Free A Dixie Christmas by Sandra Hill

his hands where she twined their fingers for one brief moment, raising the knuckles of one hand, then the other for a brief kiss. She released his hands then, setting them back at his side.
     
    Smoothing the palms of her hands across his chest, she felt his heartbeat thud. She watched in fascination as the flat male nipples hardened and elongated.
     
    Clay gritted out one crude word between clenched teeth. Annie decided to take the expletive as a compliment.
     
    She couldn’t resist then. Lowering her head, she licked one nipple, sucked it into her mouth, rolled it between her lips.
     
    “Omygod, omygod, omygod!” Clay exclaimed, snaking out a hand to grasp her nape, then lift her into an embrace where her hips cradled his erection. He was still braced against the wall, thank heavens! Otherwise, they would have probably fallen. Alternately kissing her with a devouring hunger and growling into the curve of her neck, he ended up cupping her buttocks and rocking her against him. All the time he was overcome with a violent shiver.
     
    Incredibly, Annie felt herself approaching climax. It was way too soon for that, and not the way she wanted it to happen.
     
    It was Clay who slowed the action. Setting her away from him, he said in a grainy rasp, “Do you know what I want, Annie-love?”
     
    She cocked her head to the side. “I think so.”
     
    “Not that , silly girl. I mean, yes, I want that , but not now. What I really want is to feel your skin against mine.”
     
    It took several moments for his words to sink in. When they did, Annie felt a thrill of excitement ripple through her already oversensitized body. She jerked off her flannel shirt, then drew the tee shirt up and over her head, leaving only a plain, white nylon bra. Through its thin fabric, her small nipples stood out with stiff, pale rose peaks, aching for his touch.
     
    His eyes studied her with apparent appreciation. He licked his lips as he waited for her final unveiling. When the wispy bra fell to the floor, his eyes seemed to water up. “Oh, Annie, you are so beautiful.”
     
    She wasn’t beautiful, Annie knew that. But it was nice that he found her appealing. She wanted to be beautiful for him.
     
    “It’s your turn now, sweetheart. Don’t move,” he said then, giving equal attention to her body, murmuring compliments to each part examined by his tantalizing fingers and feathery kisses. When he came to her breasts, Annie’s heart stood still. First he raised them up from underneath in the palms of his hands, then skimmed both nipples with the pads of his thumbs. By the time he angled his head down to wet one, then the other with his lips and tongue, and finally suckled rhythmically, Annie was mewling with an increasing frenzy.
     
    Recognizing her spiraling passion, Clay eased away from the wall and backward toward the couch, taking Annie with him. But he lost his balance and fell onto his back, half reclining, with one leg extended out to the floor. Annie tripped, too, and ended up plopped on top of him. When she raised herself up, she found herself, amazingly, straddling him, jean-clad groin to jean-clad groin.
     
    Clay groaned, a long, husky sound of pain emitted through clenched teeth.
     
    Immediately, Annie remembered Clay’s injuries. It was a sign of her fevered brain that she’d forgotten. “Oh, my God! Did I hurt you? Is it your head? Or your ankle?”
     
    Clay tried to laugh but it came out strangled. “That’s not where I’m hurting, Annie.” He rolled his hips from side to side against Annie’s widespread thighs, and Annie felt the clear delineation of the ridge pressing against her with an urgency that matched her own.
     
    “Oh,” she said.
     
    Clay chuckled. “‘Oh’ about says it, darling.” Then he chucked her under the chin.
     
    “I’ve shocked you, haven’t I?” she asked, belatedly shy.
     
    Shocked would be the understatement of the year, Clay decided. Who knew when I woke up this morning, a