Return to Christmas

by Anne Stuart

  He moved up, holding her as wave after wave washed over her. He wasn’t even touching her between her legs, and yet she was still coming, shivering, assaulted from a hundred directions at once. He kissed her, and she could taste herself on his mouth, and it shot even more arousal through her. She wanted to taste him, to see if she could summon back this incredible feeling, but he’d already lifted her hips, and she could feel him, pushing.

  “Condom,” she gasped, wanting to grab his hips and pull him in, to fill this terrible emptiness inside her. He hesitated, just for a moment, and then pushed in, so big, so hard that she almost felt choked, drowning in sensation.

  He rested for a moment, inside her, around her, and her skin felt like it would burst into flames. “I don’t have one,” he whispered in her ear. “I didn’t want to be tempted. Didn’t work.”

  Her body softened, accommodating to his invasion, and she struggled to find the words to send him away, before things had gone too far.

  But they’d gone too far days ago, almost from the minute she saw him, and he was right about one thing—she would never be the same. “Don’t,” she gasped, as stray shudders raced through her body, and his frame reacted to each and every one.

  His muscles suddenly bunched beneath her hands, his entire body rigid. “Don’t what? Don’t do this without protection?” He no longer sounded coolly amused—at least she’d pushed him past that point, and he started to pull out, the walls of her sex clinging to him, trying to hold him. “Or don’t do it at all?”

  “Don’t stop.”

  He thrust back into her, and she gasped as sensations racketed around her body, again, and again, and again, each push reaching deeper, filling her, drowning her in nothing but sex, sweet and sinful, again and again, building to another climax. Suddenly she panicked, smothered by him, by the pleasure that she couldn’t escape. She pushed at him, desperate, but he simply caught her hands, threading his long fingers through hers. He kept rocking into her, sure and steady until she moved past the fear and into a whole other dimension, loose, floating, his body filling hers. She never wanted it to end, she wanted this, she wanted it all, she wanted it never to stop.

  It hit her out of the blue, more powerful than anything she’d ever felt before, like an electric current shooting through her body. She heard her scream from a distance, as he jerked, his breath catching in his throat, and then he was with her, she could feel him inside her, pulsing, flowing, nothing she’d ever felt before, and she was lost.

  Johnny collapsed on top of her, at the last minute taking some of his weight on his elbows, dropping his head down in her neck, shaking, unable to stop. Curses were running through his head, but he couldn’t summon up the anger and self-loathing that ought to be there. He couldn’t summon anything, but a bone-shattering need to get his breath, his equilibrium, his soul back. When he could manage, he lifted his head slightly to look at her, but she looked as far gone as he felt, and he wondered for a moment if he’d killed her. Could someone die by orgasm? It felt close.

  And then it came back, his self-loathing, and he levered himself off her, ending on the floor beside the low sofa. She didn’t move, her eyes closed, fresh tears on her face, those small, gorgeous breasts that he hadn’t even touched, moving up and down with her breathing.

  This was the woman who said she came from the future, his own little space alien who’d wandered in out of a Saturday morning serial. His.

  What if the world had turned upside down and she was telling the truth? He wanted to laugh, but there was no humor in it. Sex wasn’t supposed to turn you into an idiot, even what they just had, which was something strange and dangerous and unsettling. There was no such thing as time travel, or little green men, or women who appeared out of nowhere. She came from somewhere and someone, and she was too damned good at hiding it.

  It boiled down to one thing. You don’t screw crazy women and he just had.

  And now he had to figure out what the hell he was going do about it.

  Chapter 18

  Mollie had no sense of time when she woke up on Christmas morning. She was no longer on the couch—she was lying on the floor beside it, wrapped in Johnny’s arms, a threadbare blanket pulled over them. She was halfway on top of him, her head against his chest, the steady rhythm of his heart beneath her, and his arms were around her, loose but somehow defining. And then she remembered what they’d done.

