Chapter Twenty-One
Eric was definitely shaken up. Although Shanna had supposedly left a message for their mother a few years earlier, he’d still never asked her to play the message for him, not wanting Anya to get her hopes up about her sister.
But there had to be something else going on here. Had Shanna really been kidnapped? He was sure it was her voice on the phone. He’d talked to her enough as a teenager that he recognized the inflections and tone of her voice. And she’d obviously been aware that Anya was back in town.
Then again, he’d heard some crazy kidnapping stories where women had been found years later after having been allowed a certain amount of freedom, so much under the control of their abductor, they’d appeared to be brainwashed.
He sighed. It was time to put those issues aside for the night because yes, he was nervous. Despite having to make love with Anya on a pull-out sleeper, Eric was determined to make this night special for the two of them. In fact, he’d been trying to figure out how he was going to make this happen ever since he’d seen her again. But tonight, the opportunity had conveniently arisen because of another puzzling blast from the past.
“You’re doing an awful lot of thinking,” she said, sipping on her third wine cooler.
She’d begun playing Christmas music on her iPod as soon as she’d finished texting Jake, and they’d been sitting and relaxing ever since.
“I wasn’t going to say anything about it again, but that phone call really threw me for a loop,” he admitted.
“Yes. Even I was beginning to question the legitimacy of that other message. I’m glad that Jake Loughlin is taking matters into his own hands. It kind of makes me relieved.”
Well, here it goes, he thought to himself, reaching out for her wine cooler and resting it on the end table beside her.
Staring into her eyes first, he covered her mouth with his. If there was a more satisfying mouth to kiss than Anya’s, he couldn’t imagine whose it would be. He wound his arms around her while she collapsed against him, her hands lightly clinging onto his shoulders. They kissed warmly, lazily for a while, their tongues exploring, their teeth gently nipping.
Until they finally broke for air.
“Maybe we should pull out the bed?” she asked.
Eric loved the dreamy look she had in her eyes. It was as if they were going back to the past, both remembering the first time they’d made love. As a matter of fact, it had been here at the cabin.
They both stood. Eric slid the coffee table away from the couch, while Anya pulled off the cushions, stacking them on the tall table behind the sofa.
While Eric made sure the front door was locked, she tugged on a handle and unfolded the bed, already made up with sheets and a warm blanket, two pillows stuffed beneath the blanket.
Wearing jeans and a t-shirt, Eric pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on top of his duffel bag. When he turned to look at Anya, her eyes were wide.
He started laughing. “What’s wrong?”
She cleared her throat, suddenly smiling coyly. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
Eric laughed harder, until he stopped abruptly when Anya began unbuttoning the gauzy blouse she’d been wearing to celebrate Christmas, which she’d paired with a short leather skirt.
Eric swallowed hard when she unzipped her skirt letting it drop to the floor, exposing the lacy black camisole she’d been wearing beneath the blouse and skirt.
“Geez, Anya,” he growled. “You look way too sexy for your own good. Have you always been dressed like that beneath your clothes?”
She started laughing. “Only since you’ve been back in town.”
“And then you’re wearing those high heeled boots.” Eric started laughing too. “We’re something else aren’t we? I feel like we’re taking up right where we left off as teenagers.”
“I feel the same way too,” she admitted, dropping to the mattress and yanking off one boot first and then the other.
Walking around to her side of the bed, he sat beside her, gazing into her violet-blue eyes. They were so lovely and expressive.
“I swear your eyes change color with your moods,” Eric said hoarsely, silently crawling across her on the bed, before pulling her into his arms and covering her mouth with his.
“Finally,” she whispered when they surfaced for air.
She fell back onto the bed with him. Every point of contact was hot as he explored and caressed her, dragging his hands and mouth along from her lips and on to the smooth soft hollow of her throat, before slipping down her camisole and moving down to sip at the nipple of her breast.
Anya couldn’t get over the fact that he could be so gentle with all the power in the muscular body that was covering her. She loved the weight of him, the tang of his scent, which was familiar in some ways, and some ways not.
When he suddenly moved off her, she was silently screaming for more. But then his mouth found her breast again, and she was alive with desire and sensation as his teeth pulled gently at her nipple.
Gradually, he moved his mouth lower, over her stomach and between her thighs, tasting and stroking, letting no single part of her go untouched as she trembled in response.
The tension built to an incredible degree, finally spilling free from Anya with a soft explosive cry. But touching him was something she couldn’t seem to stop, and she kept running her hands up and down the length of his back and over his buttocks. She still couldn’t believe he was here.
And when he groaned, she urged Eric closer, wanting—no, needing—to feel him inside her. When he stared down at her, his eyes were alive with a need that gripped her completely.
It was the deep-down connection that she’d always felt from this one single man. And as he finally slid into her, everything in Anya’s world suddenly felt right again.
* * *
Eric had to search for breath as he held Anya’s gaze. His chest felt tight when his heart started pounding hard before his mouth dropped helplessly down once again on hers.
He felt like he was burning and on fire. But maybe that was because of the heat running feverishly through his body and straight to his groin. When his endlessly demanding kiss parted her lips, he slipped his tongue inside her mouth, so he’d be able to taste more of her. He’d been holding back, and his need for Anya was shooting through him as desire flooded past his defenses.
She was definitely feeling desire too because she was thoroughly kissing him back, running her hands around him and across his buttocks. Her fingers were firing up the heat that was already coursing through his body.
He was hot and hard, and Anya was definitely wanting as Eric plunged into her again.
Lifting his shoulders a fraction further, enough to appreciate the way her body undulated with each thrust, absorbed each forceful penetration as he rode her, filled her, he watched as he pushed her step by step closer to the peak.
When he thrust deeper and harder, Anya gasped as her body arched greedily under his.
His breathing seized as he felt the tension inside her coil and felt her tighten beneath him. Her thighs gripped his as he released, held and beckoned. As her ragged breathing echoed through the air, it was a softer sound overlaying the rasp of his own staggered breath.
She reached for him and tried to pull him down to her. Without breaking their rhythm, he shifted his hips, pressing more intimately between hers. His thrusts became deeper still.
Harder still.
Flexing his spine, he withdrew and surged in again.
She reached for him, tried to pull him toward her, where she met his thrusts and shared the heat.
As he came, he felt himself falling from an unimaginable height, weightless and almost without substance.
The intensity of it caused Anya to arch and cry out incoherently, and his mouth covered hers, cutting off the sound as he tasted her pleasure.
A shudder shook both of them at the same time, and the tension that had been strung so tightly between them was gone. In its wake, was a satisfying exhaustion and intense satisfaction.
“Oh, Eric.”
“Oh, Anya,” he responded softly, wrapping her gently into his arms.