White Hot Holidays 20: Sealed With A Wish Read online

  But he liked the way her small hand attempted to circle his wrist. Her fingers lacked quite a bit of space before meeting, but her hold was firm, strong for a woman so delicate.

  “I cannot believe you.” Amazement colored her voice as she drew him into the crisp late December air of the balcony attached to the restaurant and connected club.

  The woodlands surrounded the balcony, providing an intimacy in the area that Kheelan reveled in. It wasn’t like home, but it reminded him much of the wildeforests of First Earth. The trees grew huge there, the streams ran deep and wide and the mountain lakes were a mystery all their own.

  “I have not yet said anything for you to disbelieve.” He noticed the chill bumps that covered her arms, the way she hugged herself against the cold.

  Shaking his head, he drew his leather jacket from his shoulders and laid it over hers. Her reaction was breathtaking. Her eyes widened further as his body heat surrounded her then sank into her, just as he had intended. He did not like to think of his woman being cold.

  “What are you trying to do, Kheelan?” she asked, confused. “Why are you teasing me like this?”

  Kheelan stared down at her in surprise. For a year he had chased her, doing everything he could to draw her into his arms, and still she fought him. And she believed he was only teasing her? Playing a game with her?

  “Have you ever wanted anything so deeply, with such hunger, that you thought of nothing else? Dreamed of nothing else?” he asked her, staring intently into her perplexed gaze as his hands touched her hips, drawing her slowly toward him. “I do not tease you, pretty Cara. I ache for you. I hunger for you. Perhaps it is you who teases me?”

  Damn her, but he was hard. His cock was pressing against his pants with such insistence that he had to grit his teeth to keep from giving it freedom. For surely if he did he would lift her from her feet, wrap those silky thighs around his hips and show her why all women should wear such short, tempting little skirts as the one she wore.

  Because it would make it easy for their men to push it to their hips and lift them easily as they sheathed their cocks in soft, heated pussies. Sweet mercy, he needed to fuck her. He thought of nothing else. Hungered for nothing else.

  “No…” She shook her head, her tongue peeking out to lick at her lips.

  “Yes. You tease me with your soft tongue, licking your very kissable lips each time I am near. You tease me with the soft mounds of your breasts, which become ripe and heavy, their hard little nipples straining toward me the minute you sense my presence. You tease me much, little one, and I am not a man known for his ability to withstand such tempting promises.”

  His hands slid from her hips to lift her small hands from where they gripped the front of his jacket.

  “Here.” He pushed them into the large sleeves then raised them to his shoulders. “Hold on to me, precious, allow me to show you the many ways you tease me.”

  He turned her, pressing her against the wood siding of the restaurant as his hands gripped her waist then slowly slid beneath the camisole top. Flesh so silky it made his hands ache, warm, delicate.

  “Kheelan, why are you doing this?” Her voice was thin, a needy little whimper that raced through his bloodstream and sliced through his scrotum.

  He could feel her against him, feel her need burning inside her.

  “Are you wet for me, Cara? Are you as wet as these pretty little nipples are hard?”

  His hands covered her breasts as a shaky moan left her lips. Then his head lowered, his lips nudging at hers as his thumbs raked over her nipples. Her lips parted on a soft gasp of pleasure.

  “Shhh.” He kissed at her lips, refusing the very enticing invitation of the parted curves as he rolled his thumbs over the tight points of her breasts. “I have only the need to bring you pleasure, Cara. Do I bring you pleasure?”

  Her head fell back against the building as his lips nudged at hers again, stroked over them, felt them quiver against his.

  “Kheelan.” The feel of his name being spoken against his own lips sent blood racing to his cock as he groaned roughly.

  “Come with me, Cara,” he whispered then. “Come to my home, to my bed. Lie against me and feel my pleasure in you.”

  Kheelan could feel the fever burning in his veins now. The sweet taste of her, the feel of her body finally pressed against his, conforming to him, as heated and filled with hunger as his was. He had dreamed of this for a year. Ached for it, ached for her.

