Twelve
“Thank you for that,” Stefanie said as Emmett set her on her feet in their room. “I have never encountered... What are you doing?”
“Taking off this neck noose.” He yanked his tie free and tossed it on the dresser. Then he stalked toward her, standing so close that her dress brushed against his pants. She glanced down and gulped. His tented pants. His hand slipped over her back, tickling her bare skin through the cutout in her dress.
“Emmett.”
“Tell me to stop. Tell me it doesn’t matter that we’re married, that you don’t want me to touch you.”
His words were low and desperate, but his hands never stopped sampling her exposed skin. His fingers trickled up her spine, and his other hand tipped her chin, forcing her to meet his stormy eyes.
“If I kiss your lips again—” he traced her collarbone with the tip of one finger “—then I’ll want to kiss you here next.” He clasped her waist with one wide hand. “Then I’ll want to kiss you here.”
That same hand molded her hip and Stefanie’s breathing went shallow.
“And then everywhere,” he growled. Only a breath separated them. She felt the barest brush of his lips on hers as her name exited his throat like a plea. “Stef.”
She closed that minuscule gap and met his mouth with hers. All she’d wanted to do since he’d kissed her under the mistletoe this evening was touch him more. She melted into him, but where her strength faded, his tripled. His fists wound in the delicate material of her dress as he made good on his promise, moving those drugging kisses down her jawline, past her throat and over her collarbone.
A moan sounded—hers. She hadn’t counted on shared attraction as part of this bargain, but it was there in spades. And if he thought she would hold up the stop sign now that they were in their shared room, he was crazy.
Crazy for her, apparently.
She couldn’t help smiling at the thought as he unzipped the back of her dress, only to swear when he found a second zipper lower on the skirt.
“You find this funny?” Growly and sort of grumpy. Her scrooge.
“I find you impatient.” She fingered the top button of his shirt and unfastened it. “What’s your hurry?”
“I want to taste you slowly, but I want you naked now.”
“I want you the same way, cowboy.” She flicked open another button, then one more.
He slipped the straps of her dress off her shoulders, the rough pads of his fingers causing goose bumps to crop up on her arms. She pushed his shirt open and reached for the undershirt tucked into his pants. The second his belly, and the line of dark hair pointing to his belt buckle, was revealed she flattened her hand over his abs.
He sucked in a sharp breath, his chest expanding impressively. She ran both hands up his torso and cupped his pectorals, the whorls of hair on his chest tickling her palms.
“Damn,” she muttered, overcome by the sheer brawniness of him. “You’re so big.”
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” He stole her breath with another deep kiss, slipping her dress past her hips and leaving her standing in her bra and panties. “What’s this?” A deep laugh transformed his face. He looped a finger in the white lace garter belt and snapped the elastic, lightly stinging her thigh.
“Tradition,” she said on the end of a gasp.
“Damn,” he concluded before kissing her again.
Her fingers fumbled with his belt, her mind on the way he’d looked the first time she’d laid eyes on him in boxer briefs. Substantial. But rather than be intimidating, everything about his size only served to make her feel safe.
“I won’t break,” she assured him when he loosened his hold on her.
“I won’t let you.”
He ran the flat of his palm between her breasts and pulled the cups away, freeing her. When he dipped his head to suck a nipple onto his tongue, she grabbed his head both to encourage him and to keep from slipping off the edge of the earth. He repeated the favor on the other breast and then her bra was gone, swept away while sparks shimmered over her sensitized skin.
He dipped one thick finger past the edge of her lace panties and brushed her sex with his knuckle. She gasped, damp and ready for him, and they’d only just begun.
“Merry Christmas to me,” he said before tucking both hands into the back of her panties and sliding them down her legs. On his knees in front of her, he took a long look at her. She admired the heat in his eyes, the open white shirt and exposed shoulders. His unbuckled belt.
Him on his knees before her.