Rekindling Christmas (9 page)

Taking his cue from her, he widened
his stance and moved his hand lower so that he was caressing her sex from
behind, through her suit, as he rotated his hips and ground the side of his shaft
against her, circling her clit.

Before she could even think about
what was coming, bright lights flashed behind her eyelids and spasms racked her
body.

Pulling his mouth away, he egged her
on, incited her pleasure even more. “That’s it, sugar-lips, keep coming.”

Explosions continued to rocket
through her.

“Let me feel all that wet heat.” He
licked the water from her chin to the side of her neck as he maneuvered his
hand past the edge of her suit and stroked her sex.

“Ahh,” she moaned. Her body was on
fire, but still she yearned for more.

“Damn, you’re slippery and swollen
all over.” His fingers stroked the lips of her sex. “Wrap your other leg around
me. Let’s see if we can make you come again.”

Again? She wasn’t sure if she’d ever
stopped. Obeying, she wrapped her arms and legs around him. He buried two
fingers inside her, pressing deep.

She screamed out her pleasure and
creamed around his digits. It had been so long since she’d been with anyone,
and feeling Carson’s thick fingers pumping inside her, not her own slender
touch, was her undoing.

“Shit, you’re even tighter around me
as you come. Damn, give me some more, sugar-lips.” He took her mouth,
swallowing her cries as he finger-fucked her.

She bucked against him, and his hard
cock still stroked her clit. The sensations she felt inside and out were
gloriously erotic.

The water waved around them as he
carried them with urgency to the edge. His lips moved from her mouth to her
chin, down her neck, and over the tops of her breasts through her high-neck
bathing suit.

“I want you, Ryanne…I’ve wanted
you...”

“Yes.” She sighed, not considering
anything but that moment with Carson.

He grabbed a strap and began to pull
it down. “So long…so long. I need—”

“Oops, sorry to interrupt.” Laughter
erupted around them.

Ryanne turned and looked over her
shoulder as a group of ten came rushing into the pool area and stopped as they
saw her and Carson. It wouldn’t take a wild guess to determine what she and
Carson were doing. What they were about to do more of.

“Fuck it all to hell,” Carson growled, his voice strained with need.

The same need her body was still
reeling from.

He raised her strap back onto her
shoulder. She was grateful he hadn’t managed to get it down over her aching
breasts. That would have been even more embarrassing than him caught with his
hand in the underwater cookie jar.

Damn. Damn. Damn
.
What was I thinking?
She
shoved away from him. Not looking at Carson or the group now jumping into the
water around them, she straightened the bottom of her suit as she headed toward
the shallow end steps.

“Ryanne.” He moved quickly and
grabbed her hand.

“Look… I need to go.” She pulled her
hand away and saw the dark gray color of his eyes—desire.
Don’t look at me
that way.

“I can come with you.” He took steps
to follow her.

“No. Um, no. I need to wash my
hair.” She rubbed her hand over her braids, knowing they were a barely
restrained mess. “You know it will take me over an hour to get it back into a
presentable style.” She walked backwards until her feet hit the first step.

“Where you going, loverboy?” A
blonde splashed water at Carson’s back.

He ignored the woman and took
another step toward Ryanne.

“Stay. I need to go. I’ll probably
see you at dinner.” Without watching to see what Carson did, she raced toward
the door, briefly taking a moment to grab her key card, sneakers, and the terrycloth
robe she had worn down.

The cold air of the hallway hit her
like a blast. Her teeth started chattering and she drew the robe tighter around
her. She knew she should have dried off better and used the heated room in the
pool area to warm up a little before she left, but that would have kept her
around Carson even more and she couldn’t trust herself around him.

What were you thinking?
She asked herself repeatedly as she
decided it was best to take the fire exit stairs up to her floor instead of
risking Carson following her up in the elevator. Or worse, run into Phillip and
have to explain where Carson was.

Shaking her head, she took the steps
two at a time. This was not her. That had not been Ryanne McCall in that pool
with him. She was not a spontaneous person. Not when it came to sex. Trips and
vacations, yes, because she loved to travel and get away. But sexually, she
thought everything out. Planned it all out.

Even losing her virginity in her
sophomore year, she’d orchestrated that event too. She’d dated a guy for most
of the year, and a month before the spring semester ended she had set a date to
lose her virginity.

The guy was nice, sweet, and
thoughtful. He ended up being their graduating class’s valedictorian. She
stayed away from jocks and frat boys, keeping to intellectuals. She and Jim
didn’t make it beyond the fall of their junior year, but had remained friends.

Now this. Since she ran into Carson that morning, she hadn’t been the same. She didn’t recognize herself. She needed to
think about this.

Yes, she may have come to the
singles getaway thinking she might connect with a guy, possibly someone she
would feel comfortable with after a week to sleep with, even if it wasn’t going
to go any further. But she never expected to run into someone she knew. Someone
she liked. Someone she had deep feelings for. Carson was a factor she hadn’t
prepared for.

He had come here with Phillip to the
singles holiday getaway to find multiple women and get laid. Hell, Phillip was
getting
laid, all over the damn place. Maybe even Carson was doing the same, just being
more discreet.

He told you he didn’t have sex with
Lanie.

That’s just one woman.
She argued back and forth with
herself. Ryanne entered her room and bolted the top latch behind her.

If she let things go further with
him, she would become too involved, possibly end up hurt and have to look over
her shoulder wherever she went in the city she loved. She had to consider this
situation fully.

