Once Upon a Christmas

by Lisa Plumley

  It was kind of a thrill to have the upper hand for once. Stacey did, after all, still owe him for his dirty trick at the end of their pillow fight.

  “The ones we really have to worry about,” Dylan said, “are the honeymoon surprise people. The ones who know Aunt Geraldine personally. If anyone’s going to rat on us, it’s them.”

  She stopped. He had a point.

  But so did she. A cosmetics point. Two of them, in fact.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She wielded her trusty lipstick and eyeliner. “You know, I’m starting to wonder if maybe you’re just here to mess up my honeymoon charade. Is that it?”

  The more she thought about it, the saner that crazy idea seemed. Why else would Dylan have tried to war paint her into public ridiculousness? Tried to take over the whole honeymoon façade? Tried to goad her into calling Aunt Geraldine and confessing everything?

  But why?

  “No.” He backed up some more. His eyes followed the path of the cosmetics she wielded, but he kept on grinning. “Stacey, put the makeup down. Let’s just talk about this like two reasonable adults.”

  “You’re patronizing me now?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “See! There you go again!”

  “Aaack!” Dylan shoved his hands in his hair. Clearly, things weren’t going the way he’d planned. He backed up into the window and stood there, silhouetted by the light.

  “It wasn’t enough that you broke up with me all those months ago.” She advanced almost close enough to touch him—or paint him, which was what she really had in mind. “You had to come back and try to break my heart all over again, didn’t you? Let me tell you something, Dylan, that’s really twisted. I can’t bel—”

  “I broke your heart?”

  She snapped her mouth closed, assaulted by the silence that fell between them. Dear God, had she really just blurted out what she thought she had?

  “I broke your heart?” This time his voice was a broken whisper, slipping past her defenses right into the heart in question. What had she done?

  She tried backpedaling first. “I mean, back when were first dating, I—”

  A goofy grin spread across his face, dissolving every bit of aggravation she’d felt before. Damn him. How did he keep doing that?

  Dylan reached for her. His big hands closed around her hips, then traveled a sensuous trail up to her waist. The possessiveness inherent in his touch left no doubt he knew she was lying about how she felt. Stacey’s breath caught, held, keeping time with the bump-skip rhythm of her heartbeat.

  “That is,” she choked out, desperate to retain what little rational thought she had left, “part of me thought maybe we—”

  “Shhh.” The tender smile on his face tantalized her almost as much as the slow squeeze and release of his hands on her waist. He drew her closer. “I really broke your heart?”

  “You don’t have to sound so happy about it.”

  “I’m not happy.”

  His gaze met hers. His body heat touched her, penetrated her clothes to wrap around her heart. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be…her confessing her stupid inability to get over him, him savoring every word. But somehow, Stacey couldn’t pull away.

  “You look happy,” she groused. “You’re grinning like a kid at Christmas.”

  “I’m grinning because I feel like a kid at Christmas.” Dylan tipped her chin up with his hand and looked into her eyes. “Which is only appropriate, right? It’s almost Christmastime. And I have to say…I’ve never received a better gift.”

  “A better gift than my humiliation? Ha.” Stacey jerked her head away. “I don’t know—”

  “Let me start over.” He smiled, and something in his expression made her heart skip a beat. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry to have hurt you.” He caressed her chin, her neck, her shoulder…but he might as well have reached in and touched her heart. “I thought I was the only brokenhearted one. I was a fool to let you go, Stacey.”

  Him? Brokenhearted?

  Because of her?

  It was too much to take in all at once. “But what—”

  “Richard and Janie told me all you wanted was a casual relationship,” he explained. “When I started falling for you, I…I panicked, I guess. From where I stood, the whole thing looked doomed.”

  “Doomed?” It hadn’t been doomed. She’d been falling for him, too.

  But she’d never told him so. Just like she’d tried to hide her feelings from him during the whole honeymoon charade. Amazed at her own blindness, Stacey felt like slapping her forehead. How would she ever start getting what she wanted if she never admitted what it was?

