“Pixie.” His voice roughened. “You’re far more beautiful and far nicer than Candace. And don’t you ever forget that.”
Abby didn’t know what to say, how to convey the emotional bombardment that warred in her like a ping-pong ball bouncing back and forth. So instead of speaking, she moved closer, bringing them within a hair’s breadth of touching hip to hip, thigh to thigh. Excitement thrummed through her as she took in the slumberous quality in his eyes.
“To hell with the mistletoe,” he said huskily.
And his lips came softly to hers.
11
Not even the embrace they’d shared in the snow bank compared to the erotic taste of the soft, fleeting brushes of Nick’s lips against Abby’s. Over and over he sampled her lips until she had to respond.
A spike of carnal need emboldened her, and she tangled her fingers in his hair, feeling the silken strands glide through her fingers. She drew in his scent, spicy and masculine. The aroma gathered something raw, demanding she react to him in the most basic way possible. Abby registered that her arms had twined about his neck, and that his hands searched her back, pressing her to him so she arched against his growing arousal.
Nick kissed her hungrily, parting her lips to rub with sensual strokes that made her shudder with excitement. Abby found it impossible to do anything but to feel, to need.
Images of an act far more intimate vibrated within her. Without forethought she shifted her hips against him, and the involuntary movement brought a moan from his throat. She experimented, moving against him without restraint. He answered, taking her mouth again and again.
Nothing held Abby back. Suspicions dissolved as Nick layered pleasure upon pleasure over her body. Somewhere along the way, Nick had calmed her inhibitions until everything came down to sharing pleasure. When had a man given her so much? Never. Never until this moment.
Drunk on the heat between them, she didn’t protest when his hands coasted down to her buttocks, cupping them. His fingers stroked her, and she wished he touched naked flesh. What would it be like to feel his warm, big hands tracing her skin inch by inch, mapping her body like an artist sketching a nude?
After palming her buttocks with light, teasing strokes, he moved slowly to her breasts, molding them. She whimpered. The slow, sensual movements caused her to press against him again. Seeking.
Slowly he brushed his fingers over her nipples, and the excitement made her gasp into his mouth.
Nick worked at the buttons on her blouse, then brushed the material off her shoulders. As he released her lips, he touched his mouth to her ear, and the hot breath puffed along her skin, sending tingles throughout her entire body.
He caressed Abby’s shoulders, pampering her with soft touches. She could not stand the tenderness. It was too much.
Too much feeling. Too much arousal to contain.
A tear escaped the corner of her eye and dampened her cheek.
As Nick caught her gaze, Abby saw the flush of passion high on his cheeks, and the fire in his eyes. Then she saw concern.
He brushed away the single tear. “Are you all right?”
She gave him a feeble smile. “Never been better.”
“Say the word and I’ll stop if that’s what you want,” he whispered.
“No,” she said softly. “Don’t stop.”
Letting the sharp sensations wash through her, she took his careful, deliberate teasing with a sense of wonder. Reaching for the front clasp of her bra, he released her breasts into his palms. She trembled as his rapt gaze took in her shape.
Though it had been years since a man had seen her this way, his regard made her feel beautiful. And when he lowered his mouth to her nipple, she pushed her fingers into his hair and held him to her.
Ecstasy hit her as his tongue danced against her flesh. He lingered indolently, tasting with flicks of his tongue until a moan escaped her. He drew her nipple into his mouth and suckled her. Each continuous pull sent a deep throbbing between her thighs.
As she traced her palms over his shoulders, searching and caressing the hard muscles she found there, he treated her other breast to hot strokes and gentle suckling. Shivers jerked through her body and sounds of delight parted her lips.
The phone by the bed rang.
As if catapulted, she jerked back from his embrace, her breath coming hard and fast. She stared at him for a few seconds. His flushed face and dazed eyes said it all. When the phone rang for a fourth time she broke from her trance and rushed to the phone.
