A Manhattanite's Christmas

  He kissed up her inner thigh, loving the sight of goose bumps dancing across her flesh. He parted her thighs and stared at her intimate folds. He could sense her unease at him looking at her like this. He glided a finger over her outer lips. His insides pulsed with need. He glanced at her face and could see the uneasiness in her eyes.

  “I love looking at you. I wish it didn’t make you uncomfortable.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  He smiled. “It does. But we’ll work on that.”

  He brushed his thumbs over the outer folds—up and down—then eased inward until he was stroking the pink petals of flesh. He stroked his fingertip between them, almost groaning as the feel of the slickness there.

  “You’re so wet.”

  A quick glance told him her cheeks were flaming red.

  He nudged his fingertip inside, stroking the velvety warmth.

  “Oh, God, you feel so good.”

  “I really want you . . . um . . . inside me right now,” she said.

  “I know, sweetheart. I can tell. But right now I’m going to do this.”

  He lowered his mouth and pressed his tongue to her soft flesh, then and licked her. He used his thumbs to open her, exposing the little pearl inside. He dabbed his tongue against her, to her soft moan.

  He chuckled, delighted at her response. He covered her with his mouth and suckled lightly.

  “Oh, yes,” she whimpered.

  His cock throbbed with need.

  He pushed his finger inside her again and glided in and out. She drew in a breath. Another finger joined the first and he pulsed inside her velvet opening. The whole time, he kept suckling her.

  She arched, her breathing fast and erratic. He licked her clit, then swirled over it, his fingers pumping into her. Her channel closed around him, squeezing his fingers. Pulling them deeper inside. He chuckled against her slick flesh, then lapped and teased her button.

  “Oh, God, that’s so . . .”

  He sucked and she gasped.

  “Oh, oh . . . Yes!”

  She moaned, her body pulsing against him. He continued pumping his fingers into her, deep and fast. She was in full orgasm, but it seemed to be rising so he kept on. Soon, her wails filled the room.

  He couldn’t drag his gaze from her face, so incredible glowing in ecstasy.

  Then he felt it. A rush of heat against his hand.

  He lifted his head and saw the flood of liquid. His groin tightened.

  Fuck, she just ejaculated.

  He couldn’t believe it. He’d heard about this, but never experienced it. Without stopping his fingers plunging inside her, a smile split his face at the thought he’d made her come so extravagantly.

  Finally, her moans faded and her body relaxed on the bed. He slid up to her side, but when he went to kiss her, she rolled away and skittered across the room and into the bathroom. He tried not to let it feel like a rejection. Many women didn’t like the taste of themselves on a man’s mouth. He knew that only too well. So often when he’d given a woman pleasure this way, he hadn’t even been able to have the closeness of a kiss afterward before she’d disappear. The women who didn’t have full- out penetration with him rarely stayed to cuddle.

  While he waited, he went to the linen cupboard he’d seen in the hallway and found some clean bedding, then stripped away the sheet with the large wet spot and made the bed. He tucked the used sheets beside the bed out of the way.

  When she returned to the room, keeping her gaze averted, she walked to the bed.

  “I’ll change the sheets.”

  “I already did that,” he said.

  She nodded. “I . . .” She bit her lip. “I’m sorry.”

  He tipped his head. “For what, sweetheart?”

  But her crimson cheeks told him that . . . oh, fuck, she thought that there was something wrong with what had happened.

  “You’re not sorry about what happened when you came, are you?”

  She sat on the side of the bed, staring at her hands. “Aren’t you disgusted that I . . . you know, that . . .”

  “That you had a fantastic orgasm?”

  She frowned and shot him a hard glance. “That I peed right in the middle of things.”

  He sat down beside her and took her hands in his.

  “Oh, sweetheart, that wasn’t pee. Has that ever happened before?”

  She nodded. He was a little disappointed, a small part of him wanting to be the first man to give her that.

  “Jim was disgusted. Angry that I peed the bed.”

