Holiday Heroes

While he stared, she acted. Ginger gripped the bottom of his sweater and bunched the wool in her hands. With a smooth sweep that brought both her arms over her head in a move that had him swallowing hard, she tugged the sweater over his head, momentarily blinding him—damn it.



Then sight returned and he palmed the sweet curve of her bottom to bring her flush against him, skin to skin. It may have been a long time since he’d been with a woman, but he had a solid memory and he knew full well this female felt special.



Someone unique.



He dipped his head for another kiss, his hand plunging into her soft hair again, releasing more of her floral perfume.



Need for her surged through him and he eyed the looming four-poster bed. Making love in the chair could be fun, and certainly worth considering for later. But he had something more intense and thorough in mind for their first time together.



Starting now.



Chapter 6



Oh my, she hadn’t expected to find this again.



She’d been lucky to enjoy that toe-tingling passion with Benjamin. She’d only expected—maybe—to discover friendship with another man, with the warm comfort of a shoulder to rest her head against.



Even with the sizzle of their morning kiss, the inferno now pulsing through her, the urgency that sent her hands grappling at Hank with frantic need surprised her. Even shocked her. Ginger arched her back, pressing her br**sts against his chest.



Her jeans itched against her oversensitized skin. She wanted him to peel them off her. She’d missed being undressed by a man.



More than that, she’d missed undressing a man.



She wanted to see Hank. Her frenzied fingers found their way to his belt buckle. Then, better yet, she uncovered his zipper. He eased her from his lap until they both stood by the roaring fire. He locked his arms low around her, a good thing since her feet weren’t all that steady under her as she worked at unfastening his pants.



The raspy glide of his zipper sliding down, down echoed through the room. Hank’s pupils widened in response a second before his lids lowered to half-mast and his hands went into action.



His thumbs tucked inside her jeans and began inching them off her body. She was more than happy to help with an extra shimmy and hop as his fingers skimmed over her legs. Ginger kicked the pants free and helped him out of his own until he loomed over her, tanned and toned.



Wow.



Just wow.



She’d seen him in swim trunks before and noticed he was a handsome guy, but goodness, had she been wearing blinders? Hank was all man. Hot, solid man. She wished she’d been ready for this sooner because she’d certainly been denying herself some major benefits in this friendship.



Ginger pointed one finger and planted it in the middle of his chest, pushing him backward one step at a time. “Bedtime, General.”



A smile dented one corner of Hank’s wind-weathered face. “Yes, ma’am.”



He let her topple him backwards onto the fluffy comforter. One slow step at a time, she advanced, kneeing up onto the bed until she straddled his waist. She brought some experience to this, and she intended to enjoy it to the most…



In case there wasn’t a repeat?



The scary notion threatened to chill her at a totally inopportune moment. She focused instead on warming herself with the heat radiating from Hank’s muscular body and the crackling fire. She extended her arms in a gesture for him to finish undressing her. As his hands swept up to find the center clasp between her breasts, she couldn’t help but think about when he’d touched her there for the first time while fastening the listening device. Her world, her senses, had changed forever in that instant.



Another thought slithered through as she wondered how much more her world would change as they took these touches deeper, to the most intimate of caresses, by making love.



He rolled to his side, stroking her face before reaching off the bed to where his jeans had fallen when he’d kicked them free. “I don’t want to break the mood, but I planned, too. During our shopping, I picked up…” His hand came back with a condom.



“Thank goodness you thought of it because yes, there’s still the possibility, and heaven forbid I should be an unwed pregnant senator.” Yet she’d almost leapt into bed without protection.



Then he robbed her of the ability to think again with the stroke of his hands over bare flesh, his mouth to her breasts. And no way was she missing out on the opportunity to savor every inch of his muscular body, his chest, his legs, the hard hot length of him in her hand.



They weren’t inexperienced youths. She knew what she wanted, what she needed and she didn’t hesitate to show him. Thank goodness he had the smart sense and a strong enough ego to growl in appreciation.



She was a lucky woman tonight.



He tucked her underneath him and she hooked her arms around his shoulders, gliding a foot along the length of one of his legs. She couldn’t stop the purr of pleasure over the warm weight of him settling atop her, the unmistakable pressure of his arousal ready, so near. He smiled, and she held that image in her mind as her eyes drifted closed at the muscle-melting sensation of him sliding inside her.



She wanted to capture each moment of this into her memory but thoughts jumbled with each bold stroke of his body into hers. Somewhere in her scrambled mind, she realized that instincts were taking over. Her legs wrapped around his h*ps to hold on, tipping her h*ps for more, wonderful more.



She lost herself in the friction of sweat-slickened skin against skin. Touching. Tasting. Mumbled encouragement and appreciation and moans. Somehow in a distant part of her brain she wondered if their longtime friendship had brought a synchronicity of instinctive knowledge to their coupling, because this went beyond right.



With the building swell inside her, she feared it would end too quickly, yet he seemed to sense her frustration and slowed. Hank rolled to his back, shifting her on top, taking her to the edge again only to stop short. Time and time again, he teased her until she no longer worried about finishing fast at all.