  “So I bailed out.” Dylan’s face twisted at the memory. “In my own defense, it seemed pretty smart at the time.” He smiled again, laughing at himself. “I thought I’d actually get over you. But it was the dumbest thing I ever did.”

  She looked up at him, wanting to ease into his arms, to enjoy the feel of him holding her…but afraid to do it. “Why are you telling me this? Why me, why now?”

  “Sheesh. Do I have to spell it out for you?”

  Grinning, Dylan slipped the eyeliner pencil from her hand and peered at the tip. Apparently satisfied it would write, he turned up her wrist and started scrawling something on the underside of her forearm.

  “Hey! That tickles! Haven’t you already done enough damage to me with makeup today?”

  He paused and looked up at her, still holding the pencil poised above her skin. “Do you really want me to stop?”

  Was he kidding? She was dying of curiosity. Stacey bit her lip. “No,” she admitted.

  “Good.” The soft pencil moved across her skin, forming letters, then words. Between Dylan’s sloppy handwriting and the fact that he was holding her arm sideways, she couldn’t tell what it said. He wrote more, his smile widening, then released her wrist. She looked down.

  I love you.

  Holy cow.

  “I lou…I Lou?” she read, too rattled by the words to believe what they said. A joke seemed worlds safer. “You’re Lou?”

  He cupped her face in his hands. For once, Dylan looked absolutely serious. Something indescribably tender filled his gaze, and in that moment Stacey believed—no matter how incredible they were—the words he spoke next.

  “No, silly,” he said gruffly. “I love you.”

  The lipstick drooped in her hand. Stacey tightened her grasp so she wouldn’t drop it, then uncapped the slender tube. With trembling fingers, she swiveled up a half-inch of red.

  Without her being aware of having reached for him, Dylan’s wrist was in her hand. She turned it, exposing the underside of his forearm and, holding her breath, drew a curvy red question mark. She looked up at him.

  His eyes darkened, but a smile curved his lips. “Always the skeptic, aren’t you? I’ll have to cure you of that. There’s no reason in the world you can’t believe me.”

  He raised her other arm and wielded his eyeliner pencil again. Its soft point scrawled over her arm.

  Yes.

  Then, in capital letters going all the way from her elbow to her wrist: I LOVE YOU STACEY.

  She grinned. Once Dylan made a commitment, it looked as if he really went all out. Pursing her lips, she grabbed Dylan’s other arm and drew a red lipstick heart. His free arm tightened on her waist as she embellished the heart with an arrow piercing through the edges.

  He grinned as he watched her draw. “You had to make yours fancier than mine, didn’t you?”

  “It’s not a competition,” Stacey answered, stalling for time, trying to sound about a hundred times more lighthearted than she felt as she added a couple of feathers to her arrow.

  What if he was kidding? Or, given the possible fiasco they might have made out of the honeymoon charade, trying to cheer her up?

  I love you. It danced inside her head like a pink jewelry box ballerina, surprising and beautiful…and likely to stop with no warning at all.

  Why? she wro
te inside the heart she’d drawn.

  Dylan wrinkled his forehead and read. “Why?”

  She nodded, suddenly afraid to look up at him. He’d probably be mad. Maybe she’d spoiled the whole thing. But it was better to know the truth now rather than later, wasn’t it?

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Why?”

  Chapter Eight

  Dylan hesitated, then cupped her jaw and raised her face to his. “A million reasons.”

  His voice wrapped her in warmth and half-forgotten wishes, seductive enough to make her hurl caution to the desert sun and melt right along with it. A million reasons…a million reasons to love her. Wow.

  Stacey’s knees wobbled, an unmistakable side effect of whatever spell Dylan was weaving. Like a sorcerer’s lure, it kept her plastered happily next to him as the rest of her thoughts unraveled. Her and Dylan, Dylan and her—together. Right now. It was almost too much to believe, too much to hope for.

  Just believe him! her body screamed, but her head had gotten used to watching over the rest of her, and it had other ideas. Stacey swiveled her lipstick higher and smoothed her palm over his biceps as though it were a bumpy sheet of paper, then wrote. Sex?

