A Wedding for Christmas Read online

  “I know.” She wriggled. “That’s the point. What part of ‘I want you’ do you not get?”

  “Just wanted to make sure.”

  “Are you going to make me beg?”

  He smiled, and didn’t let go of her waist, but he did ease her down slowly. He could feel the heat of her body, and then, dear God, her soft, wet warmth as she fully sheathed him.

  Their gazes locked, fused, ignited.

  He felt as if he were the hero in the best romantic movie ever made. He’d dreamed of this moment more than a few times over the years. But the fantasy couldn’t begin to compare to the real thing.

  Releasing her, he reached his hands up to cup her face with his palms and slowly eased her head downward so he could steal another kiss. She rocked back slightly, tilting her pelvis to take him deeper inside her.

  Ryder groaned inside her mouth, rough and needy.

  Eyes still welded to his, she began to rock slowly back and forth, sliding up and down. The pleasure was so intense, he lost his breath, his chest muscles seized up, and he simply floated in the moment, not caring that he couldn’t breathe.

  “Ryder,” she whispered. “Inhale.”

  He sucked in air, and with the movement, her body rose up, and they created a beautiful rhythm together. Rocking and breathing in perfect timing. Moving as one, a duo no more. Her body enveloped his in her silky cocoon.

  It was no longer he and she. Him and her. It was the two of them. Together. Melded.

  Us, he thought mindlessly. Us.

  Their joining was unbelievable. Yes, he had daydreamed about getting it on with a grown-up Katie Cheek, but his fantasies didn’t began to compare to what was happening between them. Not even close.

  He clutched her around the waist again, flipped them over as one unit, settled more deeply into her sweet, lush body.

  “This is . . . you are . . . amazing.” She exhaled the last word on a husky whisper.

  Overcome by pleasure, Ryder couldn’t even speak. He was too busy focusing on the incredible sensations shooting through him. Restlessly, he ran his palms over her satiny skin, traveling up to tangle his fingers in that silky blond hair.

  She stilled beneath him.

  Aw, had he done something wrong? He opened his eyes, peered into her face. Her eyes were closed, a peaceful smile spread across her lovely face. “Are you all right?”

  “Splendid.”

  “You stopped moving. Did I hurt you?”

  She opened one eye, peeked at him slyly. “I didn’t want to come yet.”

  “You’re already close.”

  “Very close. But I want to savor this moment.”

  He throbbed inside her and, impossibly, felt his shaft grow even harder, the urge to push toward climax so strong he could barely contain it.

  Slowly, she started moving again, shifting her hips up to meet him. He closed his eyes, fought hard to keep things slow and easy.

  Lost the bid.

  An untamable force pushed him harder, faster, fiercer. He heard the roar of white noise inside his head. The room disappeared. Even the bed disappeared. Nothing existed but the two of them. He had not ever experienced such powerful pleasure, such blood-pumping rapture. It felt as if his skull had cracked open and his soul spilled out to surf a wave of ecstatic vibration.

  Making love to Katie was more exhilarating than skydiving. More pulse-revving than driving a Lamborghini at top speed. More bone-thrilling than rafting class six whitewater rapids. His heart felt like a drum beaten by the most skillful shaman pounding out a primal tempo—primitive and elemental.

  His mouth was hers. Her mouth was his. Her hands. His. On faces and cheeks. Shoulders and thighs. Buttocks and back. Feet and knees. All over kisses and caresses.

  They were a never-ending circle of limbs and lips. She began where he ended and vice versa.

  He heard a moan. Thought it was Katie. Realized, slightly embarrassed, that it was he. Losing it. Losing his last shred of control.

  “More,” she whispered fiercely. “More, Ryder. Give me more. Please, please.”

  He groaned. Loudly. He couldn’t hold back any longer, and at her urging, quickened the pace and deepened the rhythm. He was unraveling. No going back now.

  “Katie,” he called her name. “Kate. I . . . I’m . . .”

