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  They hadn’t spoken since they’d parted at the airport the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Yes, they’d exchanged a few e-mails, but neither of them had pushed it, both realizing things had changed during their walk on the beach.

  Amanda hadn’t yet decided how she felt about that change. Going from a holiday fling to a long-distance relationship was such a big step. An enormous one, at least for her. So the cooling-off period had seemed like a very good idea. Mentally, she’d been hoping her common sense would slowly edge out her libido and she’d somehow find the strength to tell him she had changed her mind and it was over.

  Not seeing him again was the best course of action. They hadn’t gone too far yet. At this point, he couldn’t decide to hate her and blame her for leading him on. Couldn’t accuse her of taking his heart and crushing it beneath the heel of her boots when she left.

  Logically, she knew all that. But as the days had dragged on, she’d begun to realize how much she missed him. She missed everything about him. She wanted to hear the laughter in his voice, and the sexy way he said her name. She missed the whispers about how much he wanted her when they made love. She even found herself missing the way he kept trying to get her to talk about her past, her family and her lousy romantic track record.

  She missed his touch.

  Third ring. Fourth. She swallowed hard, twisting in her bed, the covers tangling around her legs. Her muscles flexed, the blood rushing a just bit harder through her veins. Her senses perked up, the scratch of the sheets on her bare skin, the image of his face, the thought of his hands and his mouth.

  She hadn’t reached for her little sex toy in a few weeks, and if she answered the phone, she had the feeling she would need it. Hearing his voice, wanting him but not having him, would take the low, edgy need throbbing deep inside her and push it up like lava rising in a volcano.

  Of course, not answering would still leave her needing it. So she might as well enjoy it. “Hello?”

  “Do you realize that today is National Cotton Candy Day?”

  She chuckled, wondering how the man could amuse her when she was suddenly so damned horny. “Funny, I had figured you were calling because it’s Pearl Harbor Day.” She had half thought about it herself, sticking to their holiday theme.

  “That’s too somber,” he said. “Cotton candy’s a lot more cheerful. It’s very pink.”

  “I’m not a pink kinda girl.”

  He didn’t even pause. “It can also be blue.”

  “An expert at cotton candy, are you?”

  “Let’s just say I’d like to become better acquainted with it. Especially with what I’m picturing right now.”

  She settled deeper into the pillow, the phone nestled in the crook of her neck. “What are you picturing?”

  “You. Wearing nothing but a lot of fluffy cotton candy.”

  Laughing softly, she said, “Sounds sticky.”

  “Sounds delicious.”

  “You really think you could eat that much?”

  “I could dine on you for days, Amanda Bauer.”

  Okay, definitely gonna need the vibrator tonight. Sighing in utter pleasure at the sound of his need for her, she kicked the covers totally off. She bent one knee, letting her legs fall apart, barely noticing the cold night air. The heat of his whispers warmed her enough.

  “Where are you?” he asked, his voice thick, as if he’d suddenly realized she was no longer thinking light and flirty thoughts, but deep and sultry ones.

  “I’m in my great big bed, all by my lonesome.”

  “Mmm. And what are you wearing.”

  “Not a blessed thing.”

  “Hold it…ahh, now you are. I see you. All wrapped in blue fluff just waiting for me to eat it off you.”

  Amanda licked her lips, then slid her hand across her stomach, tracing her fingertips along the bottom curves of her breasts. “Where are you?” she asked.

  “In bed. Of course, I don’t have as much privacy. I’m not alone like you are.”

  She stiffened, though realistically she knew he wouldn’t be calling if he had a woman with him. Especially because he knew if he did, she’d fly to Pittsburgh and punch him.

  “Get down, Ralph.”

  Hearing a low woof in the background, she realized who he was talking about. “Ahh. Your dog.”

  “Out you go, buddy,” he said. She heard the click of a door as the dog apparently got sent out of the bedroom for the night. Then Reese admitted, “He’s not as cuddly as you are.”

  Cuddly? Her? Ha. “I’m as cuddly as a porcupine.”

