Once Upon a Holiday

by Beverly Jenkins

  What better way to get him and the way he’d kissed her, made love to her and mooning over him than having a little fun? Carl’s eagerness to be with her was appealing in a puppy dog sort of way.

  “Sure, why not,” she said forcing a smile as she looked up at him.

  A big grin split across his face. When he placed his large, damp hand at the back of her waist, the warmth and moisture seeping through her silk blouse made Camille instantly want to retract her agreement.

  A little too eager was putting it mildly.

  She should have paid more attention to her earlier warning bells, that red flag that went up, the one that every woman had that alerted her that she may or may not be dealing with a bugaboo.

  After telling Carl she’d meet him and the others at the bar, she’d gone to her room and changed out of her high heels and exchanged them for flats before heading back down.

  She’d stepped inside the bar and eyed the rambunctious group of students. Just as she’d suspected, none of the so-called “study group” members had any intention of going over the course material.

  Despite the fact that she’d noted several of them wearing wedding rings, it didn’t stop them from coupling up the moment they met in the bar. And judging by the amount of empty glasses that littered the table, the night had already begun.

  Eyeing the group from the doorway, she would have turned and walked away had Carl not spotted her before she could escape.

  Not giving her time to place her purse on the table, he eagerly grabbed her and pulled her on to the postage stamp-sized dance floor, hauling her tightly against his big, sweaty body before swinging her away.

  Camille’s eyes widened, her mouth forming an O when he started dancing by himself, swinging his big arms and legs, thrusting his hips in time to the rap song being played.

  When he went old school on her—real old school, his body becoming stiff as he did the robot before falling to the floor and spinning around—she was done.

  She turned and with her head held high, started for the exit.

  He ran to meet her before she could leave, his face flushed, sweat pouring down his face.

  “Hey, what’s wrong? I thought we were having fun!” he said and started doing that weird robot move again.

  She shook her head. “No, I wasn’t having fun, Carl. You were. Look, I’m going to head back to the room. It’s been a long day.”

  “Oh, okay, I understand, that’s cool. This isn’t exactly your scene, huh?” he asked and Camille frowned at him. “Tell you what, why don’t I come up with you?” he asked, a sly look crossing his face. Camille barely checked an are you serious look from crossing hers. “Let me just tell the others…”

  “No!” she said, loudly. “Seriously, go on and have fun with the others. I’ll see you in class tomorrow,” she said, lowering her voice. “It’s been a long week. I just want to go chill out in my room—”

  “Hey, that’s cool, Camille. I like the sound of that, a little alone time.” He grinned wide. The calculating, slick look on his face made her wonder why she ever thought he was the least bit shy. Obviously she needed the course she was taking more than she thought. Reading people correctly was not her strong point.

  “Alone,” she stated firmly.

  Before he could protest further, and to prevent an ugly scene she saw coming, Camille turned, murmured a good-night and nearly ran from the bar.

  The ten o’clock news provided background noise as Camille sat propped on pillows in bed, her hair tied up in a scarf, a bag of flaming hot Cheetos next to her laptop. Scanning the Excel spreadsheet on her monitor, she paused when she heard a noise outside the small bedroom of her suite.

  She grabbed the remote and turned the volume down, her brows scrunching, and tilted her head to the side to listen, and again heard the rat-a-tat sound of knuckles pounding on the door.

  “Who in the world…” she mumbled, glancing at the alarm clock.

  After coming to her room an hour ago, she’d quickly showered, powered up her laptop and flipped on the television, ready to get some work in.

  She pushed both her snacks and laptop to the side and stood. Grabbing her robe on the way out and sliding into her flip-flops, she strode toward the door.

  Through the peephole she saw a tall, broad figure standing on the other side.

  “I thought you might like a little company…can I come in?” Carl begged.

  Camille was so not in the mood to deal with him again and turned to tiptoe away, hoping he’d think she wasn’t there, when she bumped her foot against the door, cursing mildly at the small injury.

  “I hear you in there, Camille. Come on…can’t I come in?” he asked, his voice slightly slurred.

  “Doesn’t that guy get it?” she mumbled, rubbing her sore toe and counting to ten before answering him. “Look, Carl, I already told you I’m beat. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” she asked, trying to inject a pleasant tone into her voice.

  She leaned against the door and waited for a response. There was no way on earth she had any intention of opening the door. No telling what he would do if she did, bogarting his way inside. And if he thought she’d be his booty call for the night, he seriously had it twisted.

  “I thought maybe we could go over the assignment for tomorrow’s class,” he continued to wheedle.

  Again Camille noticed how high and nasal his voice was, and that alone skyrocketed her irritation with him. A man that big should not have a voice that high. Period.

  “Just go, Carl.” Camille eyed the phone near the door. If he didn’t go away soon, she would be forced to call security. She sighed.

  “Okay. I can take a hint.”

  She breathed easier.

  “But if you change your mind, I’m just one floor down. I…”

  “I won’t,” she broke in, her voice clipped.

  After a few minutes of silence, she leaned down and peered though the hole again. When she saw his broad, retreating back she slumped against the door. Thank God, he finally gave up.