Gathering her blouse closed in one hand, she grabbed for the phone with the other. “Hello?”
“Abby?” The voice was slightly scratchy, as if used only for certain occasions. Aunt Cassandra. Abby sank onto the bed. “Abby, is that you?”
“Yes, Aunt Cassandra, I’m here.” The surprise of hearing from her aunt cooled her passion like a douse of ice water. Her aunt never called.
“Darling, it’s good to hear your voice. I’ve been worried about you. Did you get my letter?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I hadn’t heard from you, so I thought something might be wrong.”
“No...no. I’m busy with the store lately. I’ve been meaning to write you.” If lying was a sin, a lightning bolt would strike her down this minute.
“I see. Well, I wanted to call and let you know that your uncle and I are flying out to see you for Christmas.”
Her aunt might have told her that an asteroid was coming to destroy the earth. Dread, certain and severe, took away the last little bit of heat she’d experienced in Nick’s arms moments ago.
“What?”
“We know that funds must be tight for you, so we thought that we’d come to see you rather than you coming to us. What with you pouring so much money into your store, you probably haven’t had the chance to save anything. Although you really should, you know.”
Abby glanced at Nick and saw that he’d sunk to the floor beside the tree, lounging on the rug like a big, predatory cat. His long legs stretched out, he lay on his side and propped his head in his hand. He grinned, but Abby couldn’t summon an equal smile.
“I—I don’t have time for visitors this year, Aunt Cassandra.”
A soft sound like disgust came from her aunt’s throat. “Of course you do. It’s going to be Christmas in less than a week. Surely you can spend time with your family.”
Abby felt her backbone softening as her aunt’s strong voice assured that she knew best. “The store is swamped at this time of the year. I go into work early and come home late.”
“We were thinking of flying in Sunday.”
“Sunday? But—”
We thought we could spend the rest of the week with you and then on Christmas Eve go to—”
“I’m busy on Christmas Eve.”
“You can’t work on Christmas Eve.”
I can. And I will. “The store is open on Christmas Eve. People procrastinate and need last minute presents. It’s one of the heaviest shopping days of the year. Becca and I generate a lot of sales.”
“Why can’t Becca run the store that day for you?”
Abby felt like she was a teenager again, helpless to think of reasonable excuses, obliged by her youth to live with her aunt and obey her rules. “Becca is going out of town. There’s no one else to run the store but me.”
She saw Nick’s eyebrows elevate.
“Well, we’ll think of something. I’ve got the flight information here for you to take down, but we’ll rent a car, so you don’t need to pick us up.”
“But you haven’t even been to Russel—”
“We’ve got all the information we need. Maps, everything. We should be there sometime in the morning, since it’s quite a drive from Denver.”
Abby wrote down the flight information, anger building within her both at her aunt and herself. Aunt Cassandra pushed her toward something she didn’t want and couldn’t abide. Yet she endured it and the pain of betraying herself felt almost as bad as the idea that
her Christmas was ruined.
“Now don’t worry about getting the place fancied up for us. Your uncle and I don’t require much to be happy.”
When Abby replaced the receiver, she realized she clutched her blouse closed. With fingers that trembled slightly she hooked her bra and buttoned her blouse.
Nick came to sit on the bed, putting his arm around her as she stared at the floor. “What’s wrong?”
Abby looked up at him, tears threatening. She couldn’t let him see her cry again. He’d think she was incapable of handling a situation without falling apart. She didn’t want Nick to see that what he thought of her meant something to her. She smiled faintly.
“My aunt and uncle are coming for Christmas in a couple of days.”
He squeezed her closer. “Is that good?”
She leaned into his embrace. Her heart felt so cold. “I haven’t seen them in a long time.”
“That isn’t what I asked.” Nick’s tone goaded, and she stiffened. He took his arm from about her. “It sounded like you didn’t want them to come. The excuses you were making—”
She rounded on him. “They aren’t excuses. They are the truth.”
