Cinderella's Christmas Affair (14 page)

Tad ran his hand down her back. Every nerve in her body had been sensitized by an evening of sumptuous food and lingering touches. Her pulse beat low and heavy. The only thing she wanted to do was stop thinking and make love with Tad.

He closed the door. “Let me take your coat.”

She shrugged out of her wool coat and felt his warm breath on the back of her neck. He brushed her hair out of the way and dropped an openmouthed kiss there. He took his time stringing together that nibbling contact until she shivered with sensation rushing down her spine and pooling in her center.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

She couldn’t answer. He smiled indulgently down at her, and pulled her into his arms, whispering in her ear the things he’d do to make her warm. His hands roamed up and down her back, lingering to cup her butt and pull her more fully into his embrace.

His mouth on her ear made her breasts feel full and heavy. Her nipples tightened against the satin fabric of her bra. She needed more. Leaning fully into the hard planes of his chest, she stood on tiptoe and pulled his mouth to hers. Their kiss was a series of long drugging touches that only intensified the struggle inside her. How could she live with or without Tad? She was flushed with desire when he moved away.

She stood awkwardly in the foyer while he flicked on the lights of the Christmas tree and lit a fire in the hearth. He’d hung his suit jacket up earlier and now stood facing her, back-lit from the fire. He tugged his tie loose and left the ends dangling down his chest.

“Come over here,” he said.

She hesitated. She didn’t know what to do. Tad had become more important to her than she’d ever thought he would. And tonight she’d seen the way Butch’s eyes had followed them. It would be so easy to appease her boss.

“Cathy Jane, why do I get the feeling you’re running again?” he asked, softly.

Damn.
Why had she complained that he didn’t know the real her? She didn’t want to talk. So instead she started walking toward him unbuttoning her suit jacket. “Does this look like running?”

She shrugged out of her jacket and came to a stop in front of him wearing only her black satin bra and skirt.

“I stand corrected.”

“Indeed you do,” she said, trailing her fingers down his torso and rubbing his erection. He drew his breath in sharply but stood still for her caresses.

“One of us is overdressed.”

“I’d say we both are.”

“Let’s do something about it.” She unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders. She’d never tire of looking at his thick corded muscles and washboard abs.

Tad unhooked her bra and slowly peeled away the satin. He cupped both of her breasts with his large hands. Rotating his palms against her, he brought her nipples to throbbing attention. She tried to think but could only want.

“Tad…”

“You wanted something?” He bent toward her, tracing the rim of her ear with his tongue before drawing that wet caress down her neck.

He used his fingernail to delicately trace around her nipple until she almost couldn’t stand his touch anymore. She was incapable of speaking or thinking. Finally his mouth covered her turgid flesh and she sighed. Holding tightly to his head while he suckled her.

He continued to undress her, pushing her skirt down her hips and she felt his surprise when he encountered the bare flesh of her buttocks. He stepped back and she stood in front of him wearing only a brief thong, thigh-high hose and black pumps. He growled and lifted her in his arms.

Settling her on the sofa, he followed her down. His hands and mouth were everywhere. Leaving no inch of her body untouched, he caressed her curves and whispered endearments against her skin. He pushed his fingers inside her panties and touched her deeply and intimately until she was hanging on the edge of climax.

She pulled his hand away.

“Why?” he asked.

“I want us to come together,” she said.

He stood and quickly got rid of his remaining clothing. He pulled a condom from his pocket and handed it to her. “I had other plans for this evening.”

“What plans?” she asked.

“Something a bit slower but you turned me inside out with those hose.”

She waggled her eyebrows at him. “I wish I’d known it was this easy to rattle you. I’d have tried it sooner.”

“You don’t have to try,” he said.

He pulled her thong down her legs and tossed it on top of his clothes. She reached for him caressing his thighs and penis. He moaned and she put her hands on his butt bringing him closer to her. She leaned up and tasted him. He moaned again, his hands burrowing into her hair and holding her close. She took the tip of him into her mouth. He tasted spicy and masculine.