  Dylan gave her a roguish smile. “That’s one reason. Let me show you some more.”

  He smoothed her sweater sideways, baring her shoulder. He stroked his pencil over her skin. Slowly, its tip circled the rounded edge of her shoulder with feather-light touches, then curved toward her neck. The sensation felt surprisingly erotic. Every nerve ending along her arm and shoulder tingled. She watched him draw, his face close enough to hers that she could detect the faint beginnings of beard stubble shading his jaw. If she leaned over a couple of inches, she could kiss him.

  Mmmm. Good idea.

  He frowned slightly, intent on his handiwork, then raised his pencil with a grin. “There.”

  Already missing the teasing stroke of his pencil, Stacey tucked her chin to her chest and peered at her shoulder. He’d drawn a chain of interlocked hearts.

  “Show off.” Playfully, she wrinkled her nose at him. How much more of this could she take before she caved completely? As a sexual conquest, she’d be no contest—not after a little more of Dylan’s body graffiti. But maybe, just maybe, it was more than that.

  Oh, how she wanted to believe it was more than that! She closed her eyes and made a quick wish. Please. If this is only a dream, just let me sleep in for once! When she opened them again, Dylan smiled.

  “That was just warming up.”

  He added a wink that left her noodle-legged and leaning. All this time, she’d thought she disliked men who winked. Winkers belonged in the same class with fanny-pinchers, street corner hooters and guys who called you “Babe’. Didn’t they?

  Unless they were Dylan.

  His fingers, blunt-edged and so much stronger than hers, twisted up more eyeliner. He raised his eyebrow at her. “Hold still, now. We don’t have an eraser.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m giving you those reasons you asked for.” He bared her other shoulder, stroked his fingers over her skin like an artist testing his canvas, then wrote Sexy.

  “We already covered that.”

  Was she nuts, arguing with him over it? Shut up, she ordered herself.

  “No, we haven’t.” He lifted his gaze from her bare shoulder to her eyes. “This is a reason. You’re sexy.”

  “Oh.” She felt her face heat and realized she was blushing. “Umm, you are, too.”

  Dylan looked pleased. She looked him over, pretending to test her judgment. Her gaze wandered a leisurely arc from his big feet to the top of his mussed-up hair, lingering over points in between…muscular legs, jeans, a broad chest covered by his untucked shirt, wide shoulders, arms made for holding her, and a sappy, sexy grin. Yeah. Sexy was the only word for Dylan Davis.

  He slipped his finger inside the scooped neckline of her sweater, just barely touching her skin. He lowered the soft cotton just enough to expose an inch or two of writing space.

  Dylan touched the eyeliner to a place just below her collarbone, then smoothed it slowly sideways. Stacey shivered in reaction, biting her lip. She was supposed to hold still during this? It was torture.

  But torture of the very best, most teasing kind. The eyeliner pencil moved, guided by his warm fingers, creating a path of ticklish, heightened sensation. His breath followed, fanning gently across her skin. It made her yearn for his lips, his hands, to follow the same path.

  Touch me, she thought, and felt only the teasing glide of the eyeliner point. Touch me.

  Dylan stopped writing and stepped back. Grinning, he caught hold of her arms and twirled her around. The next thing she knew, she was backed up to the huge honeymoon suite window. Sun-warmed glass heated her back, her arms, her thighs. It was nothing compared with the feel of his hands holding her there. She wanted this, wanted him…wanted to know what else he’d written. Stacey lowered her chin, trying to read the loopy midnight blue letters he’d drawn.

  “Caring,” Dylan said, tracing them with his finger. He raised his hands to smooth her hair from her face, then smiled. “You care about people more than anybody I know. You take care of them. Worry about them. You love them.” He delved his fingers in her hair, drawing her closer to him. “Love me,” he whispered. “Let me love you.”

  She wanted to—wanted to answer him—but the longing she glimpsed in his eyes stunned her too much to speak. By the time Stacey regained her wits, Dylan had already moved on.

  He flashed her a smile. “But maybe you want the rest of those reasons first.”