Chapter
Seven

Ryanne heard the banging late on her
door. It sounded as if a pack of zebras were kicking it. Turning her head, she
stared at the door, considering whether or not to answer it. Maybe it was just
a rowdy group of drunken guests terrorizing anyone they could.

“Rye!” The banging continued.

She could have sworn she heard
someone call her name. That didn’t make sense; there were only two people here
who knew her, and a handful of ladies she’d met the night before. She couldn’t
see them coming for her at this hour.

After she’d washed, dried, and spent
more than thirty minutes flat-ironing her hair, she’d sent a message to the
desk clerk asking her to notify Carson that she was not coming down for dinner.
She’d lied and said she was unwell. She knew she was avoiding him, but she needed
the distance to put things back into perspective. Carson had always been her
friend throughout her childhood. Nothing more.

Before she left for college, she
knew she’d developed very deep feelings for him, but they’d never been remotely
reciprocated by him, except when they’d said good-bye and she’d almost kissed
him. However, her mother had saved her from that mistake. Now, there was no one
to save her from this folly but herself. The best way she’d decided to do that
was by keeping a reasonable distance away from Carson and only seeing him
within a group.

Her door rattled again. Shaking her
head, she realized whoever was on the other side was not going away. Tossing
her blanket off her legs, laying her book down on the cushion, she then set her
glass of wine, from the bottle she had ordered with her room service meal, on
the table and padded toward the door.

Looking through the peephole she saw
that it was not a group of drunken revelers but one reveler: Carson. Leaning
her head against the back of the door, she sighed. She’d thought to escape him
at least until tomorrow, but evidently she wasn’t going to be so fortunate.

“Rye!” he called out again.

Pulling the door open, she stared at
the gorgeous man as every sensation she’d felt in his arms in the pool came
raining down on her under the perusal of his gray eyes.

“Hi, sugar-lips…” He seemed to bump
into the doorjamb more than lean against it as he smiled.

“Carson, what are you doing here?”
She clutched the edge of the door in her hand.

“What am I doing here? Ha!” He wagged
a finger at her, as if he were trying to figure out a puzzle. “What are you
still
doing here?”

“I didn’t want to be bothered.
Didn’t you get my message?”

He pushed away from the jamb and
stepped toward her, placing one of his hands on the wall and the other on the
door, caging her in. Nervous butterflies took flight in her stomach. She tried
to ignore the excitement of being near him again and feeling his warm breath
caress her face. The piquant scent of alcohol tainted his breath, intoxicating
her.

Zeroing in on the alcohol, she said,
“You’re drunk.”

He lowered his lips to the corner of
her mouth and placed tiny kisses along her cheek toward her ear. The opposite
direction she thought he was going. Desired him to go.

“Yes. I am.” His chuckle was broken
and slightly off. “You shouldn’t leave me unsupervised around Phillip.”

She pressed her back firmly against
the wall, trying to keep some distance between them. “Phillip is a bad
influence.”

“Hey!” He leaned back and squinted
one eye at her. ”We were celebrating. And for the record, Karri was a bad
influence on you, too.”

Laughing, she had to agree. “That
was only in high school. She’s different now.”

“Reformed?”

“Nope. Married.”

“Ahhhh. That explains why she’s not
here with you.”

“What were you all celebrating?”

“Hmm. Who’s got a celebration? Oh,
Phillip! Hmm. Don’t know what.” He squeezed both his eyes tight and tilted his
head back, thinking. “Nope. Can’t recall.”

She shook her head. “Figures.”

He dropped his head and buried it in
the side of her neck. “Damn, sugar-lips, you smell so good. Like cotton candy
and cinnamon and…something else…”

He smelled good too. A clean, sporty
scent with an underlying robust spiciness she loved. She pushed the thought
away.
Ignore it.

He made a loud sniffing sound.
“Something Ryanne.” He wiggled and cheered as if he’d just discovered the
secret to the world’s existence.

His murmurings sent vibrations along
her skin. Pushing him away, she ducked underneath his arm. “Okay, you’re really
drunk. I think that it’s best you go to bed and sleep this night off.”

“That’s a great idea.” However,
instead of turning and heading out the door and down the hall as she expected,
he marched further into her suite.

“Hey, Carson, wrong way.” She let
the door swing closed behind her. Its slam echoed around the room.

“You have wine!” He grabbed the
bottle from the table and plopped down on the couch.

“You stay away from that.” She
snatched it from him. “You don’t need any more, trust me.” Walking to the
kitchenette, she placed it on the counter away from his reach, then returned to
the living room.

“His lips touched my breasts. I
could feel my heart pounding rapidly. He was close to my nipple. Not touching
it yet, but I wanted him to—”

Racing across the room, she plucked
her romance novel out of his hands.

He glanced at his hands, turning
them over repeatedly, as if the book had disappeared by magic.

She aimed a finger and a double-eyed
squint at him. “No touching things that don’t belong to you.”

“That mean you too, Ryanne?” His
eyes were glazed over from the alcohol he’d consumed, but no less dark and
intense, the color of new steel.

Yes!
her mind screamed.
No!
her
body countered.

“I don’t think this is the right
time for this discussion.” She sat on the other end of the couch, away from
him. “You should sleep.”

“But I want to talk.” He sank deeper
into the couch, leaning his head against the back.

She looked at him. “About what?”

He stared back at her. “Us.”

Glancing away, she gazed into the
small gas fireplace, watching the blaze. She wanted to pick up her wine and
take a heavy swallow and consume the rest of it still lingering in the glass,
but she figured Carson had drank enough alcohol for them both.