Baby Christmas

by Pamela Browning

  She felt heavy, weighted, and at the same time an exquisite excitement seemed to curl upward from someplace deep inside. She wanted to savor the sensation and encourage it, and she knew that in order for Joe to be able to take her where she wanted to go, she would have to abandon herself to him totally.

  This was about trust, and she hadn’t thought she was ready to trust anyone. She certainly wasn’t ready to trust herself. But here was Joe, his mouth ever more urgent upon hers, his hands sliding up and up until they molded to her breasts. She couldn’t help responding to him; she hadn’t known she could feel so wanton. She arched her back, and his hands slid down to her buttocks and crushed her to him.

  “Oh, Rachel,” he breathed into her ear, and she went limp at the sound of her name. She could feel the strong male hardness of him through her clothes, and so help her, she wanted him. She wanted—what? Something just for her. Something special and meaningful and right. And she wanted to feel again, to experience the passion and joy and excitement of holding a man in her arms and being loved by him. And not just any man—this man.

  Joe loosened the circle of his arms and gazed down at her. “Let’s go into the bedroom,” he said. “I want to make love to you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, only a moment, conjuring up the four faces that had been so dear to her. But Nick and Lolly and Melissa and Derek weren’t there. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t see them. And when she opened her eyes, there was Joe, his face full of wonder and admiration and something else, too.

  Then he was sweeping her up in his arms and carrying her across the room and through the door into a bedroom with a huge king-size bed.

  When she was lying beside him on her side and he was on the bed facing her, she had one brief thought: what if he didn’t like her? What if she displeased him, what if she couldn’t respond to him? What if it had been so long that this didn’t work?

  He caressed her cheek, and he lifted her fingertips to his lips and kissed them one by one, and her mind was a jumble of thoughts. She thought about how he had danced with her on the road at the beach and how he had so eagerly shared his house plans with her. How he had capably cared for Chrissy, how he had taken charge in the beginning when she’d almost fallen apart, how he had let his family think that she was his girlfriend. They had experienced a lot in the past three days, enough to learn many things about each other, and one of the things that she’d learned was that yes, she did trust him. And maybe it was more than that, though she didn’t dare hope.

  Her fingers encountered a gap between the buttons of his shirt, slid inside and touched warm skin. She imagined her lips upon it, her tongue tasting him. Her mouth opening to him, exploring him. She went weak at the thought.

  “Okay?” he said as his hand moved lower, feathering across the top of her breast.

  “Okay,” she whispered back, and she reached around to unhook the fasteners of her dress, but he was there first. And then her breasts were bare, and then the rest of her, and after reverently expressing his approval of what he saw, his eyes, smoky now with passion, were searching her face. It was such an emotional moment that unbidden tears sprang into her own eyes. But Rachel wasn’t sad, she was happy, and she knew that he was happy, too. It was gratifying to know that she could give someone else pleasure in this way because before this, before Joe, she’d thought this part of her life was over forever.

  “Oh, Rachel, you are such a treasure,” he breathed, and he kissed the hollow between her breasts, then found one rosy nipple and traced its outline with his tongue before teasing it between his lips.

  Her hands reached lower, helped him tug off his shirt, and he rose to his knees and swiftly rid himself of the rest of his clothes. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sight of his torso, all ropy muscles and hard belly, thick dark hair and tanned skin. She wanted to look at the rest of him, all of him, and she wanted him to look at her.

  Joe lowered himself over her so that they were lying together, skin to skin, heart to heart. Her fears about what he might think of her evaporated when he said softly and with heartfelt expression, “You are so lovely, Rachel. You have a beautiful body.” He slid his hand across the flat of her stomach, caressed her abdomen and wove his fingers in the curls below.

  When she would have spoken, he silenced her with a kiss. “Don’t say anything,” he said, the words hot against her lips. His beard bit into her cheek as his mouth claimed hers with a fierceness that she hadn’t expected, and she closed her eyes as doubt and longing gave way to ecstasy.

