Rekindling Christmas

by Hines, Yvette

  Her golden cheeks, already rosy from the icy air, darkened, making her more beautiful. “No, I’m not. But I saw you and that woman last night at the mixer.”

  Shocked, he stared at her. Shit, what was he to say to that? He’d had a few drinks last night, but he recalled Lanie’s bold, seductive public attempt at trying to get into his bed, or him into hers. He’d hate for Ryanne to see some other woman all over him.

  Reaching out, he took hold of her arm. “Ryanne, I’m not sure how much you saw, but it isn’t what it looked like. Shit.” He snatched his cap off. He couldn’t lie to her. “It was what it looked like, but I didn’t sleep with her. There’s nothing between Lanie and me. Hell, we only met last night.”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Well, I heard in college that you and Phillip…”

  Her voice drifted away and her implication stabbed him in the gut. “College was a long time ago. I’m a little more fastidious now.” What he didn’t tell her was that once he’d seen a woman that reminded him of Ryanne, who turned out to be her, he wasn’t in the mood for a lousy imitation.

  “Oh.” She gave him a small smile.

  “How about we turn in your skis, I lock mine up in the locker, and we find a great place by the big roaring fire in the lobby and catch up.”

  “That sounds perfect. As long as we can add in a huge mug of hot chocolate, I’m in.”

  Taking a firmer hold of her arm to help her remain steady in the snow where some areas were slick, Carson said, “Absolutely.”

  Chapter Five

  “What’s been going on with you? I haven’t seen you since the summer after our freshman year.” Carson sat in one of the plush chairs next to her.

  Ryanne was thankful that they were the only ones in the cozy area of the lobby. She stared into her mug of chocolate, as if the floating marshmallows would reveal all the answers to the questions that plagued her. Like the fact she didn’t understand why it bothered her so much when the Latina woman saddled up to Carson as if she were staking her claim on Ryanne’s old childhood neighbor. Last night, when she had seen the woman climbing on a stranger’s body, Ryanne had only felt disgust at the overt antics. But on the slopes when she recognized Phillip as the guy who had taken shots from a woman’s cleavage, that meant that Carson had been the friend beside him. The Hispanic chick’s inviting dialogue had confirmed that.

  The knowledge had caused a sick feeling in her stomach. More disgust? Or jealousy? At what point Carson had become more than just a friend, she wasn’t sure. Liar, her mind screamed. She recalled it vividly, but had buried it in her mind as she focused on her schooling and then her career.

  Taking a cautious drink, she glanced at Carson Rodman, who had shockingly become a better-looking version of a Greek god than his older brother had been when she was a teenager. Carson was taller than Drew by at least three inches, at what she assumed was six-four. His dark-blond straight locks, that had been kept long in a skater-boy style, were now short and tapered around the sides and back, and just a little longer on top in buzz-cut spikes, not quite military fashion. Now out of the bulky ski jacket and only wearing his long-sleeved undershirt, she could see how much his chest and body had filled out. From the skinny kid next door, he had grown into every muscle. Buff and stacked, well-defined as any wide receiver, she could see why Lanie wanted to put her hands all over him. Ryanne had the urge to do the same.

  Trying to calm her racing heart as images fluttered into her mind, placing her in the same position as Lanie had been last night, Ryanne gulped her drink. Wincing, she stuck her tongue out as she waved her free hand over it, trying to soothe the scalded flesh.

  “You okay?” Carson leaned forward, concern etched on his features.

  “Wes,” she mumbled, still holding her tongue out.

  “You do know that hot cocoa is…hot?”

  “Mart ash.” She stuck her tongue at him. Pulling it in, she pressed it against the roof of her mouth, feeling the heat.

  He chuckled.

  She enjoyed the sound. “I didn’t mean to drink so much.”

  “Maybe it should come with a warning, like Mickey D’s coffee.” He lifted his mug, blew on it, and sipped, then arched an eyebrow at her as if he were trying to give an example of how drinking hot beverages was done.