  His soft laugh told her he didn’t believe her instinctive protestation. “You’re very nice to hold, Manda. I can’t decide which I like better—holding you in my arms while you sleep, or just watching you.”

  “You watch me sleep? Why?”

  “You’re soft when you’re asleep,” he explained simply.

  Soft. He didn’t mean her skin, or her hair. She knew what he meant, that he had seen her with her guard down, emotionally vulnerable, no barriers. And he sounded happy about it.

  Her heart twisted a little. Then she kicked her legs restlessly. “Get back to the cotton candy,” she ordered, preferring sexy talk to the gentle, tender stuff. It was safer. Less risky.

  “God, you’re so predictable.”

  Gasping, she snapped, “I am not!”

  “Yeah, babe, you are. You wanted to reach for your sex toy and let me whisper you through an orgasm and I went and got sappy on you.”

  Okay. So she was predictable. She didn’t reply at first, nibbling her lip, finally asking, “Does that mean no phone sex?”

  “Are you kidding? Hell yeah to the phone sex.” His voice lowered, all amusement fading from it as he admitted, “I’m lying here with my rock-hard cock in my hand, just thinking about all the places in your body I want to fill with it.”

  “Oh, my,” she whispered, a few of those places reacting instinctively. Her mouth went dry, her sex very wet. She moved her hand in a long, slow slide down her bare stomach until she reached her hip. “Tell me more.”

  He did, speaking in a hoarse whisper. “I want to take you in every way a man can take a woman.”

  She closed her eyes, the very word take making her quiver. Amanda was not one to give up control. But oh, how she had enjoyed it that Friday night in Daytona. Giving herself over to him, knowing he wouldn’t hurt her and only wanted to give her pleasure had been one of the most exciting sexual experiences of her life.

  “But first we’d have to get rid of all that cotton candy.”

  “You want to take a shower together?” she teased.

  “Not right away. No, first I want to lie on my back and pull you up on top of me.”

  Her pulse pounded, her breath became shallow.

  “I want you sitting on my chest, your legs open for me so I can lick all that sugar off the insides of your creamy thighs.”

  Amanda’s legs clenched reflexively. She moved her hands to the curls between them, sliding her fingertip over her clit, hissing at how hard and sensitive it was. Every word he uttered was an invisible caress, the mental picture he created almost drugging in its sensual intensity.

  “It’ll be soft and fluffy at first. So sweet. But the closer I get to you, the more pure sugar I’ll find. Because you’ll be so hot and wet it will already have melted.”

  “Oh, Reese.” She arched on the bed, stroking her clit harder, then sliding her finger between the lips of her sex. Hot and wet most definitely described what she felt.

  “Do you know how much I love having my tongue on you…in you?” he asked. “How good you taste to me?”

  She reached for the sex toy in the drawer beside the bed. Now, more than ever, she wished she had a big, thick rubber one rather than just the thin plastic vibrator. She wanted to be filled. Taken. “Manda?”

  “I’m here,” she whispered as she flipped the switch and moved the device right where she most needed it. Then she clarified, “Actually, I’m not here…I’m
almost there.” Hearing his deep breaths, she knew she wasn’t alone. “Tell me what happens next. After you’ve licked away every bit of sweetness.”

  “You tell me,” he countered.

  “Easy. I’ll slide down your body. Slowly. Tormenting you.”

  “No fair. I didn’t torment you.”

  He was tormenting her now. Giving her fantasy when she wanted reality. But fantasy would have to do, at least for now.

  “But I wouldn’t be able to hold out,” she conceded. “I’d be so desperate to have you inside me, the second I felt the tip of your cock against me, I’d slide down onto it, welcoming you in one deep thrust.”

  He groaned. Hearing that deep, primal sound of pleasure, recognizing it from all the times Reese had come inside her, Amanda pressed the vibrator a little harder. The waves of her climax rolled up. Higher. Faster. She couldn’t speak anymore, couldn’t listen, couldn’t even think. She could only feel as the pleasure exploded in a hot rush, filling her body.

  But it was short-lived. Very short. Not nearly the kind of satisfaction she got in Reese Campbell’s arms.