  Kalen’s jaw clenched. “Jim is a fucking idiot.”

  Her gaze had dropped to her hands again and he tipped her head up.

  “Holly, I loved that that happened. That liquid was part of your orgasm and I’m thrilled I was able to make you come that intensely.”

  “Really?”

  The need for approval in her eyes tore at his heart.

  He smiled warmly and cupped her head, then drew in close. His lips brushed hers in a light, yet heart-felt kiss.

  “Yes,” he murmured against her lips, then kissed her again.

  She wrapped her arms around him and deepened the kiss. When she drew back, her eyes were wide and full of light.

  “Thank you. You’re so kind to me.”

  “Kind?” He grinned. “I’d rather hoped I’d rocked your world.”

  She laughed and he loved seeing the happiness in her eyes.

  “Oh, you did.” Her hand glided down his stomach and wrapped around his cock. She grinned. “Now let’s rock it some more.”

  But he grasped her wrist and brought her hand to his lips. “We will. But right now, I’d just like to hold you. To bask in the glow of what we’ve just experienced.”

  “You want to cuddle me?”

  He smiled. “Yes. Very much.”

  She lay back on the bed, her lips curled up in a warm smile, her eyes glimmering. He turned off the bedside lamp, but the firelight filled the room with a soft glow. He lay down beside her and wrapped her in his embrace. She rolled toward him and snuggled her naked body close to his.

  His cock grew and ached in response, insisting her find her slick core and glide inside. But he ignored it. This is what he wanted right now. More than anything.

  She sighed, her soft breath warm against his chest.

  God, this was pure heaven.

  Cougar Christmas

  Evangeline Anderson

  Genevieve Wells is a cold-as-ice boss from Hell and she's about to lose her job if she can't produce a mate for the "Intensely Intimate Couples Retreat." Unfortunately, her husband divorced her--a fact she's been hiding for months.

  Drew Jamison is her long-suffering employee bucking for a promotion. He hates Genevieve but finds her intensely attractive. She's a frigid beauty who's over ten years older than him--forever out of his reach.

  When Drew agrees to impersonate Genevieve's husband in exchange for a leg up the corporate ladder, he has no idea how intimate things will get with his beautiful but distant boss. But the retreat really is intense--edible body paints, costumes for role playing, and bondage themed sex toys are part of the standard welcome package at Whispering Pines Couple's Resort. Not to mention the "Intimacy Exercises" they're required to perform every night.

  Drew and Genevieve play their parts well, but as the pressure mounts, Drew finds himself falling for a woman he once hated. And cold-as-ice Genevieve begins to melt, thawing to the sensual touch of a much younger man.

  Will their deception be found out? Will they keep their jobs but lose their hearts? And will Christmas ever be the same again?

  You'll have to read Cougar Christmas to find out...

  * * *

  Drew Jameson couldn’t believe his eyes.

  Genevieve Wells, the most feared and hated woman in the entire company—who also happened to be his boss—was crying.

  She wasn’t just wet around the eyes with a few ladylike tears rolling down her cheeks, either. She was genuinely crying—almost sobbin
g—her slender shoulders shaking and her face buried in her hands as she sat behind the large, glass and brushed stainless steel power desk she’d been given as part of her last promotion.

  He’d only meant to come up and grab a file he’d forgotten. One of the questionable perks of having to take personal time to attend a company party after hours was that he didn’t have to make a thirty minute drive to get the forgotten file—he was already here. Eight o’clock on a Friday night and he was at the office with no date and nothing but work on his mind.

  Nothing until he’d seen his boss crying that was. And though he had the manila envelope he’d come up to his office for clutched in his hand, Drew found himself rooted to the spot.

  I should go, he thought, not moving an inch. But what the hell could make a woman like Genevieve cry?

  It was that question more than anything else that kept him where he was. He’d been working under Genevieve Wells for the past three years, bucking for a well-deserved promotion and putting up with all her crap to become what he wanted to be—a senior marketing executive for Spiritual Soul Mates, the company they both worked for.

