Holiday in Stone Creek: A Stone Creek Christmas

He stopped long enough to shed his suit coat and toss aside his tie.

Olivia handled the buttons and buckle and finally the zipper.

And they were both naked.

He kissed her again, eased her down on the side of the bed, knelt on the floor to kiss her belly and her thighs. “Where’s the whipped cream when you need it?” he teased, his voice a low rumble against her flesh.

“Oh, God,” Olivia said, because she knew what he was going to do, and because she wanted so much for him to do it.

He burrowed through the nest of curls at the apex of her thighs, found her with his mouth, suckled, gently at first, then greedily.

He made a low sound to let her know he was enjoying her, but she barely heard it over the pounding of her heart and the creaking of the bed springs as her hips rose and fell in the ancient dance.

He slid his hands under her, raised her high off the bed and feasted on her in earnest. The first orgasm broke soon after that, shattering and sudden, and so long that Olivia felt as though she were being tossed about on the head of a fiery geyser.

Just when she thought she couldn’t bear the pleasure for another moment—or live without it—he allowed her to descend. She marveled at his skill even as she bounced between one smaller, softer climax after another.

At last she landed, sated and dazed, and let out a croony sigh.

She heard the drawer on the bedside stand open and close.

“Still sure?” Tanner asked, shifting his body to reach for what he needed.

She nodded. Gave another sigh. “Oh, very sure,” she said.

He turned her on the bed, slipped a pillow under her head and kissed her lightly. She clasped her hands behind his head and pulled him closer, kissed him back.

This part was for him, she thought magnanimously. She’d had her multiclimax—now it was time to be generous, let Tanner enjoy the satisfaction he’d earned.

Oh, God, had he earned it.

Except that when he eased inside her, she was instantly aroused, every cell in her body screaming with need. She couldn’t do it; she couldn’t come like that a second time without disintegrating—could she?

She was well into the climb, though, and there was no going back.

They shared the next orgasm, and the one after that.

And then they slept.

It was dark in the room when Olivia awakened, panic-stricken, to a strange whuff-whuff-whuff sound permeating the roof of that old house. Tanner was nowhere to be seen.

She flew out of bed, scrambled into her clothes, except for the panty hose, which she tossed into the trash—what was that deafening noise?—and dashed down the back stairs into the kitchen. Ginger, on her feet and barking, paused to give her a knowing glance.

“Shut up,” Olivia said, hurrying to the window.

Tanner was out there, standing in what appeared to be a floodlight, looking up. Then the helicopter landed, right there in the yard.

Olivia rubbed her eyes hard, but when she looked again, the copter was still there, black and ominous against the snow. The blades slowed and then a young girl got out of the bird, stood still. Tanner stooped as he went toward the child, put an arm around her shoulders and steered her away, toward the house.

He paused when the copter lifted off again, waved.

Sophie had arrived, Olivia realized. And in grand style, too.

“Do I look like I’ve just had sex?” she asked Ginger in a frantic whisper.

“I wouldn’t know what you look like when you’ve just had sex,” Ginger answered. “I’m a dog, remember?”

“BEFOREYOUSTART yelling at me,” Sophie said, looking up at Tanner with Kat’s eyes, “can I just say hello to Butterpie?”

Tanner, torn between wishing he believed in spanking kids and a need to hold his daughter safe and close and tight, shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “The barn’s this way,” he said, though it was plainly visible, and started walking.

Sophie shivered as she hurried along beside him. “We could,” she said breathlessly, “just dispense with the yelling entirely and go on from there.”

“Fat chance,” Tanner told her.

“I’m in trouble, huh?”

“What do you think?” Tanner retorted, trying to sound stern. In truth, he was so glad to see Sophie, he hardly trusted himself to talk.

He should have woken Olivia when he got the call from Jack’s pilot, he thought. Warned her of Sophie’s impending arrival.

As if she could have missed hearing that helicopter.

“I think,” Sophie said with the certainty of youth, “I’m really happy to be here, and if you yell at me, I can take it.”

Tanner suppressed a chuckle. This was no time to be a pal. “You could have been kidnapped,” he said. “The list of things that might have happened to you—”

“Might have,” Sophie pointed out sagely. “That’s the key phrase, Dad. Nothing did happen, except one of Uncle Jack’s guys collared me at Grand Central. That was a tense moment, not to mention embarrassing.”

Having made that statement, Sophie dashed ahead of him and into the barn, calling Butterpie’s name.

By the time he flipped on the overhead lights, she was already in the stall, hugging the pony’s neck.

Butterpie whinnied with what sounded like joy.

And Olivia appeared at Tanner’s elbow. “We’ll be going now,” she said quietly, watching the reunion with a sweet smile. “Ginger and I.”

“Wait,” Tanner said when she would have turned away. “I want you to meet Sophie.”

“This is your time, and Sophie’s,” Olivia said, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

It was a simple kiss, nothing compared to the ones they’d shared upstairs in his bedroom. Just the same, Tanner felt as though he’d stepped on a live wire. His skeleton was probably showing, like in a cartoon.

“Maybe you feel like explaining what I’m doing here at this hour,” she reasoned, with a touch of humor lingering on her mouth, “but I don’t.”

Reluctantly Tanner nodded.

Ginger and Olivia left, without Sophie ever noticing them.