  He took his time, exploring the voluptuousness of her breasts, dropping a light kiss on her navel and lower. When she didn’t think she could stand it any longer, when she was virtually mindless with desire, she moved her hands down, down, across the taut muscles of his abdomen until she found what she sought. He was all man, and he was all hers.

  “Are you ready for me, Rachel?” he asked, his voice ragged and uneven, and in that moment she thought she had been ready for Joe Marzinski all her life. She wanted nothing more than to be filled by him, to be part of him, to assuage the longing that was more than lust and more than sex. She wanted to know him, to know all of him, would die if she couldn’t have this man and if he couldn’t have her.

  He slid between her legs, and she rose to meet him on a crest of wild rhythm, crying out in her intensity, and he murmured in her ear, words that fell upon her parched spirit like rain in the desert after a long, long drought, and she pulled his head down and kissed him with all the pent-up passion of her soul.

  He felt the intensity of her kiss, and the love in it. In that moment he knew what was happening to her, and he was so moved by her openness to him that all control left him. Wanting to experience more, to know all of her, body and mind and heart and soul, he drove himself into her again and again, so hard that she could only cling to him and gasp. He was a man demented, ferocious with passion, and she became liquid, flowing to meet him, flowing into him until the heat of their passion swirled and converged and pulsed outward from her very soul.

  When it was over, when she lay damp in his arms, Rachel tried to remember what he had cried out at the height of their joining. She thought he had said her name and something else.

  She thought he had said, “Marry me.”

  Chapter Nine

  When Joe opened his eyes the next morning, Rachel’s head was snugged into the hollow of his shoulder, and her hand was curled trustingly on his chest. Her head rose and fell with his breath, one errant strand of golden-blond hair tickling him below his left ear. He remembered, all in a flash, their lovemaking last night. She had been everything he’d ever hoped for, and he had made love to her until the wee hours of the morning.

  After the first time, when they’d been new to each other and unable to get enough, there had been a second, more tender time. They had made love until the night folded over them and they slept, and they had not broken contact since.

  Rachel stirred, sighed and slid her leg between his. Joe decided in that moment that this was the way he wanted to wake up every morning. With Rachel. He didn’t want to be parted from her, ever.

  Did Rachel feel the same way? That’s what he didn’t know. He was on the verge of waking her up and asking when the telephone rang.

  “Joe?” Rachel murmured as he pulled away.

  “My darling,” was all he said, dropping a kiss on her forehead as she opened her eyes. Then he was up and out of bed, much as he regretted it. A glance at the bedside clock revealed that it was seven o’clock in the morning, and experience had taught him that such early phone calls generally announced crises of great magnitude; there was no point in letting his answering machine pick up.

  “Hello, Joe, it’s me, Gina.”

  “Gina! Is everything all right? What’s wrong?” He wasn’t exactly surprised to hear from her after the emotional message she’d left on his machine last night, but he didn’t like the timing, not with Rachel wakin
g up and looking all sleepy-eyed and kissable on the other side of the room.

  “Nothing’s wrong, Joe,” said Gina. A big sigh, then a long pause. “Well, that’s not exactly truthful. I want to come over this morning. I need to talk with you.”

  Joe glanced over at the bed where Rachel was sitting up and stretching. She wasn’t wearing any clothes, and in fact her dress and underwear were tumbled into an untidy pile on the floor at the end of the bed; he smiled at her, sharing the knowledge of last night.

  He made himself pay attention to Gina. “I don’t know if it’s such a good idea to come over right now, Gina,” he said. “Can’t it wait?”

  “I’m just so…so…oh, I don’t know, Joe. Maybe I don’t need to see you. Maybe I’ll get some sleep.”

  “Didn’t you just wake up?”

  “No, after I came back from the party with Anna and Mitch, I stayed up listening to music. I’ve been up all night. I think I want to crash. Or maybe eat some breakfast.”