  Finding a true mate was never an easy accomplishment. The children of First Earth had been flung far and wide as they seeded other planets, brought life to them, and watched over them. A warrior traveled often, to many planets, over the course of his long lifetime. Kheelan himself was rarely in one place for more than a few years, and he had given up hope of finding the woman destined to fill the life he lived with happiness.

  “Why are you doing this?” She was panting against his lips, reaching for that first kiss with the same desperate hunger that filled him to give it to her. Her lips were soft beneath his, warm and silken. The feel of them was like summer’s heat, impossible to deny, to not find joy in. And he needed more.

  He caught the upper curve between his, kissing it gently as his tongue swiped over it before pulling back. It would be so easy to forget where they were, who he was, in her arms. Arms that twined around his neck and tightened as she arched closer to him.

  “Because I hunger for you,” he whispered, his eyes staring into hers as his hands shaped and caressed the swollen mounds of her breasts, feeling his chest tighten with emotion at her response to him. “I ache for you, Cara. I have ached for you since that first meeting, and the hunger only grows.”

  Confusion filled her gaze as he lifted his head, staring down at her. Her lips were parted and damp, the soft curves reddened from his caress, his kiss. But she wasn’t convinced. Naked vulnerability and distrust shadowed her gaze. Tenderness overwhelmed him, weakened his knees as he saw the need to believe, and yet the fear of pain.

  Stubborn, hardheaded woman. He would have growled in frustration if he weren’t certain the sound would send her running. Enough of this. Enough of chasing after her as a callow youth would do.

  His head lowered, swooping down before she could protest, to steal her lips in the kiss he hungered for, ached for as one hand slid from her breasts and moved territorially down her curvy little body. She belonged to him and none other. Her body, her sweet kisses, her cries of pleasure, they were his, forever his, and this he would begin to show her tonight.

  Chapter Two

  She was going up in flames.

  A part of Cara stood back in shock to watch as she melted beneath Kheelan Mattero’s kiss, his touch, in a way she had sworn she would never do. But there she was, her arms locked around his shoulders, her lips opened to him, her tongue licking at his as she surrendered beneath the driving pleasure. Nothing mattered but this. Nothing mattered except the driving whiplash of pleasure tearing through her body and bending her to him.

  One large hand held a breast captive, his thumb and forefinger doing things to her that stole her objections, her will. Pinching, pulling at the straining bud, sending a lash of burning pleasure-pain to sear her senses as fingers of sensation raced from the tortured tip to convulse her womb.

  And it that weren’t enough to burn through any objections she might have, then his hand at her thigh, pushing beneath the soft hem of her skirt, blazed through them. She shuddered at the feel of his calloused palm sliding over her skin, his fingers moving ever closer to the saturated folds of flesh hidden beneath her panties.

  Oh God, this couldn’t actually be happening to her? She was not standing on the restaurant’s balcony, pressed against the siding, her thighs opening for this incredible man’s hands. But she was. She was following his direction as his hand lifted her thigh until her foot touched the seat of the small metal chair beside them, spreading her open, leaving her vulnerable, defenseless against his touch.

  She couldn’t protest, her lips were too enthralled with his taste, with the pleasure, with the blinding heat he filled her with. She could only tremble as the hand gripping her breast moved around her back, anchoring her to him. She shouldn’t want like this, she told herself. She had forced herself to hold back from him, tried to protect her heart. But there was no protection against this gentle seduction. A year of fighting her attraction to him, her feelings for him, and still she was sinking into his touch.

  She knew what was coming. She knew if she allowed it, then she was lost. Her heart raged in denial though. It pounded in fierce demand as hopes, dreams, need coalesced inside her.

  Those diabolical, knowing fingers slid to the center of her body, nudging beneath the silk triangle that covered her pussy.

  Cara couldn’t hold back the strangled cry she fed into his kiss as his fingers rasped over the sensitive flesh. She lifted to him, desperate to draw closer, her pussy weeping her slick juices as it begged for his touch.

