This Winter Night

“Scout’s honor,” he said with a straight face.

She seemed to be satisfied with his answer. “Okay, then. What happens here stays here.”

“Done,” he promised.

“You can’t tell anyone.”

“Understood,” he agreed. “That goes for you, too. Not even your girlfriends.”

“Not even your boys,” she countered.

“Not even your priest,” he said.

“Not even God,” she said with a smile.

“I think He already knows,” said Colton as he backed her against the wall and planted a sensual, bone-melting kiss on her sweet mouth.

Bodies pressed closer and warmth ensued shortly afterward. By some silent consensus they agreed that this seduction would be slow and deliberate. When they came up for air from that first kiss, their eyes met and they smiled. It was confirmed. They were a good fit. She unbuttoned his shirt, curious to know whether his chest was hairy or smooth. She was rewarded with a hairy, muscular chest and a washboard stomach.

He was patient as she ran her hands over his pectorals and admired his biceps after she had finished removing the shirt. “I like your guns,” she said.

“Speaking of guns, you don’t keep yours under your pillow, do you? I don’t like those kinds of surprises in bed.”

She laughed sexily. “No, it’s back in the safe. The only thing exploding in my bed tonight will be you.”

After that there wasn’t very much talk. She took him to her bedroom, which was two doors down from his. When he walked in the room, he saw that her bed had been turned down already, and there was a book on it. She had obviously planned to read until she fell asleep.

He watched as she began removing her clothing piece by piece.

First, her jeans, revealing long, shapely legs and a see-through pair of panties. Then her blouse, under which she wore a lacy cream-colored bra that matched her bikini panties. Her body was lush and feminine yet athletic and she had an ass that a man like him would love to hold in a fit of passion.

After she’d gotten down to her underwear, her gaze fell to his lower half. He unbuttoned the jeans he wore but did not pull them past his hips. “I’m not wearing anything underneath,” he warned.

“I’m a grown woman,” she told him. “You haven’t got anything I haven’t seen before.”

She removed her bra to make him feel more comfortable. Her breasts were full and everything he desired, not too big, nor too small, just right for palming in his big hands, and the erect nipples were ripe for licking. His mouth watered.

He pulled the waistband of the jeans down past his hips and heard the audible intake of breath from her. He was well-endowed, but not monstrously so. It was nice to know she liked what she saw.

Lauren, suddenly faced with the manifestation of her wanton desire, was having second thoughts. She was pretending to be someone she was not. Adam was the only man she’d ever made love to. She had made it seem to Colton as if she had more experience with men than she actually had. Adam was not nearly as blessed as Colton was when it came to sexual “equipment.” She wasn’t sure if she could accommodate him.

Too much time had passed with Lauren staring at him for Colton’s comfort. “Lauren, is something wrong?”

“No,” she denied.

He walked toward her, totally naked, his muscles flexing enticingly, his manhood semi-erect. She couldn’t help it. Her body reacted to the sensual image he made. The man was sex personified, and she’d been too long without a lover, a good lover. She was beginning to wonder if Adam had ever been a good lover. After all, she had nothing to compare him to.

There was only one way to find out.

She removed her panties, tremblingly. Colton stopped in his tracks and took all of her in. He sighed with satisfaction. She was not one to mow the lawn, so to speak. She was beautifully natural, which was refreshing as far as he was concerned.

There seemed to be nothing separating them now as he pulled her into his arms, and they fell onto the bed. She molded her body against his. He was fully erect now, and their bodies, his skin a darker cinnamon than hers, wrapped themselves around each other. Their kisses were deep. The taste was like a drug, and her body writhing beneath his worked him into a sexual frenzy.

The smell of her, the silkiness of her skin fed his need. When she opened her legs to him, somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered condoms. He didn’t know if she had any. He hadn’t even thought about them until now. But it wouldn’t do. No matter how much he wanted her he wouldn’t risk getting her pregnant just to satisfy his needs. “Do you have any condoms?” he asked huskily.

“They’re in the nightstand drawer,” she said with a gesture of her head. He got up and looked in the drawer she’d indicated. Once he had the condom in his hands he tore it open and put it on. He looked back at her to see that she was watching him. He supposed he should feel self-conscious. They were strangers in every sense of the word, especially in a physical sense, but this felt natural.

But he was a man who’d been brought up right. He was a gentleman. So when he pulled her into his arms once more, he looked into her eyes and asked, “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes,” she breathed. The expression in her eyes left him no further doubt.

Her willingness pleased him, and his penis grew harder at the thought of penetrating her. But first, her pleasure. He got on his knees and pulled her toward him to the edge of the bed. Her legs were splayed wide, and it was apparent that she was ready for him from the wetness of her sex. He’d been wondering what she tasted like and now he bent his head and devoured her. His tongue moved slowly around her clitoris, inciting a current of electrically charged sensual pleasure throughout her body. She felt it down to her toes. Her moans were low at first and grew louder as her impending orgasm drew nearer.

He left her clitoris and licked the sides of her labia. This made her thighs tremble. She whispered, “Yes, yes, yes...”

Though he was happy she was enjoying his efforts, he wasn’t satisfied with that reaction alone. He wouldn’t be content until she started calling on a deity. He redoubled his efforts. She rose up on her elbows, “Oh, my God, what are you doing to me?”

He merely smiled.

When she climaxed, she not only released pent-up sexual energy, but she also came to the realization that there was a lot she didn’t know about sex, and here was the man who could teach her.

Colton got up and while she was in that malleable state just after an orgasm, when your mind was blown and sensual pleasures were magnified, he entered her. She was just as he imagined she would be—hot, tight and more than capable of handling him.

Never had Lauren had such an enthusiastic, energetic lover, one who seemed to give even more than he got. Her body reveled in it. Felt as if it had been waiting for him all her life. She knew that this feeling was what people were trying to describe when they said that sex was the closest thing to heaven on earth. She’d never felt so alive.

Colton couldn’t believe his luck. This woman was his equal in every way. Not content to lie there and accept his thrusts, she was giving it back to him with as much fervor as he was giving it to her.

When he came it was a monumental moment for him. He didn’t know if it was because his emotions were so intense tonight after the day he’d had, or there was something unique about Lauren. She was smiling up at him. She looked exhausted but supremely happy. He was glad he’d had something to do with that.

Chapter 3

“I’ve done it now,” Lauren said jokingly as they lay in bed wrapped in each other’s arms. They’d gotten up and showered together and climbed back in bed.

Colton smiled. “What have you done?”

“I’ve become the Gaines girl who’s not only divorced but who, after the divorce, jumped right in bed with the first available man. I left Raleigh to get away from it all and a hunk shows up on my doorstep.”

“Life isn’t fair,” Colton said sympathetically.

Lauren laughed softly. “Darn right, it’s not. I was determined to give up men.”

He reached out and brushed a tendril of hair behind her left ear. “How long would that have lasted? You’re a vital, passionate woman, Lauren. I can tell that much from the little time we’ve spent together. Don’t let Eckhart turn you off men.”

“Please don’t say that name,” said Lauren.

“All right, I’ll just say ‘the asshole’ from now on,” Colton said.

“Don’t even refer to him at all. I came here to forget he exists.”