He’d gotten everything ass-backwards with Suzanne. She was a courting kind of woman. Even a blind man could see that, could see her refinement and class. Jesus, all he’d seen were dainty curves he wanted to put his hands on and full lips he wanted to kiss. All he could think about was what her breasts tasted like and how quickly he could make her wet. All he wanted was to get into her and stay there as long as his stamina could keep him.
Even now—right now—sitting in candlelight across from her, aware that she’d somehow waved a fairy’s magic wand to turn his dusty little mountain retreat into a Christmas delight, he wanted to do her. Hard and fast.
This was insane. He should have got the first fast heat of her out of his blood by now. He should be capable of settling down. But he still felt edgy around her, always semi-aroused, ready to jump her bones the instant she gave some kind of sign. Even without the sign.
He needed to slow it down, make conversation with the woman instead of remembering how soft her skin was and how it felt to be buried deep inside her. Counting the minutes between eating and when they could have sex again.
Still, even the down time was great, more intriguing than actual sex with most women.
It occurred to him, for the first time, that he might actually be in a relationship, instead of having a sex partner. It was a novel thought, a not totally welcome one. It meant a major shift in his life, a realigning of his priorities. He wasn’t entirely sure how he should feel about this.
It might even be too late. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he’d already made the leap, and his head was just now catching up.
He stole an uneasy glance at her across the candles and she responded with a smile so blinding it was like a fist to his heart.
Oh God, he was done for. Like being parachuted into a hostile foreign country with no compass and no weapons. Dead, dead, dead.
“A penny for your thoughts, John.” She spooned ice cream over a huge portion of hot apple pie and handed it to him. She cut a slice about a tenth as large as his own for herself.
She definitely wouldn’t want his thoughts. “I was thinking,” he improvised, “that after dessert we could turn the radio on. If we can find a station with slow music, we could dance.”
Suzanne looked up swiftly, eyes wide. “You dance?” She didn’t have to sound so surprised. As if he said he did embroidery or collected stamps.
“No.” He shrugged as she laughed. “But I figure—how hard can it be? You hold on to someone and move. Can’t be harder than a HALO.”
A drop of melting ice cream dotted her lip and she licked it delicately, small pink tongue wiping her lip and just like that he got a hard-on. He remembered in vivid sensory detail just how she had taken him into her mouth and sucked gently, tongue swirling over the head…
“What’s that?”
“What’s what?” He had on jeans and his blue steeler had nowhere to go. It swelled against the tight restraining material and it hurt. He couldn’t concentrate.
“That thing you said—halo?”
Down boy! “HALO. High Altitude Low Opening jump. You jump out of a plane, usually at night, from 25,000 feet carrying 150 pounds of gear and don’t open your ‘chute till the last possible minute. Not a whole lotta fun.”
“No, I can see that it wouldn’t be. Dancing’s a snap in comparison. So eat up your dessert, Commander. Then we’ll repair from the dining room to the living room where we’ll have some vin brulè. Then we can go to the ballroom for some dancing.”
It was a plan he could go with, even sporting a hard-on so intense it hurt to walk. The living room—which was essentially the couch—was three steps from the dining room—which was the table—and it doubled as the ballroom. Three in one. Ah, the advantages of living in a shack.
John made it to the couch, trying not to hobble, while Suzanne brought out two steaming mugs from the kitchen. The mugs smelled of wine and Christmas. He found a station he liked on the radio and sat back.
Suzanne sat next to him and eased back into his shoulder. One hand cupping the shoulder of a beautiful woman, his beautiful woman, the other hand holding a cup of mulled wine. Life didn’t get much better. They sipped.
Suzanne glanced at his lap. “You’re aroused.”
“Damn right.” He slanted a glance at her. “I’m counting on you doing something about it.”
“Mm. Later. First we dance, and then there’s another Barron Christmas tradition we have to respect first.”
“Does it involve red ribbons?” he asked, with interest. “I could really get into red ribbons. Oh, yeah.” He warmed to the theme. “You could tie me up and put a ribbon around my—“
She punched his shoulder. “I’m not into bondage, silly.” Her eyelashes fluttered. “I’m into fantasy. Like the one about the big bad soldier who kidnaps me and takes me up into his mountain lair and plies me with drink and makes love to me until I can’t see straight.”
“Oh, that fantasy. That’s one of my specialties.” It was so wonderful to see her like this, playful and flirtatious. This was the woman beneath the cool professional. This was her essence, he realized. Warm, sparkling, lively with laughter. Hidden these past days by his sex drive, which had scared her, and by fear of the damned son of a bitch who was after her. For now he’d managed to lift the veil of sadness and fear that had hid her sparkle. “We’ll have to see what we can do to make every single one of your fantasies come true.”
“That’s nice,” she sighed. Her head lay back against his arm, a blonde lock falling over his shoulder. Some kind of perfume wafted up from her, a scent guaranteed to bring a man to his knees. He let his hand drift from her shoulder to her neck, running the back of his index finger up and down the smooth length. She moved into his hand like a cat wanting to be stroked.
A ballad came on the radio, one he was familiar with because it had been playing in all the bars while he’d trained. His brain was imprinted with it. He rose from the sofa, pulling her up, wrapping his arm around her. “I’m willing to break my back fulfilling your fantasies, honey, but first I need to have this dance.”
She slipped gracefully into his arms, already moving, following his pathetically simple two-step with ease. They swayed and he hazarded a simple dip. When she came up, laughing and flushed, he felt like Fred Astaire.
He buried his nose in her hair and turned with her in his arms, the music and her perfume filling his head. He still had a hard-on and she had to feel it, but it was okay. They were going to make love soon; both of them knew it. It could wait another minute or two. He was going to make sure this time it was lovemaking and not fucking. No wall jobs, no taking her from behind. It was going to be in a bed and he was going to be on top and it was going to be slow and soft. Even if it killed him.
Her body fit so neatly against his. He turned and she followed gracefully, breasts brushing his chest, legs sliding against his. Dancing was something else he’d underrated. He’d always considered it a second-rate form of foreplay. Why do it, when you could have the real thing?
It was foreplay, but pleasant in its own right. The music filled his head, a slow liquid beat that seemed to pulse in time with his heart. Suzanne was light and graceful in his arms, and she filled his head, too, the scent and the feel of her. He tightened his grip and she moved even closer, part of the music, part of him. It felt as if every movement he made was made with her, as if she were an extension of himself.
It was so easy to lose yourself this way, to be one with the night and the music and the woman. If he was already in a relationship, and he’d discovered he liked dancing, then there would be more of this in his future. He knew he was a goner when that prospect didn’t fill him with dread.
He brought their entwined hands up and tilted her head back with his thumb. His head lowered. Suzanne stopped swaying. She disengaged their hands and placed her palm on his chest. “Not just yet, soldier. There’s something more we have to do.”