  Silent and spent, gasping on the bed with the phone still beside her ear, she had to admit it, if only to herself. She’d become addicted to him.

  And she knew, without a doubt, she’d do just about anything to be with him again. For as long as she could have him.

  Christmas

  SOME YEARS, THE CELEBRATION of Hanukkah coincided with Christmas. Fortunately, however, this year was not one of them.

  Which meant two real holiday getaways in December.

  They’d spent the first one in a room in a New York City hotel. Reese had met Amanda there, not sure what she had up her sleeve for them. The venue had been far different from the place in Florida where they’d spent Thanksgiving weekend.

  Not that he’d complained. Just wanting to be with her again, he really hadn’t cared where they went. That desire had grown exponentially after their Cotton Candy Day phone sex, and he probably would have agreed to meet her in the middle of a war zone if that was the only way he could get her.

  So, yeah, anyplace would do, as long as it had a bed and was far away from the real world where nobody knew them. A place where Amanda could relax and forget she wasn’t the settling-down type, that she didn’t want a relationship, was just fine with him.

  Especially since, whether she liked it or not—whether she would admit it or not—they had a relationship.

  Far from a beachfront dive, the Manhattan high-rise had been all about luxury and indulgence. He’d understood her reason for choosing it when she’d finally revealed herself…and the game. Reese had nearly had a heart attack when she’d snuck out of the closet in their room, dressed all in black from head to toe. She was playing the part of a cat burglar who’d just been caught in the act.

  He’d really liked the way she’d taken possession of his most valuable jewels.

  He’d liked it just as much that she hadn’t resisted when he’d whisked her out of the hotel for dinner at an upscale restaurant. And that she’d given him a loud, smacking kiss when he’d presented her not with tickets to a Broadway show but with ones to a hard-rock concert at the Garden.

  During the trip, she’d been relaxed—sexy as always, but not so guarded. She’d laughed easily, talked more. It was as if she’d done some thinking after their walk on the beach, and had decided to just go with this for as long as it lasted.

  His Easter eggs were looking brighter already.

  The thought of it made him smile. Especially since he was going to be seeing her again so soon.

  “I still can’t believe you’re taking off for Las Vegas on Christmas. That’s so mean!”

  Ignoring the disgruntled tone of his teenage sister, Molly, he forced his thoughts off tomorrow’s trip—technically, the day after Christmas—and turned them back to the matter at hand: the board game which was set up on the kitchen table. Playing games after Christmas dinner had been a Campbell family tradition since he was a kid.

  That his father had been the game fanatic made the ritual one everyone seemed to want to keep alive. Including Reese, even though, on any other day of the year, he’d rather eat moldy fruitcake than play Risk.

  Then again, it could be worse. There had been those Pretty, Pretty Princess marathons all those years ago when his sisters were young and got their way most of the time.

  Hmm. Not that much had changed. Even though he wasn’t the pushover his dad had been when it came to the Campbell girls, they still managed to get what they wanted for the most part. Like now.

  “Wahoo! I just took over Australia! You keep thinking about the chick you’re hooking up with in Vegas, big brother, and I’ll keep taking your countries.”

  Reese frowned at his sister Debra, nine years his junior and halfway through her second year of college. She smirked, lifting a challenging brow, daring him to deny what she’d said.

  “What?” Molly asked, her eyes widening. “You’re meeting someone? Who?” The sixteen-year-old, who hadn’t yet figured out that the world didn’t revolve entirely around her, pouted as she added, “Is that why you won’t take us, even though you know how much I’m dying to go to Vegas? Because you want to hook up with some girl? Talk about shitty.”

  “Watch your mouth,” he said, the reply automatic. Funny, considering when he was sixteen, his bad language had prompted their mother to squirt a bottle of dish detergent all over his dinner one night. But he figured it’s what Dad would have said. “Why would you want to go, anyway? All you’d do is shop for clothes and text with your friends, just like you do here.”

  That was the longest sentence Reese had heard out of his kid brother Jack’s mouth all day. The fourteen-year-old had eased up on his I-hate-everyone-because-I’m-a-teenager schtick a little bit today, and for him, the remark was downright chatty. He even went on to add, “Who’s the girl, Reese?”