  In those three years he’d seen her deal with difficult clients, handle Stewart Solomon, the CEO and founder of the company, and fire countless fellow employees who weren’t up to the Spiritual Soul Mates standards. But never once, no matter how thorny, complex, or stressful the situation, had he even seen her break a sweat—let alone bawl her eyes out.

  "The Ice Queen," the other employees—especially the ones unlucky enough to report to her directly—called her. "The Dragon Lady" and "that Frigid Bitch" were also popular nicknames. Genevieve had been called everything under the sun but no one had ever accused her of being too emotional. She had an icy veneer of calm that never cracked, no matter how intense the pressure. It was probably this quality that had allowed her to become head of marketing and promotion at a relatively young age.

  She was now thirty-seven and had held the position with no difficulty for years. Drew himself was twenty-six and had witnessed her meteoric rise first hand—the last part of it, at least. She was absolutely ruthless but she got results like no one else which was probably why Stewart Solomon called her “my right hand man” with no irony whatsoever.

  Yet here she was. The Ice Queen. The Frigid Bitch. Here she was sitting alone at her big, expensive desk and crying.

  Leave. Just leave now. You’ll be a hell of a lot better off if she doesn’t know you saw.

  It was the voice of reason and Drew knew it. Yet he couldn’t help himself—he was curious. Knowing it was going to get him in trouble but unable to stop, he stepped into her plush corner office and knocked lightly on the open door.

  For a brief moment he thought Genevieve was so lost in misery that she didn’t hear him. He was on the verge of clearing his throat when she looked up, her beautiful face a mask of tears. For a moment she stared at him mutely then she wiped hastily at the tear tracks on her cheeks and sat up straighter. “Drew, what are you doing here?”

  He shrugged awkwardly. “I just came up to get a file and heard you. Genevieve, are you…are you okay?”

  Not that he should care. This was a woman he regularly fantasized would be hit by a bus. She’d made him work nights and weekends, given him difficult assignments he disliked, and had generally been the boss from hell.

  But somehow, seeing her sitting at her desk with her big brown eyes filled with tears and her elegantly upswept hairdo coming down he couldn’t help feeling sorry for her.

  It wasn’t the way she looked—although with her curvy figure, high cheekbones and full lips, she was very attractive. In fact, every man in the office lusted for her and hated her at the same time. But what made Drew feel for her for the first time wasn’t lust but the heartbroken expression on her face, the sheer vulnerability he had never seen before on her usually cold and emotionless features. For just a moment she wasn’t his hard-as-nails bitch of a boss anymore. She was a lost child—a little girl he wanted to take in his arms and comfort…

  That last thought snapped him back to reality. As if Genevieve Wells would tolerate anyone taking her in their arms to comfort her or for any other reason. It would be safer to hug a porcupine.

  She wore a huge rock on her finger and Drew had met her husband at one or two company functions—he was a corporate lawyer rumored to be as cold and heartless as Genevieve herself. So presumably he was safe hugging her—not that Drew could imagine it happening. But there was no way a lowly peon like himself would get away with it.

  “I’m fine,” Genevieve said, breaking his train of thought. Then she shook her head. “No, that’s a lie. I’m not fine. Not fine at all.”

  For a moment Drew thought she was going to start crying again but she lifted her chin and nodded at him regally instead.

  “You might as well be the first to know because I’m sure the good news will spread soon enough. Effective tomorrow morning I will be leaving Spiritual Soul Mates.”

  “What? But why?”

  Drew was stunned. From what he understood Genevieve had been with the company from the very beginning. In fact it was her marketing savvy that had turned the founder, Stewart Solomon’s ideas, from a blurry infomercial at three in the morning stuck in between a spot for the Magic Bullet and the Shamwow, to a household name. Because of her Stewart Solomon had been on Ophra numerous times and was the leading name in couples counseling—the relationship guru.

