Love Under the Mistletoe Read online

  ‘I don’t know,’ she bit back. ‘It’s a surprise.’

  ‘Clearly,’ he said. ‘But how do I know you’re for real?’ Surely Terrill and Twyla wouldn’t be so cheeky. Would they? He quickly added, ‘How do I know that the minute I untie you, you won’t try shoot me and rob me?’

  She gave him a sour look. ‘Seriously? Where would I put a gun?’

  His eyes followed down the curves of her body to the juncture between her legs with its tight nest of dark curls.

  Whatever it was she was about to say, she swallowed it and offered a forced smile that was not quite coquettish, and all the sexier for it. ‘You’re welcome to frisk me.’ She nodded down over her belly. ‘Just please untie me so I can work out this damned cramp.’

  He studied her for a long moment while she writhed and bit a full bottom lip he found himself wanting to taste. ‘It was pretty ballsy of someone, anyone really, to send me a prostitute as a Christmas present.’ He leaned forward. ‘I don’t need to buy sex, you know?’

  ‘I’m not a prostitute and you’re not buying me.’ She sucked back a sharp breath. ‘I’m a gift. Pleeeeese,’ she begged, ‘untie me.’

  ‘I don’t need a gift. I didn’t ask for a gift.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t ask. That’s why they call it a gift.’ She practically bounced off the floor as another wave of pain hit.

  ‘I still don’t trust you,’ he said. ‘But I don’t like to see a woman in pain either.’ He heaved a hard-put-upon sigh and leaned forward, pulling her into his arms. She yelped as he scrambled to his feet and moved to the leather sofa in front of the fireplace. But instead of laying her down on it, he sat and turned her over his knee. What the hell was he doing? He should untie her, toss her in a taxi, and send her on her way.

  ‘You’re gonna spank me?’ Her voice came out high pitched and breathy. ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Might do, if you give me any grief,’ he said, realizing too late that draped across his lap as she was, she could definitely feel his erection. Well she was naked, wasn’t she? And he was a healthy male. How the hell was he supposed to respond? Besides, it wasn’t like she hadn’t been expecting to make him hard. ‘So tell me now,’ he said, keeping his voice as neutral as he did in the boardroom in spite of the message his body was giving, ‘where does it hurt?’

  ‘My left hip, part of my butt cheek, and my upper thigh, where I was lying against the floor.’ Before he could respond, she wriggled her exquisite bottom and his cock surged beneath her. He swallowed back a tight moan. If she really were a Christmas gift, even he had to admit, she was the best he could ever remember getting.

  ‘Ow! Ow! Ow!’ She interrupted his silent admiration with a squirm and a curse, her bottom shimmying and thrusting her hips close to his very intrigued erection. ‘Do something! It hurts!’

  Awkwardly, not knowing where to touch first, he began by massaging handfuls of well-muscled, perfectly rounded female hip; the feel nearly took his breath away.

  ‘Oh God! Oh God! Ow! Ow! Oh God! A little more on my butt,’ then she glanced over her shoulder when he stopped massaging. ‘Look, either untie me and let me take care of it myself or massage. It hurts!’

  ‘You’re pretty bossy for a sub,’ he said. ‘Maybe I should spank you.’

  ‘I don’t care if you spank me, but just take care of the cramp first. Besides, who said I was a sub?’

  ‘Well, aren’t you? You were all tied up.’

  She jerked and nearly bucked off his lap. ‘Look I’ll be a sub, I’ll be a Dom, I’ll bark like a dog if you want me to, just please massage already!’

  It didn’t take many kneading handfuls of pliant bottom and thigh before he realized his mistake. The more he massaged, the more she squirmed and moaned across his lap and the harder it became for him to ignore his growing need – especially not with her running commentary.

  ‘Oh God! Oh God, yes! That feels so good. Ah! Ooooh! Yessss!’

  He was just about to relent and untie her in order to preserve what remained of his dignity when she stopped moving, causing his hands to still on her bottom. Then she dragged in a shaky breath and gave a little wiggle. ‘Do you want me to take care of you?’