“Enough,” he said gruffly pushing her back. He took the condom from her and sheathed himself. Then spread her legs and came down over her. He guided himself to her entrance with his hand and then plunged into her with one deep sure stroke.

Even though they’d made love several times, it still took her body a few moments to adjust to the too tight feeling of being filled with him. As soon as she clenched her lower body muscles, Tad began to move between her legs.

His hands left her hips, gliding up her body to her breasts, where he lingered, then to her shoulders. Finally he cupped her jaw. Their eyes met and in his she saw her past, present and future. A shimmering of sensation started at her center and spread slowly throughout her body. Leaving her quaking in his arms. His climax followed hers and he groaned her name before collapsing in her arms.

She stroked her fingers up and down his back and held him with her arms and legs. They were both sweaty and she knew she should be exhausted, but all she could think of was that she couldn’t risk staying with Tad. Couldn’t risk losing anymore of herself than she already had to this man who easily dominated her entire world.

Eleven

T
ad sent a car for CJ on Christmas Eve. His parents were arriving the next day and tonight he planned a small intimate dinner for the two of them. He’d gone back to Tiffany’s and purchased an engagement ring. There was a bouquet of long-stemmed roses in the back of the limousine. He’d called his mother to find out which kind of candles to burn at dinner—unscented ones. He’d purchased some at Crate and Barrel.

He’d also spent some time in Barnes & Noble purchasing a half-dozen different books of love poems. Though he didn’t want to risk his heart and actually say the words—he felt them deeply. CJ had pushed past his resolve too far to keep his emotions uninvolved. He loved her and somehow tonight he planned to find a way to tell her.

The food had been prepared by a friend who was a chef at one of the city’s most exclusive restaurants. The limo driver called after he had picked CJ up and was on his way. Tad had every thing precisely how he wanted it when CJ knocked on his door.

He opened the door and took her coat. She wore a black velvet dress that ended at her midthigh. Her long legs were bare and on her feet she wore the sexiest pair of spiky heels he’d ever seen. He put his hand on the small of her back to escort her to the dining room and encountered bare flesh.

He slipped his finger between the warm satin of woman and the cool velvet of her dress. She undulated against his touch and he smiled to himself. They communicated so much better physically than verbally.

He had been so nervous about tonight, but suddenly his nerves had disappeared. A surge of lust pierced through him and he thought to hell with this romantic crap which he wasn’t all that good at. Bending he dropped a kiss on her bare back. She shuddered under his mouth and he grinned. She was so easy to turn on.

Sliding his hands around to cup her breasts he continued to nibble his way down her back. He tongued the crevice where pale feminine skin met dark velvet. Taking the tab of the zipper in his teeth, he pulled it lower.

He continued kissing his way down her back, lingering at the small indentation right above her buttocks. Finding her naked under the dress made him moan. She shuddered and he tasted her lower. He wanted to take her like this, from behind up against the wall.

He stood and pressed his straining erection against her. She swiveled her hips against him. He reached between their bodies to free his throbbing length. Rubbing his penis against the curves of her naked buttocks. She moaned. “Tad.”

He cupped her breasts through the cloth of her dress. She was caged by him. His mouth on the back of her neck, his hands on her breasts and soon he thought when she was a mass of quivering nerves, he’d penetrate her and make her his completely. Take her so deeply and so thoroughly that when he finally asked her to marry him, she’d have no choice but to say yes.

He pulled her more firmly against his chest. He slid the straps of her dress down her arm just far enough so that the bodice gapped and her pink nipples were framed in velvet. He turned her in his arms, and backed her up against the wall.

Taking her wrists in his hands he pinned them to the wall behind her. And though he knew it was illusion, at this moment she seemed to be totally his. The hard berries of her nipples beckoned him and he bent to tease her first with his warm breath, then with his wet tongue.

She tasted incredibly sweet. The scent of her perfume was stronger in her cleavage. He let go of her wrists for a moment to plump her breasts together and bury his face between them.

