Christmas Lovers (5 page)

Her lower belly clenched. Her anal muscles tightened around his cock. She couldn’t stop herself from moaning at the overwhelming need to climax.

“Jesus! Let me come, Connor.”

“Can’t you handle some more, Tangle?”

“No,” she gasped.

“Neither can I. You can come now.”

And did she ever. She virtually exploded and shivered uncontrollably as bolts of pleasure tangled through her mind, body and soul.

Exotic waves screamed through her. Her pussy clenched. She cried out as he slipped three fingers inside her soaked vagina and pumped her hard and fast. Pleasure unlike anything she’d ever known tore her apart. She could barely hear his groans. Could barely feel the last three hard thrusts of his rigid cock into her tender ass or the warm jets of sperm filling her.

Afterwards he carried her into the loft and she smiled. It was such a pretty place with cute flowered wallpaper, the cranberry, white and turquoise color scheme. Soft flannel sheets snuggled against the bottom of her body as he laid her out on the bed. He 36

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slipped in beside her. She snuggled beside the man she barely knew and felt so content. When he pulled the fluffy, warm, feather comforters over her, she was already asleep. 37

Jan Springer

Chapter Five

It was a strangled cry from Connor that woke Tangle and sent a rush of concern screaming through her. For a moment she felt disoriented in the darkness and suddenly remembered they’d made love all day with small breaks for food and fun in the hot tub. Night had descended once again and they’d fallen asleep. Another cry from him made her fumble for the lamp beside the bed. She flicked the light on and what she saw alarmed her.

Connor lay in bed, the comforters kicked away by his scarred feet, his face white and drenched in a glistening sweat.

“Connor,” she whispered, knowing she had to be careful around soldiers and their nightmares. Knew it was a common occurrence during the months after the physical recuperation as the mind tried to sort out what had happened to the body.

“Connor,” she said again, a little louder this time.

His eyes snapped open. For a moment they were glazed with fear then recognition flooded them.

“Florence?”

Tangle smiled in relief. “Welcome back, soldier.”

“What’s wrong?”

“You were having a nightmare. Do you want to talk about it?”

She already knew what had happened to him. It was the same story from the wounded men being shipped back home with missing body parts, nervous disorders, shrapnel wounds—the list went on and on.

Connor had been in serious condition when he’d first been put into her care. She’d read in the medical files accompanying him that he’d died twice on the table when 38

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they’d been extracting a shard of shrapnel from near his heart. Like most soldiers, he relived what he’d endured through regular nightmares. He said nothing and stared straight up at the ceiling.

“Talking does help.”

“I’ve talked with the shrinks. They didn’t help.”

“You never talked with me.”

He grimaced. “I don’t want to lay this shit on you, Tangle.”

“It’s not shit, soldier. They’re your feelings. Raw and wild emotions that need to be soothed.”

“You can soothe me in other ways,” he said softly. He closed his eyes but she could read the anguish on his face.

“I’ll soothe you if you open up to me, Connor. Tell me what happened that day in Iraq.”

“You’re so pure and innocent. I don’t want to ruin you with my memories.”

Tangle couldn’t help but laugh. She slapped a hand against her naked chest in mock horror, the sound of it making him open his eyes to look at her.

“Me? Pure and innocent? Hello. I told you I work for Kidnap Fantasies. I’m also a nurse. I am anything but pure or innocent. Lay your shit on me anytime, soldier.”

“Blackmail.”

“No, it’s called concern for you. You need to talk it out or you’ll explode.”

“Nothing that your tight little pussy won’t cure. Or your cute ass,” he grinned.

“No games, Connor. I’m serious. You need to let the poison out.”

He swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed wildly. She found herself frowning and swirled a finger around the round, puckered flesh near his heart where a piece of near-deadly shrapnel had knifed into him.

“Okay, I’ll tell you.”

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Thank God.

