Wicked Christmas Nights: It Happened One Christmas

She jerked, tangling her hands in his hair, pressing his head harder to her breast. Ross heard her tiny, raspy breaths, the little whimpers she couldn’t contain, and knew she was loving every bit of this.

So was he.

With care, he lowered one of her bra-straps, releasing her breast and catching it in his hand. Her tight nipples demanded more attention, and he licked and kissed her there, sucking deep until she was squirming on his lap.

That squirming drove him a little crazy. His cock was rock-hard beneath her sexy butt, and the way she slid up and down on him told him she knew it. It also told him she wanted to keep going.

Needing to feel her heat, to see if she was as tight and wet as he suspected she was, he unsnapped her pants and slid the zipper down. He was careful in his movements, intentionally scraping his hand against the skimpy yellow panties she wore beneath. Satin over silk.

She didn’t pull away, instead pushing against his hand, practically demanding that he touch her more thoroughly. As though he needed to be asked?

His mouth still on her breast, he could feel the raging beat of her heart and knew she was almost out of her mind with excitement. Breathing deeply to inhale that musky, feminine scent that practically drugged him into incoherence, he tugged the elastic away and moved his hand to the curls covering her sex. She whimpered, digging her nails lightly into his bare back. She was begging for more, though she didn’t say a word.

Needing more, too, he slipped his finger between the warm, soft lips of her sex, almost groaning at how slick and wet she was.

“Oh, God,” she cried, her eyes flying open. “Please, don’t stop.”

As if.

“Okay, time for the clothes to go,” he growled.

He helped her push the pants all the way down and off, and once she was naked in his lap, he had to just pause and visually drink her in. She was perfect, from head to foot, laid out in front of him like a feast. He didn’t know where to start, he just knew he already didn’t want it to end.

He reached down to the front of his jeans, unfastening them, wanting to get naked and pull her leg across his lap to straddle him. Sitting there, looking up at her while she rode him sounded like the perfect way to start this night.

“Ross?” she whispered.

“Hmm?”

“Um…there’s something you probably should know.”

“Unless the house is on fire, there’s nothing I really need to hear right now,” he said as he unzipped and pushed the jeans down his hips. His body was already on fire, and as he pushed his shorts away, too, and his cock came into contact with her bare hip, he groaned.

She gasped. “Oh, my goodness.”

“Give me another five minutes and it will be both yours, and good,” he told her as he stopped to kiss her breast, and stroke that sweet, quivering spot between her thighs.

“Ross, uh, really, I need to tell you something.”

Hearing the quaver in her voice, and feeling the slight stiffness of her body, he finally shook off the haze of lust in his head. He lifted his mouth from her perfect breast and slid his hand into safer territory down on her thigh.

“What’s wrong?”

She lowered her head, eyeing him through a long strand of hair. Lucy’s cheeks were pink, like she was embarrassed. Well, hell, they’d known each other less than a day and now she was lying naked on his lap. But she wouldn’t be embarrassed for long, not once he showed her how much he wanted her.

“Um…I just wanted to say…”

She bit her lip, shook her head slightly. Which was when a thought—a shocking, crazy one—burst into his head. His whole body went stiff and he leaned back into the couch.

“Lucy, are you trying to tell me you’ve never done this before?”

A hesitation, then she slowly nodded. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

Holy shit. She was naked in his arms, thrusting into his hand like she needed to come or die and she was a virgin?

Well, honestly, the needing to come or die made sense. Seriously, how many twenty-two-year-old virgins were out there? He’d certainly never met one. The beautiful, sexy woman had to be a seething mass of sexual frustration.

Something he could well appreciate right now.

“I mean, you said you and Jude had never…but, seriously, nobody else, either?”

“No. Never.”

“That’s incredible.”

“I guess right around the time most girls were giving it away in the backseats of their boyfriends’ cars, I was grieving and helping my brother figure out what to do about our parents’ business, their house, their lives. And ours. It just sort of…never happened.”

He nodded, understanding. She hadn’t been thrust into the role of sexual grown-up while in high school. She’d landed in the adult world through one brutal tragedy.

That, as much as the fact that he was not a ruthless bastard like Jude, was enough to make Ross find the strength to do what had to be done. Knowing he’d have blue balls tonight, he still cleared his throat and carefully pushed her off his lap.

“Okay. It’s all right, Lucy, I understand.”

She grabbed his arm before he could get off the couch and head toward the bathroom for an icy cold shower.

“No, I don’t think you do.” Reaching for his face, she cupped his cheeks in her hands and leaned close, her soft hair falling onto his bare shoulders. “I want you, Ross. I want you to be my first. Now. Tonight.”

LUCY HAD THOUGHT a lot about the moment when she’d finally have sex. She’d pictured it being with someone she knew, someone she’d dated for a long time, someone she trusted.

Well, one out of three wasn’t bad, right?

She didn’t know Ross that well. She’d never dated him.

But she trusted him. Oh, did she trust him.

Telling him the truth about herself hadn’t been easy, but she certainly wasn’t going to try to fake her way through her first time having sex. Not only was that unfair to herself, it was unfair to him. He deserved the chance to say, “Thanks but no thanks.” After all, some guys just didn’t seem to want to deal with the drama of it.

She would have predicted Ross wouldn’t be one of those guys.

She wouldn’t have predicted the incredibly tender, loving way he kissed her, then stood and took her by the hand to lead her to his bedroom. As if now that he knew the truth, the responsibility of it was weighing on him, and he didn’t want a quick lay on a couch. Like she deserved the whole package, big bed and all.

The walk to the bedroom seemed incredibly long. And while her whole body was still burning from the incredible way he’d touched her, she couldn’t deny a faint trepidation, the tiniest bit of self-consciousness.

After all, she was naked. He still wore jeans. And she’d just told him she was a virgin.

“It’s okay,” he told her when they’d reached his room, standing by his bed. He brushed her hair off her face, then touched her cheek. “It’s gonna be fine.”

She smiled. “Do you think I’m afraid?”