  Genevieve might be a bitch but she was a damn hard worker and a very intelligent woman—he couldn’t imagine her leaving of her own volition.

  Something or someone must be forcing her out, he thought, scanning her tearstained face.

  “I am in breach of my corporate contract,” she said, confirming his suspicions. “And as I’m not interested in letting myself be terminated, I’m going to give my notice.”

  “You? In breach of contract?” Drew almost laughed it was so ridiculous. “What did you do—embezzle the funds from the new Spring marketing campaign?”

  “Hardly,” she snapped and there was a sudden fire in her large brown eyes that her underlings—Drew included—had learned was a warning sign of bad things to come. But this time he wasn’t intimidated. Genevieve had a crack in her armor and he was interested to know how it had gotten there.

  “What then?” He came and sat on the edge of her desk, looking down at her coolly.

  “It’s nothing.” She blushed suddenly and looked away, not meeting his eyes.

  “Wow, must be a full moon out tonight. First I see the ruthless Genevieve Wells cry and now she’s embarrassed.” Drew shook his head. “Whatever you did it must be pretty bad.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” she snapped, standing up to put them at eye level. “It was just…foolish. And you might do well to remember that at least for tonight, I am still your boss.”

  Drew didn’t back down.

  “You might be my boss but you’re also a very unhappy person with something to get off her chest. Something I think you want to tell someone or you wouldn’t have started talking in the first place. So come on, Genevieve, finish the story. What did you do?” He dropped his voice a little, looking her in the eye. “Tell me. I won’t breathe a word of it to anyone else if you don’t want me to.”

  She looked at him scornfully. “You expect me to trust you with the details? How do I know you won’t just feed the company gossip mill the minute you leave here?”

  Drew held her gaze.

  “Have I ever given you reason to doubt my integrity?”

  She glared at him for a moment before looking away and sighing.

  “No.” She dropped back into her chair. “That’s why you get the toughest assignments over the more senior staff—because I know you’ll do them right without cutting corners.”

  He was surprised at the sudden compliment. Genevieve wasn’t known to praise her employees. But the continuing out-of-character behavior only made him more curious as to what was going on with her.

&nbs
p; “Come on, Gen…” He leaned forward on her desk, close enough to smell her expensive perfume with its warm notes of amber and honey. Or maybe it was just the scent of her skin. Looking into her big brown eyes he murmured, “Tell me.”

  “Fine.” She came around the front of the desk, her arms crossed protectively over her breasts. Drew noticed she was wearing a little black dress that managed to emphasize her lush curves even as it covered them and the six inch heels that were her signature footwear.

  Though she caused grown men taller than Drew’s own six foot four to tremble in their tracks, Genevieve was a diminutive five foot three herself. But no one who saw her striding through the office in her severe yet sexy designer shoes would know it.

  “I’m waiting.” Drew was still lounging on the edge of her desk. With her standing and wearing those incredibly high heels, they were almost eye to eye.

  Genevieve took a deep breath. “I breached my contract by not attending the mandatory counseling sessions the senior staff is supposed to have with Stewart if they start having marital problems.”

  “Wait a minute.” Drew held up a hand to stop her. “You’re telling me you signed a contract saying you’d have counseling if your marriage started going to the dogs?”

  She nodded shortly. “What a lovely way to put it but yes, I did. It’s mandatory for all senior staff.”

  “But…why? I mean, what business is it of Stewart Solomon if your relationship is on the rocks?”

  “Think about it, Drew,” she said patiently. “Spiritual Soul Mates not only promises to help people find their one true love—we promise to help them hang on to that person for life. It’s even in our latest brochure. Stewart is quoted as saying, ‘let me help you find true love and keep it—the way I’ve helped my extended family here at the Spiritual Soul Mate offices.’” She sighed. “I wrote that damn line and now it’s coming back to bite me in the ass! But the point is, Stewart councils all the senior staff. So it doesn’t look good if we start divorcing our ‘soul mates’ now does it?”