Authors: Shirl Henke
Surprise Package (12 page)
Gilly raised her arms, encircling his neck, pulling him closer to her as he lifted her. Their mouths met in a light, brushing kiss that built slowly. She traced the sculpted contours of his lips with her tongue, flicking it into one corner, then the other, loving it when he growled low and opened his mouth. She received his tongue, matching him thrust for thrust until they were both breathless.
His fingers splayed over her back, then moved up to her head, framing her face as he kissed her eyelids, nose, cheekbones, and temples tenderly while he pulled her up on the sofa to lie on top of him. He massaged her scalp, taking the pins from her hair so that it fell in a coppery curtain, veiling them. “You have such beautiful hair,” he murmured against her throat, lapping with his tongue at the furiously beating pulse point between her collarbones.
She chuckled low. “So do you. I like being able to grab hold.” She demonstrated, taking a fistful of his dark hair in each hand and pressing a deep, sealing kiss on his open mouth.
“Ravish me,” he whispered.
“Like in a romance novel?” Her voice was muffled in his mouth.
“Yeah, just like.”
“How would you know? Ever read one?” she asked between kisses.
“You can show me.”
She propped herself up on his chest and looked down, loving the game. “Well, first I think we'll have to begin with ‘divesting me of my garments.’ ”
“My pleasure,” he replied, rolling up and flipping her down on the opposite end of the big sofa. “Am I allowed to ad-lib now and then?”
“Absolutely. But I reserve the right to 'edit'.” As she spoke he slowly untied the sash of her robe and pushed the heavy lapels back, revealing the swells of her breasts. The cool air instantly contracted the nipples, which ached for his touch.
She arched them toward him, saying, “Now, you'll have to ‘tease my twin peaks of desire with your scorching lips’.”
He swooped down and did exactly that, eliciting a sharp gasp of pleasure from her. “I never thought I'd owe so much to Gwendolyn Gleeson,” she murmured while he kissed his way across her collarbone and down each arm as he freed it from the robe.
She looked up at him, straddling her hips, then let her hands glide sinuously up his thighs until she reached the edge of his sweater. She started to raise it, but he quickly reached up and yanked it over his head and threw it to the floor. “No fair. The heroine gets to undress the hero, too.”
“Sorry. What next?” he asked, looking down expectantly to where her hands rested on the waistband of his jeans.
“Not so obvious,” she murmured, letting her fingernails graze his belly as she ran her hands up over the contours of his chest, tracing the patterns of body hair, then circling two hard dark male nipples. It was his turn to gasp with pleasure. Her fingertips feathered around to his back, then returned again to the snap on his jeans. She hesitated, licking her lips, then smiled seductively and began to lower the zipper. “I seem to remember...” Her hands slowed, stopped, raised the zipper, then lowered it again. “Think I'll suggest that trick to Gwendolyn.”
As she teased, he hardened and swelled until he thought he would burst. “Who the hell is Gwendolyn?” he growled, reaching for her hands. But she was quicker, sliding the zipper down and reaching inside.
“Ah!” she exclaimed softly, stroking his hardness, rubbing it against her naked belly.
He swung his legs off the sofa and stood up, pulling her with him. Her robe fell away. She wore nothing beneath it. As his eyes swept down her body with appreciation, she whispered, “I just got out of the bathtub a little while ago.”
“Do you hear me complaining?” He began nibbling kisses across her neck and shoulder as she tugged at his jeans, shoving them down his hips. “One thing I learned the first time I went onstage,” he murmured between kisses, “shoes first.”
“Oops.” She giggled, watching as he untied his sneakers and pulled them off, then his socks. The jeans still hung provocatively around his hips. “Now, where was I?” She reached out and yanked the jeans down with one hand.
He kicked the pants away and scooped her up in his arms, turning toward the bedroom. Gilly's bed was not a luxurious water bed like the Lawrences’ but neither of them cared as he lay her on the fluffy gold comforter and stretched out beside her. She went eagerly into his arms, and their bodies pressed close, hard against soft, rough against smooth, dark against pale. When he slid inside the silky warmth of her, they both sighed with the rightness of it, the perfect bliss. And it was very much like a romance novel, Gilly decided as he began to move and she with him.
Then, all thoughts were obliterated as the languorous tempo accelerated. They rolled across the double bed, not hearing the creaking springs or feeling the cold air because the room's radiator never worked right. This was their perfect night, on an old, lumpy mattress in a dingy flat in Yonkers. And it didn't matter one bit.