  He was about to lie to her and tell her he was just fine, when she gave a hard shrug and fell off his lap. With a little grunt on impact, she maneuvered herself with way more grace than he could have imagined under the circumstances until she knelt in front of him, looking up at him with the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. Her breasts rose and fell as each humid breath bathed his lap in heat. She gave the slightest inclination of her head toward his crotch, and he was lost. The woman knelt at his feet, red velvet ribbons binding her ankles and her hands behind her back, in the perfect position of submission. With another nod of her head, a lock of shimmering chestnut hair fell over one eye from where it had been pinned beneath the sprig of mistletoe, and she sighed softly as he gave in and fumbled with his fly.

  He was awkward, like a fucking teenager, as he maneuvered himself free, but this time her moan was not one of pain, and his own moan, as she took the length of him into her mouth, was a close twin. He rested an uncertain hand on her head, and she made a hungry sound deep in her chest as he pulled her further onto him. Yes, perhaps she was a gift, bound as she was, with only her mouth free for him to use as he saw fit. She was a vessel for his lust, a lust that was breathtakingly heavy after being sublimated so long. She was a vessel, breasts heaving, lips pursed, muscles straining, holding herself still, allowing him to use her. He fisted his hands in her hair and thrust up off the sofa, grinding and shifting into the tight grip of her mouth, controlling her, moving her forward and back, forward and back against the thick of him. Yes she was a vessel for his lust, and she was his. All his.

  Chapter Three

  He made no apologies as he came in her mouth, even as she struggled to take him all in. He made no apologies for the tightening of his fist in her hair, for the fact that he had come so quickly and so hard, causing her to gag and swallow furiously several times before he collapsed back on the sofa, before she relaxed her mouth, released his well-worked cock, and rested her head in his lap, gasping for breath. For a time that could have been seconds, could have been hours, he leaned back against the sofa with his eyes closed, drifting. At some point the white-knuckled grip he’d had in her hair relaxed and opened and he began to stroke the cascading locks that were softer than silk, a repetitive motion that calmed him, took him away from himself as nothing had in a very long time. When he came back to the present, he could feel her warm, even breathing against his bare groin and, even though it couldn’t have been long, his cock was already responding to the thought of what this woman had just done to him, what she had allowed him to do to her, all against his better judgment. Okay, no matter what she said, she was still a prostitute – had to be. But she was a gift, a feisty, cheeky, sexy gift, who seemed to intuit exactly what he needed, and at least for now, she was all his. How pathetic was he that he grasped at such a gift, allowing himself refuge in something so contrived, something that was escapism and nothing else? Still, the long holiday weekend looming before him suddenly didn’t seem quite so endless.

  When he leaned forward and kissed her head, she moaned softly and looked up at him. He managed to partially do up his fly against a package that was already reasserting its dominion, then he stood and lifted her once again. Since she couldn’t slip her arms around his neck, she buried her face against his shoulder, and he could feel her muscles tensing against him as he mounted the stairs, her weight strangely balancing his own. In his room, he lowered her onto the mattress of the big four-poster bed, then he untied her feet, carefully massaging the circulation back into her ankles and calves before he moved to do the same to her hands. All the while she moaned her pleasure and relief, eyelids fluttering, lips parted and swollen, a tantalizing reminder of what she could do with that delicious mouth. ‘That’s better,’ she sighed. ‘Oh God, that’s so much better. What the …?�
�� Her eyes burst open and she squirmed as he bound the ribbon back around her wrists and tied them above her head to the bed frame.

  ‘I like you bound,’ he said, pausing to drop a kiss on each of her heavy nipples when he finished. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the little moan that escaped her throat was not total disagreement. With the other ribbon, he tied one ankle to one post at the foot of the bed, then yanked off his loosened tie and secured the other to the opposite post so that this time her legs were wide open and she was helplessly exposed and yielded for his explorations. Surveying his efforts, he then took a fluffy white pillow and eased it beneath her bottom, forcing her hips forward so that she opened like ripe fruit in a display case, succulent and swollen, offered up just for him.

