White Christmas (novella) (3 page)

She felt the truth of his words as his firm length pushed against her. He let her down carefully onto her feet, bending at the knees to yank her underwear down her legs. Then he stood up slowly, trailing one hand up her inner leg, beside her knee, up her inner thigh, across her sex, over her stomach, across her breast, and to her face. His touch laced sparkles all over her and turned her stomach to water. He cupped her chin roughly with one hand and, with his other, stretched her hands high above her head, pushed hard against the ice wall of the cave.

The he stepped back, holding her in place with his hands. “Let me look at you,” he said, his voice molasses and granite. “It’s been too long.”

She stood before his appraisal and watched as he began at her face, roving and considering, before moving down to drink in her breasts, high and jutting with cold and arousal, then settled on the arc of flesh at her sex.

He seemed undisturbed by the climbing crescendo of the predators outside, the firefight lighting up the sky, or the uncertainty of their future. He was utterly absorbed in his appraisal. A smile lit up his face.

Tabi blinked. He was enjoying himself.

“Delicious,” he purred. “Now turn around.”

“What?” Wasn’t this taking things a little far? Shouldn’t they just get on with it?

“You want me to do this right, right?”

“Right,” she agreed.

“Well,” he said. “If you want my pheromones to really kick off, I want to look at you. All of you. Now turn around.” He stepped closer to her and twisted her hands so her body twisted with them. Her breasts pressed against the ice wall and her hips bumped up hard, pushing cold into the softest parts of her. It felt cruel and delicious, and it lit her up like a Christmas tree.

She felt him step back again, then reach out and run one hand slowly over her buttocks.

“You’ve still got the best ass I’ve ever seen,” he drawled. She felt both his hands cup her buttocks, and then slide onto the back of her thighs as he knelt behind her. Before she knew what he was doing, he licked first one buttock then the other. Then he used his big hands to ease her thighs apart and open her buttocks further, tipping her forward onto the ice wall a little so her sex jutted forward into his face.

He made a strangled noise and drew the soft folds of her into his mouth. Her knees buckled, but he planted his hands on either side of her waist and pinned her in place as he sucked and licked at her. The sensation was unlike anything Tabi had ever experienced, the vicious press of ice against her sensitised nipples, and the warm suck and drag of his mouth at her core.

She didn’t need her instruments to measure the Pheromone Quotient. She could almost taste the lust, hanging thick and purple in the air. The angry whine of the Tyverian Hunters had levelled. But they were still very close.

“You taste like honey,” he moaned, pulling away and leaving her cranky with impatience. She wondered if it would be a breach of protocol to ram herself back onto his face.

But he had his own ideas.

He stood again and turned her to him, grasping the back of her head with his hand and lowering his mouth to hers so she could taste herself on his lips. “See what I mean?”

She didn’t. Not really. But she didn’t care. Kissing him like this, after all these years, was wreaking havoc on her biochemistry. His tongue licked and lapped at her lips, then pushed insistently into her mouth. He thrust first one finger, then another, into the space where his tongue had been a moment before. Her insides clenched around his fingers as they began an insistent stroking, and her skin crackled and burned where moments before it had been ice.

His thumb circled deliciously around the outside of her sex, grazing and brushing the place she wanted it to land.

“Not so fast,” he murmured. “You need to earn it first.”

He pushed his fingers deeper inside her and the world began to speed up. She wanted it all, like she used to have it. She wanted his hands on her breasts, his mouth on hers, him inside her. And she wanted it all now. She bucked her hips against his thumb and moaned.

“That’s better,” he said. “Once more with feeling.” He pressed lightly with his thumb on that most sensitive place, and then began his circling dance again.

“Asha,” she begged.

“Mmmm?” He pulled his mouth from hers and bent his head to her breast. “You want some of this, darl’n?” He bit lightly at her nipple and her tummy pirouetted neatly. Then he pulled the nipple into his mouth and sucked hard.

A sudden noise from the cave mouth startled them both. They turned, hot and panting, pressed against each other.

“Fuck,” Asha said, taking in the writhing creature hissing and chattering at the entrance.

Tabi could see it was giddy and confused. It spun fidgety circles in place, making to lurch for them in one instant, then recoiling to the cave mouth the next. She could see every violet sucker pulsing with hungerlust, but the usually pale eyes were a sick green.

“Look at its eyes,” Tabi whispered against Asha’s shoulder. “We’re ruining its pleasure.”

“I know how it feels,” Asha sighed.

As they stood locked in place, the thing seemed to settle, hissing more purposefully in place. It made a low, ululating call and two other Hunters joined it on the lip of the cave.

“Talk about a passion killer,” Asha muttered, his eyes darting to his suit. She could see him mentally calculating whether he could reach his vientamite sabre. And whether it would do any good against these armoured ice vampires, and the swarm they could call down.

Tabi felt brittle fear lodge itself in her throat. There was nothing they could do about Tyverian Hunters this close and this hungry.

Except one thing.

Tabi dropped to her knees on the floor of the ice cave and grasped Asha’s cock. “Don’t think about them,” she said. “Think about me. Think about how you loved this ten years ago, and how much you’re going to love it again right now.”

Asha nodded and closed his eyes.

