A Family For Christmas Read online

  We’d sat there, both of us silent, me gazing into the fire even though I could feel his eyes on my face, staring. My face heated up from more than the fire in the grate and I dug my nails into my palms to keep myself steady and calm. Then his voice had come out of the dark and I’d almost jumped out of my skin.

  “Why are you out in this?” Somehow, although the question was directed at me, I kinda got the sense he wasn’t really talking to me. Then he’d continued his conversation. “Don’t you know better than to be out on a night like this?

  “I…” I started to answer when I caught the edge of anger in his voice. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all. “No, don’t go.” How did he know that I was about to get up and go take my chances out in the car?

  The bartender had told me he would be leaving soon for home and the lobby was closed until morning. I would be here alone with this stranger. The warm Christmas cheer from the piped music and the fire dancing in the grate was suddenly tinged with fear.

  Then he’d started to talk, more calmly of everything and nothing. His voice lost its edge and suddenly I was at ease. He’d asked questions but somehow it seemed that he wasn’t really hearing the answers. Still I sat there and listened. There was something in his voice. Some hint of sadness, and I guess the whole experience was too ethereal for my overly imaginative mind to ignore.

  “Come here.” I still don’t know why I’d gone. Why I’d left the comfort of the overstuffed smoking chair and gone into that dark corner to take his outstretched hand. It wasn’t like me. Not level headed strong opinionated me. But that night as if in a trance I’d gone to him and in the faded light from the window where he sat I’d seen him for the first time.

  He was gorgeous. Even though his eyes were a bit bruised and sad, and there was a touch of sullenness to his mouth, he was by far the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen in my life.

  I knew he was a man and not a boy by his build and the way he melted me with a look. I’d put him at about thirty to my nineteen and a half. When he took my hand and turned it over in his, butterflies took flight in my stomach. Such an innocent touch, but it packed quite a punch.

  “What is your name?” He had a New Hampshire accent with a tinge of something more cultured, something that made things happen in my body that seemed to be centered between my thighs.

  “Isabella, but everyone calls me Bella.” He ran his thumb over my palm and then looked at it as if wondering how it had gotten there. I was about to pull away gently and go back to my seat when I found myself on his lap.

  My heart beat wildly with a sudden pang of fear. What had I gotten myself into? The bartender was long gone and I was all alone in this darkened room with…

  “Don’t want to be alone tonight, please don’t leave me…” his hand was on my nape while the other rested on my thighs. I don’t know why I didn’t pull away or scream or hit him, anything to get out of his grip. But when he’d pulled my head down to his I was helpless to stop him.

  It was my first real kiss and it was a doozy. In the end I was the one clinging, the one taking his tongue deeper into my mouth, the one who didn’t even want to come up for air. I didn’t object to his hand cupping my breast through the thick sweater, in fact I wanted to drag it out of the way and feel his hands on my naked flesh.

  There was a strong taste of alcohol on his tongue that wasn’t unpleasant in the least but only added to the headiness of the kiss and I got sucked under deeper and deeper. My skin burned with need and that hand on my breast became a sweet torture. I wanted badly to feel the warmth of his flesh against mine.

  He seemed to understand, seemed to know as he stood to his feet dropping the now empty bottle to the carpeted floor and lifted me into his arms effortlessly. I didn’t see where we were going, wouldn’t have cared. In that moment, I wasn’t in control of myself. It was as if something or someone else had taken control of my senses and all my usual cautions went out the window.

  I didn’t feel fear, there was danger yes, but of a different kind. I knew I was about to do something that would change my life forever. It was monumental and this certainly wasn’t the way I’d seen myself losing my virginity. But somehow, I couldn’t seem to stop what was about to happen, or want to.

  He closed the door behind us with his foot and took me to the bed across the room. Even the room was a like a stage set for seduction. There was a fire blazing in the stone fireplace that took up half of one wall, and a large bear skin rug laid on the floor before the fire.

  The room was toasty warm and the smell of pine from the garland hanging from the mantle along with the lights peeping through the windows from outside made it feel as if in that room we were wrapped in a cocoon of warm holiday cheer. Certainly nothing could go wrong.

  His hand went beneath my sweater and broke my train of thought. It felt so strange there, where no one else had ever dared. His big, callused hand was cool against my warm skin and the contrast sent shockwaves throughout my body. But nothing, like when he lifted my sweater and tore my bra out of the way to put his mouth on my already turgid nipple.

  “Ohhhh.” The sound was wrenched from me. I could no more have held it back than I could’ve stopped him. He made love to my nipple. I looked on in amazement at he way he licked, then nibbled then suckled. And when his hand came up to hold my breast in place for his mouth, I felt a gush of liquid heat between my thighs.

  I wanted, no needed to feel him there. It was all so strange, so unreal. As if I were watching things play out from afar. Seeing myself do these things that were so out of character and yet powerless to stop myself.

  Once again, as if having access to my mind… my thoughts-just when I thought I would go mad from the emptiness between my thighs, he rolled his body over, pressing me down into the mattress. Blocking me from escape, but most of all, pressing that rigid hardness between his thighs into me just where I needed it most.

