A Steele for Christmas (7 page)

He smiled, evidently reading her thoughts. “I won’t disappoint you, Stacey.”

Never for one minute did she think that he would. It amazed her how in just a little time, after one hell of a kiss, he could go from grunting his words to seducing her with them. From the first time she’d met him and further observed him, she’d gotten the feeling he was a perfectionist and there was no doubt in her mind that fetish would extend to his lovemaking.

And she could pretty much guarantee he was experienced with women. With his reputation she didn’t have to wonder. Bottom line, the man was hot, he was lethal and she had a feeling before it was all over, he would set her on fire.

His hands went to his zipper and she followed the movement with a tight breath. The hands that were lowering his zipper were strong, knowledgeable. And when, moments later, he eased his pants down his legs leaving his body confined in a pair of black briefs, she released a moan.

And when he inched those briefs down his thighs she thought she would pass out. The man was so well-endowed she automatically licked her lips in deep appreciation. She could only stare, take it all in, every impressive inch of him. The head of his penis was huge, hard and so powerfully male she could feel her body ache. And she could feel her body doing something else as well. She was getting wet, right there in her center just from looking at him and wondering how he planned to use that part of his body on her. And he would. She was certain about that.

Then as she continued to watch, he pulled out a drawer to his nightstand, reached inside and took out a condom, which he proceeded to put on. He glanced up, met her gaze. His mouth curled into a sexy smile, and then he was moving, coming back toward the bed and she knew she was about to experience passion to a degree she’d never known before.

H
e had to have her. Now.

Eli had planned to draw it out, ply her with foreplay of the most intense kind. But after seeing her lying on his bed in such a tempting position while watching him prepare himself for her, he couldn’t wait any longer.

And she was lying there waiting, as calm as she pleased, when she probably ought to be running down the stairs and out the door as fast as those gorgeous legs could carry her. He’d never wanted a woman to this degree before and wasn’t sure to what extent his control would last.

He didn’t want to rush things but he intended to show her the real meaning of excitement even if it killed him. He would make sure she got her pleasure many times over before he would even attempt to get his. He stopped walking when his knee touched the bed.

“Come here.”

His breath lodged in his chest as he watched her ease up in a fluid movement and inch toward him. When she was close enough, he reached out and gently hooked a hand behind her neck to bring her mouth closer to his. Then he lowered his own and kissed her the way he’d wanted to do that other day. He was devouring her, leaving no inch untouched. In putting everything he had into it, he was getting affected by the kiss as well. This kiss was deep and it was touching a place inside of him no other kiss had visited.

Then he broke off the kiss, leaned in toward her chest and caught a nipple into his mouth. He smiled at the way it easily slid between his lips. He tugged on it, sucked it deeply, laved it with his tongue then sucked on it some more. He heard her moan, felt the sound in every part of his body and it nearly made him come then and there. But this wasn’t about him. He intended to make it all about her.

Moments later he pulled his mouth away and eased her backward onto the bed. He leaned over and lifted her leg to his lips and began kissing it, working his way from her toes up toward her center. His tongue was licking and laving its way up her leg and enjoying the taste of her smooth skin along the way.

She had tilted her head up to look at him. He knew how she was feeling by the way her breath was being forced in and out of her lungs. And her dark eyes were glazed with a degree of desire that was affecting his mind. It was desire that he reciprocated in every part of his body.

He couldn’t stop the fire from blazing in his loins when the path his mouth was taking led him straight to the juncture of her thighs. He paused long enough to breathe in her scent and without wasting any more time, he lowered his head between her legs and went straight to her feminine core.

“Eli…”

Her husky moan was almost lost on him, the sound quickly smothered by the deep thump in his chest. He went about tasting her with a greed he hadn’t known he had, with a ravenous hunger that was gripping him, pushing him over the edge in such a way he couldn’t help but taste her to his fill.

And then he felt her body explode beneath his mouth. He felt her thighs tremble and then she screamed his name.
His name.
And the sound charged the air, entrenched him in something he’d never felt before.

He quickly moved his mouth away from her to shift his body upward and straddle her. When he was there, settled between her open legs, he studied the look in her eyes, the heated gaze that was staring back at him as she tried getting her breathing under control.

“Make love to me, Eli,” she whispered in a choppy voice.