He nodded. “All right. They’re the truth. But you told them there was no one else to help with the store. If you wanted to spend some time with them I could handle the store. And if Edna was willing to help, we’d have the problem solved.”
“I suppose I could.”
Her mind jumped from point to point like a nervous mouse in a cage. How could she have let her aunt do this to her? Why had she backed down at the end? Damn it, she was twenty-nine years old. Self-recrimination battered her.
At that moment she hated herself as well as her aunt.
Nick’s grave expression lightened somewhat, and he reached for her hand. He took a deep breath, as if he would make a pronouncement of great importance.
“Abby, I know you may not want to hear this, but I think it would be good if your aunt and uncle came to visit you.”
Just when she’d thought the evening couldn’t get worse, he dropped his advice on her. Abby left her hand resting in his, but this time the warmth didn’t heat the rest of her. “It’s the worst thing that could have happened. I wanted this Christmas to be special. To be different.”
“Why can’t it still be special?”
“Because they’ll be here, damn it,” Abby bit out, pulling her hand from his and crossing her arms. The rage came fresh, raw like a wound cut wide once again. “I wanted to enjoy a quiet day by myself this year. Maybe even go to the Christmas parade. But that can’t happen now because they are coming. I wanted to go with you to the cabin.”
Nick looked equal parts perplexed and disconcerted. “So you can’t have Christmas dinner with me and go to the parade with them? The whole thing sounds ideal to me. You’ll have family here so you won’t be alone, and you’ll be in the house you love with it decorated the way you want. What more is there?”
She sighed. “Because it isn’t what I wanted. I don’t see why you find it so hard to understand. You came to Russel to be alone, didn’t you?”
Abby could see she’d hit a nerve. He nodded, although it looked like reluctant admittance. “True. But I have family every year at Christmas. You haven’t in a long time. I was going to be alone this year, then my family decided to drop in and then I invited you.”
“Nick, I’ve never had a Christmas like the one I wanted this year. I don’t need family around me because my aunt and uncle will destroy my Christmas. I won’t have any pleasure if I have to endure my aunt’s constant disapproval and my uncle’s—”
She stopped, unable to get the words out. She stood up, and Nick did the same. He reached for her shoulders and kneaded them with gentle pressure. “I know you’ve told me a little about your aunt and uncle, but I have a feeling there’s more you’re not telling me.”
She made a strangled, fake laugh. “You don’t want to hear it.”
“Damn it, Abby.” His fingers tightened on her shoulders. “I don’t ask questions I don’t want answered. What happened to make your relationship with them so bad?”
“I told you. That day we were at your apartment. I explained how they are.”
“Yes. But there’s something else. That can’t be all.”
“I should have told her not to come.” She closed her eyes. “I should have told her she couldn’t manipulate me anymore. I’m not a helpless kid.”
“She took you by surprise.”
“She’s learned over the years that it’s the way to maneuver people where she wants them. Especially me. There’s a lot of things about my aunt that aren’t very sweet.” Abby took a deep breath to quiet the nervous tumble in her stomach. “I guess you could say she’s a passive-aggressive personality in some respects. In others she’s very direct.”
“That can be difficult to deal with. Especially if you’ve spent lots of years responding to her in a certain way.”
“I know. That’s why I was so upset. Not only have I allowed her to do it to me again, but she had the gall, the unmitigated arrogance to assume they could fly here at a moment's notice.” New anger pitched into Abby. “She can be a real bitch, Nick, with a capital B. She treats my uncle like a recalcitrant child. And he is. He pretty much does anything she wants and rarely fights back. Except...”
Gently Nick rubbed her shoulders again. “Except what?”
“He’s such a bastard.”
“Tell me. Sweetheart, let me help you.”