  Typical college kid behavior, he thought to himself. Gina was probably accustomed to pulling all-nighters or maybe partying until dawn with her friends. Still, he was relieved that there was no emergency.

  “That sounds like a winner,” he told her. “Say, you want to call me when you wake up? You’ve got my pager number, right?”

  “Right. That’s a good idea.” Gina yawned. “Sorry for calling you so early. It was really stupid of me. Say, um, Joe?”

  “Yes?” J

  “How is the baby?”

  “She’s fine and healthy and being well taken care of,” he said, slightly surprised at the question. But then everyone was interested in babies.

  “Oh, that’s good. I’m glad she’s okay and all. Well, um, sorry to bother you.” With that, Gina hung up.

  Joe shook his head ruefully as he replaced the phone in its cradle. “That Gina. I don’t know what’s the story with her lately. I’ll take her out for a hamburger one of these days, see if she opens up.” He looked at Rachel, really looked at her. She was deathly pale, and she was holding her head in her hands.

  “Rachel?”

  “Headache. Bad one. I think I drank too much wine last night,” she said.

  “God, Rachel, it wasn’t that much.”

  “More than I usually drink. I should have known better.”

  He went into the bathroom. “Here’s a couple of aspirin,” he said as he shook them out of the bottle. He brought her a glass of water, and she tossed back the pills.

  “What time is it?

  “Seven o’clock.”

  “I shouldn’t have slept so late,” she said, wrapping the sheet around her and sliding over to the edge of the bed. She stood uncertainly, clutching at the bedpost. “I think I have the entire Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade marching around in my head. Which is going to pop wide open any minute like an overinflated balloon.” She winced as he set the water glass down on the nightstand. “Too loud,” she groaned.

  He moved closer, looked into her eyes. Yeah, they looked kind of bloodshot, all right Other than that, she was beautiful, hair all mussed and wild, lips still swollen from his kisses. But she wouldn’t want to hear that at the moment. “Dr. Marzinski here. I prescribe a hot shower and breakfast,” he told her.

  “Breakfast? Oh, no, you don’t.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Coffee’s good.”

  He went into the bathroom and got the shower going, and then he steered her toward it. “Towels. Washcloth. Soap. Shampoo,” he said, showing her where they were.

  Rachel only moaned.

  While she was attempting to wash away her hangover, Joe started the coffeemaker, went and brought the newspaper in from the front step. He’d had no idea that Rachel had drunk so much last night. He hadn’t. He’d been too intent on breaking through the barriers. But maybe the wine was why she’d been so uninhibited. She’d been sexy and sensual and not at all reticent.

  As he was setting out mugs, Rachel, wearing a towel, stuck her head out of the bedroom and told him that she was ready for clothes.

  “How’s the head?”

  “Still not good. The coffee smells great, though.”

  “It’s a Kona blend from Hawaii. Special medicine for hangovers,” he told her as he went to dig a Condo Crisis

  Control T-shirt out of his drawer for her. She tugged it over her head before he could even express his appreciation for the way she looked with her skin still damp from the shower.

  She studied the jeans he handed her with a bemused expression. “I think these are slightly too large. Do you have something else? Shorts, maybe?”

  He found a pair of running shorts and she put them on, filling them out admirably. “Sherman will think I’ve taken up early-morning jogging,” she said with a wry expression, and he thought that if she could joke, she J must be on the way to recovery.

  When they were on the patio drinking their coffee, Rachel leaned forward, elbows on the table, coffee mug cupped between her hands. He offered her a section of the newspaper, but she waved it away.

  “I wonder if Chrissy slept through the night,” she said broodingly.

  Joe folded up the business section. He supposed it was only natural that Rachel would be preoccupied with the baby. “Don’t worry, Chrissy is fine. Gladys was thrilled to be asked to take care of her.”

  Rachel sighed. “I can’t help thinking about Chrissy. I can’t help hoping everything will be okay for her.”

  “Don’t worry, Rachel. Not about that, anyway. Let’s not talk about the baby—I’d rather concentrate on us.”

