His For Christmas (23 page)

Read His For Christmas Online

Authors: Fiona Shin

BOOK: His For Christmas
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She moved forward, then, one swift movement that made him jump, and when her mouth grazed his temple, he felt it all the way down to his damned feet.
“I don’t consider it a waste,” she whispered, her breath warm on his ear, eliciting a trail of goose bumps to run along his spine. “I will have no regrets. I want to do this.”
He stood up then, almost tripping over the chair in his haste. “Stop. Just…stop. I can’t offer what you deserve. I’m just a shell. If there ever was an Elliot Whitley, he’s not here anymore. Why would you want anything to do with me?”
The chair clattered to the floor and she stepped over it, prim as a lady merely stepping over a branch on a midday walk. But the look in her eyes was anything but ladylike.
“You’re fighting yourself.” She held out a hand to him, her fingernails gleaming like polished coral in the firelight. “But it is a losing fight, Mr. Whitley. You can call me a hussy, a wanton moral-less thing, but this is what I want, and if I’m not mistaken, what you want as well.”
He resisted the urge to clap his hands over the part of him that called for her. Instead, he grabbed a ledger book, a great, wide thing that hid everything from his waist to his knees. “I can’t help it. What you’re doing is the equivalent of waving a red cape in front of a bull, madam. I am a civilized individual. It will be a cold day in hell when I can’t even control my own body.”
Was that a glimmer of a smile about the crimson red lips that better belonged on some succubus? “What would you call outside your very front door, Mr. Whitley? Would you not consider it a sort of hell?”
He could smell her, that scent of roses and vanilla and wanted to throw himself out the window and just freeze to death. Better to die an honorable man than a cad.
But he could not move as she walked to him, as she laid a hand over his rapidly beating heart, as she slowly undid the buttons of his gray vest.
“Please,” he found himself saying. “I can’t…I haven’t…”
He wanted to say it had been seven years since he had laid with a woman, since he had even touched a woman in passion.
If he hurt her…
She stood on her tiptoes and he shivered as she whispered into his ear, her fingers undoing the last button. “Everything will be all right.”
He jammed his eyes shut, too afraid of what his traitorous hands would do, if his eyes continued to feast on the sight of her crimson lips, the curve of her breasts pressing against his body, the very feel of her…no, no, he wasn’t going to even think about it.
She peeled the vest from his shoulders, and he heard the hush of it slithering to the floor.
He should’ve walked away.
Should’ve simply placed his hands on her shoulders and surely but gently, set her aside.
Should’ve stepped back and then turned on his heel.
Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve.
Didn’t.
Instead, he stood there, still as a statue, as her nimble fingers worked his ribbon tie free and that too drifted to the floor. “I wish I could tell you to stop.”
Her hands paused at the top button of his linen shirt and against his better judgment, Elliot opened his eyes, when she did not reply.
 