  She came undone, gasping, panting, squeezing him with her inner muscles, crying out his name on a long, keening sigh.

  Her release rippled through him, a rocking wave of joy.

  It was the most magnificent, stunning thing that had ever happened to him.

  She gripped his shoulder, clinging to him like he was a life raft in a vast expanse of turbulent ocean, and cried tears of breathless pleasure.

  Pride pushed against his rib cage. He was the one who’d dismantled her.

  A grin lit up his face, quickly followed by the rumbling heat of the rocket-fueled orgasm blasting out of him. His chest muscles locked down tight, squeezing the air from his lungs. All the blood drained from his brain, leaving him dizzy and empty-headed.

  Beautiful.

  She was so damn beautiful.

  He drifted in fuzzy euphoria of release, hugged Katie tightly in his arms. Nuzzled his face against her neck, smelled her scent mingled with his. Intoxicated. He was drunk on her.

  He looked down into her face and she smiled up at him, sweet and blissful. The good girl next door again. And even though he was a grown man, at heart, with her, he was still that bad boy.

  And the last thing he’d ever wanted to do was ruin her.

  Aw shit, aw hell. How was he supposed to deal with this?

  Don’t panic.

  She was smiling and he was smiling, and he felt fresh and clean and new. But that’s where the fear came in. He wanted more of that feeling. Wanted more of her. The feeling was overpowering. Insane.

  He rolled over, falling onto his back beside her, staring at the ceiling, trying to catch his breath and right his upside-down thinking.

  “Wow.” Katie exhaled audibly. “That was . . . you were . . . we were . . .”

  “Dynamite?”

  “Atomic.”

  “Nuclear.”

  “Thermonuclear.”

  “Radioactive.”

  “Okay, can’t top that one.” She leaned over to kiss along his chest, lazily swirling her index finger around his nipple.

  “Baby, you top them all.” Ryder bit his lip, surprised at how sappily happy he sounded, afraid of saying too much, of expressing some thought he hadn’t fully explored yet.

  “Really?” She laughed, and added, “I don’t believe that for a second.”

  “Don’t undersell yourself, woman. Best sex of my life.”

  Her face flushed pink, and her lips parted, softened. “Oh Ryder, you don’t have to lie.”

  Shit, was she really that clueless to her own sexual power? He sat up, drew her into his lap.

  Her eyes turned somber.

  Things stumbled a bit, shifted. Their earlier synergy dissipated along with the afterglow, and he didn’t know how to get that mood back.

  “So,” he said, waving at the clock on the bedside table. Five minutes after midnight. It was officially December twenty-fourth. “What are your plans for Christmas Eve?”

  “Ryder . . .” Her voice was soft, sad. She scooted all the way across the bed from him, tugged the sheets up to hide her naked body.

  “What?” He smiled brightly as if that could alter her tone and her feelings.

  “You’re not thinking there’s going to be more—”

  “No.” He shook his head and his heart leapfrogged. “I would never assume that.”

  She looked disappointed, but said, “Of course not. I knew you weren’t the kind of guy to make this anything more than what it was. That’s why I wanted this with you. Precisely because I knew you weren’t the kind of guy who gets hung up on emotions.”

  He made a face, blood back in his head again, pounding out a tomahawk of a headache. “Me? Pah, no way.”<
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  “Whew, good. Because for a minute there you had me believing you thought we were going to hang out and stuff. This isn’t . . . it . . . can’t . . . be that.”

  He wanted to ask her why the hell not, but the earnest expression on her face answered the question for him. He was a hot lay. She’d tapped him because he was familiar. He was lucky to have gotten this much from her. He wasn’t going to push or make demands.

  “Tonight is tonight. Only,” she expounded.

  He made a derisive noise, lied. “I don’t want more.”

  “You sure? Because the last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

  “C’mon, girl, I’m a big boy. I’m fine.”

  “You sure?”

  “Rolling stone, babe. That’s me.”

  “Always moving on.” She sighed.