He turned his head from side to side trailing wet kiss over the full globes. She trembled in his arms, her hands falling to his shoulders, her nails biting into his flesh. She was close to the flash point. It was only fair since he felt in that state constantly around her.

She moaned his name and shifted her thighs, pressing them together. He thrust one of his legs between hers. Grasping her wrist with one of his hands, he used his other to urge her hips forward.

He pushed her skirt to her waist and thrust his hips forward until he settled her feminine notch over his penis. He resented every time he’d worn a condom because he’d never been able to savor her humid warmth against his skin. He hardened painfully and could count his pulse in his erect penis.

He switched his attention to her other nipple, pulling at it in search of some sustenance that he only found with CJ. He’d never tell her but when she was in his arms, she soothed a deep troubled part of his soul.

He stroked between her thighs, not entering her body, just teasing them both with the promise of what was to come. He lifted her completely off the ground.

“Put your legs around my waist.”

“Yes.”

Wrapped in her strong slender thighs, nails raking down his back and her mouth under his. He shifted his position and entered her.

A sigh of satisfaction escaped him. This was where she belonged—writhing in his arms. The urge to mate with her and claim her was so strong that he ceased thinking and just indulged his senses.

He thrust hard and deep into her. She nipped at his lower lip, pulling it between her teeth and suckling it. She ripped at the buttons of his shirt and she scraped her nail over his nipples. The added sensation made the base of his spine tingle. He felt so full, so hard and so heavy. He was going to come any moment. But not without CJ. He reached between their bodies and stroked her until he felt her body clench around him. He thrust into her once more and then joined her climax. His body emptying in jetting pulses.

He twisted so his back was against the wall and sank to the floor cradling her in his arms until their pulses slowed. CJ slid off his lap to sit next to him on the floor. They both leaned against the wall head turned to face each other. Her hair was in disarray around her face and he looked into her deep brown eyes.

“I’m sitting on something.”

“What?” he asked.

“This,” she said, pulling the Tiffany’s box that had been in his pants pocket out.

She stiffened but didn’t say a word.

“I was going to surprise you with that after dinner.”

She continued to watch him with eyes that were too wide and too serious.

“Will you marry me, Cathy Jane?”

CJ’s heart beat so loudly she thought she might pass out. There was too much pressure involved with her saying yes to Tad. At once it was a dream come true and a nightmare. Not just because of the way she felt about Tad but because of the way she knew she was when it came to men.

“I’m not letting you off the hook again. I know you, dammit. I know that you put your hair up and put in contacts when you go to work so that everyone sees a smart, sophisticated woman. I know you wear jeans and T-shirts at home because they are comfortable and suit your quiet lifestyle. I know you bake when you’re upset and that you’d rather read books than go to a bar.”

He pulled her back into his arms and she couldn’t help herself. She snuggled against his broad chest. “I know you, baby.”

She knew him, too. Knew that Tad needed more from her than she could give. More than she’d ever really be willing to give because the risk to her heart was too high. Though she wanted his love, craved his body and lived for the times they were together, she couldn’t marry him.

And she knew this time she’d have to tell him more than she was afraid.

“I can’t.”

“Is it because of your job? I respect what you’ve achieved. Hell, you know I’m proud of you.”

“No, it’s not that. In fact, Butch urged me to find a spouse and marry. He’s concerned I don’t have enough balance in my life.”

“He’s right. You don’t.”

“There’s a reason for that. Tad, I don’t juggle well.”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “So if it’s not work then what is it? The emotional thing again?”

He grabbed his pants and stood up. Pulling them on he put his hands on his hips and canted them toward her. He was tough and angry-looking, a man anyone would be afraid to face alone but she’d never felt safer.

She straightened her dress and got to her feet. She struggled with the zipper until Tad brushed her hands away and pulled it up. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him.

What she saw in his eyes made her shiver with longing and an unnamed fear. Actually the fear had a name and she had a healthy respect for it. Because she knew that once she started depending on Tad he’d leave. Fate had made it plain that CJ Terrence wasn’t supposed to have a continuous male influence in her life.