Nick’s soft words were like magic against her soul. She wallowed in self-pity and anger, and he still tried to help her. A smidgen of warmth reopened her heart. Watching him carefully, she put her hands on his chest, testing the strength she felt under her fingertips. He pulled her closer, his arms wrapping securely around her, his eyes taking on a softhearted expression.
“How can you help me?” she asked.
“By listening. By holding you.” He kissed her forehead, then her cheek.
She smiled with genuine satisfaction, the anger and resentment of a few minutes before easing as she relaxed in his arms.
“My uncle is an emotionally abusive individual. As far back as I can recall he used to tease me unmercifully. Tickled me until I was screaming for him to stop.” Abby toyed with a loose thread on his sweater and stared at the thread pensively. “My aunt would eventually get irritated and tell him to leave me alone. He would until she wasn’t home, and I was alone with him. I did everything I could to not be alone with him, telling my aunt that he’d torment me until she came home. She brushed aside my worries and told me I was acting silly, just like my mother.”
Nick’s grip tightened, and he tilted her chin up so that Abby had to look at him. His voice, when it came, thickened with apprehension. “What did he do to you?”
She licked her lips. “My first Christmas with them, when I was four, he lured me upstairs to the attic. He was wearing a Father Christmas costume like what you were wearing that day at the mall.”
“Oh, God,” Nick said, understanding pouring into the two syllables. “That’s why you reacted so strongly.”
She nodded. “It’s ridiculous, I know, but when I saw you I remembered something I’ve been trying to forget for a long time. Uncle Dick told me that he’d discovered the presents that Santa had hidden in the attic for me. I was scared, because I’d always hated the attic. He had me convinced that there was a monster up there and if I wasn’t a good girl he’d put me up there alone.”
Nick kissed her forehead, pain entering his eyes.
Abby continued, her throat tightening unbearably. “But this time he said that he’d protect me against the monster, so I went upstairs anyway. When we got there he turned out the lights. The shutters were on the windows and it was so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.” A delicate shudder ran through her frame.
Nick cupped her face and pressed a gentle kiss to her nose. “It’s okay. You can tell me.”
His reassurances
spurred her on. “He laughed and called me a ‘fraidy cat then he made this roaring noise like a monster and grabbed me. I screamed and screamed. I don’t recall ever being so afraid in my whole life. Then he...”
She saw horror cross Nick’s face. “Oh, God, Abby?”
Tears pushed at her eyes. “He fondled me, Nick. He touched me where he had no business touching me. I was so shocked and I didn’t understand what he was doing.” She swallowed hard to keep back tears. “But I knew what he did was wrong, Nick. So I screamed. I guess it scared him or something because he stopped. He must have thought someone would hear. I heard the door slam and then he was taunting me from outside. I don’t know how long I was up there, begging to get out. I pounded on the door, screamed for him to let me out. I was so terrified. Finally, he opened the door. He told me if I mentioned it to my aunt he’d deny it and that she’d never believe me.”
A sob slipped through her lips, and the mortification plunged into her like a knife. She leaned against him, letting the tears trickle down her face again.
“And you never said anything to your aunt?”
“No. She wouldn’t have believed me.”
“Did he ever molest you again?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
“Yes. From the time I was I was four until I was ten. I never knew when he’d do it. He’d sneak into my room and touch me with his fingers.”
Nick cursed vehemently, holding nothing back.
She trembled and looked up at him. “I tried telling her when I was ten. She got this horrified look on her face and told me I was lying. My aunt refuses to see Uncle Dick for what he really is. One day, when she wasn’t home, he invited a woman over. They...had sex in the bedroom, with me in the next room. I was repulsed.”
Pain creased his face. A mental pain that showed he understood far better than she could have imagined. “Pixie, I’m so sorry.”
She wiped away a tear. “I should be over it by now.”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of. You’ve coped, you’ve lived your life and you’re successful. But there are certain things you can’t just get over without help, Pixie. Not when they’ve been festering for years. Have you had therapy?”
All I Want for Christmas Page 13