  For a moment, he knelt between her legs, not touching, just looking and admiring the pouting, feminine landscape glistening with her arousal. When she wriggled slightly and whimpered, he looked up into her bright eyes shaded with thick lashes, dilated pupils holding his gaze with anxious curiosity. ‘Most Christmas gifts come with operating directions. Since you didn’t, well,’ he slid a hand up the inside of her thigh until his thumb slightly grazed the pebbled hardness just below her pubic curls and she sucked a tight breath and bucked against his touch, ‘I’ll just have to experiment, won’t I?’ With that, he slipped two fingers between her soft folds and her whole body quivered as he opened her, his eyes locked on her slick mother of pearl pout, heavy and swollen.

  ‘Do you remember when you were a child and you got gifts for Christmas or your birthday, and you just had to figure out how they worked, what made them do the amazing things they did?’ He ran the edge of his thumb over her hardness and she shivered and clenched at his fingers.

  ‘I remember, yes!’ she gasped, and ground her bottom against the pillow.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to know what it looks like when a woman comes. I mean what it looks like up close and personal down where everything’s swollen and slick and ready to burst.’ He withdrew his fingers, now slippery with her lust, and eased them upward around her folds, splaying, tweaking, stroking. ‘I’m guessing sucking my cock like you did turned you on some because you’re clearly aroused.’ He lifted his wet fingers into her field of vision to demonstrate, and then still watching those china blue eyes, he flicked his tongue out, licking the taste of her, feeling his cock surge in response, hearing her soft, kitten-like mew. ‘Do you know,’ he said, fingering her open again, ‘you’re the colour of ripe cherries when you’re aroused?’ He slid two fingers back up inside her and she bit her lip and shivered. ‘And you feel, my God, you feel like wet, warm silk tightening around me each time I stroke you.’ He demonstrated by pushing into her knuckle deep and scissoring his fingers. She arched her back and lifted her hips to match his movement. ‘I’m torturing myself imagining what that tight, wet grip will feel like when I fuck you. And from the feel of you,’ he raked her clitoris and she whimpered, ‘I’d say the torture is mutual. In fact, I’d imagine you really do need to come after taking me in your mouth like you did.’

  Without warning, he leaned in and ran his tongue up from where his fingers splayed her all the way to her clit, her tidal pool scent rich and intoxicating. With a deep inhale of her need, he clamped down on her clitoris, licked it, drew his lips tight around it and then bit, pulling back just as she yelped and bucked and all but hyperventilated when she came. ‘Ah, exquisite,’ he breathed. ‘Your orgasm is like tiny little earthquakes making that whole ripe fruit girly landscape of yours tremble and clench, so tight, oh so tight. Have you ever watched yourself come?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’ Her words were clipped, distracted as she rode the last of her orgasm, bucking against the thrust and press of his fingers, first two and then three.

  ‘A pity,’ he said. ‘You really should. I can’t tell you how sexy you are when you come, especially when you’re desperate for a good release, after you’ve felt the extent of my lust.’

  Still stroking he arched above her, stretching to reach for the drawer of the nightstand where he kept the condoms he very rarely needed. ‘In all honesty,’ he withdrew his hand and she groaned her frustration watching with anxious eyes as he undid his trousers and released his cock into the condom, ‘I doubt that you can even imagine the extent of my lust.’ With that, he shoved into her hard, and she growled out loud like a wild animal in the hunt, her grip on his cock nearly sending him over before he was ready.

  As he shifted his hips to deepen his position, he ran his hands up over her breasts then settled his weight on his elbows, and she spoke with a hiss of breath. ‘Oh, I think I can imagine the extent of your lust just fine.’ With that her grip tightened again, and he began to thrust.

  It was the frustration of needing to feel more of her against him that caused him to withdraw long enough to untie her legs before he sank back into her tight slick depths. With a groan that felt like it came from the very core of her, she wrapped herself around him and gripped him even tighter. Her breath was fast and furious, the purr of pleasure became a growl of desperation as she matched him thrust for thrust, tight and swollen and slippery.

  He took her mouth, tasting the residue of his own lust still lingering there on her tongue, and that drove him until the weight of his need was practically unbearable. ‘You’re my gift,’ he spoke between lavings of his tongue as it danced with hers. ‘So come for me. Come for me now. I want to feel you when you come.’