  She’d been sound asleep when he’d pulled her down, and she’d gone willingly, messy and sticky and suddenly needy all over again, and it was fast, hard, the fuck he’d promised, and when they’d finished, panting in each other’s arms, she wanted to weep, like the ridiculously pathetic crybaby she’d become, but she’d fallen asleep or passed out before she could give in to tears.

  He was still asleep beneath her. His beard was coming in—a blond scruff that she wanted to rub her face against and feel the bristles. His cynical mouth had softened, and he looked like a young man who’d never seen the horrors of what war could bring, the inconceivable monstrousness of Nazi Germany. He looked sweet and peaceful, a far cry from the usual Johnny Larsen, and she wanted to snort with laughter at the concept, except it would wake him up. If all he needed was a good screw to be cheerful, she would have jumped his bones days ago—God knew she’d wanted to.

  God knew, but she hadn’t been any too sure. She’d kept away from that simple fact. There was no longer any way, any need to shy away from it. She’d taken one look at Johnny Larsen towering over her, and that tight core inside her had melted with lightning speed.

  And now she was totally gonzo, no fight left within her. His warm skin beneath hers, the steady beat of his heart, the rise and fall of his chest, grounded her as nothing else had. She was safe here. She was home.

  She pulled back suddenly, and he stirred but slept on, and she slowly, carefully inched away. What the hell was she thinking? There was no safety, no home left for her, lost between times. No man could save her; she’d learned early on that they couldn’t be counted on, and this man had never said anything to lead her to think otherwise. He didn’t even seem to like her, though he’d insisted otherwise. Their bodies had insisted otherwise.

  But that was sex, and sex had nothing to do with love and more to do with disappointment and betrayal. Her father had walked out on them when she was three. Her mother’s few relationships afterward had always ended badly. She really was better off with a vibrator.

  But a sex toy couldn’t hold her, couldn’t kiss her, couldn’t warm her when she felt so cold and lost, couldn’t bring her to the kind of clutching orgasm, and then more, and more, that Johnny had. A sex toy worked for the body, but it was useless for the heart and soul, and for some reason, the sleeping man had managed to wake those dormant parts of her.

  She preferred her heart and soul to be in a deep coma—she didn’t want the distraction. She pushed to her feet, hoping for a fluid movement that wouldn’t disturb him, but finding her legs shaking and her knees weak. Her hips felt odd, stretched, and there were formerly silent muscles protesting with remembered warmth. She stepped over him and he slept on, snoring lightly.

  Well, that did it. She would never marry a man who snored.

  Oh, sweet Jesus, what put that into her head? She hadn’t planned on marrying; she was hardly going to spend the rest of her life in this alien world, and even if she did, she and Johnny were like oil and water.

  It didn’t matter—her body seemed to be controlled by the cosmic sadist who was screwing up her life, and she dropped to her knees beside him and let her cheek rest against his warm skin. She wanted to lick him. She wanted to kiss him everywhere, she wanted to put her mouth on him. She wanted him all over again, in ways she’d never wanted a man, and he would break her heart faster than a speeding bullet.

  He stirred, reaching for her, and she slid back, and yup, she was crying again, damn it. She only hoped her leaky tear ducts had sealed by the time she got home—there was no crying in advertising.

  She
rose to her feet. She smelled of sex and sweat and Johnny, and she loved it. She shook herself. The first thing she needed to do was shower, wash this night, wash Johnny off her skin, out of her body. It was Christmas morning, and last night was madness. The door had opened last night—it would open today, and if it was still 1947 when she walked out into the New York streets, she didn’t care. She would find her way home, and never think about Johnny Larsen again.

  Sure, she would.

  When he woke up, she was gone. Johnny wasn’t surprised—after that kind of sex, most women would curl up and cling and never let go. Mollie would run.

  Which was better for him, he reminded himself. He didn’t need this kind of complication—it was bad enough that he felt responsible for her. Screwing her had simply made things worse. Maybe last night...this morning had been enough to make her run home, and good riddance.