“I plan to.” And he meant it. He intended to ride her hard. She had awakened feelings, stirred them to life, in a way no other woman had before. He needed to get back in control and hoped those lingering fantasies of making love to her—the ones that kept him up at night, that had him going into her store during the day making purchases he didn’t need—would finally be put to rest. He was certain it was curiosity of the unknown that was driving him to act so out of character with a woman. Especially this woman.

Once his hips were just where he wanted them to be, cradled within her thighs, he glanced down at her again. As their gazes locked he began easing his body into hers. The connection made his entire body tremble.

She was tight and her inner muscles clamped down on him. Sucking in sharply, he sank farther and farther into her wetness. He gritted his teeth and found even that wasn’t working against the intense sensations erupting inside of him. “Hell.”

He buried himself into her to the hilt, then he reached out and gripped her hair and began moving, riding her like his very life depended on doing so. Her muscles clamped him tighter as he thrust into her, rocking back and forth and going even deeper still.

“Eli!”

Then it happened again for her. He felt the way she exploded, literally came apart beneath him. Her tremors passed through to him, pushing him to increase his thrusts, stroking her into a third climax. And when her hips bucked up at an angle that clenched his shaft, while wrapping those gorgeous legs around him, he knew it would be the closest he’d ever get to heaven. Eli could only accept that together they were taking the art of making love to a whole other level. He loved the feel of being inside of her. It was simply incredible. He felt overwhelmed, overcome in passion so thick that when he grinded his hips against her again, his entire body exploded. He came in one torrential release, riding her in a way he’d never ridden a woman and with the strength and reckless abandon that had his pulse throbbing in his temple.

“Stacey!”

He shouted her name and threw his head back as lights seemed to flash before his eyes. A kaleidoscope of radiant colors blinded him, prolonged his orgasm while white-hot heat rushed through him, ripped into his muscles and sank like sharp teeth into every inch of his skin.

No woman had ever done that to him, threw him into such an intense climax while her muscles continued to clinch him, virtually milk him dry. He felt heaven. He felt like a man on top of the world, on top of the most sensual woman to ever walk on the face of the planet.

The scent of her was assailing him at every angle and he continued to make love to her with a primitive hunger that wouldn’t let up until he lost control once again, exploding inside of her like he’d never done before.

Moments later when he felt his body go limp, he eased off her, rolling onto his side. Not ready to let her go, he reached out and pulled her closer into his arms. At that moment nothing mattered, not even the fact he probably would be late for his four o’clock appointment today.

“I enjoyed making love with you,” he murmured close to her ear and realized just how much he actually meant it. He had enjoyed it too damn much. He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath. And at that very moment he knew he was in a world of trouble.

“We need to talk, Stacey.”

Stacey inhaled deeply before glancing over at Eli. He was still stretched out on the bed naked. They had dozed off after making love, and after awakening, she’d quickly begun dressing with all intentions of calling a cab and leaving before he woke up. But now with him wide awake there was no way to carry out her plan.

She tugged her blouse into her skirt while slipping her feet into her sandals. “Maybe some other time, Eli. I hadn’t planned to be away from the shop this long. And I—”

“No, Stacey, we need to talk.”

Stacey stared at him. He hadn’t raised his voice one iota, but he’d spoken with a steely edge that demanded consideration. Was he one of those men who stated how things would be both before and after a toss between the sheets? If he was concerned she had not fully understood how things were between them the first time, then he had nothing to worry about. She knew the sex had meant nothing to him, although it had meant everything to her. It had proven she was a woman with feelings and emotions. A woman whom a man could find desirable. A woman who, thanks to Eli, had discovered her passionate side.

Fully dressed, she turned to him and tried keeping her gaze leveled on his face and not on his body, which wasn’t an easy thing to do considering he was aroused again. She couldn’t help feeling a quivering in her belly when she took note of that.

“We’ve talked already and nothing’s changed. You have nothing to worry about,” she said, hoping that would ease his mind.

Annoyance flared in the depths of his green eyes. “That’s not what I wanted to discuss.”

If that wasn’t it, then what was? Another possibility crossed her mind. Was he having regrets because she leased space in a building he owned and that was too close for his comfort? Did he assume she would deliberately get underfoot? Become possessive? She knew about his last girlfriend from a conversation she’d overheard between Cohen and Tyson.

She squared her shoulders. “I am not the clingy type, Eli,” she said, hoping she had assured him of that.

She watched as in a graceful fluid movement, he eased from the bed and spotting his briefs on floor, picked them up and slid into them. It was then that he crossed the room to her. He reached for her hand and lightly traced a thumb over her wrist. She felt herself shiver beneath his touch and knew he’d felt it as well.

