TIDINGS OF GREAT JOY

by Sandra Brown

  "Okay?" His voice was merely a low growl that reminded her of animal mating sounds.

  "Yes, fine."

  He released her, but she felt his reluctance to do so. Carrying their plates with them, they descended the staircase. "I like the house," he said. "Very innovative. Contemporary without being stark."

  "I was pleased with how it turned out," Ria replied modestly.

  "Don't let her get by with that."

  They turned at the sound of their hostess's voice. Decked out in plaid taffeta that whistled as she approached them, Mrs. Graham beamed a smile upon Ria and embraced her affectionately. "She's far too modest, Taylor. I'm glad you've met our town's most ingenious, original architect. I threw this bash solely for the purpose of showing off Ria's masterpiece."

  "I think you have excellent taste," Taylor said, smiling his charming smile. "Both in houses and in architects."

  Mrs. Graham took Ria's arm and drew her away from Taylor's side. "A friend of mine has been dying to meet you, Ria. She's pea green over my house and wants one of her own. She owns a lovely piece of property— For heaven's sake, Taylor, don't look so downcast. You'll catch up with Ria later. Now, be a good boy and spread yourself around. I think some of the men are playing pool in the game room."

  He caught up with Ria three-quarters of an hour later. She was one of a group collected around the white grand piano. Taylor overcame the decked halls, boughs of holly, not to mention the fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-las, in order to reach her side and join her on the chorus of an ancient Yuletide carol.

  "Hi."

  "Hi. Did you play pool?"

  "Yep. And won. I didn't collect my bets, though. I'm always charitable at Christmastime."

  Another song was already under way. They joined in. In the middle of the second verse, Ria leaned back. "You were right. You—"

  "What? I can't hear you." He leaned down far enough for her lips to graze the peach fuzz on his ear-lobe.

  "You were right," she repeated. He tilted his head and looked down at her quizzically. "You can't sing."

  Laughing, he squeezed her elbow.

  The party began to wind down. The weather was rapidly becoming a factor in people's getting home safely. Together, Ria and Taylor drifted toward the room where a maid was holding coats. When she came back with Ria's, Ria saw Taylor give a start of surprise.

  He took the full-length silver fox from the maid and draped it over Ria's shoulders, slinging his overcoat over his arm. They progressed to the front door, where the Grahams were bidding everyone good night.

  "It was lovely. Thank you for inviting me," Ria said to the distinguished couple. She kissed her hostess on the cheek.

  Mrs. Graham patted Ria's hand. "The party was lovely because my house is lovely, and my house is lovely because you are lovely. And if you think I'm going to let you drive off this hill alone in weather like this, you've got another think coming."

  "I'm used to driving in snow," Ria exclaimed.

  "But not down that sheer cliff we mistakenly call a road," Mr. Graham said.

  "I'll be happy to drive her home." Taylor stepped forward with the bravura of an Alamo volunteer crossing the sword-drawn line in the sand.

  "Excellent," Mrs. Graham said with a wide smile. "Darling, be sure to contribute to Taylor's campaign fund," she told her husband.

  "But my car," Ria protested. She wasn't accustomed to being looked after like a child.

  "I'll get someone to drive it down to you tomorrow. You'd better go now, before that icy hill gets worse. Good night, dears, and merry Christmas."

  The Grahams waved them off perfunctorily and turned their attention to other departing guests.

  Without causing a scene, Ria had no choice but to submit to the nudge Taylor gave her elbow.

  "You don't really mind, do you?" he asked her, bending his head against the blowing snow.

  "No. Do you?"

  "Of course not."

  "They put you on the spot. You didn't have much choice."

  "Sure, I did. I told you earlier that I can be downright rude." His grip on her arm tightened. "Besides, even if they hadn't asked, I would have offered you a lift. I wouldn't like it either if you tried to drive home alone in this weather."

  "I'm sure I can handle a little snow."

  He glanced up at the sky. "It's more like a blizzard. And remember," he said, squeezing her elbow, "I know how much champagne you guzzled."