  “I forgot how much of a smart ass you could be.” She couldn’t hold back the half grin as one side of her mouth lifted as she gazed into the wood fire. She wanted to take off her boots and curl her toes in the warmth, but she would have to wait until she got back up to her room to do that before her small gas hearth.

  “I hope you didn’t forget me as well.” There was something in his voice she couldn’t pinpoint, but her mind told her it wasn’t a nonchalant comment.

  “No.” She just left it at that.

  Glancing at his face, she allowed her gaze to roam his features. He had thick, masculine eyebrows, just a little darker than his hair, a perfectly straight nose slightly wider at the bottom, and lips a little fuller than they should be on a white guy and red as an apple. They always looked as if he’d just finished kissing someone for hours, but they had been like that even when they were younger, so she knew they were his true color. It was his gray eyes, the color of storm clouds, that caused the biggest disturbance to her insides. They always appeared so intense and full of mystery, like he was hiding secrets. She had an urge to discover what they were.

  “You never did answer my question.”

  “What question was that?” She crossed her legs, not sure what question she had missed.

  “What have you been up to since freshman year?”

  Oh, man, he had asked her that. Then she’d gotten distracted by his body and her emotions. “Nothing much. I graduated from East Carolina. I interned at a company in Florida close by where my parents moved, but I decided to go back and complete my master’s at ECU and I was grateful that I landed a job in Charlotte. It’s always been home to me.”

  “I’m surprised your mother didn’t try to get you to stay in Florida.”

  “You know my mother. Loving but controlling. Hell, my sisters and brother and I were the only kids in our neighborhood that went to private school. Not because it was better than the public school, but she liked that she could call any day and get a report on all of us.” She shook her head. “I’m glad they decided to move to Florida. I’ve got North Carolina all to myself.”

  She smiled and he returned it.

  “Well, not completely to yourself.”

  “What do you mean?” She wrapped her hands tighter around her mug.

  “I still live in Charlotte.” A lopsided grin appeared on his sexy lips. “In our old neighborhood, too.

  “You do? You’re kidding!” She set her mug on the table and leaned on the arm of the chair toward him.

  “Nope. I own my parents’ house. You know they moved to Connecticut to take care of my grandfather three years ago when he had to have open-heart surgery. They didn’t want to sell it, and my brother didn’t want it. You know he moved out West with his band after he finished his associate’s at the community college.”

  “I can’t believe you still live in the old area.” For Ryanne there were so many memories of that place. Good memories. Funny stories that she would one day share with her kids. “Remember when your brother taught us both how to ride a bike?”

  “I remember how you made us both learn at the park down the street, in the grass because you didn’t want to skin your knees if you fell.”

  “Hey, it was the perfect thing to do. I was really clumsy back then.”

  He shook his head as his gray eyes scanned her face. “You were never clumsy.”

  “Maybe I just felt that way around…” She allowed the words to drift away.

  “Around my brother. You can say it.” He looked into the fire then back at her. “I know how bad you had a crush on him in high school.”

  She pointed a finger at him. “That’s not fair. All the girls had a crush on Drew. He was a
garage rock star and played at some of the cool kids’ parties.” That’s all it had been for her. She had ogled and pretend-fainted when Drew looked her way, but it was what she was supposed to do, along with the rest of the girls. Drew ate it up. “Besides, outside of television shows, Drew was the only shirtless hunk I knew. There he was, washing his car and mowing the grass, shirtless and tanned. What did you want the girls in the neighborhood to do?”

  He sank lower in his seat and sipped from his mug. “I guess looks and muscles matter to girls.”

  Was that jealousy or sadness in his voice? Had Carson wanted some girl who slighted him for his brother?