  More than likely it wasn’t so much his command as it was her own overwhelming need, but the cry that erupted from her throat as she clenched and convulsed was raw and guttural and he matched it, unable to hold out any longer in the grip of her release, stunned that he could come again so hard so soon.

  As he fumbled to untie her arms to wind them around his neck, she giggled softly in his ear. ‘I guess you’re convinced then that I’m not hiding a gun.’

  He shoved the duvet back and pulled her under it with him. ‘What’s your name?’ he whispered in her ear. ‘My gift surely has to have a name.’

  For a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to answer him, then she sighed softly and wriggled down close to him. ‘Moira. My name’s Moira.’

  ‘Moira,’ he whispered, kissing the pulse in her neck. ‘Get some rest, Moira, or Santa won’t come.’

  She offered a throaty giggle. ‘I think he already did. Twice.’

  Chapter Four

  It hadn’t been her intention to tell him her name. In fact she had every plan to make one up. On the other hand, if he’d been anyone else but Gerard Jasper, she wouldn’t have cared one way or another. Fuck! Of all the ironic situations to find herself in! Not just ironic, but downright reckless. But seriously, what were the odds of Rachel Moira Valentine ending up naked under the Christmas tree of Gerard Delaney Jasper? Such a thing just couldn’t happen. But once she realized where she was and whose gift she was about to be, it was way too late to turn tail and run.

  Gerard Jasper pulled her into a spoon position – Gerard Jasper! The last person on earth she should be letting touch her. As his hand moved to cup her breast, his breathing became deep, and even with sleep. The crazy part was that he felt so good, too damn good to be true, really. This whole stupid experiment that her friend Sadie had set her up for was supposed to be fun. It should have been exciting. It should have been a good way to work out her frustrations and her total lack of a sex life. She had no idea how Sadie had managed it. She knew it had cost her a bomb, but then Sadie could afford it. And frankly, until she found herself delivered to Gerard Jasper’s front door and arranged naked and bound under his Christmas tree, she though it all simply her long-overdue walk on the wild side, one more way of thumbing her nose at her father. How pathetic was she anyway? The man had been dead for five years. He’d never given a shit while he was alive. And if he were watching her from an afterlife somewhere, she expected he was laughing his ass off at her while pointing out to the devil himself that this was exactly why a man should have a son, and not a daught
er, to take up the reins of his empire and carry on. Fucking hell! Did she have to get all Freudian right now? The whole point of this little set-up was to get her away from her stupid father complex – even if it was just for the holiday weekend. In a way, it had been at least as much of a gift for her as it had been to her then unknown recipient.

  Christ, why was she still trying to prove herself to her father anyway? He’d never let her forget that she wasn’t a son, so when he died, she took over the Valentine Corporation and doubled its market value within three years’ time. But still, she was only a woman. A son, no doubt, could have done it in one year. She knew too well that no matter how good she was, she would never get the respect that a man would command in the same position. She would always be considered a bitch or a harpy or a ball buster. That had been hammered into her head her whole life. She wasn’t pretty enough to be a trophy wife, but still, the old man had figured he might be able to marry her off to someone who would like to have that family connection to the Valentine Corporation – maybe a son-in-law could do the work she hadn’t the cock for. Well, she was very careful to make certain the world never saw who really ran the show at the Valentine Corporation. She pulled the strings from behind the scenes as R.M. Valentine and let Howard Hailey, her trusted VP, be the front man. Everyone thought she was the reclusive, somewhat troubled son that Arlington Harrison Valentine kept hidden away because he was an embarrassment. No one knew that the real reason he’d kept his child hidden away was because she wasn’t a he. And it had been fairly easy to do since he had divorced her mother before she was born. All the while he kept thinking there would be a son, but numerous trophy wives and an early grave later, there had been no more children. Still, the old man wasn’t about to trust his legacy to any of his empty-headed exes, so the Valentine Corporation had been willed to his only child, though it must have griped his soul that child was female. He’d had no idea that she was twice the business person he would ever be, something he’d never bothered to find out. All he seemed to care about was her lack of a cock.