  His fingers sank into the narrow slit, easing up, parting the swollen lips to find the engorged bud of her clitoris as she felt the pleasure tightening in her womb. It was agonizing, the pleasure bordering pain as she fought the rising tide of insanity threatening to take her over. Oh God, she needed him. His touch, his smiles, the hard male groans of his pleasure.

  As his finger rasped around her clit, she jerked against him, feeling the spiraling tentacles of sensation that tore through the oversensitized little bud. She’d had no other man’s touch there, only her own. She had never been able to force herself to allow a man to touch her there, until now. And this was excruciating. A pleasure she swore would be her downfall as she fought to throw herself into the flames.

  She needed more. She craved more. She needed all of him.

/>   “Easy, precious,” he breathed against her lips, his voice immeasurably gentle, coaxing, as he rubbed around her clit, stroking her, building the growing fury of hunger tearing through her. “So wet and wild. Your little clit is throbbing to the touch of my fingers, Cara…” His lips slid along her jaw as he bent to her, moving to her ear as he licked and nipped at the flesh.

  There was too much pleasure. Too many sensations.

  “I want to lay you beneath me and crawl between your pretty thighs. I would spread you before me and lick all that sweet juice from you. Taste you. Fill my senses with the heat and sweetness that flows for me.”

  Oh God. Would she survive it?

  His fingers continued to stroke around her clit, never with enough pressure to send her over the edge. Just enough to push her higher, then higher still, until the only way to keep from screaming in need was to lower her head to his shoulder.

  She meant only to muffle her cries against the broad expanse of muscle. She swore she didn’t mean to bite him. She didn’t. But as her lips pressed against the cloth-covered flesh, his finger rasped over her clit. A shower of sparks filled her mind, blinding, so hot she thought she would melt then and there. Her lips opened on a scream only to clench instead. They pressed into the rippling power of his shoulder, tightening as the strangled scream tore from her.

  Then his teeth were doing the same. The growl that came from his throat should have terrified her, instead it stoked the flames higher, hotter, throwing her deeper into the maelstrom destroying her.

  So close. She arched into his touch. So close…

  And then it was gone.

  Just as quickly as it had risen to overtake her, the tidal wave of sensation shrieked through her nerve endings with the lack of friction, and his fingers were easing from her cunt as his hand hurriedly moved her leg from the chair.

  “Cara, I asked if you were ready to go.” Milly’s voice echoed with ire from the balcony doors, no more than a few feet from them. “I understand Mr. Sexgod there is pretty interesting, but I have to get home to the kids.”

  Jealousy rang in Milly’s voice, as did a hard core of anger.

  Cara stared up at Kheelan, seeing the lust glittering in his eyes, feeling the demand in the hard proof of his arousal pressing into her stomach.

  “Cara will be inside in a moment, Ms. Blanchard,” he was saying softly, his voice rasping, almost frightening in its command that Milly leave. “Please await her there.”

  “For how long? It’s nearly eight, and as much fun as I’m certain you are, no one else is willing to leave until she returns. I should have known to drive myself.”

  Cara shook her head, fighting to force the drugged passion from her mind at the sound of her friend’s snappish voice.

  “I’m coming…”

  “I’m sure you are, darling,” Milly drawled. “But I need you leaving.”

  Embarrassment raced through her system at the knowledge that Milly was very well aware of what had been going on. The other woman was the most caustic of the group of women who worked at the insurance agency. Mocking and sarcastic, she rarely let a chance to snap at anyone pass her by.

  Cara pushed against Kheelan’s chest. “I need to leave.”

  “Come with me, Cara.” He ignored Milly’s mocking snort. “I promise you, you will not regret it.”

  “So they all say,” Milly answered snidely. “Come on, Cara, you really don’t believe him, do you? Look at him. He only wants you because you’ve fought him for a year…”

  “You will leave immediately.” Kheelan’s voice hardened as he turned to the other woman. “Your vicious tongue pays a disservice to your gentle looks, madam, and shows you for the shrew you are. I will not have your tongue wounding her in this manner.”