  Withdrawing his hands from her hair, he used them instead to trace the sides of her body, gliding past her shoulders, her arms, the indrawn curve of her waist. His fingers pressed on her hips, creating a new wave of sensation as his thumbs kneaded through her clothes, speaking his desire in a way no words could.

  He dropped to his knees at her feet. His jaw caressed her bare belly, unerringly finding the few inches of skin left uncovered by her hiked-up sweater. Her stomach contracted, her pulse raced, and her knees wobbled harder, sending her flat against the heated window at her back. His lips nuzzled her belly button.

  Yelping, Stacey grabbed his head. “What are you doing?”

  Lazily, Dylan turned his face upward, using her hips for an anchor. “Looking for more bare canvas. You do want the rest of those reasons, don’t you?”

  Reasons? “Yes. Yes.” Anything. She’d have agreed to anything to keep him close. “Please, don’t stop.”

  “Oh, I won’t stop,” he promised, raising her T-shirt hem. Dylan peered at the gently curved slope of her belly and pattered his fingertips delicately along the waistline of her skirt. “This looks good. How about right here?”

  He raised his eyebrow at a rakish angle, looking up at her. Stacey swayed in his arms, supported only by his hands, the sunny window, and the strength of his will. She murmured something meant to be agreement. It sounded more like a moan.

  “Yes?” He poised the eyeliner near her belly button.

  She wanted to scream for him to put his hands on her instead, to quit torturing her with that smooth pinpoint of sensation. Curiosity made her bite her lip to hold in the demand. She nodded.

  He drew. She waited, quivering, as he stroked eyeliner loops and curlicues over her tummy, forming words she couldn’t read. Tantalizing sensations she couldn’t escape. And yearnings only Dylan could satisfy. Impatiently, Stacey buried her fingers deeper into his hair. Her breath came faster the further he wrote. Her spine felt liquid, useless to hold her much longer. Urged by the inexorable tug of his hand on her hip, she arched her pelvis forward, silently pleading for another touch, another stroke, for just one instant of skin against skin.

  “Uh, uh, uh,” he cautioned, giving her another belly nip. “If you wiggle, I might have to start all over again.”

  Oh, God…anything but that. She’d never survive. Stacey stiffened, flattening her palms against the window behind
her. For an instant, she wondered if anyone could see her there, silhouetted in the sunlight with Dylan’s head almost in her lap. Then she remembered they were on the hotel’s top floor. No one but passing bluebirds could see them.

  “Mmmm,” Dylan moaned against her, still writing. His breath penetrated her thin skirt, searing all the way to her panties beneath. “You smell good. Sweet, like honey and cinnamon. Sweet…all over.”

  Stacey gasped, trembling harder. More writing would be hopeless. In her condition, she could barely stand. What was he doing to her?

  “Mmmm.” The husky rumble of his voice vibrated all the way to her heart and set fire to her senses. Dylan plucked his fingers along her skirt hem as he finished writing. He leaned back to examine the words. “I like it.”

  Cool air rushed over her skin. Somehow, Stacey managed to find the ability to speak, even though her brain had probably overheated fifteen minutes ago. “What does it say?”

  He touched his fingertip to one side of her belly. “Smart,” he said, tracing the word he’d written there. “Smart enough to have a brilliant career, a brand new life…and the wisdom to give me another try.” Smiling, Dylan looked up at her. “You are giving me another try, aren’t you?”

  “That’s what this is.” Her heart raced as she admitted it—to herself and to him. “Starting over.”

  Dear God, that was what it was. Starting things over between them. If it was foolish, so be it. It was too late to turn back now.

  “Generous,” Dylan went on, his fingertips underlining the second word he’d written in a loopy curve above her belly button. “You’re generous here, spending your weekend making sure no one in your family gets hurt. Generous to still be friends with your ex-husband, no matter what a louse he really is.” He frowned, as though that particular generosity escaped him. “You spend time helping your family, time helping all those pharmacy interns you oversee at work—”

  “Enough!” Stacey protested, laughing. Dylan even remembered the details of her work at the pharmacy? She couldn’t believe it. “You’re making me sound like Mother Teresa!”