Drake Sisters 02 - The Twilight Before Christmas

memorizing every beloved line and angle of her face. He was gentle, his fingertips stroking caresses and tracing her cheekbones, the shape of her eyes, the curve of her eyebrows. The pad of his thumb slid back and forth over the softness of her lips. He loved her mouth, loved everything about her. “Kate.” He kissed her gently. Once. Twice. “How could you think I don’t know you?
    We’ve lived in the same town practical y al our lives. I’ve watched you. I’ve listened to you. Do you know how many times I’ve dreamed of you?”
    “Dreams aren’t the same as reality, Matt,” Kate said sadly.
    Her gaze moved over his face, examining every inch of his features. Matt waited, holding his breath. He was rough and she was elegant. He was a man who protected the ones he loved. And he loved Kate Drake.

    “Matthew…” There was that catch in her voice again. Need. Caution.
    Matt couldn’t imagine why Kate would fear a relationship with him, a life with him, but the thought that she might pul away had him bending his head. His teeth tugged at her delicate ear. His tongue made a foray along the smal shape. She shivered in reaction. He grew harder. Thicker. His body was heavy and painful, straining against the confines of his jeans. “Katie, unzip my jeans.” He breathed the words into her ear, his lips drifting lower to find her neck. Her soft, sensitive neck.
    Kate closed her eyes as his teeth nipped her chin, her throat, as his lips found her col arbone, his chin nudging aside the shirt col ar again. She ached with wanting him, her body hot and sensitive. Her breasts felt swol en, begging for his attention. What was so wrong with reaching for something, just this one time? He was everything she’d ever wanted, yet was always out of her reach. Matthew Granite was a fighter, larger-than-life. He’d done things she would never comprehend, never experience. He felt like a hero from one of her novels, not quite real and too good to be true. She knew she’d thought of him when she’d written each and every one of her books. She’d used him as her role model because, to her, he was everything a man should be. Why would he ever choose to be with a woman who looked at life, wrote about life, but refused to participate in it?
    Kate was certain she was going to leap from the bed and run, but her body had a mind of its own. She was already working on the button at the waistband of his jeans, finding the zipper and dragging it down. The air left his lungs in a rush when her hand shaped the thick, heavy bulge, caressed and stroked with loving fingers. “You’re wearing too many clothes, Matthew,” she pointed out, determined to have her time with him, even if it couldn’t be forever.
    “So are you.” His hands dropped to the buttons of her shirt, sliding them open so that the edges gaped apart. He raised his upper body in order to stare down at her, to drink in the sight of Kate Drake in his bed. She shrugged out of the shirt and al owed it fal to the floor before lying back. His mouth went dry.
    Outside, the continual booming of the sea seemed to match the pounding of his heart. In the soft light, her skin was flawless, inviting. Her breasts were ful and round, her nipples taut inviting peaks. Kate’s long hair spil ed around the pil ows, just as he’d always fantasized. For a moment he was caught and held by the sight of her, unable to believe she was real. “There was more than one night out in the desert when I was lying half-buried in the sand, surrounded by the enemy. It was important to get in and out without being seen. The enemy showed up and set up camp virtual y on top of us. It was the fantasy of you lying just like this in my bed, waiting for me at home, that got me through it.”
    “Then I’m very glad, Matthew.” She tugged on the loop at the waistband of his jeans. “Get rid of those things.”
    He didn’t wait for a second invitation. “I’ve always loved you, Kate. Always.” She would never know how often he thought of her, in the hot arid desert and the freezing nights, in the painful sandstorms. Lying in a field with the enemy not ten feet from him. He had been al over the world, performing high-risk covert missions in places no American leader would ever admit to sending troops, and Kate had gone with him every single time.
    He stroked his hand down her leg, more to ensure she was real than for any other reason. He felt her shiver in response. Her lips parted slightly.
    Her