore him.

Then she sat upright and reached behind
her, unclipped her bra, slid the straps down her arms and tossed it onto the
bed.

He inhaled and blew out a slow breath,
making her giggle. She had full breasts, heavy and rounded without being
over-large, topped with dusky pink nipples that had tightened in the coolness
of the room. He’d turned the thermostat up, but he couldn’t exactly say it was
toasty inside.

“Are you cold?” He cupped her breasts and
stroked her tightened nipples with his thumbs.

She shook her head, but her skin had goose
bumps.

He pulled the duvet across on the other
side of the bed. “Right,” he said, lifting her onto the bed beside him. “In,
quick!”

Laughing, they shucked their jeans, and he
let the shirt fall to the ground and slid off his boxers and socks, and she did
the same with her panties, and they scrambled under the covers.

Lying on his side, he took her in his arms
and pulled the thick duvet up to their shoulders. “Better?”

She nodded, her eyes bright, and snuggled
up to him, and he lowered his head and kissed her. For the first time he felt her
pressed against him, skin to skin. Her body was womanly soft, not hard and
muscled, silky smooth, as if she wore a satin dress that let his hands glide
from her shoulder, down over her breasts and hips to her thighs.

“Mmm,” she murmured, sliding her hands
around his waist to stroke up his back. “You are even better than I imagined.”

He chuckled and kissed her cheek, then her
jaw and down her neck. “And you are sublime.”

He wanted to look at her again, so he moved
to kneel astride her, took her hands and placed them above her head on the
pillow so she lay stretched out beneath him. He devoured her hungrily with his
gaze, and then touched her, starting at the top and stroking the soft, white
skin under her arms, then running his hands down to her shoulders and over the
swell of her breasts. She watched him, her teeth tugging on her bottom lip as
he stroked down to her navel.

“Tickles?” he said, smiling.

“I just…” She chewed her lip and then gave a
bashful smile. “Nobody’s seen me naked for a while. I’d forgotten that
everything heads south after you have a baby.”

He ran his fingers lightly over her the
swell of her stomach. “You are so beautiful, Eva. Your body is womanly, soft
and sensual. You cannot doubt what effect you are having on me?” Lips
twitching, he directed her gaze downwards.

She looked down for the first time, as if
it was okay now he’d finally given her permission, and her cheeks flushed a
deep red as she saw how hard and ready for her he was. “Oh.” Her chest rose and
fell with her rapid breaths, and she moistened her lips in the way that made
his blood thunder through his veins. “Goodness. Um…condom time?”

He laughed and lowered himself onto his
elbows. “You are in such a rush! You really want it to be all over now we have
finally got each other into bed?”

“Er…”

He kissed her, long and languidly, his
tongue sliding against hers, enjoying the sweet taste of her, the heat of her
mouth, the nip of her teeth. “First I want to taste you,” he said, kissing her
cheeks, her eyelids as they fluttered closed. “I want to cover every inch of
you with my mouth from your fingertips to your toes. I haven’t done this in so
long, Eva, and your body is driving me insane.” He kissed her again, plunging his
tongue into her mouth, then raised his head to look into her eyes. “Will you
let me do this? Will you let me taste you?”

She swallowed and nodded as if she didn’t
trust herself to speak.

So he kept to his word. He started at her
hands, which still lay above her on the pillow, and took each of her fingers
into his mouth, sucking gently on them until she groaned. He touched his tongue
into her palms, then to the inside of her wrists, teasing the sensitive skin
and feeling the warmth of the blood in her veins, a sharp contrast to the icy
exterior, the snow continuing to fall outside.

He kissed along her arms, nuzzling the
inside of her elbows, then moved down to her neck and nibbled there, sucking
gently over the point where her pulse raced. She squirmed, and he chuckled and
stopped briefly to kiss her mouth again before moving down to her breasts.

He decided to spend a bit of time there and
settled himself comfortably to pay her nipples the attention they deserved. Now
she’d warmed beneath the covers, her nipples had relaxed, and he took the soft
peaks into his mouth and sucked, enjoying her moans and the way the skin
tightened to a hard bud in his mouth. He knew not every woman enjoyed her
breasts being paid attention to, but it was soon clear that Eva wasn’t one of
those, and she was obviously content to let him arouse her in this way. So he
did the same with the other nipple, sucking it to a bud, then moved languidly
backwards and forwards between the two, taking his time to flick them with his
tongue, cupping each breast in his hand and enjoying the weight of her, the
swell of her in his palm.