  Laughing together, they moved along the row of parked cars in the driveway until they reached a new Corvette. As he fumbled in his pocket for the keys, he said, "You know, I'm still not sure you're real. You're gorgeous, talented, smart, amusing. You've got your own jewelry and—"

  "These?" she asked, indicating the chandeliers of rhinestones dangling from her ears. "These are costume."

  "But this isn't." He ran his fingers through the fur collar of her coat. For warmth, she had bunched it up close to her ears. The coat had been her one material indulgence when she joined the most prestigious firm of architects in the city. She had chosen to wrap herself in yards of silver fox rather than the leather interior of a fancy automobile.

  "You've already got your own fur coat, on top of all your other attributes. There's got to be something wrong with you." He peered at her through the falling snow. "You must have rotten teeth."

  She swatted at his nose before ducking into the car. The road was much more perilous than Ria would have felt comfortable driving down. She was glad the Grahams had insisted that she ride with someone, although she wasn't certain that Taylor MacKensie was the wisest choice.

  She felt muzzy. Her ears were ringing, and it wasn't the echo of Christmas Eve church bells. She wasn't sure all her toes were still there. That could be due to walking through the snow in evening pumps. But how could she account for feeling so warm everywhere else? The car's heater was blasting them with hot air, true, but the heat she felt was generated from beneath her own skin.

  Philosophically she determined that she had imbibed too much Christmas cheer or Taylor MacKensie's masculine magnetism had made her high. Either way, she was ashamed of herself for behaving so foolishly.

  The windshield wipers were clanking as hypnotically as a metronome. Snowflakes merrily danced in the beam of the headlights. The night had a surreal quality. But if this was fantasy, who needed reality? While it lasted, why not enjoy it? "Music?"

  "Pardon?" He nodded toward the radio. "Yes, please." She winked at him. "If you promise not to sing along."

  "Looks like they're all playing Christmas carols tonight," he said after punching in several stations.

  "That's fine with me. I enjoy hearing them once a year."

  "Yeah, me too. How come you're spending Christmas Eve alone?" he asked suddenly. "I'd have thought there'd be a dozen beaux lined up at your door begging for a date on the night before Christmas."

  Ria thanked him for the compliment. "The man I'm seeing is away."

  "There's a man?"

  "Yes. He has an elderly mother in Florida. He's spending the holiday with her."

  Taylor digested that information without comment. "Parents?"

  "They decided to take a trip to England to visit friends. They were reluctant to go at this time of year, but I urged them to. After all, Christmas Eve is just like any other night."

  "Do you really believe that?" he asked, looking across at her.

  For as long as it was safe, their eyes held. "No," she said softly, shaking her head, "but I didn't want my folks to miss this trip on my account."

  "What about the man?"

  "I couldn't be responsible for his neglecting his mother." To divert the conversation away from herself, she asked, "What about you? Why are you alone? No family?"

  "My dad, but he has another family now. He and Janey live in Los Angeles." He explained that his father had remarried a considerably younger woman after his mother's death. They'd had two children together. "I've got a stepbrother and stepsister young enough to be my own kids. I'm always wel
come at their house, but I think my being there makes everybody uncomfortable, afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing."

  "Friends?" She meant, specifically, girlfriends, and hated herself for wanting to know.

  "I was invited to go on a ski trip with a group of people."

  "How large a group?"

  He grinned, letting her know that he knew what she was fishing for. "Seven. Among them the woman I'm seeing. I backed out at the last minute."

  "Why? Did you have a tiff?"

  "No. The day before yesterday I sprained my ankle playing racquetball, and decided it would be really stupid to ski on it. That's when we had the tiff."

  "She went without you?"

  He shrugged. "She's a very independent lady."

  "Funny, how Christmas can either be hectic and exuberant, or empty and sad."

  "It depends on whether it's shared with someone or spent alone."

  "I guess. Although it could be terrible if shared with someone you didn't love, or even like. I think that would be worse than spending it alone."

  Ria had given him her street address when they left the Grahams. He drove straight to it without asking for directions. The young, volatile candidate for mayor knew his city well.