  As pleased as he was that his sullen brother, who’d been only twelve when their father had died, was actually interested in having a conversation, that was one talk he didn’t want to have. “Ignore her. She’s trying to distract you so she can take over Southeast Asia.”

  “Is she hot?”

  Incendiary. “Are we playing or are we talking?” He glanced at his watch. “Because it’s almost eight and I’m outta here at nine whether I control the entire world or not.”

  Jack wasn’t put off. Neither were his sisters. Like three dogs sniffing after a bone, they stayed on the subject. He was just lucky his other two sisters—Tess, a hard-assed, divorced man-hater right now, and Bonnie, the bleeding heart who wanted to save the world—were in the other room watching Tess’s kids play with their new toys.

  “Is your new girlfriend the reason you went away for Thanksgiving weekend?” asked Molly, that whine in her voice making his eye twitch.

  “Friend,” he clarified.

  Molly rolled her eyes. “Does she live far away?”

  “Chicago,” Debra said.

  Reese gaped. “How the hell do you know that?”

  “Aunt Jean told me,” she said with a broad, self-satisfied grin. Debra had outgrown any teenage whininess and now just loved playing her role of family shit-stirrer.

  Reese didn’t ask how Aunt Jean knew. The old woman had spies watching her spies. Besides, if he wanted to know, he could ask her himself. She should be here soon; they would be the last stop on her around-Pennsylvania visits to all her nieces, nephews and distant family members.

  But he didn’t want to know. In fact, he didn’t want to see her at all, knowing she’d take one look at him and crow with triumph. Obviously, if she was telling his kid sister about his trips to meet Amanda, she knew damn well he’d taken her advice—well, her order—to go out and live a little.

  Nobody said “I told you so” like an old woman who really had told you so. With any luck, he’d be gone before she got here to say it.

  “Why hasn’t this ‘friend’ come to meet us?” asked Molly.

&nb
sp; “Maybe because you’d scare her into the next state.”

  “Oh, a real Miss Priss, huh?” the sixteen-year-old said with a tsk. “No balls?”

  Jack grunted. “I sure hope not. If Reese switches sides and starts tea-bagging, I’m giving up on this family for good.”

  His jaw hanging open, he stared at his kid brother. “If I start what?”

  “You know, it’s when you…”

  Reese threw a hand up, palm out. “Enough. I know what it is.” Glancing at his sisters, who made faces ranging from ewwwy to grossed-out, he saw they knew what it was, too.

  Jesus, how had his father ever stood it? Teenagers were a damned nightmare.

  “What’s her name?” Molly asked.

  “None of your business.”

  “None of Your Business Campbell. Has a nice ring to it,” said Debra, her pretty eyes dancing with laughter. She was the mischief-maker of the bunch, playing that middle-child role like she’d invented it. “You can name your kids Go Away and Bite Me.”

  “Go away,” he mumbled, closing his eyes and rubbing at them with his fingers.

  “Bite me,” she said sweetly.

  “That’s not very polite, young lady.”

  His eyes flying open, he looked up to see his great-aunt Jean standing in the doorway. Surveying the scene, she looked matriarchal, though her lips twitched with amusement. He suspected she’d been there for a while.

  His sisters both rose from the table to greet their aunt who, though an eccentric one, was also everybody’s favorite. He suspected that was partly due to the fact that she always came loaded for bear with presents.

  “Help me unload my car, will you? I brought a few goodies.”

  The girls raced toward the door so fast the Risk board almost went flying. Which would have been fine with him.

  “Gonna help them, bro?” Reese asked Jack, who had slouched down in his seat, not wanting to appear eager or excited about anything. Around the immediate family, he’d lowered his defenses for a little while today. Aunt Jean’s arrival had put that guarded look back in his eyes.

  Reese’s heart twisted. The kid had once been a happy-go-lucky, smiling Little Leaguer. But not anymore. Fourteen was bad enough. With the weight Jack had been carrying around for two years, it was a lot worse.