“Enough.” She gripped, raked at his back with her nails.



“Not hardly.” He nipped at her shoulder.



Still, he tucked her beneath him again and began purposeful thrusts she knew…would carry her…to…



Yes.



Completion.



“Penny for them.” Hank popped a candied date into Ginger’s mouth, wondering what swirled around in that brilliant mind of hers.



How long had it been since he’d genuinely worried about the inner workings of a female’s brain? Not that he didn’t care what women thought or felt. But tonight, her emotions mattered on an intensely personal level and, for a man who dealt in a more factual world, reading chick nuances wasn’t his strong suit.



“A penny?” Ginger teased a sugar-glazed grape along his mouth. “We’re in another country. The currency won’t work.”



“You’re evading.” He scooped up a handful of almonds.



“You’re perceptive.” She snitched a roasted chestnut from his palm and rolled to her back.



He might not be known for being emotionally perceptive, but he could see when a person was avoiding answering. “We’ve known each other too long to misread.”



Her emerald eyes finally slid up to meet his. “What do you see then?”



“You’re scared,” he said with a sudden surety.



He waited for her to deny it…but she didn’t.



A sad smile tipped her kiss-swollen lips. “Seems silly, doesn’t it? I’m forty-nine years old, Hank. I’m not some young thing to get all fluttery.”



Not young? Maybe. But he couldn’t think of a time she’d looked more beautiful to him than now with her hair all tousled around her face, her shoulders bare above the covers, a sexy hint of whisker burn along her neck.



He weighed his words carefully. “When I was a ‘young thing’ I used to think fifty-five looked old, but now that I’m there, I don’t feel old. I believe the heart doesn’t have an age.”



She blinked fast. “Oh my,” she cupped his face, “I never would have guessed you’re a closet romantic.”



“Shhh.” He winced in exaggerated horror. “Don’t say it quite so loud. You’ll ruin my badass warrior reputation.”



“Your secret is safe with me.”



He could sense the fear in her as surely as he’d ever felt it radiating off any airman about to head into battle. He couldn’t deny some of it stirring in his own gut. He’d been there. Felt the debilitating loss. “I know how you grieved for Benjamin. I was there just like you were there when I lost Jessica. Love like that is only supposed to come around once in a lifetime.”



“Soul mates.” Surprisingly, the words didn’t carry any kind of reverence, more frustration. “It scared me, thinking of all those lonely years, my children so big already since we’d started having them so early.” She shook off the faraway look and rejoined him in the present, taking another one of the almonds from his hand. “The offer to take over Benjamin’s senatorial seat was a godsend. With all that was going on in Congress, I had something to dig my teeth into.”



“You’ve got fight in you, lady.” Total truth, he’d always admired that about her. He wondered why he’d never taken the time to notice all the wonder of Ginger before. “You would have found your way around the grief, but there’s no question it’s to our country’s advantage you channeled that energy into finishing out Benjamin’s term.”



“When I lost him, I just remember being stunned at how you survived losing Jessica. I mean, at the time, when she died, I understood the tragedy of it all. Still there’s just no way to fully comprehend until it happens to you.”



“You had the Congress. I had my small kids. Just about broke my heart watching Alicia trying to mother the two younger ones when she deserved a childhood of her own.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I had to keep plugging along.”



Her wise eyes filled with indecision. “So what are we doing here?”



She’d turned to him for advice before. Why did now feel different? Still, he pushed ahead to answer as he always did when Ginger looked to him for support. “Acting like damn fool teenagers with our hormones raging out of control.”



“Your hormones are out of control around me?”



How could she not know? “Can’t you tell? Good Lord, woman. I’m fifty-five years old and we’ve had sex twice already tonight. There’s a good chance you’ll get lucky again if you keep wiggling around like that showing me curves that make my hands start itching and another part start—”



She kissed him quiet fast. Then slow. Then again for leisurely fun because she could and had been secretly yearning to for longer than she would admit to him. “I get the picture. And thank you, but I haven’t been a teen in a long time, Hank.”



Now there was a comment he couldn’t let go past. “You turn me on a helluva lot more than any giggling Barbie doll type.”



She swatted at his bare stomach. “You’re just trying to get in my pants, and let me tell you, Hank Renshaw, even when I was a teenager, I was never easy to sweet-talk around.”



He covered her body with his again, a low growl rumbling his chest. “How about I try a different form of persuasion?”



A knock sounded on the door, jerking his head upward. Ginger tugged on the covers and Hank frowned, readying to call out for whatever room service or maid waited outside to come back later—



The opening door preempted him. What the hell? He’d secured the lock—pissed off already because of the old-fashioned keys. Heads were going to roll in security in about sixty seconds.



But first, he reached for the gun he’d kept on the bedside table for Ginger. Gripping the barrel and blocking Ginger from sight ranked as his number-one priority.



The portal filling with a quartet of men cut short anything else he’d even considered saying as recognition stunned him silent.