  “Until they grow up and learn better. But you can’t really complain when you’re sitting next to me with muscles practically ready to burst out of that shirt like Captain America.” Just bringing his body into the conversation made her hands itch to glide along his form. She’d always thought he was attractive, even when he was tall and lanky and hanging out in the shadows of his brother and his sex-crazed best friend. Now, Carson was drool-worthy.

  “Well, I decided to try out for soccer at UNC Chapel Hill my freshman year and I guess my body decided to show up at the same time.”

  “You and Phillip did nothing but talk about being Tar Heels.”

  Carson gave her a cocky smile.

  She laughed. She had no desire to play into his prideful behavior. “So, that was eight years ago. What do you do now to stay fit, bench press small children?”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “Nothing that extreme. Just a little exercise before work in the mornings, mostly classic stuff like pushups, squats, planks and stuff. If you use your body right, you don’t even need equipment.”

  “Speak for yourself.” She ran on the treadmill six days a week to keep a handle on her weight; she loved desserts and treats too much.

  “It looks like you filled out in all the right places.”

  “Well, a treadmill helps.”

  Oh, shit, was Carson flirting with her? In all the years she’d known him, he’d never so much as let on that he wanted anything more between them. Except that one night after her family had finished cleaning up her parents’ house after the move, getting it ready to sell. He’d been headed back to college early, for training camp, and he’d hugged her and told her that he’d miss her not living next to him anymore. They hadn’t seen much of each other, with both of them at separate colleges, and that summer had gone by too quickly with her packing up her parents and driving with them to Florida. She’d only been back for a week and had hung out with Carson between renovation chores.

  That night, they’d stood at her back fence that led into his yard and stared at each other. Carson hadn’t stepped back from the hug and neither had she. Their breaths had mingled in the humid night air, and for a moment, she thought she saw his head angling down toward her. But her mother had called her in and Carson moved away, dropping his arm. He’d wished her good luck in college, and that had been that. In the morning she drove back to school and hadn’t seen him again.

  She got an occasional snippet of information from his mother, by way of her mother, but that was rare.

  “So, what do you say to a walk in the village? I heard they have some interesting shops and the mountain view is nice from there.”

  She scrunched her nose and looked out the big bay window to the snow-covered land. “I don’t know. It’s cold out there.”

  “I heard they have an ice cream shop,” he teased.

  Turning toward him, she gazed at him through squinted eyes. “You play dirty, Rodman. You know I can’t resist ice cream.”

  “I know, McCall. You would make us all drive to the ice cream parlor and sit outside and eat it.”

  “It doesn’t melt. That’s the best, so you don’t have to get sticky or chase the drips down your hand, like in the summer.”

  “Your logic. So, you game?”

  “Fine. You convinced me.” She rose.

  “No, the ice cream did.” He set his mug on the table, stood, and helped her put on her coat.

  He slowly zipped up her coat, and she didn’t miss how the back of his hand grazed her breast as he passed it. She was sure it was accidental, but that didn’t stop her nipples from drawing tight below her bra and thermal shirt.

  “There. Now you’ll be nice and warm.”

  She was already warm. Matter of fact, her temperature was elevating to blaze standing this close to Carson. Her mind replayed something that she’d tried to block out when they’d been tangled in the snow: Carson’s thick erection, which she’d felt pressing into her hips as she lay on him. She’d been so foozled and shocked to see him after so many years, she’d focused on that, but she’d noted the swell all the same.

  “Thanks.” She moved away and pulled her gloves out of her pockets. “Don’t forget your jacket.”

  “Got it.” He jerked it on quickly and donned his hat and gloves.

  “Now take me to the ice cream man.”

  * * *

  “You never told me what you do?” Carson walked along the storefronts with Ryanne as he licked his single scoop of rocky road. At that moment, his tongue was frozen and cold chills were racing through his body, brought on more from the ice cream than the freezing weather, but he was happy. Ryanne McCall was by his side. All the nights he’d stared over at her house fantasizing about her, he’d never really thought it was possible. Now he did.