  Damn, why did she sound so wistful when her words made it clear this was a one-time thing? Was she secretly on the fence? Or worried that he was feeling more for her than he should be?

  Because he was. Screw him, he was feeling such big feelings he couldn’t begin to catalogue them all. But damn if he was about to tell her that.

  “Don’t read anything into this,” he said. “But I think you should spend the night. It’s late, and a long drive to Malibu. Plus you had a Benadryl . . .”

  “But I don’t have anything to sleep in.”

  “I’ll get you one of my T-shirts.”

  “No toothbrush either.”

  “I keep new ones on hand. For impromptu guests.”

  “Oh good.”

  Things were disintegrating right before his eyes. Going from the best night of his life to the most awkward.

  “Well then,” she said. “I accept your invitation to spend the night.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt to toss the covers one more time,” he said, treading cautiously. He didn’t want to scare her off. “Since you’re staying.”

  She paused. Considering. “I suppose I can agree to that.”

  “Then what are you doing way over on that side of the bed?” he asked.

  She grinned, tumbled back into his arms, and things were easy again. But he didn’t trust it. Not for a second.

  Chapter 5

  On Christmas Eve morning, Katie woke to a fried-egg sunrise—over easy, buttery, bright.

  And wrong. Wrong on so many levels.

  Primary among them, she was in bed with Ryder Southerland, and his big, thick arm was thrown around her waist.

  She stared up at the ceiling, and a helpless smile overtook her face. Yes, last night had been amazing, and she was sweetly sore in the right places. But now it was morning, the dawn of reality, and consequences.

  Time to move on before things got messy.

  Except how did she do that with this slab of a man blocking her way? Aw, it was really cute how he was holding on to her like she meant something to him. Her heart flip-flopped.

  Watch it. You’re reading way more into this than he intended.

  Guys like Ryder were allergic to commitment, and despite how she’d acted last night—everyone was entitled to cut loose once in a while—she wanted what her parents had, what her brothers and sister and their mates had.

  True love. A home. Family. Commitment.

  She was not ever going to have that with Ryder.

  Crap! She needed to get out of here fast, before her imagination took root and that schoolgirl crush she’d had on him turned into something she could not handle.

  Out of bed. Out of his house. Out of his life.

  Best thing for them both.

  Now for the tricky part, easing out from under that arm. She pressed her body as deeply into the mattress as she could and scooted, just an inch. Paused. Held her breath. Waited.

  No reaction.

  She wriggled a bit more. In the process, his hand shifted from her rib cage to her breast. At his touch, her nipples hardened instantly.

  Oh boo, settle down, nipples. No more action for you.

  Her recalcitrant nipples grew even tighter.

  Fine. Get hard. Be frustrated. I’m still out of here.

  Except Ryder made a possessive noise and pulled her up flush against his chest. His eyes were closed. His breathing hadn’t changed. He appeared to be asleep.

  But oops! At least part of him was awake. Jutting hard and proud against her fanny.

  And damn her, she wanted to slip under the covers and stroke him fully awake with her tongue. How had she gotten herself into this fix?

  A glass of wine. A glob of wasabi. Finding herself in her dream man’s bedroom getting her breasts rubbed with ointment.

  Oh yeah, that’s how she’d gotten herself into this.

  This was her first one-night stand, and she was uncertain of the protocol. One thing she knew for certain, she wanted to be gone before he woke up and they had to talk about what happened.

  Talking, she feared, would kill the whole fantasy.

  She wasn’t scheduled to fly home until tomorrow, but she could not stay in LA one second longer. No siree. Time to make like Cinderella and get out of here before it all fell to ashes.

  Who was she kidding? It was already ashes. The flames of their sexual fire had burned out, leaving only a cold, leaden knot of shame in her stomach.

  It could so easily be kindled, whispered the part of her that had landed her here in the first place.

  To what end? Sure, they could have sex again, but what after that? Last night, she thought he’d been about to ask her to spend Christmas Eve with him, but maybe she had imagined it.