“We’d been sent on a mission. Needed to get fuel to some of our men stationed in a remote area of Iraq. Men who’d cornered some insurgents. I was in the humvee behind the fuel tanker. Exposed as I sat on the turret manning the machine gun. I was keeping an eye out, scanning the surrounding desert for any sign of trouble.” He hesitated. Frowned. “Suddenly there was this huge bang. An orange ball went up right in front of me. Before I knew what was happening I was thrown through the air like a rag doll. I hit the sand hard. It knocked the breath out of me. Scared the shit out of me.”

She could see him trembling beside her and she pressed her hand over the area of his heart and willed for it to slow down.

It didn’t.

“After the explosion it literally rained metal. One piece got me in the chest. I couldn’t see it. My eyes were blurry. Burned from the explosion. But I felt it going in like a sharp twist of a knife. Another piece of metal, a huge one, came down on both my legs. It pinned me. Burned into me. And as you know it broke the bones in my lower legs. I could barely feel any pain after that, until later.”

Shock.

“And you felt helpless. Afraid.”

He nodded. “But not afraid for me. For my buddies. I could hear their screams. I wanted to get to them. Couldn’t fucking move. Couldn’t fucking see.”

He shuddered.

Tangle continued to stroke his chest, tracing a pebbled nipple, wondering if touching him so intimately was the right thing to do. She hoped her touches would anchor him. Would keep him grounded in knowing he could trust her into soothing his pain.

Maybe even anchor her from starting to cry at what Connor and the other soldiers must have gone through and were still going thru in Iraq. 40

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“I could smell their flesh burning. Could hear their screams. I couldn’t get to them.”

“But how could you? It isn’t your fault. You were pinned.”

“I just wanted to help them.” His tortured voice ripped a hole into her heart. Moisture blurred her vision.

“I started screaming for someone to get the metal off my legs. I could hear them suffering all around me and then, after a while, there was silence, ice-cold silence in the middle of a hot desert…shit. A survivor managed to get the metal off me before collapsing. He and I were the only ones who made it out alive that day.” The guilt in his voice made a sick heaviness settle in her tummy. She nestled into the crook of his strong arms and she wrapped her arm across his waist holding him tight to her. He held her firmly too, as if she were the one who needed comforting and not him. She, who needed to remain strong for all her wounded soldiers, suddenly felt lost and helpless in the arms of a man she’d thought she’d never get involved with. Now lying there in his arms, she knew it wouldn’t be easy for him to let his memories go just as she knew it wouldn’t be easy for her to ever let him go.

* * * * *

They lay together wrapped in each other’s arms for a long time before the harsh memories slowly ebbed and the trembling in his limbs finally subsided. She was the anchor he needed in his life now. A tangle-haired sexy blonde nurse who he’d fallen in love with over and over again so many times in the hospital and again here. Every time he gazed upon her, his heart simply overflowed with love. He doubted he’d survive if she decided their time together in the chalet was just part of her job.

“I don’t know much about you, Nurse Sparks. You always kept your family life hidden. Tell me a little bit about yourself,” he whispered as he watched her breasts rise and fall with her every breath.

“Hmm, what do you want to know?”

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“Where were you born? Where’s your family? Any boyfriends?”

“Boyfriends? Lots of them.”

His gut twisted. She’d had many men while working at Kidnap Fantasies.

“Sorry, I guess that was insensitive of me.”

He squeezed her closer to him, loving the heat of her against his flesh.

“No, baby. You can tell me anything. I’ll never judge.”

“You’re too good to be true, Connor.”

“That’s the same way I feel about you too.”

She tilted her head back a little and gazed up at him. Her eyes looked so brown and deep he felt as if he were falling into a pool of chocolate.

“Well, I was born and raised an Army brat. I have three sisters, all younger than me. As I was growing up we moved around so many times that I’m surprised I don’t have multiple personality syndrome because I tended to take on a new identity with every place we moved to… I guess you could call me a free spirit. My mom and dad told me if I’d been born into any other family, I probably would have pursued an acting career. Instead I went into nursing.”

“And then Kidnap Fantasies. How did you get into KF?”

“Through a friend. She suggested it after my second burnout.”

“You always looked so refreshed and happy when you were tending us in the hospital.”