  “I’m a junior product manager, a position I just acquired not too long ago. I have the small business division and I like it.” She swirled her tongue around her double scoop of triple chocolate mousse and toffee crunch.

  Carson was mesmerized by the movement of her tongue, envisioning his cock as the cone and she was using that agile tongue of hers to circle the head. Shit.

  He flexed his jaw and glanced away, staving off a groan and praying his semi-erect shaft didn’t harden further.

  “Earth to Carson…come in, Carson.” She held her hand over her mouth and was making radio-crackling sounds behind it.

  “What? Did you say something?”

  She rolled her eyes and went back to licking her ice cream for a moment. They passed an area with some benches around a water fountain that was filled with snow instead of water. Too cold to stand in one place for long, they kept moving.

  “I asked what you do.”

  He’d apparently missed the question while staring at her sexy mouth. “I’m a programmer for NASCAR.”

  “That’s great. You’ve always been good with systems and software. You work downtown?”

  “Nope, at the Speedway.”

  “That must be amazing.” She was nibbling at the side of her cake cone now.

  “It would be if I was a race fan. But contact sports are more my type. I can’t really see driving fast around a track and hoping I don’t end up in a cloud of smoke against a concrete wall with an asphalt burial service.”

  “True.”

  They were moving up the main path back to the resort when they stopped so they could toss their napkins in the trashcan.

  She turned and faced him with a joyful smile as she tucked her gloved hands into her jacket pockets. “That was great. Thanks.”

  He noticed a smudge of cream on her cheek by her mouth. He couldn’t help but smile, thinking how much she reminded him of the nine-year-old girl he used to sit beside on the curb eating Popsicles after the ice cream truck had come through. “You have ice cream on your face.”

  “I do? Where?” She wiped her nose.

  “No. On your cheek.”

  She brushed her gloved hand across the wrong cheek.

  “The other one,” he directed.

  “Here?” She swiped the right cheek, but the wrong spot.

  “I’ll get it.” On impulse he stepped forward, leaned in, and licked the cream droplet from her cheek. He dragged his tongue past the corner of her mouth and collected the small cone crumb that rested on her bottom lip as well. He wanted to kiss her, but he stopp
ed himself. “There, it’s all gone now.”

  Ice-crystal clouds formed between them as they stood there breathing and staring at each other. Ryanne’s eyes had become so dark that they looked black-on-black, their chocolate-brown color almost gone.

  She licked her lips, starting with the same corner he’d tasted. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” He didn’t know if she had any other plans for the day, but he knew he wasn’t ready to let her get away from him after he’d just found her. “You wouldn’t happen to have brought a bathing suit with you, by chance?”

  “Weren’t you just complaining about a summertime activity?”

  “Ice cream in the snow. Besides, don’t think I didn’t hear your teeth chattering once or twice during the walk.”

  “It was worth it.” Her radiant smile gave credence to her words. “I don’t have a suit. Why?”

  “There’s an indoor pool here that has a water slide and all. You still like swimming?” He took her hand, glad when she didn’t pull away, and led her to the entrance of the resort.

  “I love swimming.” She was silent for a moment then said, “Wait, they may have suits in the shop. I didn’t pay attention this morning because I was looking for warm gear, but I can check.”

  “Great.”

  They entered the resort and made a beeline to the other wing, where the boutique was located.

  “Hmm, a granny-style bathing suit, but it will work.” Ryanne held up the one-piece suit with big bold green and blue flowers on it and a high neckline. There were no other decorations or high hip arches; instead it came down almost like a mini dress in the front.

  “It will.” He would have preferred to see her in something skimpy and revealing, but he also knew that something sexy would make it hard for him—in more ways than one—to keep himself under control.

  The small taste of her he’d gotten outside had him on edge. It had been several months since he’d had sex, but even if he’d had sex with Lanie last night, he still would desire Ryanne to the point of madness.