Harlequin Holiday Collection - Four Classic Seasonal Novellas

it and then unbuttoned his pants, strained tight against his erection.
    For her. All for her.
    Holly could hardly wait to see all of him. She and Zach had shared many intimacies. She’d never taken him into her body, but they had definitely explored other sensual delights. Now that she’d seen other men, she was dying to find out if her memories of him—his breadth, his power—were true, or merely a product of her heated dreams of something that had never been.
    Before she could satisfy her curiosity, though, Zach pushed her hands away as if he couldn’t take much more. She liked that she had power over him, but she had to admit that he had just as much over her. When he touched her, every cell in her body surged up to accept the pleasure.
    Zach tugged her sweater off then deftly unfastened her bra. Groaning as her breasts were freed, he cupped them, tweaking her nipples, making her quiver. Murmuring something sweet and sultry, he bent down to taste her, sucking gently. She groaned and twined her hands in his hair, giving her the deeper caress she needed.
    “Where’s your bedroom?” Zach whispered against her skin.
    She shook her head. “No. Here. I want you to take me right now.”
    “You’re sure?”
    She’d never been more sure of anything. She’d take him wildly—satisfy the lust that had been banked for years but never fully satisfied.
    And leave her heart entirely out of the equation.
    “Oh, yes,” she murmured, reaching into her pocket and grabbing a condom she’d tucked in there an hour ago. “I am definitely sure.”

Chapter Sixteen
    In the years since he’d lost Holly, Zach had pictured getting her back, seducing her, making love to her in a way that would show her how much he’d always cared.
    He’d never imagined anything as exciting as this. The red-haired beauty standing in front of him was practically begging him to take her, right here in the kitchen of her family-owned inn. With her swollen lips, her beautiful bared breasts and the luscious nipples he’d just sucked into hard, jutting peaks, she was the textbook example of an erotic woman.
    And she was his.
    “Please, Zach,” she whimpered, grinding against him, reaching for his jeans again.
    This time he didn’t stop her. Instead, he helped, pushing the rest of his clothes off and kicking them away.
    Her gaze smoldering, Holly reaching out to cup him in her soft, pale hand, her touch was incendiary against his rock-hard cock. She whispered something that sounded like, “I wasn’t imagining it,” as she stroked him, squeezing, caressing, driving him out of his mind. Finally she lifted the condom packet and tore it open with her teeth as if she couldn’t wait one more second.
    She looked desperate. Wild.
    Reaching for her pants, he quickly got rid of them, too, pausing for one moment to appreciate the soft curves of her body, the line of her hip, the length of her slender legs. Needing to touch her or die, he kissed her again, sliding his hand down her, pausing to tweak her sensitive breast and stroke her soft belly.
    When he went lower, tangling his fingers in those pretty strawberry curls, Holly cried out, “Oh, yes.”
    Zach teased her for a moment, then dipped his fingers further, groaning at how hot, slick and ready she was. When she was almost panting in his arms, he moved to her clit, stroking her, remembering exactly what she liked—how much pressure, how much intensity, how much everything.
    “Please, Zach, don’t make me wait.”
    The thick whisper shattered the last remnants of his restraint. Taking the condom from her, he sheathed himself then turned them around until she was the one backed against the counter. “I can’t believe this is finally happening,” he muttered as he lifted her, holding her thighs in his hands. Her skin was so soft….
    Holly arched toward him, wetting him with the slickness of her sex and Zach lost all restraint. He plunged up into her, both of them throwing their heads back at the shocking pleasure of it.
    She was tight and so damn hot that for a long second he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. He could only savor.
    Soon, though, the sensations took control. Holly wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his hips and met his every thrust. They kissed between helpless cries of delight. Until finally, when her jagged pants and cries told him she’d come, he let himself go, too, his body lost to heated orgasm. And, he suspected, his heart