Holiday Romance Collection - 6 Books Bundle (Erotic Romance - Holiday Romance) (2 page)

“Maybe I should have gotten some ice cream too,” Cecily said. “These kids look so happy!” But she looked happy too with her over-sized cup of coffee.

Maeve laughed. She appreciated how Cecily and the other neighborhood families had made her welcome despite the fact that she was a single woman with no children living in their midst. Maeve had done all she could to reassure them, not being too friendly with the husbands and inviting the wives and girlfriends over for tea and cake so they could check her out in person.

She comforted them with her bland smiles and stories of working hard to make her new business a success while at night she lay in her bed, missing Jacob, wishing it was his hands that touched her, his breath that hurried into the air, his touch that brought her to sweet climax in the dark.

It had been eight months and she still felt nothing but welcome even as she still thought of herself as an outsider among these beautiful tropical women with their beautiful tanned bodies, fluent Spanish or rich
Caribbean
accents. But as much as she missed
Chicago
, she knew she didn’t belong there anymore. Jacob’s death had seen to that.

She waved one last time to Cecily and sank to her knees again in the garden.

That night, she dreamed of ice cream and snow.

Chicago
. The hearth bright with flames from a hot and steady fire. Outside the window of their apartment, snow fell, whipping against the window in high, swirling gusts that made Maeve happy to be home instead of out there in the unrelenting cold. She sat on the soft throw rug in front of the fire, leaning against a pile of pillows, feeling the soft heat from the flames on her bare legs, belly, and face.

“I have the ice cream.” Jacob came from the kitchen in his pajama bottoms, the gray flannel hitched to his narrow hips and draping over the full downward curve of his sex. The wide expanse of this chest, lightly sprinkled with dark hair, was bare.

He knelt beside her in front of the fire with the pint of ice cream and two spoons. Leaned in to kiss her and offer a spoon and the first taste of the ice cream. But their gentle, tasting kiss because hot and demanding. She slipped her hand around the warm back of his neck, inhaling the scent of pine from their Christmas tree, his fresh-from-the-shower smell of Ivory soap.

His thigh fell between hers. He pulled off her nightgown, exposing her eager body to his hands. His muscled chest and belly were burnished gold in the flickering light from the flames in the fireplace as he hovered over her, worshiping her with his eyes. He cupped her breasts, watching her face as he bent down to lick and suck her nipples one after the other.

She gasped softly with arousal from the feel of his mouth on her flesh. But she wanted to please him too. Between her legs, his manhood grew to hardness, pushing against her through the flannel of his pajamas.

“Let me see you,” she whispered.

He nodded and she reached for the waistband of his pajamas, slowly peeled them from his hips until the thick stalk of his manhood was bare to her gaze. She touched him and he groaned. She stroked the impressive length of him. Maeve widened her legs to receive him and guided him to her entrance, her thumb stroking the weeping head of his desire. He groaned again and called her name, softly, then began to push gently, oh so gently into her. She gasped and arched her back as hot sensation twisted in her.

Jacob gasped her name against her ear.

Beside them, the ice cream melted slowly around the two spoons.

“Thank you, Mrs. Hernandez.”

Maeve handed her customer the credit card receipt from behind the cash register, smiling.

“Thank you, Maeve. Your beautiful flowers save my life.” The softly rounded woman flashed a bright smile, flung her designer purse over her shoulder and grabbed the large planter filled to overflowing with a bright flamingo lily.

Maeve slipped from behind the counter to open the door for her. The bell above the doorway chimed and she pushed the door open and stood to the side, allowing Juana Hernandez and the large potted plant through.

“Take care, Mrs. Hernandez. I’ll see you next time.”

“Thanks. You, too.”

The shiny leaves and deep pink petals of the flamingo lily bobbed as the other woman made her way through the parking lot out to her car. Just then the phone in the shop rang. Maeve ran back to answer it, watching Mrs. Hernandez’s progress through the glass doors with the view of the parking lot and street only partially hidden by her logo and the name of the shop—Intoxicating Florals. The bright red and green holiday poinsettias she had on display on the shelves just outside the store framed the scene just outside the door. She only half listened as the voice on the telephone asked a question about orchid arrangements.

In the parking lot, a man had stopped to help Mrs. Hernandez. He held the large potted plant while she opened her door and threw her purse and keys into the driver’s seat. Maeve watched Mrs. Hernandez with concern. This man could have easily shoved her into the car and driven off with her and her purse. Her customer should have known better.

Maeve finished up her phone call, looking at the man carefully the whole while, in case she had to give a statement about him later on. But as she watched him, she got distracted from her original reason for checking him out. There was something oddly familiar about the man, the bulky stretch of his shoulders, his length, the way he stood. A tiny switch of recognition flipped in her head. She stiffened.

Mrs. Hernandez took the plant away from the man. The sound of her shutting the car door and thanking the man came faintly through the closed door. Maeve gasped. Before she could tell herself to move or not move, she was standing in the doorway of the store, the bell jangling like mad above her head. The man turned away from Mrs. Hernandez’s disappearing car and walked toward the store.

She stared. Felt the shock of what, of who, she was seeing slam into her stomach like a fist. Maeve swallowed, felt the dryness of her throat fail her and tried swallowing again. She opened her mouth.

“Jacob?”

The man’s footsteps paused. He looked at Maeve, a familiar head to toe devouring look that made her heart thump like a carnival drum in her chest.

“Maeve.”

An uncontrolled sob exploded from her mouth. She gripped the edges of the doorway, felt the heavy glass door rebound against her back, the glass cool on her shoulder blades bared in a tank top. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. She stumbled from the doorway of the shop and out into the parking lot. The December heat brushed like breath against her face. She felt her legs trembling. The disbelief, the shock, the sheer astonishment moved through her like a tidal wave.

