Christmas Passions

“Does ‘normal’ include making time for Deenie?”

“Cripes, Ava!” he exploded. “You never used to be such a pain in the butt, so where’s all this coming from now? Are you jealous because she’s got a man to keep her company, and you haven’t?”

The question sliced through the night like a blade and he knew from the utter silence which greeted it that he’d drawn blood. “Oh, jeez!” he muttered. “Ava, I’m sorry. I had no right to say that.”

Her breathing flitted across to him, jerky and uneven. “No, you hadn’t.”

“Are you crying?”

“No,” she said, her voice swimming in tears.

Awkwardly, he reached for her, planning to give her shoulder a comforting, brotherly pat. But he misjudged the distance between them and instead made contact with her hair. It looped around his fingers like damp strands of silk and snagged in the metal band of his watch.

“Oh, hell,” he said softly. “Don’t try to pull away, Ava. We’re all knotted up.”

It should have been a non-incident; would have been if she hadn’t ignored his request and, in trying to disentangle herself, moved her head in such a way that her mouth blundered against his.

He didn’t exactly kiss her. He just sort of…let his lips rest against hers while he worked with his free hand to unsnarl her hair.

She’d spent the better part of two days in a plane. She should have reeked of stale aircraft food and recycled air. Instead, she tasted delicious. Peaches again.

“Your perfume is driving me wild,” he said against her mouth.

A tremor raced over her. She brought her hand up to cover his, to push it and him away. “Please don’t—!” she began.

“I won’t,” he said.

But he did. This time, he kissed her, and no two ways about it. He cupped her head and took advantage of her gasp of shock to trace his tongue over the silken inner lining of her lips. And just for a nanosecond, she responded, curving her body to fit against his and angling her mouth to give him greater access.

Big mistake! The violins and stars he’d denied experiencing with Deenie made a belated appearance, seeming not to care that they’d shown up for a woman he hadn’t seen in years, and there was no telling what he might have tried next if Ava hadn’t come to her senses. Which she did with a vengeance, by hauling off and cracking her palm across his cheek at the same time that she reared back and yanked her hair free from his watchband.

“You had no right to do that!” she spat.

“I know,” he said, prepared to shoulder the blame. “I’m sorry.”

But he wasn’t. He was dazzled. Dazed. Exhilarated.

“Then why did you?”

He shook his head, less to refute her question than to clear his mind. “Search me! Temporary insanity?”

She drew in a hissing breath. “Make a joke of it if you like, but I don’t mind telling you, your behaviour disgusts me.”

“It didn’t a minute ago,” he said, ticked off by her holier-than-thou attitude. “If anything, you seemed to enjoy it.”

“In your dreams, Leo Ferrante! If Deenie had any idea…!”

“Who’s going to tell her? You?”

“I should,” she said. “She has a right to know—”

“What? That I kissed you and you liked it?” He flopped onto his back and sighed wearily as common sense replaced his brief euphoria. “Look, Ava, I made a mistake and you didn’t exactly rebuff me, but it won’t happen again. Let’s not make more out of it than that.”

He thought he’d put the matter to rest and was almost dozing off when she said in a small voice, “I feel so ashamed. I don’t know how I’ll ever face her without blushing. It’s not just that we kissed, it’s everything you’ve told me—about not being madly in love with her, and all that. You never should have said such things.”

“Probably not. But there’s something about lying next to you in the dark that makes me do and say things regardless of the consequences.”

“You definitely shouldn’t be saying that!”

He shouldn’t be touching her, either, but the mattress was too narrow to allow for the luxury of distance and no matter how he tried to preserve an illusion of decency, some part or other of him—his leg, his hip, his shoulder—kept rubbing up against her.

Pretending the contact was meaningless didn’t carry a whole lot of weight with his hormones coming to a slow boil and him no more able to stop than he could put an end to the storm raging outside. So much for a dead libido!

As for Ava—hell, she could deny it all she liked, but she was far from oblivious, as well. He could hear the rapid, unnatural rhythm of her breathing. Sense the brittle tension stretching her nerves so tight they were ready to snap.

“Is there some guy waiting for you, back in Africa?” he asked, hoping like blazes she’d say yes.

“No,” she said on a faint breath of despair.

“Why not?”

She shrugged, a fatal error of judgement on her part because it provided yet one more reminder of how little stood between them. Or, more accurately, it made him aware that what stood between them had taken on a life of its own even though it had no business standing at all! “I just haven’t met the right man yet.”

“How will you know when you do?”

“It will feel right,” she said, sounding winded.

He reached for her. May God forgive him, he couldn’t help himself. “But this feels right, Ava,” he murmured, stroking his hand over her jaw and down her neck, “so there must be more to it than that.”

She trembled under his touch. “How can you say that, when we both know that what you’re doing and saying is completely unacceptable?”

It was the politically correct response he expected, but the indignation which would have given it substance became lost in a sigh of defeat. He rapped gently against her temple. “Knowing up here is one thing. Accepting it as truth here…” He drew his hand down her face, her throat, and didn’t stop until his palm lay snug and flat beneath her left breast. “Ah, Ava, that’s quite another. And knowing I shouldn’t kiss you again isn’t doing a damn thing to make me want it any less.”

“Don’t, Leo!” she begged—another politically correct answer, but even as the tortured plea escaped, her mouth bumped against his again.

“Our being here at all is totally inappropriate,” he said, charged with awareness that if he moved his hand just a fraction, her breast would nestle against his palm. “We both expected we’d be spending the night someplace else. But it doesn’t change the fact that we’re lying side by side, there’s no one here to monitor what we say or do, and that, if I could live with myself afterward, I’d make love to you.”

She didn’t come up with any smart rebuff this time. Instead, she grew so perfectly still that he’d have said she froze—except that implied bone-chilling cold, and even though the temperature had dipped to well below freezing outside, the currents swirling around that unheated tack room were suddenly stifling.

When the beating silence became more than he could tolerate, he moved his open hand and brought it to rest, fingers splayed, between their two bodies. “Ava?”

He knew she couldn’t see the gesture, but surely she sensed it, and recognized the question it asked?

Seconds ticked by, measured by the heavy thud of his heart. Then, when he was just about ready to give up hope that she’d respond, her much smaller hand settled on top of his, aligning itself as best it could, palm to palm, thumb to thumb, finger to finger.

He found it the most profoundly erotic touch he’d ever experienced. More moving than a kiss. More arousing than the most intimate commingling of flesh between a man and a woman. And not nearly enough to satisfy the surge of desire boiling through his blood.

Decency be damned! If she’d let him, he’d have taken her with all the speed and fervour at his command. Locked himself deep inside her and let the devil take the hindmost. Sold his soul for the thrill of bringing her to orgasm, and then, when she was helpless and liquid around him, filling her with the rush of his own release.