Heating up the Holidays

her nauseous, because it was just too romantic to be real. Where was the callous jerk she’d known fifteen years ago?

He began strumming a slow, bluesy tune on the guitar, as Lorelei settled on the bench seat across from him and watched. She’d never had a guy play music for her personally before. Then he began humming along with the tune, his voice deliciously sexy and low, and the breath whooshed out of her lungs. By the time he was singing the first bar of the song, Lorelei could feel sweat trickling down her chest between her breasts in spite of the cold, damp night air.

She watched, mesmerized as he sang about lost chances and lonely nights, about broken hearts and longing for redemption. It took her well over a minute to realize what he was singing about and she could hardly believe her ears.

She strained to hear every word and make sense of it. Maybe she was mistaken. No way could he have composed this beautiful, soulful, melody in only one day.

But when he reached the lines about her virgin skin in hot water, heat rising around them, and being sorry for the silence, she knew.

This song…he had written it.

For her.

8

RYAN HELD the guitar until the final sound vibration had settled in it, and there was silence. Then he placed the instrument back in its case and looked up to see Lorelei staring at him, dumbstruck.

She tried to compose herself, perhaps arrange her features to suggest she wasn’t moved by the song, but he knew that look. She’d felt what he’d intended her to feel.

And he could not help being satisfied knowing it.

“Wow,” she said quietly. “You wrote that.”

“It’s a work in progress. That was my first time playing it through without any major screwups.”

“You wrote that,” she repeated, as if awestruck.

“Yesterday after I left your place.”

“I’m…stunned. And flattered. Thank you.”

He closed the distance between them and took her hand, pulling her up to a standing position in front of him. When he could see clearly into her eyes, he said, “I wanted you to understand how truly sorry I am for what happened the last time we were here together.”

She nodded, averting her gaze for a moment, then looking back at him with an expression that seemed like determination.

“I accept,” she said. “Now how about we go for a dip?”

“You don’t have to twist my arm.”

After he’d put the guitar back in its case and taken it to the truck, they went to the spa registration desk and checked in. They were given a map of the grounds and facilities, and they followed a path outside toward the ocean, to the hot springs, which were now dimly lit for the evening and equipped with chairs and meditation platforms nearby.

The place was, miraculously, deserted. Ryan said a silent thank-you to the universe. He had no preconceived notions of how he wanted the night to go-okay, maybe he had a few, and he’d reserved a room at the spa hotel just in case-but he did at least want them to be alone the way they had been fifteen years ago. It wouldn’t have been the same with other people there to spoil the mood.

“Looks like we have the springs all to ourselves,” Lorelei said, echoing his thoughts. “Nice, huh?”

“I don’t suppose a cold Wednesday night five days before Christmas is all that popular a time to go spa- hopping.”

“Have you been here…since, um…?”

“No,” Ryan said quickly, which was true. “I think I’d lose some of my cred as a firefighter if I was caught contemplating my navel at a place as frou-frou as this.”

She laughed. “I forgot you have to consider such things.”

Ryan tried not to stare as she casually began taking off her clothes without even turning away. This he remembered from their first time here together, as well. He’d been awestruck by her lack of inhibition, especially when his experience with teenage girls had been dominated by awkwardness and self-conciousness.

Her ability to strip naked without a care in the world, both then and now, gave her an air of raw sexuality that was incredibly arousing to him. It was all he could do not to walk right over to her and take her in his arms.

And it presented him with another problem. He had a raging erection that was going to announce what he wanted to do whether he spoke a word or not, so as he undressed himself, he turned his back to Lorelei, then had to chuckle at himself over the ridiculousness of the situation.

Where was his lack of inhibition? What was wrong with her knowing that she turned him on? Wasn’t that what he wanted anyway?

With a deep breath, he tossed his pants aside and turned to get in the water, consequences be damned. Lorelei’s gaze landed immediately on his stiff cock, but instead of looking away, she simply stared up at him, her eyes half-lidded, as if in a sexy challenge.

Damn, she was bold.

And he loved it. He’d never met a woman so at ease with herself as Lorelei was.

He lowered himself into the water and sighed at its heat, a heavenly contrast to the cold air around them. They could hear waves crashing against the beach down below.

“Here we are,” he said dumbly. “Can you believe it?”

She eased herself into the water one leg at a time, and his gaze took her in, relishing the sight of her bare skin, the curly dark hair that covered her sex and the dark, erect nipples he so badly wanted in his mouth.

“Barely,” she said. “Mmmmm, this feels amazing.”

He tried to think what else to say, but at the sound of her little moan of pleasure, his mind went blank.

He could only sit there, dumbstruck, wanting so desperately to have her that he couldn’t imagine not reaching for her right then and there.

“What is it?” she asked when she caught the odd expression on his face.

“I…this…um…”

What? What could he say? He’d lost all his words.

She eased herself across the rocks, coming closer to him. Closer, closer, closer still…

Then she was next to him, and before he could say a word…she unexpectedly straddled his lap.

His cock, so suddenly pressed against her, ached like crazy to thrust inside. He could hardly believe his luck.

“I have a condom,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

She. Had. A. Condom.

Hallelujah.

She leaned in and kissed him then, a long, slow, deep kiss that stated her intentions as clearly as any words could have. Ryan’s toes curled into the sediment at the bottom of the spring, and he grasped her hips, rocking against her and savoring the feel of her soft, delicious ass in his palms.

“We should get a room,” he murmured when she broke the kiss.

“No,” she said. “I want you right here, like before.”

Yes, this was exactly like before. Her on his lap, straddling him, kissing him into stunned submission.

She’d been awkward then, unlike now, but clearly into him. And he’d been carried away in the passion of the moment, unsure, in his lame adolescent mind, why he was so turned on by his nerdy, odd lab partner, but unable to stop the forward momentum of passion unhindered by thought.

Now though…Now, he knew why he wanted her, and he knew he’d be lucky to have her. And there wouldn’t be any stopping them this time, either.