  I exploded, lifting my body hard into his, wanting more of the feel of him. My hands held his head in place as he fed at my breasts, now exchanging one for the other as he ground himself into me and I came and came until my breath was gone and I laid limp beneath him.

  He pulled his mouth away from my nipple and his hands were at my waist, on the band of my slacks. This is it; this is the point of no return. This is when I should stop him and get back to my car where I could sleep off this strange feeling that had entrapped me since walking into this place.

  But instead, I lifted off the bed so he could drag my pants and underwear down off my legs and over my shoes. When his mouth came down between my legs, the scream got trapped in my lungs. Never, never did I ever imagine that anything could feel this good.

  He didn’t just put his mouth on me the way I always imagined it was done. He delved into me with his tongue. His hands took hold of my hips and he held me in place for the onslaught of his mouth, driving his tongue into my depths over and over while he made the sexiest noises I’d ever heard anywhere.

  Then he’d stopped with his tongue buried inside me, and his fingers manipulating my clit, as bursts of light went off behind my eyes. He growled something and I felt the reverberation enter me, setting off little explosions deep in my womb.

  I was too caught up to think straight. My body, me senses had taken over. The whole night had become something from one of my romance novels. It didn’t seem real. It was as if I was caught in a surreal dreamlike adventure from which I would awaken in the morning and all will be back to normal again. But no dream had ever felt this real, this amazing.

  He climbed up my body after nipping my inner thigh and we shared my taste in a kiss that was so intoxicatingly sweet it brought tears to my eyes. Who was this man that knew my body better than I? Who touched me with such reverence that I felt it in my very soul?

  I felt his hand between us, as he struggled with his belt, and the feel of his fingers brushing against me left me hungry for more. I lent him a helping hand as our mouths clung together passionately. I tasted mys
elf on his tongue and the taste inflamed me more. By the time he was free of the confines of his pants I was ready to beg him to put me out of my misery.

  When he slammed into me, my body went into shock. The sharp pain brought me back from the peak of the mountain where I’d only just been soaring. But it was the look on his face, of surprise and disbelief. “How?” He shook his head as if to clear it before easing himself slowly, gently out of my body as if he would leave me, but he didn’t.

  Instead, he stopped with just his tip inside me as he took my nipple between his teeth again. Liquid heat rushed from my body and made it easy for him to slide back inside.

  By then the searing pain between my thighs had dissipated, and that powerful feeling of lust was rebuilding stronger than before.

  5

  Bella

  It was I who pulled his head down to mine, me who moved my hips under his, me who led one of his hands back to my neglected nipple. He took things over from there, moving into me like he couldn’t help himself.

  “So tight, so sweet. Never let go…” He mumbled a whole lot of sweet nothings that kept my pulse racing and my body heated and so wet it was almost embarrassing. He was a magnificent lover. I knew that even though he was my first experience. I’d read enough about the subject to know, and beyond that, the way he made me feel was nothing less than mind blowing.

  He didn’t just use my body for his own pleasure, wasn’t selfish. He took me to great heights not only with the way he used his massive cock to wring the most magnificent pleasure from me, but the way he touched me so tenderly, and his kiss.

  I knew his appendage was larger than average because of the way part of him still hung outside of me and I was already full. I could feel him deep inside me, the pleasure pain caused by more than just my maidenhead that he’d just ripped to shreds.

  His teeth in my neck brought my mind back into sharp focus and set off new tremors that ran through me. The way he lifted my ass in his hands as he brought me into his thrusts had me wrapping my legs around him and digging my nails into him as my mouth hung open in shocked surprise and pleasure.

  He sped up his thrusts and his grunts got louder as he pounded himself into me over and over until the pleasure was too much and all went dark.

  I awakened to him sitting next to me with a wet cloth pressed between my thighs, easing the sting from what he’d done to me. He saw my eyes open and threw the cloth to the floor before climbing back over me again.

  Only this time, he turned me around and put me on my hands and knees, before sliding back into me with my hair grabbed tightly in his fist.

  If I thought this had felt good before, nothing compared to having him take me like this. He was even deeper in me now, and the things he did with his free hand. He ran it from my nipples to down between my thighs where he was stroking in and out of me. His teeth marked my neck and shoulders as the tugged on my hair hard enough to sting, but the pain only added to the intense pleasure.

  “I love fucking you like this, love the way your ass feels cushioned against me. Open your legs let me feel your clit.” I spread as he pulled me up so that my back was against his chest. “Put your arms back and around my neck. That’s it.” He dropped my hair and now used both hands on my body, one on my nipple, one between my legs.

  I was stuffed from behind as he moved my body with his and growled instructions in my ear. “I want you to squeeze down around my cock. That’s a good girl. Now flex your pussy muscles, I want you to drag my seed from me; come on.” I had no idea what he meant but I did as he asked and the pleasure was indescribable.