“Actress mode.” She frowned. “Seriously though. It’s hard to watch the wounded men and women suffer. Hard to see how their lives have been changed by war. We all have to find ways to keep our patients spirits up y’know. They need us to take care of them. They need us to be positive for them. To help them get back on track. And we can’t do it if we don’t find outlets. I deal with the stress by getting myself kidnapped and taking on occasional assignments with Kidnap Fantasies. It’s extreme, but it works for me.”

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“Can’t hold it against a girl for trying to keep her sanity,” Connor said, and pressed his lips to her warm, velvety forehead.

“Just as I can’t hold it against a guy for hiring Kidnap Fantasies. So, why did you?”

“It was a gift from my brothers to get you out of my system.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I couldn’t get you out of my head after leaving the hospital.”

She cocked a perfectly arched eyebrow at him. “Why not just come and pursue me?”

“The Florence Nightingale Syndrome.”

“Oh my gosh, why didn’t you tell me that was your excuse when we talked about it earlier?”

“I had other things on my mind,” he chuckled, and kissed her cute button nose.

“Just as I have other things on my mind right now other than talking.”

She giggled again. Those giggles quickly turned to aroused whimpers as he clamped his mouth over hers in a fierce kiss.

* * * * *

Christmas Eve

Early the next morning they made love again, this time under the Christmas tree. Then they made love on the kitchen table after breakfast. And then Santana showed up.

Santana, who worked for Kidnap Fantasies.

She’d been fucked by him on several occasions when she’d needed a third. He was a big, sexy, bi black man who totally enjoyed pleasuring both sexes in a ménage. After getting Connor and Santana reacquainted downstairs in front of a roaring fire in the hearth, she’d discreetly made herself scarce by going up to the loft to shower. 43

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Santana was very good at his job and he’d ease Connor into his sexual fantasy without Connor getting nervous. Well, at least not too nervous. Last night he’d confessed to her he was uneasy about getting together with a man. But she’d reassured him a large percentage of men occasionally fantasized about doing it with the same sex. If the urge were great, some men acted on it. The butt plug she’d inserted into his cute ass would make it easier for him. And it looked as though they hadn’t wasted any time as Tangle noticed when, wrapped in a towel, she came out of the upstairs bathroom and entered the loft to the sounds of aroused masculine groans coming from downstairs. Her heart picked up a mad pace as she tiptoed to the railing and looked down into the living room. Both men were beautifully naked. White and black muscles glistened as the bright wintry sunshine splashed over them from the various arched windows. Connor’s face was clenched in erotic bliss as his engorged cock slid in and out of Santana’s eagerly sucking mouth.

Her body tightened as she watched them. Before she knew what she was doing, her finger had slipped beneath her towel and she’d begun a mad massage against her ultrasensitive clit.

* * * * *

Connor’s breaths came hard and fast as he watched his cock drive in and out of Santana’s mouth. The black man’s lips were firm and moist, clenching around his flesh like a woman’s tight pussy. Santana’s eyes were closed tightly, his nostrils flared and he had a serene look on his face as if he truly enjoyed sucking on a man’s cock. Fuck! It was amazing how fast things had happened. One minute he and Tangle had taken a break from their sex-fest and been roasting marshmallows in the fireplace. The next minute Santana, the easygoing Kidnap Fantasies man who’d picked him up from the airport, had shown up with an armful of Christmas presents for them. 44

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After placing the presents under the tree, Santana had started small talk with both Tangle and him. It had led to jokes that had put Connor immediately at ease. He knew why Santana was there. In the Kidnap Fantasies questionnaire Connor had written down he wanted to try a sex-with-a-man fantasy. He’d known Santana would be the one when they’d talked about it in the car on the way from the airport. After Tangle had excused herself to go for a shower, Connor had noticed the black man’s eyes darken with lust.

And to Connor’s surprise, he’d responded.

Santana was a strikingly handsome man. Very tall. Short, black curly hair. Cleanshaven. Wide shoulders with smooth chocolate-colored skin. He looked similar to Denzel Washington, the movie star, and Connor realized Kidnap Fantasies had probably hired him for that reason.