  Rachel gazed at him over the rim of her mug. He got the distinct impression that she didn’t think there was an “us.” As if to confirm his suspicions, she drained the last of her coffee. “I’d better get going,” she said. With that, she jumped up and hurried inside.

  Somewhere a mockingbird trilled, and the sprinkler system next door switched on, whirling rhythmic splats of water against the patio wall. Joe ran a hand over the back of his neck, totally perplexed. It was just his luck that when he finally had Rachel all to himself, she wanted to leave. Besides, to his way of thinking, they had unfinished business.

  He got up and followed her inside where he found her in the bathroom hanging up the wet towel she’d used. “Why go home right now? Gladys is taking good care of Chrissy, you can bet on it,” he said.

  Rachel refused to look at him. “Sherman comes on duty at nine. I don’t want him to see me stumbling in this morning with a hangover.” She walked back into the bedroom and snatched her dress up from the floor in obvious dismay.

  “I liked sleeping in the same bed with you, Rachel,” he said, wondering why this wasn’t going well. At the same time a little niggling of annoyance twitched at him. Hadn’t Rachel felt what he’d felt last night? That this was special? Hadn’t she heard him say what he’d said at the last? Well, not at the last. At the end of the first time they’d made love.

  If she had, she wasn’t letting on.

  “I’m awful to sleep with. I grab the covers. I take up more than my share of the bed.”

  “You didn’t,” he began, but she silenced him with a look. Joe was bewildered. He’d thought that last night had held meaning for both of them, and what he’d really wanted to do ever since the moment when he’d awakened with her in his arms was to make love to her again, this time letting her take the lead and showing him what she liked.

  “Will you take me home?” The set of her chin told him that she was leaving whether he liked it or not.

  His hopes plummeted. This meant that there would be no lazy Sunday lovemaking this morning, and he might as well accept the fact. He went to the closet, yanked out a shirt and pulled it over his head.

  “Okay, Rachel, I’ll drive you back to the Elysian Towers, and then maybe I’ll stop by to visit Mom and Dad. Mom mentioned that she’s got a drain that’s kind of sluggish, so I’d better take a look.” He was brisk, even brusque. He didn’t want her to know that his feelings were hurt.<
br />
  It worked, because then Rachel was asking him for a bag to put her dress in for the ride home, and after that the phone rang, and the caller turned out to be his mother getting frantic about the drain, which apparently wasn’t working at all by this time.

  Joe calmed his mother, got the real story from his dad, found a bag for Rachel’s dress and held the front door for her on the way out. He transferred his tool kit from his work van to the BMW and then he drove Rachel to the Elysian Towers. It was a silent ride, neither of them talking. He turned the radio on to lessen the awkwardness between them.

  He pulled over to the side of the road near a patch of sandspurs where she said she wanted to get out, at a point well before the entrance to the condo parking lot. Rachel was reaching for the door handle when he knew he couldn’t let her go without telling her how he felt about her.

  “Rachel,” he said desperately. “Wait.”

  Her look was like that of a doe caught in the headlights of a car. She didn’t say anything, merely looked at him.

  Damn! How to get through to her? How to make her see that she wasn’t a one-night stand, that she was more, much more to him than that? He drew a deep breath.

  “Rachel,” he said again, but she reached over and touched a hand, feather light, to his lips.

  “Don’t say it,” she said. “Don’t.”

  And then she was out of the car and running along the edge of the road. Running away from him and, it seemed, the possibilities of their relationship.

  She knew what he’d been going to say. She had to. And she didn’t want to hear it.

  But why? Why would the thought of his being in love with her scare her so much?

  RACHEL DECODED TO CHASE the remnants of her hangover by taking a long walk on the beach before reclaiming Chrissy from Gladys.

  The beach was quiet, the ocean calmer at this hour than it probably would be all day. The fast-rising sun poured a wash of shimmery golden light across the gently billowing sea, a sight that Mimi had once said inspired her to decorate her whole apartment in yellow.