  It seemed to be good for him too, because the next thing I knew he pushed my head down into the mattress; kneed my legs apart, and drove himself into me so hard my neck almost snapped.

  He pulled my head back by my hair but kept my upper body pressed into the bed with his as he fucked me. There was no other word for it. The other may have had a tinge of lovemaking to it, but this, this was pure animalistic coupling.

  Even his grunts and growls had changed. They were now wilder, harsher, his words more explicit as he told me how much he enjoyed my body and what he was doing to me, in me.

  Now I was a little afraid, not so much of him as of the feelings he’d unleashed inside of me. They were out of control, all consuming and for an innocent like me, almost terrifying. I felt like I was falling from a very great height and all my senses were centered in that one place between my thighs.

  He took me over completely his hand coming up to wrap around my throat as he slammed into me. Oh dear heaven he’d cum inside me last time and there was nothing between his seed and my womb.

  I should stop him as I felt his cock expand inside me as if getting ready to cum again, but I didn’t want the sweet feelings deep inside me to end.

  He did something new, twisted his hips at an angle and sparks flew. I forgot all about protection and danger as I lost all sense of everything else other than the feel of his thick length inside me. Battering away at some place deep inside that made my body respond even wilder than before.

  “Don’t stop, don’t ever stop, please…” The words were torn from me, as I got lost in a fog of lust and love so profound it defied logic. How had I ended up here in this time and place? How was this total and complete stranger making me feel these things?

  Not even the steamiest of my romance collection could have prepared me for this.

  And he wasn’t through. Whoever he was, he was very good at this. The way he played my body. I felt the loss when he pulled out but I wasn’t left feeling empty for long because soon I felt the coolness of his tongue as it searched my depths once more.

  My eyes rolled back from the pleasure and I gripped the sheets in my tight fists as he made love to me with his tongue and fingers before driving himself back into me. “Tell me you want my seed.” The words almost made me swoon as my womb contracted and I told him what he wanted to hear.

  “Yes, please.” He grabbed hold of my hips and his pounding jerked my body to and fro as he chased his climax and my body and mind exploded in a maelstrom of violent ecstasy that once again left me at the brink of the dark abyss.

  I held on this time, this time I felt his release as it jetted into me. Felt the sting of his teeth as he bit into my flesh with his orgasm that seemed to go on forever. He held me then, bringing his body down to cover mine as our hearts fought to get back to their usual pace. His arms around me felt safe, like I belonged there…

  The beeping of a car horn brought me back to the present. My hands clung tightly to the steering wheel in a death grip until my fingers were almost numb. My heart raced in my chest and it took me longer than usual to get myself back under control. There was a dull pain throbbing between my thighs that was more than a little frustrating since there was no way in hell for me to ease the ache. I hadn’t been with anyone since that night, hadn’t even had the slightest urge.

  No, these days all my lovemaking was done in my dreams, in the reliving of that one spectacular night of the most amazing lovemaking that I was sure no reality could ever hold a candle to.

  I shook off the last vestige of my lust filled haze as I got out to help mom transfer the kids from her car to mine. One of the things that had made my sister crazy was the way my parents had gone all out for the twins when they were born, and then again when I’d moved out of the family home.

  Mom had insisted that they get car seats of their own because she knew what a drag it would be to have to constantly move them back and forth from one vehicle to the next. Days like today I really appreciated it because though there was still some light left, the day had grown colder.

  “Hi kids, are you all excited about seeing Santa?” They were they usual exuberant selves at seeing me after hours of being separated, and the added bonus of getting to see the jolly old guy had them all but jumping in their seats as mom helped me strap them in.

  “Why were you sitting out here in this cold car? Why didn’t you wait inside?” I never
told her nor will I ever about my boss the octopus. It would only make her worry and I’d given her enough of that for a lifetime.

  “Oh, you know me, you know how much I love this time of year. I just wanted to sit and look down Main Street at all the decorations, see everyone going about their holiday madness.”

  She bought that yarn and dropped it for which I was immensely grateful. I have been very good at keeping my lackluster feelings about the season hidden thus far, and having to make the day special for the kids had helped. But the truth is, I wish I could just magically ghost through the days until it was all over.

  “Okay, don’t forget to take lots of pictures and we’ll see you at the house tomorrow for wrapping.” She called as she got into her car. Oh gripes, I’d forgotten all about that little tradition. Every Christmas eve, the kids and I spent the night with mom and dad where the adults stayed up well into the night wrapping gifts for under the tree in between cooking and baking for the next day.

  “Okay mom, thanks again.” We waved our goodbyes while my two little angels prattled on in the back, filling me in on their day. For them I swallowed my ennui and put myself into the spirit of things. We sang carols on the way as we enjoyed the spectacular scenery of lawn displays and window dressing. The big day was only two days away and the whole town was going full steam ahead.

  6

  Luca

  “Ma I agreed to be here, I don’t recall agreeing to going out and about in town.” That was the last thing I needed. I’d convinced myself four years ago when I left that it was best. I could avoid all the well wishes and condolences, but I’d only been back a few hours and already I could see the error of my ways.