  With a shake of her head, she turned, heading back to her bed, where her flaming hot Cheetos and laptop awaited her. Removing her robe, she was poised to jump back in bed when he knocked again.

  “Okay, you know what?” she said aloud to herself and the room at large. “That is it! I tried to be nice. This is ridiculous!” She stomped back angrily to the door fully prepared to let him have it.

  Grabbing the doorknob, she yanked the door wide open and said, “I told you I’m not interested! Why don’t you just take your boogy nights and—” She stopped midsentence, her eyes widening as she stared up into the face of Gideon Taber.

  Chapter 7

  “Expecting someone?” Gideon asked, racking a glance over Camille from the top of her scarf-covered head, to the tiny T-shirt that molded her round, firm breasts to perfection, over skimpy matching shorts and down to her coral-painted toenails as she stood in the doorway.

  She bit at the corner of her mouth and shook her head. “No, I…I thought you were someone else, but no. I’m not expecting anyone.”

  Gideon frowned, jealously wondering who she had been expecting.

  “Well, if you’re not expecting anyone, can I come in?”

  She gave him a pensive look and finally nodded her head. “Yes. Sure, I suppose.”

  As he followed her inside her suite, he gaze again fell to her shorts that just barely covered her bottom. With each step she took, the globes of her perfect ass swayed, and he bit back a groan.

  “So, um…why are you here?” she asked over her shoulder, casually lifting her robe from the bed and drawing it over her body before turning back to face him.

  Gideon hadn’t given much thought to what he would actually say to her, his need to see her driving him to come to her hotel room. He was glad for her directness.

  “Come on, Camille, don’t play games. You know why I’m here,” he said, eyeing the robe that covered her.

  “Can I get you anything? I have some Di
et Coke in the fridge…?” she asked, her voice formal as she walked to the small kitchenette area.

  “No, I’m fine.” He slowly strode toward her. When she backed up, putting distance between them, his jaw tightened.

  “I don’t bite, Cami…unless you want me to.”

  “Camille. Please call me Camille,” she said and looked away.

  “Okay, I don’t get it. When we first met you were Cami. In fact, according to my recollection that was the only name you’d give me. Now you’re Camille? Seems a bit ass-backwards, if you ask me.”

  “Camille is the name most people call me. Friends and family call me Cami,” she shot back.

  “So, you were Cami when you shared your body with me, and now you’re Camille since I’m not a…friend?” he asked and saw her creamy brown face flush dark red.

  She turned away from him, walking over to a chair in the sitting area. Picking up a T-shirt that had been laying over the arm, she folded and refolded it, the nervous reaction telling.

  “Look, I think we need to talk.”

  Her hands stilled. She sighed, asking, “What do we need to talk about?”

  “Cami—Camille,” he corrected himself. “Let’s not play games. You know what we need to talk about. What happened between us back in Seattle…”

  At that, she placed the T-shirt back over the chair and stood facing him.

  “What I did—”

  “What we did,” he interrupted, correcting her.

  “What we did…was a one-time thing. It wasn’t meant to be more than that. The fact that we are thrown together again doesn’t change anything.”

  “And why can’t it? What happened that night was special…the way we made love, the way you responded to me—”

  She held up a hand, forestalling what he would say next. “It was a one-time thing. Something that shouldn’t have happened. But it did, and I don’t regret it. I was feeling good, had too many drinks, and well…” Her sentence trailed off.

  The look of fury on Gideon’s face stopped Camille from continuing. She swallowed, taking a step back.

  He pushed away from the wall, advancing toward her. With every step he took, she backed up further, until her back was pressed to the wall and his body was a hair’s breadth away from hers.

  “If it makes you feel better, you can blame it on the alcohol. But we both know that didn’t have a damn thing to do with why you moaned and cried when I made love to you, when you begged for me to make love to you,” he said coarsely, his face flushed in anger, his eyes boring into hers. “All through the night.”

  When he trailed a finger down the line of her face, Camille didn’t flinch and defiantly stared up at him, refusing to look away.

  He braced his hands on either side of the wall, trapping her, his unique scent making her breath catch in her throat.

  Bringing his face close to hers, he rubbed the side of his cheek against hers and nudged his nose under her earlobe.

  “We both know it didn’t have a damn thing to do with how well we fit together, as though we were made for each other,” he murmured, his tongue coming out to lick the sensitive spot behind her ear. “Like perfect pieces to a puzzle.”

  Camille held herself still, trying hard not to respond to his voice, his scent…his nearness.

  “Didn’t have a damn thing to do with why you ran out on me before I could wake up and start all over again.” When his tongue bathed the hollow of her throat, a small whimper escaped.

  “And it didn’t have a damn thing to do with why you’re so scared about how we made each other feel that you can’t be in the same room with me for two minutes and your panties aren’t wet.”

  The truth of his words sliced into her swift and deadly, deep into the heart of her femininity.

  Before she realized his intent, he’d loosened the ties of her robe, one big hand lifting her T-shirt and deftly slipping down inside the waistband of her shorts.