She was close.
Too close.
He was in grave danger of drowning in those amethyst eyes.
Too late.
She licked her lips and he clenched harder on the ledger book, unable to let go, too afraid of the consequences should he do so. “Are you finished, then?”
The demoness shook her head. “I am not. Why are you fighting me? Most men would’ve already had me flat against that wall.”
The blatant, graphic image made his face blaze, and his cock jumped shamelessly. “Christ, woman! Where’d you learn such things?”
Her lips tilted at one corner, and he couldn’t remember the last time he wanted to kiss a woman so badly. Not even with Meredith had he felt like this, like a stalk of wheat caught up in a tornado, the tornado otherwise known as Ivy Stevens from Fisher County. “Didn’t I tell you? I am a learned woman.”
He gritted his teeth against the almost unbearable urge to do just what she had said.
“For the last time,” he managed to say, while she worked the top button out and then moved down to the second one, her brows furrowed slightly in concentration. “I have nothing to give you.”
“And I will tell you for the last time, I want nothing from you,” she replied, voice low and mysterious. Lady Darkness, she was, covered in shadows with eyes of violet and skin the color of the stars. “It’s Christmas Eve, Mr. Whitley. Consider this my…gift.”
His gift.
A Christmas gift.
Given freely.
Herself.
He watched his hand rise, watched it touch her face almost as if he were standing outside of his body, as though someone had taken possession of his limbs and rendered him a mere observer of this act. “I hate Christmas.”
She ducked her head, almost shyly. “I don’t. It gave me you.”
And despite everything, he felt his lips twitch upward. “Am I to be your Christmas present as well, then?”
She traced his smile, her own lips rising at the corners. “A fair exchange, wouldn’t you say?”
Her smile all but undid him, and the ledger fell on the floor, the metal binding scrapping him painfully on one shin. “Not much for you, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said as she set back to working on the buttons of his half opened shirt. “I’m sure I’ll get something out of it as well.”
His body trembled for the wanting, trembled for the warmth she so freely offered and he swallowed the lump in his throat. “Are you sure?”
She reached up then, brushed the hair from his eyes, her hands unwavering, not shaking at all. Resolute. “I have never been so sure in my entire life, Mr. Whitley.”
“Elliot.” His voice was low, hoarse. “Not Mr. Whitley. Just Elliot.”
The corners of her eyes crinkled as she smiled with those rose--red lips. “Just Elliot. And I am Ivy. Just Ivy.”
And damned if he knew why, but it felt…right.
“Never ‘just’,” he whispered. “Dear, sweet, Ivy. Beautiful Ivy. But never ‘just’ Ivy. Not in a thousand years.”
Her eyes closed in pleasure, like that of a pampered cat. “Elliot.”
Suddenly, her eyes shot open and she stared at him, with an expression much like dismay. “Elliot…”
It nearly scared the hell out of him. “What? What’s wrong?”
And then, just as abruptly, she began to laugh.
Hanging onto his neck, she laughed and laughed until tears ran down her face.
He didn’t understand. Was this how all women were? Meredith’s mood had been deadly mercurial, but she had been a silent, waiting viper. In Ivy, he could sense no artifices, no such facades and he reveled in that knowledge. “Ivy? Ivy, what’s wrong? What’s so funny?”
It took a while for her to quiet some, but finally she managed to stifle her bell--like laughter into mere giggles while swiping at her eyes with a corner of the white apron. “Oh, Elliot. I’d…I’d just thought of something so absurd and for some reason, it just struck me as laughable, that’s all.”
“You certainly did laugh,” he said, somewhat dryly. “What did you find so absurd?”
She laughed a bit under her breath and grabbed his hands, bringing them together under her chin.
“I have never kissed you.”
He blinked.
I have never kissed you.
He blinked again.
Never kissed you…
Her laughter began again. “See? You are surprised. As I am.” She shook her head in wonder. “I hope you will forgive me for saying such, but I feel as though I have been here for a long time. And for us to have never shared a kiss…”
He twined his fingers with hers. “A grave error on my part, I’m afraid to say.”
“An error I hope you will rectify, Elliot?” she asked, brow quirked.
God, but how he loved hearing his name on her tongue. “As you wish.”
He took her mouth with his, tasted the sweetness on her tongue.
Hands tightening on his shirt, she made a small sound and it drove Elliot mad.
He had to have her. Had to feel her warmth sheathing his cock, had to feel her body shudder underneath his as he took what she so freely offered.
She pulled away, just enough to speak, her lips still touching his. “I want to see you. All of you.”
“You’ve taken the words right out of my mouth,” he breathed with a stifled laugh, his heart racing in his chest.
Her hands were steady as she undid the rest of the buttons and slid the shirt off his shoulders. “You’re beautiful.”
He stood there, in front of the fire, feeling as untested as the first time a woman had touched him, and couldn’t help but smile at the frank appraisal she gave him, as though he were some sort of stud horse on auction. “Do you like what you see?”
She bit her full lower lip, putting a hand on her chin. “I think so. But it might be too soon to tell, really.”
Dear god. If she didn’t hurry up and do something, anything, he was going to explode. And that was quite unacceptable. “Well, what do you want me to do?”
“Take it off,” she said baldly, her eyes never leaving his. “Take everything off.”
Her bluntness, instead of offending him, only excited Elliot even more. Even Meredith had never been so commanding. Every other woman he’d been with had been retiring, willing enough, but never willing enough to take the initiative and tell him what they needed, wanted. They left Elliot to guess and until now, he had never known what it would be like to completely lay himself bare.
He loved it.
The fire warm along his exposed body, he slowly undid the top button of his trousers and then paused, all too aware of the way Ivy’s eyelashes had fluttered. “Should I stop? You seem a bit…unwell.”
She glared at him. “I should hardly think so!”
Elliot shrugged in a nonchalant manner. “Have it your way, then.”
There were plenty of instances where his dalliances enjoyed disrobing themselves and driving him to distraction with their naked body and some rather clever uses of silken shawls and strings of pearls. At that time, he had found it interesting…to say the least.
To be on the other side of the room, or so to speak, was also quite…interesting.
Liberating, in fact.
Exhilarating.
He held his arms out to his sides and turned around slowly, fighting to keep from grinning. He wasn’t very successfully. “Well, here I am, Ivy. Stark naked.”
The fascinated look in her eyes just made him harder.
She saw that, too and a brow rose even higher. “I…can see that.”

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