The Baby Made at Christmas. Lilian Darcy

as he’d dealt with her red-and-green. His bare chest was silky and hot when she pressed her swollen breasts against him, and she couldn’t stifle the moan that surfaced from deep within her.

      “Bed?” he said.

      “Yes.”

      They went through to it, stripping jeans and underwear and shoes on the way. There was no light on in the room, but it spilled through from the table lamps in her small living area in a soft shaft of gold. She liked the light, liked its softness, too. They could see each other, but not too clearly. They could see enough to discover that they were both smiling, not enough to see if the smiles faltered.

      Because, you know, this couldn’t help but feel a little scary.

      “Now...” he murmured, and she stepped into the heat of his body space once more.

      He cupped her backside, tracing its curve down to her thighs, his touch light and slow, and she closed her eyes and stood motionless for several long moments, giving herself completely to the male scent of his skin, mingled with coffee and spice and beer, giving herself to the touch of her naked body against his, the sound of his breathing, the warm press of his mouth on her neck and shoulder and the slopes of her breasts.

      It was beautiful. That was the only way to describe it. Funny and heartfelt and beautiful. The way they fell onto the bed together, the way he propped himself on his elbows above her and showed her just how ready he was for this.

      “Tell me what you want,” he said softly.

      “Nothing too fancy,” she replied, trying to tease.

      He took her seriously. “No?” He whispered kisses at the corners of her mouth as he spoke. “Not?”

      “Why? You?”

      What do you like, Mac?

      “Not that fancy, either. Gotta leave room for improvement.”

      “We can start out pretty strong, even with nothing fancy.”

      “We can.”

      They grinned at each other in the low light. People called it “vanilla sex,” and didn’t mean that in a good way, but vanilla was a pretty popular flavor, after all. The feel of his weight poised over her, the hard heat of his body cradled in her opened thighs, the way she could hold him, wrap her arms all the way around and feel the strong, muscular cage of his chest. It was all so good, and it didn’t need to be inventive.

      They didn’t need props or role play or gymnastics. Not tonight, anyhow. Not this first time.

      Because she knew instinctively that it was going to be the first, not the only, and he seemed to know it, too.

      He rolled her so that she was on top, and she arched upward to let him find her breasts again, with his hands and his mouth. He lavished them with hungry attention, cupping and stroking, covering her hardened nipples with his hot mouth. He lavished her with attention everywhere, in places she’d never thought of before. The creases between her arms and her body, the small of her back.

      When he entered her, she was slick and swollen and ready, and the feel of him sliding against her had her whimpering and crying out so fast. It came out of nowhere. It came out of all those minutes and minutes of kissing.

      But then he pulled back and swore, and it went away. “What did we forget?”

      She understood, and swore, too. “I have some...”

      “Good, because I don’t.”

      “...as long as they’re not expired.”

      “Hope they’re not.” He added after a moment, “And yet I’m sort of glad there’s a chance they might be.”

      “Huh?” She was trying to reach for her bedside table drawer, but he wasn’t letting her. He was pulling her back against him, trying to pillow her head against his shoulder. “You’re glad they might be past their use-by date?”

      “Yes, because I’m glad you... Well...” He hesitated, sounding gruff. “Hope you don’t mind this, maybe it sounds too old-fashioned. I’m glad it doesn’t happen like this for you all that often, I mean. Is that okay to say?”

      “Of course, if it’s the truth.”

      “We’re all about plain sex and honesty?”

      “Sounds good so far.”

      “Does,” he agreed, still gruff.

      “So is it okay for me to say I’m glad you don’t carry them in your jacket wherever you go?”

      “Haven’t needed any for...probably six months.” He thought a moment. “No, longer.”

      “Good to know.” They lay there for a moment. “Although this whole discussion does seem like it might have killed the mood.”

      “Not letting anything kill the mood,” he said.

      “No?”

      “I mean it! Find those suckers!”

      She did. They were right in the bottom of her messy drawer, and they hadn’t expired. There was still a whole week left on the clock.

      “See?” he said when she told him.

      “See what?”

      “See how this was meant to happen?”

      “Why, yes, now that you mention it, I do....”

      So it didn’t kill the mood, it simply changed it, and somehow they went from all that incredibly serious kissing in the kitchen, into a pillow fight kind of feeling. Getting the sheets and comforter into a tangle, pushing half the pillows onto the floor, laughing and chasing each other all over the bed until they were both breathless.

      Until once again he was poised on top of her, looking down into her face with those dark eyes, his erection safely sheathed this time. She looked up at him, stroked the wave of thick dark brown hair away from his forehead, traced the lines of his parted lips with her fingertips and watched as he lowered himself and slid in, came back to the rhythm and push that had brought her so close so fast, before.

      They never looked away. She hadn’t known that it could be so intense, watching each other. Or so intimate. She gripped his back, wrapped her legs around him, as if their locked-together gaze was a taut thread that would break if she didn’t hold on to him as hard as she could. In his face she could read the building of his release, and even at that moment they didn’t break eye contact.

      He pressed his lips tight together, closed his eyes for a fraction of a second—dark lashes sweeping down, then up—and the wave of his climax broke against her body while she panted for breath, then cried out and moaned against the sudden crush of his mouth on hers.

      Neither of them spoke for a long while after they were still. She lay there with his body still flung over hers, her limbs encircling him, his softening heat still filling her. After a little while, he eased aside as if he could tell the moment he began to feel too heavy on her.

      He touched her lightly and almost methodically, as if to check that everything was still there and whole, cupping each breast in turn, making patterns with his touch along her sides, down to her hips, running the flat of his hand over her stomach, resting his palm against the mound that felt so swollen and sensitized.

      “Four seasons in one day, weren’t we, do you think?” he said softly. “Like the weather in the mountains.”

      “We were, a bit,” she agreed. “Which season is this?” She stretched and wriggled against him.

      “Summer,” he answered at once. “Warm and sleepy and happy. Sun on our skin.”

      “Mmm, I like summer. And winter.”

      “I like them all.”

      “Me, too. I like the point when it changes. First snowfall. First hint of fall. That tiny shift, but really the whole