  Except that he couldn’t just lie back and let her go. He could lie to himself only so much, and then he had to face facts. If she disappeared, he’d have to hunt for her until he found her and made sure she was safe and looked after. And he’d miss her every damned day of his life.

  Typical of his bad luck and dumbass choices. He had to go and fall in love with a crazy woman after he’d done everything he could to avoid attachments. Just one more damned thing for him to get over, and things were taking too much time as it was.

  She was probably already out the door, on the winter sidewalks of New York. She would be cold—there were times when she didn’t seem to have any common sense at all. The streets would be deserted on an icy Christmas morning—there’d be no one to help her, no one to make sure she got something to eat, found her way home, or to some sort of shelter, or even to the hospital. She was alone, and he needed to go after her.

  The utilitarian shower was still wet and slightly warm, meaning she hadn’t been gone long. Taking the fastest shower in his life, he threw on his usual work clothes and then headed down the escalator. He’d perfected the art of sprinting over the frozen, uneven steps during the last couple of years, and he moved fast, determined to catch up with her. She wouldn’t have gotten far.

  She hadn’t gotten anywhere at all. Mollie, or Madison, was sitting on the floor by the door he usually used, bawling. Funny, because he hated women who cried—they used it as emotional blackmail, since most men would give their left nut to keep a woman from breaking down.

  Johnny valued his nuts, and women cried. Hell, he cried now and then when no one was around. It was human, and that’s what they all were.

  She looked up when she saw him, her face woebegone and streaked with tears. Her hair was wet, and it looked different, but good anyway. Hell, she always looked good to him. “Let me out,” she said in a small, pathetic voice.

  He’d been about to scoop her into his arms, whisper sweet, soothing things in her ear before screwing her to the wall, but her words stopped him, and the flash of anger was surprisingly powerful. He was the one who dodged involvement and ended things, not the girl, damn it. Not when he’d broken all his rules for her.

  “Don’t let the door hit you in the butt on your way out,” he said shortly.

  He was expecting that to piss her off, push her out of her tears. “It won’t,” she wailed. “I can’t open it.”

  “Of course, you can. It’s not locked on this side.”

  She sat up straighter and glared at him through her woebegone eyes. “Then why don’t you open it for me?”

  “Your choice, baby, not mine,” he said coolly.

  “I can’t make it open,” she said between gritted teeth.

  Didn’t want to make it open, he thought coolly. That should make him feel better, but it didn’t. He took another few steps toward her, then halted. Things were bad enough—he wasn’t going to do or say something he’d regret. He slid down on the floor, leaning against a display cabinet full of leather gloves.

  “So, tell me, sweetheart,” he said. “Where do you really come from? Who are you? Don’t you think we might have a little truth now that we’ve shared body parts?”

  Any other woman would have blushed at that. Not his Mollie. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  He gave her a look, and she sighed. At least she’d stopped weeping. “I was born in 1993. I live and work in Manhattan, I was dealing with an asshole at work, and I thought I’d cheer myself up and buy some Christmas movies, like Miracle on 34th Street and Love Actually and maybe even Die Hard, since I love me some Alan Rickman. But when I walked through the revolving doors, it was more than seventy years earlier and no matter what I do, I can’t leave.” She shoved her hair away from her face, surreptitiously wiping away the last remnant of tears. “Except with you, that is. So why don’t you be a real pal and open the fucking door for me?”

  He considered this. He wished he had his cigarettes with him—he smoked occasionally, but he always forgot about them and they ended up stale and crumpled in a back pocket. “And where will you go then?”

  “I’m hoping it will be 2020 again.”

  “Like it was last night?”

  She glared at him. “I don’t care. I’ll figure it out.”

  He leaned back. “Let me get this straight. You have a job where you work with assholes. Your boyfriend is named Alan Rickman and in the future you simply buy movies? What the hell is Miracle on 34th Street and explain to me how something named Die Hard is a Christmas movie.”

  He’d distracted her from her fit of the mopes. “There’s no Miracle on 34th Street? Now that’s just wrong.”

