A Hamilton Family Christmas - Donna Kauffman Page 0,112

starched collar of her chef’s coat off her shoulders so he could continue his quest.

Melody fumbled with the door handle behind her. She always locked the door at the bottom of the stairs, so this one was usually left open. The door swung in rather abruptly beneath their weight, and the two of them stumbled inside.

Normally she’d have been a bit mortified for someone she was interested in to see her place in its current condition. But Griffin wasn’t someone she would be seeing again, so what did it matter?

He certainly didn’t seem to be noticing. “Bedroom?”

She grunted and nodded her head in the general direction, as he stripped off the light blue, long-sleeved Henley she wore under her white jacket. She was trying to do much the same with his pale green button-down shirt.

“Small space,” he managed, as they tripped past the orange suede ottoman that sat in front of her stuffed, chenille-covered chair, then banged shins and calves on the small, wrought-iron base of her glass-top coffee table. They managed to squeeze by the couch without further damage, leaving clothing behind on the lush, floral-print arm at one end.

“I’m not up here much. I don’t need much room,” she panted.

Griffin lifted his head long enough to shoot her the most wicked grin. “Oh, but I do, luv.” Then he pushed her backward through her bedroom door, and all the way to her brass four-poster.

“Stepping stool,” she cautioned. The antique bed frame held her deep pillow-top mattress high up off the floor.

“Right,” he said, then merely tossed her gently into the middle of it as if she was lighter than a feather.

She let out a surprised laugh, which ended on a indrawn breath of anticipation as Griffin stepped onto the stool, and loomed over her.

“You’re a beautiful, beautiful woman, Melody Duncastle,” he said, simply standing there, taking in his fill of her.

Rather than make her feel uncomfortable or selfconscious, his words had her all but quivering with the need for him to get off the damn stool and put his hands on her.

She was wearing nothing more than a bra, hot pink drawstring surgical pants, which were her preference when putting in long hours in the kitchen, and whatever panties she’d pulled out of the drawer in the dark that morning. She didn’t even bother to look down to find out. She didn’t care.

He raked his gaze over her like a man starved for days who’d just been shown the buffet table. She was hoping he viewed it as an all-you-can-eat arrangement—she was feeling rather carnivorous herself.

“Are you going to stand there, or—”

“Or,” he said quite definitively. Rather than jump her, which she’d have been quite happy with—and expected, given their rather animalistic approach to things so far—he knelt down on the edge of the bed, and gently, slowly, tugged her loose pink pants down her legs, pushing her knees up so he could slide her pants and ankle socks off completely. He tossed those over his shoulder, the twinkling glint in his clear eyes making her shiver, though she didn’t feel the slightest bit of a chill. Quite the opposite. She felt like she was burning up from the inside out.

“Your turn,” she said, her voice quavering with need.

He shook his head, and lifted her foot up so it rested on his shoulder. His dress shirt hung open, and the white T-shirt he wore underneath clung to a frame that belied his career as a businessman and looked far more like that of the street tough she’d earlier imagined him to be. Had it only been that morning?

Her mouth watered, imagining what the smooth, taut muscles of his chest and shoulders would feel like—taste like—once she got him naked.

But he had other ideas. He turned his head just enough to kiss the sensitive skin of her ankle. Then he gently bit her instep before moving his mouth back along her ankle and up over her calf. She was shuddering in pleasure, quivering with each, individual, hot kiss, her hips already quaking.

Her skin felt like a mass of live wire endings, feeling his every touch like a tingling series of shock waves, every one of which pulsated straight to her core. As he worked his way closer to the inside of her knee, he shifted his weight more onto the bed, sliding her other calf over his thigh, as he continued to kneel between her legs.

His gaze found hers as he began to slowly lick and kiss his way