  She gasped when a finger went to her vagina and separated her slick folds.

  Unable to look away from him, she squirmed around his finger when he withdrew the dewy moisture. Helpless, caught in his sensual web, she watched him bring his finger to his mouth. Her wet lips went dry when he licked his finger clean of her cream.

  Camille’s body was trembling hard when he rested his forehead against hers briefly.

  “If you want to find out if there was more to this…us, than a one-night fuck, let me know. Otherwise, I won’t bother you again,” he promised.

  When she heard the door to her suite slam shut, Camille allowed her body to slide down the wall until she sat on the floor, covering her arms over her face and leaning her forehead against the tops of her knees.

  For the next two days Camille did her best to focus all of her attention on the class and not think about what Gideon had said to her…what he had done to her. In fact it took a considerable amount of willpower to simply not think of him at all. Not so easy to do when she was in the same room with him for three hours every night.

  Whenever she’d catch his eyes on her in class, she’d find herself unable to look away.

  Just as in the bar the first night, everything and everyone around them faded away as though they alone shared that space.

  She felt completely out of control around him, an unfamiliar feeling and one she didn’t like.

  She forced the memory of them together, as well as the curiosity of what they could have, from her mind.

  She had to. She had to concentrate on the reason she was here, had to focus on the one thing she knew she had some control over. She had come to Houston for her career and wouldn’t allow anyone or anything to distract her from that.

  No matter how many times she recited the mantras designed to remind herself she had no time for love, remind her what her goals were and the reason she was even taking the workshop, in the end it hadn’t mattered. He was right.

  She couldn’t be in the same room with him and not be turned on. Not imagine what if…

  Once, she’d caught his eyes on hers, a knowing look on his face as his eyes fixed on her breasts. Her nipples reacted as though on cue, growing tight and achy, straining against the confines of her bra. Embarrassed, she’d cast a furtive glance around, sure every student in the room had to have noticed what was going on between them.

  Not wanting to deal with him, her confusing feelings or the words he’d flung at her, Camille went out of her way to escape him as soon as he ended the class for the night. But her gut told her it was only a matter of time before her day of reckoning would come.

  Her day of reckoning came on Friday.

  Relieved when the workshop ended and he didn’t try and detain her, Camille prepared to leave the classroom.

  When he wished all of them a fun, restful weekend in the casual smile he gave the class, she pushed away the disappointing feeling.

  Shaking her head at her conflicting feelings, she walked toward the door, and hesitated, waiting for him to stop her. When he didn’t, she squared her shoulders, pulled the strap to her bag closer to her body and walked out.

  It was what she wanted, she reminded herself.

  Chapter 8

  The last two days had been hell on Gideon.

  When Camille had walked out of class, he’d seen her hesitate, and for the first time in two days, he felt a smile, a real smile, lift the corners of his mouth in satisfaction. Just as badly as he wanted her, she wanted him. She was just too damn stubborn to admit it.

  After Camille had told him she had no interest in furthering the relationship, that it had been a one-night stand only for her, he’d seen red.

  Despite the fact that he’d said the same words more times than he wanted to remember to others, it was all he could do to not pick her sweet little body up and throw her on the sofa and do her so good she forgot her own damn name and the lie that had tumbled from her lips effortlessly. And it was a lie.

  Gideon smoothed his hand over his hair, sighing in frustration.

 
; The way she’d responded to him from the first moment they’d met to the first time they’d made love, he knew the wild attraction was mutual. She wasn’t the type of woman who shared her body easily, engaged in casual sex, despite her attempt make him think otherwise.

  He also knew she had a defensive wall a mile high around her, a wall Gideon was hell-bent on breaching. Glimpses into the woman she kept hidden had fueled his determination to get past her walls.

  To get past the woman who worked long hours and sacrificed for her successes, the one who wore Brooks Brothers suits during the day, yet wore Tinker Bell pajamas to bed.

  The one who, after a night spent together and days after where he couldn’t get her out of his mind, all but made it impossible for him to think of another woman.

  Not to mention her laugh, Gideon thought. When he’d told a joke in class, he’d been able to single out her laugh above all the other students. It had reached out and grabbed him, pulled him in, made his heart pound, his gaze seeking hers. As it had when they’d danced, everything and everyone had faded away, and it was as though no one else shared their space. He had to get to know her better.

  Really know her, beyond the sex, as good as it had been. Scratch that, as mind-blowing as it had been.

  But he was hemmed in by his own words, telling her she’d have to come to him if she wanted to further what they had.

  He laughed ruefully at himself. He’d given her space the last two days. She was running scared, he knew it. Hell, there was a part of him that was just as scared. This was unchartered territory for him, as well.

  But his gut told him she was worth it.

  His mother would be clapping her hands together in glee if she knew he’d finally found a woman who’d captured his attention as much as Camille had. Not that he had any intention of that happening.

  His main focus was to get her to open up to him. Hell, he had to get her to agree to see him first, and time was running short. The class ended midweek, next week, which gave him little time to get her to realize that it was more than great sex between them, to get her to admit that there could be something more.