  He shrugged. “I haven’t noticed any miracles happening around here. You must have family looking for you. Worried about you. Maybe even Alan Rickman.”

  “He’s dead,” she said flatly. “Or maybe he hasn’t been born yet. And he’s not my boyfriend, he’s an actor.”

  “Never heard of him.” He was now in a thoroughly bad mood. She was still clinging to her ridiculous story, though he wasn’t sure if she was lying or simply Looney Tunes. Either way, he’d been an idiot to get involved with her—he should have turned her in to security that first day when she’d passed out at his feet.

  But security was Benny Morelli, and Ratchett, and he wouldn’t do that to his worst enemy. He needed to get away from her before he said or did something stupid—at least, more stupid than he’d already been. He needed a long, cold walk to clear his head, but he wasn’t going out that door. She’d dart after him and get lost in the city. As long as she believed she couldn’t get through the revolving doors, then she’d stay where she was, and it was the safest place she could be until he figured out what to do with her.

  Jesus Christ, why had he slept with her? But his body knew why—it was still humming in satisfaction and renewed lust. And the rest of him knew why, from the ache in his chest to his simmering bad temper.

  He pushed to his feet, but she stayed where she was. Speaking of miracles, he’d been a goddammed saint, and the milk of human kindness had just dried up. He wasn’t going to bring her coffee or make her eggs or tuck her into bed. Definitely not the bed. Christmas was on a Saturday this year, and the store would be closed for two days. Either she’d pull herself together and walk out the door, which meant she was facing reality and he didn’t need to worry about her, or he’d get over his ridiculous snit. Either way, he needed distance. He turned, starting back toward the escalator.

  “Aren’t you going to help me get out of here?” There was a plaintive note in her voice that almost, almost, got to him. He paused, looking back. She’d risen too, and she looked so damned pathetic he wanted to pick her up and carry her back to that old sofa, or the floor, or any other flat surface that would do.

  “Nope. You know as well as I do that you can go any time you want to. You just don’t want to, but for the life of me I can’t imagine why. No one wants you here.”

  That much was true. He didn’t want her living here in the shadows with him—she needed to be out in the sunlight, with people who loved her, not stuck in the biggest depar
tment store in the world with a man as broken as she was.

  But she looked as if she’d been slapped in the face. “Go to hell,” she snapped, her eyes full of fire and loathing. Better than tears.

  “Merry fucking Christmas,” he replied, and walked away. This time she didn’t call him back.

  When Mollie got back to the break room, determined to wipe out any lingering sign of their ridiculous lapse, it was already cleaned up. There was no sign of the blanket he’d wrapped around their naked bodies, the sofa’s lumpy cushions had been plumped into a semblance of comfort, the place was swept clean. It smelled like a pine detergent, and she stared at the sofa as blood flooded her body in all the usual places. It had been...epic.

  And she’d been an idiot, but the moment he’d put his hands on her, she’d needed it like a junkie craving a fix. Maybe even more. It was as if she couldn’t breathe and he was oxygen. She felt a vast, craving emptiness in her heart, and only he could fill it. She had to be out of her mind.

  Trust men to let you down when you needed them. She should have known better than to open her heart, open her legs to a man like him. At least they got it settled, and they wouldn’t have to do more than communicate with short sentences or through Rosa from now on.

  And then she smelled it, over the antiseptic scent of cleaners. Coffee, and fresh bread, over by the window, waiting for her.

  He brought her coffee. He despised her, was furious with her, thought she was nothing but a crazy woman interfering with his ordered life.

  And he brought her coffee.

  Chapter 19

  Macy’s was a massive, endless store—so easy to get lost in, and if someone wanted to keep out of the way, it would be child’s play. Johnny disappeared once again, as if he’d never been back for those few, life-altering days, and Mollie rejoiced in his absence, almost as much as she melted at the thermos of coffee that appeared on the table every morning, along with doughnuts or toast or sticky Danish pastries.