It was him. It had to be him. The same thick black hair, worn longer now to brush the collar of his white dress shirt. His tall, bulky body, although with less muscle than the last time she’d seen him, and a new haunted quality around his eyes. The jeans and boots instead of slacks and loafers were new. But this was him. Jacob Holmes. Her husband. Another sob burst from her. How—?

“Is this really you?”

A familiar crooked grin eased across his face. “Who else could it be, Maeve baby?”

She stumbled further into the parking lot and he met her there under the hot sun, cars flying past them on the street, the voices of people sitting at the bus stop nearby. Her hands trembled as she lifted them to touch his face. Oh, God! His warm skin felt like it was made for her touch. His soft hair, the strong column of his neck, the thick beat of his heart under the white shirt faintly damp with his sweat.

And his smell. Oh, God, his smell! She felt the tears rushing down her face but did nothing to stop them. This was really Jacob. After nearly three years, he stood before her. She felt again the soul shattering grief when the agent had come to her door to tell her she’d never see her husband again. The blow of the wooden floors against her knees as she’d collapsed where she stood in the doorway, shaken by grief, unable to believe it but having no choice but to believe that Jacob was lost to her forever. And now he was here, whole and softly calling her name. She reached up to his face again. And slapped him. Hard.

“You bastard!” she rasped.

After a moment of brief surprise, he grinned again. “I missed you too, baby.”

Maeve spun and turned away from him, her palm stinging from the blow. Her heart thumped madly in her chest as she shoved open the door of the shop. The bell jangled as she flew to the back of the store, into the workroom where she created her arrangements. Her work area, the counter that was an island in the center of the room otherwise surrounded by plants and flowers, was now bare except for a few snipped stalks from the yellow roses she’d sold to a new father earlier that morning. The room smelled like flowers, of roses and lilies, and daffodils, and hyacinths. It smelled so normal. But nothing was normal now. She pressed her palms to her hot cheeks.

The bell to the store clattered. After a moment’s hesitation, the door to her workroom opened. Jacob stood in the doorway. He wore his working face. The face he used when he wasn’t sure what situation it was that he was confronting, cautious but blank. When he saw her, his body straightened, his face got even blanker. A thrill sparked inside her that she remembered something so simple, something so familiar about who he was. This man. Her husband.

Maeve bit her lip to stifle another cry.

“Maeve, baby.” His voice was that same low, husky baritone. Sexy even when he wasn’t trying to be. Her legs trembled. She turned away from him and leaned back against the counter.

“I missed you,” he said.

She clenched her back teeth, squeezed her eyes shut. “Did you miss me the whole three years you left me alone, or was it just this week or today when you showed up on my doorstep?” Her arms locked tight around her middle, holding her up, preventing her from falling apart. Jacob was
here
.

She sensed him coming closer, the room filling even more with his large and impressive presence. Her skin prickled with the awareness of him. She knew without seeing him what he was going to do.

“Don’t touch me,” she said, breathless and still disbelieving, the years of loss and grief battering her like the moment, the minute, the second they had told her he was dead.

“You grew out your hair.” His voice came from directly in front of her.

She felt a movement in the air, then his fingers touched the loose tendrils of hair around her face. His fingers slid in her hair, scattering the pins securing her shoulder-length brown curls at the top of her head. The hair cascaded around her face, brushed her cheeks, her forehead, the back of her neck. Maeve had no choice. She opened her eyes.

He was right there, barely a foot away. His square-jawed face, penetrating black eyes, like pools of molten obsidian. His scent, of sweat and Ivory soap and leather, which meant he had his holstered gun on him somewhere.

“Don’t touch me,” she said again, but felt whatever resolve she had begin to tremble.

“I missed you so much, baby.” His voice deepened as he came even closer.

She leaned back into the counter away from him, or at least that’s what she meant to do, but instead she leaned into him, leaned into his wide chest, into his arms. The cry she had been stifling burst from her. It sounded like her heart breaking, or like the shattered pieces slamming back together in a riotous cacophony of sound.

His mouth was as hot as she remembered, as hard, pressing firmly into hers, welcoming a deeper connection beyond flesh. She kissed him back, desperately pressing closer, closer, and closer until their lips slid, parted, and his tongue darted inside her mouth, demanding entrance, taking what they both wanted him to have. Their bodies pressed together, his muscled chest, belly, and sex hard against her, igniting memories of desire, the reality of a present and persistent passion. Maeve groaned into his open mouth, his big hand pressed against her back, slid down to cup her bottom in the jeans.

“Baby…” His rough voice scraped against the tender places inside her, leaving raw desire in its wake. His tongue danced with hers, stroking her to a quick fire, summoning wetness between her legs, a conflagration of desire in her belly. Maeve opened her legs for him, wanted him suddenly against her, inside her. She moaned.

And Jacob understood. He seemed to want the same thing. He lifted her up to the worktable, spread her legs and slipped between her thighs.

“I wish you were wearing one of your dresses,” he rasped against her mouth, his hands already unbuttoning, unzipping, slipping past her underwear.

Maeve gasped. “Oh!”

“Baby, you’re so wet….” He groaned and pressed himself against her heat, once, twice.

His fingers moved between her legs and she gasped, clutching at his shoulders when he slipped a finger inside her, his thumb stroking the source of her passion. Her head fell back. She gasped his name, widened her legs, wished too that she had worn a dress so she could feel him, all of him. His hands gripped the waist of her jeans and tugged.

The bell outside the workroom jingled. A male voice called Maeve’s name.