  Pulling to a stop at the curb in front of her house, he turned the key and cut the Corvette's motor. The windshield wipers ceased their rhythmic clacking. "O Come All Ye Faithful" fell silent in mid-verse. Neither passenger in the car moved. Finally, at the same time, they turned to each other and started talking.

  "Thank—"

  "I could be—"

  "I'm sorry."

  "I'm sorry. Ladies first."

  "I was just saying thank you for the ride."

  Taylor turned his head and stared through the windshield, which was quickly becoming blanketed with snow. Ria could see him gnawing the inside of his jaw.

  He swiveled his head back around quickly. "I could be talked into a cup of coffee."

  She hesitated only a few heartbeats before nodding. He got out and came around to open her door. His fingers curled firmly around her upper arm as they made their way up the treacherously icy sidewalk.

  Ria took her key from her silver metal evening bag and opened the front door. The warm air inside embraced them like an old and beloved friend. Ria flipped on a wall switch. The end-table lamp didn't come on, as she had expected it to. Instead her Christmas tree lit up.

  "Oh, I forgot. I plugged the lights into the socket operated by this switch."

  "You should have had an electrician do it," he said teasingly. "Nice tree."

  "Thank you."

  "The old-fashioned kind."

  Leaving her standing just inside the door, he walked over to the fireplace. Glowing red coals were still smoldering beneath a stack of charred wood. He moved the screen aside, stirred the coals with a poker, and added two new logs. They caught immediately.

  In the bright firelight, the melting snowflakes on his hair and shoulders sparkled like diamonds. He turned and looked at Ria. His eyes, his shadowed face, the purposeful way he moved toward her, made her tremble.

  "I'll put the coffee on," she said breathlessly.

  He caught her hand as she went past him. "Ria?"

  "What?"

  "There's snow on your hair," he whispered. She shook her head. He watched the sensuous movement of her loose hair. "It's beautiful. Black as midnight. So shiny and silky. So seductive."

  What was seductive, she thought, was the way he threaded his fingers through it and spread it out on the fur shoulders of her coat. His eyes moved over her face, down her throat, into the shadowy cleft between her breasts. Ria shivered, and said, "It'll be warm in just a minute."

  "Baby, it's already warm."

  His voice reminded her of the low purring of his car's engine. The power behind it was temperately held in check. One careless move and it could zoom out of control.

  Stepping closer, he cupped her face between his hands and stroked her cold cheeks with his thumbs, warming them instantly. He bent his head and brushed his lips across hers.

  His first kiss was light and questing. The next one was firm and questing. Ria gasped and quickly turned her head away. "I'm sorry," he said. "I had no right to do that. It's just that … damn, I wanted to kiss you."

  She lifted her face up to his again. She felt boneless, as light as air. Her eyes remained open only because they were greedy to look at him. "Don't apologize. This is Christmas Eve."

  "In that case…"

  He kissed her again. This time his mouth opened over her lips, urging them to part. She complied. They tasted each other. Their tongues touched. Circuit completed. Nerve endings popped and hissed like live wires.

  "You were right, Ria," he said in a raspy tone of voice, moving his lips against her dewy mouth. "There's nothing like the real thing."

  He pulled her against him. His hands caressed her through the lavish fur of her coat. Then he flung it aside, twirling it out and away from her like a matador's cape. It landed on the couch, a few feet away. His eager and curious hands moved over her. They explored the shallow valley of her spine, her hips, her thighs—the backs, sides, and fronts of them.

  She made a startled sound when he splayed his hand over her lower body. Taylor didn't remove his hand, though he raised his head and looked down into her face with an unspoken question in his eyes. She was panting through parted, moist lips. Her eyelids fluttered open, and she gazed up at him. Then she tilted her body forward, filling the hollow of his palm with her mound.

  They both groaned with the delicious pain of desire. He stroked her, petted her, pressed her, seeking the source of her heat. While kissing madly, he shrugged out of his suit coat. Ria thought that there must have been at least a thousand buttons on his vest, but at last they were all undone and her hands were caressing his chest through his white silk shirt.