  Cara’s chest tightened at his tone, but not in fear. Offense drew his body tight, furrowed his brow and caused his eyes to gleam with anger. He was insulted on her behalf? Trying to protect her? When had anyone ever tried to protect her?

  “Where the hell is he from anyway?” Milly mocked, her voice cold. “The Middle Ages? Let’s go, Cara. I’m getting cold and I’ve had enough of his alpha wannabe bullshit. If you’re going to leave with Mr. Studly here, at least come in and let the others know so they’ll stop giving me grief over wanting to go home.”

  Milly turned and stomped back into the restaurant, her head high, her flaxen hair spilling over her shoulders as she tossed her head with a sniff of anger. Great. Now she was pissed off. The next week was going to suck. Milly was capable of making everyone’s life hell when she was pissed off.

  “I feel sorry for her babes,” Kheelan muttered then. “To have such a coldhearted shrew for a mother must be torture indeed.”

  “I have to go.” Cara shook her head, fighting to balance herself, to make sense of the emotions, the sensations tearing through her body.

  She had never reacted in this way to a man before. One touch of his lips and she had been open, eager for him. She hadn’t fought him, hadn’t wanted to fight him. Even now her body was pulsing, her pussy convulsing in a wave of need that nearly stole her breath.

  “Come with me, Cara,” he whispered again, his hand touching her cheek, whispering along her jawline. “Do you truly wish to throw away what you feel in my arms?”

  No. She didn’t. She was twenty-five and other than those five women waiting on her inside, she had no one. A once-a-week dinner with friends didn’t make up for the loneliness, or the demons that chased through her dreams. She could have one night, she told herself. A Christmas gift to herself that someone else would bestow. A far cry from the tiny, empty tree that graced her living room.

  For a year she had dreamed of him. Ached for him. The tall, handsome stranger who had made himself a part of her life for one night each week. She didn’t know, and for once she didn’t care, why.

  “My house,” she whispered. In her bed, where she could feel the memory once he was gone and hug it close to her.

  His dark eyes gleamed with sudden pleasure. Not satisfaction. Not cold triumph, but pleasure, as though her answer meant more than a one-night stand. Yeah. Right. But the illusion was there, and she found herself suddenly desperate to believe in it.

  “Come, my car is outside,” he whispered, drawing her close to his side as he led her to the automatic doors that led back into the restaurant. “We will say goodnight to your friends.”

  Would a serial killer be worried about letting her friends know she was safe? Cara felt a near-hysterical spurt of laughter at that one. She was putting her life in someone else’s hands at a time when she knew she couldn’t afford it. But something else raged inside her, something stronger than the fear. The need. The hungry blinding need this man had fed into her for nearly a year. A need Cara knew she couldn’t deny any longer.

  * * * * *

  She couldn’t believe what she was doing. Cara unlocked her front door, feeling the heat and power of Kheelan’s hard body behind her, even as his jacket still covered her. The scent of him filled her senses, drew her, and only built her arousal.

  She stepped into her small living room, ignoring the sight of her pitiful attempt at a Christmas in the corner of the room. The fake pine sat on the end table, lights twinkling around it, its base empty of presents. Maybe the girls at the office would amend their policy of no gift giving this year. It was her only hope of gaining a present from anyone but herself. And what was the point of buying for herself?

  The door clicked closed as Kheelan stepped in behind her. He towered over her, making her feel at once weak, and protected. His jacket hung on her, falling well past her thighs as she felt his hands settle on her shoulders.

  “Look at me, Cara.” His voice echoed around her, so much like her dreams, filled with arousal and power.

  She lifted her eyes, staring into the warm reaches of his blue-gray gaze as she felt the jacket sliding from her shoulders, along her arms, until a shiver raced over her when it no longer enfolded her. He tossed it to the nearby chair before reaching up to smooth her hair from her cheek.

  “I have waited forever to touch you,” he whispered as his hand trailed down her arm. “To feel you soft and warm against me.”

  “Why?” He wasn’t like any man she knew. This man was strong, sure, and obviously way out of her league.