At first, Tabi was working to restart his pheromones. She grasped him firmly, looking up the full, hard length of his beautiful body as she took him slowly in her mouth. But within seconds, the pleasure overtook the fear.

She loved watching him like this – focused on his pleasure, holding her head and swaying back into his locked legs. She drank him in deeper, sucking and tonguing him, remembering the taste of his sex and his skin, feeling her own sex respond as his cock grew larger and harder in her mouth.

“Is it making you wet, baby?” Asha’s groaned question almost tipped her over. “You like that, don’t you?”

She nodded, sucking him stronger and faster, wondering if he would let her take him this way.

She didn’t wonder for long.

He reached down for her arms and pulled her to her feet, picking her up under her thighs again and pushing her back against the ice wall. This time the ice against her back and her buttocks was almost comforting. It cooled the fireball that raged on her skin.

Asha pressed his chest against hers, using his thumbs to spread her thighs a little and open her to him before plunging inside.

As she cried out, the murderous Hunters at the cave mouth began a shrill cry of their own. Tabi couldn’t see them through the drunk fog of lust, but she could hear their movements, clacking and skittering on the ice. They were frantic with confusion and disgust, and the high-pitched sound almost punctured her eardrums.

“They want us to stop,” she said.

“No. Fuckin’. Way” Asha grunted, driving more deeply into her and making every scientific thought she’d ever had turn tail and run.

Finally, finally, his thumb found her sweet spot and she opened to him, pushing back against the pressure as she felt the walls of her sex begin to clench.

“You ready to be fucked like you’ve never been fucked in your life?” Asha drove into her one last time before he pulled out and turned her around again, pressing her breasts hard against the ice so they stung and ached with wanting.

“Yes,” she breathed.

He dragged her back, away from the wall a little, and then tipped her forward, so her back was horizontal and her hands were pressing against the ice for purchase. He spread her buttocks roughly and drove into her, reaching forward to grab both breasts in his hands, twisting the nipples with his fingers.

She cried out at his second thrust, just as the screeching of the creatures at the mouth of the cave also reached a crescendo and they fell away from the cave.

Asha continued to thrust into her, long strokes she met eagerly. He abandoned her nipples and held tight to her back, building to a wild rhythm that shook her to the core. Darkness fell around them as he began to moan low in his throat.

Holy fuck.
The firefight had stopped. Had they won?

As Tabi tried hard to hold on to the edges of control, she heard Symon’s voice bleat into the icy darkness.

Explorer Twelve. Tabi. We’re coming. The Tyverians have retreated. Not sure why. They’ve just turned tail and made for their camp. We’re coming, Tabi.

Asha groaned and continued his assault on her body. “Oh, don’t worry Mother Earth, we’re coming too.” He pushed hard into her centre one more time as his body went rigid. “Come with me, Tabi,” he said. “Come with me.”

Tabi didn’t need to be told the second time. She pushed hard against the length of him, feeling him fill up all the spaces he had claimed forever ten years ago and letting her body have the full, wild pleasure of him. As she felt him lose his control, spill wild desire into her, she let go as well, ramming back against his final thrusts and taking everything he had.

Minutes later, she lay beside him in the darkness on the ice floor.

“Are you cold, baby?” He made to cover her with his suit.

“No,” she said. And it was true. Her body was still steaming and the ice under her was a relief. She hauled herself up a little and considered his dark face in the soft light of the red Tyverian moon. “They’ll be here soon.”

“Yep,” he agreed, planting a small kiss on her nose. “Just enough time for me to sing you another Christmas carol.”

Tabi lay in the darkness and listened, as that honey-dark voice sang to her. “Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o’er the plains.”

His voice reached right down into her chest and tummy, filling her up.

He circled her with his arms and squeezed hard, continuing to sing softly into her hair. “And the mountains in reply, echoing their joyous strains.”

She snuggled into him, no longer afraid of the warmth. Feeling instead like one of those angels he was crooning about – filled with light and peace.

“It’s been a long time since I felt like this,” Tabi whispered against his warm chest.

“Me too,” he said, his voice a low rumble against her ear. “Merry Christmas, Tabysha. I promise next year we’ll do something nicer.”

“Next year?” Tabi dared not lift her head from his chest.

“Every year,” he said, pulling her against him firmly.

The he took a deep breath and began to sing again. “Have yourself a merry little Christmas…”

Fish out of Water

by Ros Baxter

Dirtwater’s straight-talking Deputy Sheriff Rania Aqualina has a lot on her plate: a nicotine addiction that’s a serious liability for a mermaid, a soldier-of-fortune ex who’s hooked on her Mum’s brownies, a gorgeous, naked stranger in her shower, and a mysterious dead blonde with a fish tattoo on Main Street.

Heading home to Aegira for a family wedding, Rania has a sinking feeling that’s got nothing to do with hydroporting seven miles under the sea and everything to do with the crazy situation. Now, if she can just steal a corpse, get a crazy Aegiran priest off her case, work out who the hell’s trying to kill her, and stop sleeping with the fishes, she might be able to unravel the mysteries. And maybe even save her own ass while she’s at it.

Fish Out of Water
is Stephanie Plum meets Splash, and the first book in a trilogy about Aegira, an underwater kingdom based on the historical Norse legend of Aegir.

Awakening

by Lara Morgan