“I never thought you were,” he said, lifting her hand to his lips and brushing a kiss across her fingers. “But I need to know what this day was about for you,” he said in a low, husky tone. “You can’t convince me spending your lunch hour in a man’s bed is normal behavior for you.”

She lifted an arched brow. “But it could be for you?”

He smiled. “Yes.”

She shouldn’t be surprised. But what he’d said was true. It was not normal behavior for her and she might as well be honest with him about it. “I’ve never done anything like this in my life.”

He nodded as he lowered her hand but he didn’t relinquish it. “Then why did you do it today?”

The answer to that was easy, although she wasn’t sure she would share it with him. She had wanted him from the first, had been curious about him, had entertained numerous late night and early morning fantasies about him. But she probably would not have acted on either if she hadn’t received that call from Dee.

“I got a phone call before I left for lunch,” she heard herself say. “From my best friend back in Memphis.”

When she paused too long to his way of thinking, he took a step closer. “And?”

And I truly wish you’d put on some clothes,
she started to say but clamped her mouth down from doing so. Although she would be the first to admit to enjoying the view, there was something about an almost naked man who had a body that could make a woman drool. And when it didn’t take much to recall the sexual expertise of that man, that made matters even worse.

With the slightest pressure on her hand, he regained her attention. “Stacey?”

He was saying her name in that ultra-sexy way of his. A tone that would tempt anyone to spill her guts about anything he wanted to know, and she felt herself yielding to that temptation. “Dee’s parents are celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary the week after Thanksgiving. I’ve been invited.”

She knew her explanation didn’t make any sense and he proved her right when he asked, “So you felt driven to make love to me because your best friend’s parents are celebrating an anniversary?”

She fought back the urge to tell him she hadn’t actually been driven to make love to him. It was something she had wanted to do for some time; she just figured she never would.

“There’s more to it than that, Eli,” she said.

“Lord, I hope so.”

His words, spoken in a sexy breath, nearly weakened her at the knees and she pulled her hands from his, took a step back and eased down in the winged-back chair in the room.

“I had promised Dee I would attend the party months ago, not thinking that Wallace would probably be there.”

“Wallace?”

She tilted her head up to look at him. “My ex-fiancé. And of course he would be bringing Gail.”

“Gail?”

“Yes, the woman he dumped me for. So I guess you can say I decided to have a pity party.”

“Because you haven’t gotten over him?”

He had picked his shirt off the floor and was putting it back on. She watched how easily it slid over his broad shoulders and how his fingers—those fingers that had touched her practically everywhere just moments earlier—were now buttoning up his shirt.

“Oh, I’ve gotten over him, trust me,” she finally responded. “I just don’t like being reminded of being played. Gail was my friend. At least I’d thought she was.”

She didn’t say anything for a minute and then she chuckled. “Dee thought of a plan for me to get back at both of them, while at the same time regain a little female pride.”

“And what plan is that?” he asked, slipping into his slacks. He had thick sinewy thighs. They were tight, muscular and she could vividly recall her legs wrapped around them while he thrust in and out of her body. She had been filled with an all-consuming need and he had taken care of it in the most delicious and mind-boggling way.

“Stacey?”

“Yes?”

“What was your friend’s plan?”

She met his gaze. “She suggested that I return to Memphis with a boyfriend, or better yet, a pretend fiancé in tow, just to prove I haven’t been pining for Wallace, and to show that no matter what they did, I dusted myself off and kept right on living.”

There, she’d told him. He was the only person she’d shared Dee’s plan with. “Does that sound silly or what?” she asked, smiling. Sharing Dee’s idea with someone else made her realize just how ridiculous it was.

“It doesn’t sound any sillier than an idea my best friend gave me today,” Eli said, shaking his head while sitting on the edge of the bed to put on his shoes and socks. “He thinks I should consider getting a wife for hire.”

Stacey raised a brow. “Why would you want to do something like that?”

“Trust me, I don’t,” he said, his words sounding like a harsh grumble in his throat. “But as crazy as it sounds, I might have to.”

She shifted in the chair and tucked her legs beneath her. “But why?”

“I want to be president of Phoenix’s Business Council. It’s an elite group that I’ve been a member of for years. It’s time for the group to be led in a different direction—one with vision—and as president, I plan to do that.”