By this time her breathing had grown
irregular and she was almost writhing beneath him, so he finally, rather
reluctantly, left her breasts and kissed down her stomach and across to her
hips.

He wasn’t quite ready to give her the
pleasure she so deserved, so he sat back and lifted one of her legs and kissed
her foot, ran his tongue along her instep and the sensitive skin inside the
ankle, then up the silkiness of her calf and slowly up her thigh. The skin here
was velvety soft, pale, smooth as silk—she’d obviously shaved or waxed that
morning, and he enjoyed brushing his lips along it to the crease of her thigh,
revelling in the warm, earthy smell of woman, the rich, exotic scent of her.

He moved up slowly, tantalisingly touching
his lips to the triangle of curly dark hair, then continued up to lay beside
her. Tracing his hand up her inner thighs, pushing them apart a little, he
moved his fingers lower, then lower still, until they slid into the warm, soft
skin between her legs.

She closed her eyes and caught her bottom
lip between her teeth.

He sank his fingers deeper into the moist
warmth and leaned down to kiss her mouth as he stroked her. She was swollen and
slippery, very aroused, and her heart thudded against his, her breathing rapid
and uneven.

Gently, unhurriedly, he moved his fingers
down into her, testing, exploring, before bringing them back up coated with
moisture to circle the button at the top.

“Open your eyes,” he murmured.

She did so, her lashes fluttering, to meet
his gaze.

“I am going to taste you now,” he told her,
loving the way she looked up at him, totally trusting, full of desire. “Okay?”

She swallowed and gave a little shake of
her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

He tipped his head, amused, still circling
with his fingers. “Why?”

“Because I…I don’t think I can last…”

He laughed at that. “Who says you have to?”

She looked startled. “Well, I just
thought…”

“Plenty of time,
armas
, before this
little adventure is over. Think of it as a meal with more than one course, eh?
This is just a starter.”

“Gosh,” she said, “you’re an angel, aren’t
you? Come down to Earth to fill me with Christmas spirit.”

“I have heard it called many things, but
never that!” He began to kiss down her neck again.

She giggled, but the laughter turned to sighs
as he nibbled her breasts again, then shifted between her thighs. He lowered
himself down, slid an arm under each thigh, and kissed her pubic hair.

“Merry Christmas,” he teased. And then he
slid his tongue into her soft skin.

Eva exclaimed out loud, and Rudi had to
fight not to do the same. It had been so long since he’d done this, he’d
forgotten the exquisite sensation of taking a woman in his mouth, of tasting
that musky sweetness, of giving pleasure to someone else, which was a gift that
could never be matched.

He moved his hands between her thighs and
spread her wide so he could access every inch of her, admiring the way she
parted for him, her moist skin glistening, before he penetrated her with his
tongue and licked and sucked until she gasped and wriggled beneath him.

She sank her hands into his hair and,
encouraged by this and sensing she’d told the truth and wouldn’t be able to
hold on for long, he slid two fingers inside her and concentrated his mouth on
the silky pearl, teasing it out of its shell and feeling it swell and harden in
his mouth. He murmured his approval, encouraging her on, and felt a glow of
satisfaction as she tightened around his fingers, flooding them with moisture,
her fingers clenching in his hair and her body stiffening as she came with a
series of erotic sighs and moans that had his own body swell in response.

As the little pulses on his fingers died
away, he pushed himself up and quickly rolled on the condom he’d left to one
side, then moved on top of her and lowered himself down on his elbows so he
could kiss her.

She looked drowsy and dreamy, but he hadn’t
finished with her yet.

“Wake up, sleepy,” he murmured, licking her
bottom lip and then plunging his tongue inside her mouth. “Time for the main
course.”

She murmured approval and wrapped her legs
around him, and he guided the tip of himself into her, groaning as the
sensation of her wet, plump skin welcoming him in.

He paused there, though, wanting to make
the moment last, desperate to hold onto the beauty of the sensation as long as
he could.

She complained and wiggled her hips. “Rudi!
Please…”

“Wait,” he scolded. “Slowly, for God’s sake,
or it will all be over in seconds.”

Her lips curved, but she did as he bid and wrapped
her arms around his neck, waiting for him to proceed at his own pace. He pushed
forwards a little, looking deeply into her eyes as he did so. Jesus, it was
beautiful to sink into her, like wrapping himself in thick, warm velvet. She
met his gaze, encouraging him, and eventually he couldn’t stand it any longer
and pushed his hips forwards, fully sheathing himself inside her.