  She ached at the thought of staying. Briefly imagined building a life in Los Angeles, but couldn’t dredge up how it would look beyond spending time in Ryder’s bed. She was a small-town girl, deeply rooted in Twilight, Texas. Her family had lived there for generations. She couldn’t conceive what life would be like without the constant support of her family and friends.

  How had Ryder managed it?

  She bit her bottom lip. He was so independent. He’d never been the kind of man who needed anyone’s permission or approval. He charted his own course, blazed his own trail.

  Nope. He was not the man for her. No matter how much she might wish otherwise. They were just too different. She valued order and family and social commitment. He valued . . . well, she didn’t really know what he valued.

  Let it go. You already know what you should do and where you should be and it’s not here.

  And the clock was ticking. The longer she lingered the later it got, and the later it got the more likely he was to wake up. And if he woke up they would have to have that awkward conversation.

  Up. She had to get up.

  Inch by inch, she eased away from him, stopping when his breathing turned shallow, waiting until it deepened before moving again. Finally, she was free from the weight of his arm. She eased off the mattress. He murmured something.

  She cringed, her back to him, and slowly swung her head around to see if she was busted.

  His eyes were closed, his breathing deep, but he was still muttering. Talking in his sleep.

  “Miss Priss,” he mumbled, and smiled, and her heart fell to her knees. He looked so adorably boyish she could eat him right up.

  She stayed rooted to spot, watching his face, battling a barrage of feelings—wistfulness, regret, guilt, tenderness—but underneath it all she felt a tiny flicker of joy that she would nourish for years.

  From now on, whenever she thought of Ryder Southerland, this was the picture she would recall. His body relaxed, a soft smile on his face, his hair ruffled, her nickname on his lips.

  Her heart hopped from her knees right on up to her throat. “Merry Christmas, Ryder,” she whispered. “Have a nice life.”

  Then Katie found her clothes, and got the hell out of there while she could still walk away.

  Usually, great sex relieved pent-up tension and made him feel invincible. Typically, Ryder would jump from the bed, take a cold bracing shower, and go conquer the world.

  But the mo
rning after the most stupendous sex of his life with Katie, he ended up feeling like someone had dipped him in blue paint and left him to dry in a corner of the damp tropics.

  Why?

  He should be hollering like Tarzan, beating his chest and letting loose with an invigorating jungle cry. Instead, he was sulking like a teenager, staring into a bowl of milk-soaked cornflakes, watching them go limp and soggy.

  What the hell?

  No woman had ever slipped off after a night with him.

  Eh, his ego had taken a pounding. That’s what this gummy mood was all about. He’d had silly plans of making an omelet and serving her breakfast in bed. That’s what he got for making plans and having expectations. He knew better, and yet he’d let himself get excited about the morning with Katie.

  Shake it off. You had a great night. No need for anything more.

  But he couldn’t, which troubled him more than anything else. Even if she didn’t live in Texas, and his work currently had him staying in California, they would make for a mismatched pair. She was the quintessential good girl.

  And he’d been born to push boundaries.

  Testing limits had gotten him more detention than anyone in the history of Twilight High, although his friend Joe had come in a close second, but it had also snagged him the head quarterback position both his junior and senior years.

  Surprisingly, limit testing had come in handy during his job as military police in the army. Primarily because he knew just how those other boundary pushers ticked and he’d earned the moniker “snake charmer” because of his knack for defusing explosive situations.

  But last night with Katie, that had been a boundary he shouldn’t have pushed. “Got your feelings hurt because she ran out on you?” he muttered under his breath.

  Yeah, kind of.

  “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” He leveled a hard-edged stare at himself in the mirror. “You had a great night. Be grateful.”

  It was good she was gone. What a relief. No small talk. No polite chitchat necessary. He should be happy she slipped out. Yes indeed, best thing all the way around.

  But his mind kept churning. Should he call her? At least make sure she was all right, and had made it back safely to where she was staying in Malibu?