  He laid his hands on her shoulders and slowly pushed down her dress. His fingertips skated down her throat and over her collarbone. She threw her head back and he kissed her neck. His mouth was open, hot, fiercely possessive.

  Ria fumbled with the buttons of his shirt after having pulled it from his waistband. When they were all undone, her fingers combed through his generous chest hair. She reveled in the shape of his form and the vibrancy of his skin.

  Reaching around her, he slid down the back zipper of her dress. The bodice dropped to her waist. She wasn't wearing anything underneath. Reflexively she raised her hands to cover herself, but he gently drew her hands away.

  "No, please," he whispered. "You're beautiful."

  Entranced, he watched the fluid movement of her breasts as she withdrew her arms from her tight sleeves. He touched her so lightly that he was barely touching her at all as he framed her breasts between his hands. Then he slid his hands up the undersides of her arms all the way to her wrists. He raised her hands and folded them together around his neck.

  He held her close, skin to skin. For a moment that was enough. But then their mutual sighs of pleasure became ragged with need. He caressed her breasts, deftly fingering the nipples. He lifted one to his mouth. His lips enclosed it. His rough, damp tongue finessed it into a tight little peak. He murmured something about sucking it before he matched action to words.

  Desire pumped through Ria with every tugging motion of his mouth. When he unfastened her belt and eased her dress over her hips, her only protest was that he didn't do it quickly enough. The sequin dress pooled around her feet and she stepped out of the glittering heap wearing only a black garter belt, black panties, and sooty stockings with her high heels.

  Taylor swore softly. "Santa Claus must think I've been very, very good." He buried all ten fingers in her cloud of black hair and seared her mouth with a long, tongue-thrusting kiss. Lifting her against him, he carried her to the couch. As he watched her recline on top of the fur coat, he stripped off his clothing. Naked and marvelously virile, he levered himself down beside her.

  "It's no secret that I want you."
He slipped his hand into her panties. "Do you want me, Ria?" Her body said yes. His fingers sank into a wealth of creaminess. But he wanted to hear the words coming from her beautiful, sexy mouth. "Tell me."

  "Yes, I want you."

  He moved between her thighs. She looped her arms around his neck. Their lips met just as his sex, hard and smooth and full, tunneled deep inside her.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWO

  « ^ »

  "How did this happen?" Taylor's dark brows were pulled together, creating a cleft between them.

  "Didn't your father ever have a man-to-man talk with you about the birds and the bees?" Ria asked sweetly. That cleft grew deeper in proportion to his scowl. "If so, you should know how this happened."

  It had been only minutes since Ria Lavender had walked through the door of Taylor's office and delivered her stunning news. It seemed like eons. The tension between them had mounted, layer upon layer, like the formation of a volcanic mountain.

  "I meant, why weren't you protected?" He pushed the words through his teeth, which formed a formidable white barrier behind his tight lips. "Why weren't you?"

  "Usually I am. I read the papers, I heed the warnings."

  "You slipped up, I guess."

  "I took it for granted that any reasonably intelligent woman who is sexually active in this age of sexual liberation would practice some means of contraception."

  Ria's green eyes narrowed. "One," she said, holding up a perfectly manicured index finger, "I'm not sexually active in the way you suggest. I don't know what happened to me Christmas Eve. Probably too much champagne. But I'm not in the habit of taking strangers home to bed with me, and I resent your implication that I am.

  "Two." The next finger joined its sister and formed a twin spire pointing ceilingward. "I care too much about my general health to risk it by taking oral contraceptives. And three" —the third finger sprang up— "don't ever take anything concerning me for granted."

  Cursing, Taylor left his desk and moved to the windows behind it. Cramming his fists into his pockets and hunching his shoulders, he glowered at her. Pregnancy wasn't the only trap she'd sprung on him. One sight of her and he was back on that sofa, listening to those quick, light little breaths she'd drawn when she came. He wished he could block out that disturbing sound.