In the dim light filtering in from the living room, they could see each other's faces, look deeply into each other's eyes. When he sensed her begin to climax, he rolled her on top and held her hips cradled in his hands, feeling the sensual brush of her hair against his thighs as she tilted her head backward, arching into her release. He watched the delicate pinkening of her fair skin. The flush spread from her belly upward, bathing her breasts in a rosy glow; but by then, the contractions of her body sent his spinning out of control.
Gilly looked down through a haze of ecstasy at his beloved face, watching his jaw clench, feeling his big, hard body give in, joining hers in a fierce, breathless rush that sent her into another deeper orgasm, seeming to merge them soul as much as body.
Perspiration sheened their flesh in the chill evening air as they lay spent and panting, renewed and at peace. His hands traced with wonder the pinkness slowly fading from her skin. She reclined on his chest, inhaling his unique male musk, a scent she would never tire of should they live to be a hundred.
Jeff buried one hand in her hair as she snuggled her head against his shoulder in utter contentment. “I love you, Gillian Newsom. Will you marry me?”
She raised her head and looked up at his serious expression. A slow smile bloomed on her face, curving her lips and making her eyes glow in the dim light. “If you don't mind that I'm a poor assistant editor living in Yonkers, yes, oh, yes, Jeff.”
“All I'll ever be is a struggling attorney in the D.A.'s office. If you don't mind, I sure as hell don't. In fact, one of the things I worried about was your high-powered job and rich family. I didn't like the idea of living off a woman.”
“Male chauvinist,” she said with a pout that was anything but serious.
“Not that I don't believe you can become an executive editor at the biggest press in New York if you set your mind to it,” he said, starting to nibble on her shoulder.
“Mmm, love the vote of confidence...love what you're doing even more...”
A chorus of high-pitched squeaks suddenly broke the silence. “Another county heard from,” Jeff said, chuckling.
Gilly groaned. “Could that be those damn mice? I've never heard them so loud before. Maybe we should look for another apartme—”
“Those aren't mice.”
“They aren't?” she asked, dubious, watching him as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and padded naked into the living room. She admired the view in spite of her puzzlement. Buns of steel, indeed.
He returned, carrying the big box wrapped with the red bow that he'd set so carefully on the floor beside the sofa. She could see now that there were small holes all around the sides of it...and tiny furry arms sticking out of them! Gilly sat up in the center of the bed as he placed the box on it and sat down himself.
“They fell asleep after I fed them. The vet said they'd sleep a lot for the first few months.” Jeff slipped the ribbons off and lifted the lid, revealing two fluffy little balls of fur. He scooped one into each hand and held them up for her inspection. “Gilly, meet Rover and Fido.”
“Kittens!” she said with pure delight, taking the pumpkin-orange one from him, then the black one with white feet, nuzzling them against her face. Their shrill little mews had quieted as soon as they were removed from the box. Now loud purrs filled the room.
“Kittens? Don't be insulting, Madame,” he said, feigning indignation, turning one purring fluff ball this way and that, as if examining him. “Rover and Fido are merely, ah...unusual-looking dogs who happen to have defective barkers. However, they might catch those mice you mentioned—once they get bigger than the mice, that is.”
Gilly looked at Jeff's tender expression and offered him the little black and white kitten. Her face was radiant as she said, “What you will, Petruchio. Thank you for such a wonderful Christmas present.”
“You're the best Christmas present I'll ever have, Gillian Newsom.”
“In case I never mentioned it before, I love you, Jeffrey Lyle Brandt the Fourth.”
As the snow fell outside the lace curtains, they exchanged a kiss while each held a kitten snuggled between them.
About the Author
SHIRL HENKE lives in St. Louis, where she enjoys gardening in her yard and greenhouse, cooking holiday dinners for her family and listening to jazz. In addition to helping brainstorm and research her books, her husband Jim is “lion tamer” for their two wild young tomcats, Pewter and Sooty, geniuses at pillage and destruction.
Shirl has been a RITA finalist twice, and has won three Career Achievement Awards, an Industry Award and three Reviewer’s Choice Awards from
Romantic Times
“I wrote my first twenty-two novels in longhand with a ballpoint pen—it’s hard to get good quills these days,” she says. Dragged into the twenty-first century by her son Matt, a telecommunication specialist, Shirl now uses two of those “devil machines.” Another troglodyte bites the dust. Please visit her at
www.shirlhenke.com
.
