The word no hovered on the tip of her tongue until she heard her mother admonishing her to learn to have fun. She had an empty apartment waiting, and Central Park would be beautiful in the snowy onslaught.
“Why not?”
“Gracious, as usual,” he said.
“I wouldn’t want you to think aliens had taken over my body.” She figured if she could just keep things on the same footing they’d been on since she met him, she’d be okay. Holidays or not, she wasn’t expected to be nice to him.
Cole strode over to the driver, his shoulders impossibly wide in his wool winter coat, snow dusting his hair. He exchanged a few words with the man, some folded cash and something else she couldn’t make out at this distance. In less than a minute the driver handed her up into the vehicle. She settled on the worn velvet upholstery and Cole climbed in behind her. Suddenly it was all too close and too tight and he was too large to share such an enclosed space. Her heart thudded against her ribs. But she could hardly leap up and jump out of the carriage simply because they were now sitting shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, even though that minimal contact sent heat surging through her.
She gritted her teeth and looked in the other direction. Their guide spread a blanket over their laps. A half roof, similar to that of a convertible, with “windows” cut into each side, sheltered them from the wet stuff.
Then the driver climbed onto his seat and took up the reins and with a quiet “Heyya,” they were off.
It was like being transported someplace magical where green boughs hung low beneath the weight of white powder and the lights of the city were a far and distant place in the future. A quixotic blend of lassitude and longing stole through her.
Cole turned his head, which brought his mouth a mere inch or so from hers. “Cozy? Warm enough?”
She shifted slightly, enough to put a gap between them. “Toasty. Thanks.”
“You know, I think I’ve finally figured you out,” Cole said.
“Really? Please enlighten me.”
“You want to kiss me.”
She tried not to sputter. “You’re delusional.”
“You can’t add that to your long list of my sins.” The look in his blue eyes filled her with a delicious heat. “Why else would you sit under mistletoe?”
“I didn’t, Mr. Half-Baked Brain.” She glanced up. Sure enough, a sprig of mistletoe hung suspended from the carriage top above them. “Let me remind you, this was your idea.” Precisely. That was the other thing she’d seen him hand the driver.
“Are you implying I want to kiss you?” he said.
“I’m not implying anything.” A woman could drown in the depths of his eyes. “I’m saying it outright. I’m stating it so your simple mind can grasp it. You planned this.” She wasn’t sure whether she was annoyed at his manipulation or flattered.
“Just because I dream about your mouth at night, how it would feel…” He skimmed his fingertip along the bow of her upper lip and she nearly forgot to breathe. His voice was low and seductive in the cocoon of their carriage. “How it would taste…” He traced the seam of her mouth and she felt his touch all the way to her toes. “Is not proof that I would deliberately manipulate you under a sprig of mistletoe. I’m not that kind of guy.”
She nipped the tip of his finger between her teeth. “You’re exactly that kind of guy.”
“Then I might as well live down to your expectations.” He reached beneath her hair and cupped her neck in his hand. She could easily pull away, protest, but—God help her—she just wanted to kiss him. Once.
The air was cold and his mouth was warm and she kissed him back.
“Tatiana,” he murmured her name against her mouth and fisted his hand in her hair. Then he kissed her again and she realized she’d been wrong. She wanted—no, desperately needed—more than one of his kisses. She pressed closer to him, hungry for his warmth. Her tongue met his in a languorous sweep, and she was drowning in the sensation of cold air bracing her skin and the heat of his mouth.
Kissing Cole was like a stiff measure of brandy that warmed her from within and made her nearly drunk from the pleasure. Sweet, hot desire pooled between her thighs and left her breasts feeling full and aching for his touch. Instinctively she shifted and he pulled her nearer beneath the blanket.
They might have gone on kissing for…well, who knew for how long if the carriage hadn’t rocked to a stop, and Tatiana realized she was half sitting on his lap. Her body hummed like a finely tuned instrument ready to be played. If she was a Stradivarius, there was no mistaking the hard press of his bow next to her hip.
Tatiana blinked her eyes open. She scooted off his lap. Ostensibly they were back where they’d started, except she knew with a surety they’d never be back where they’d started.
The air’s chill seeped into her. If they hadn’t been in a public place, she wouldn’t have stopped. Desire and promise simmered in his gaze. He wouldn’t have stopped either. She felt it and she knew he did, too. It was there in his eyes. The next time was inevitable and they’d finish what they’d started tonight. This had satisfied nothing. Instead it had aroused a ravening hunger in her for the touch of his hands, the taste of his skin, the exquisite slide of him inside her.
Cole appeared all too satisfied with himself. “I told you you wanted to kiss me.”
She reached above them, tweaked down the mistletoe and dropped it in his lap.
“Well, darling, if you insist…You certainly won’t get any resistance from me.” His grin was sheer arrogant wickedness.
She offered him the sweetest smile she could muster. “If I wanted to kiss you, I wouldn’t need a piece of greenery to do it.”
She stepped past him and the driver handed her down.
It might not have been the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but it was a damn good exit line.
7
COLE PLOPPED INTO HIS seat in the Circle of Love. Friday afternoon. The final gift exchange. And he’d damn near missed it. He’d ditched work this morning because he’d decided on a new final Secret Santa gift for Tatiana after their carriage ride last night. He’d been ready to toss in the towel when he’d finally found what he was looking for. Whew! He’d barely made it back in time.
He bit back a smirk. She’d know without a doubt who had given her this gift. And without a doubt, she wouldn’t reveal him as her Secret Santa. He looked around. Everyone was here except her.Melvin beamed at the crowd. “Well, it’s time to open the final gifts—”
Cole interrupted. “Hold on. Aren’t we going to wait for Tatiana?”
“She’s already left for the day,” Elle said.
But he’d caught a glimpse of her early this morning. “What?”
“Yeah. She thought she was coming down with something so she left,” Elle explained.
Melvin rubbed at his balding spot. “Yeah. I meant to tell you earlier, but I got hung up on something else. You only have that final restaurant visit tonight. She asked if you could do it separately and e-mail the reviews in. That’s the new plan.”
“What’s wrong with her?” He felt a foreign sense of panic that she was ill.
“She thought it might be the flu and didn’t want to make everyone sick for the holiday weekend.”
Andi spoke up. “I’m sorry she’s sick, but thank God she didn’t stay and spread germs. I’ve got twenty people coming for dinner on Sunday. Getting the flu would be a disaster at this point.”
The gift exchange wasn’t nearly as much fun without Tatiana there. He’d so looked forward to throwing her off balance with his gift. And he hated to think of her at home, all alone and sick.
He retrieved his gift and opened it. He’d begun to think his Secret Santa might just be Ms. Snippy herself, but this blew that theory to hell. Someone had baked him homemade cookies. He’d had cookies from a bakery any number of times, but his mother or any of the subsequent steps had never been of the cookie-baking variety. He pulled off the plastic cling film and inhaled dee
ply. Ah, a hint of almond. Slightly brown around the edges. It was quite possibly the nicest gift anyone had ever given him.
He knew a moment of intense possessiveness. No one had ever done this for him before, and he wanted to save them, hoard them as his own. But it was Christmas and he was thirty, not three, so he offered the plate around and everyone except Misha, who struggled to control his diabetes, took one. Finally he took one for himself. He bit into it. Perfect. And he still had about half a dozen left.
After the exchange, everyone began to pack up to go home. The day’d been pretty much a blow-off anyway. Melvin had dismissed the department with holiday wishes. Tatiana’s gift sat pathetically alone on the now-empty table next to the rosemary topiary.
Elle began moving the chairs back to where they belonged. Cole pitched in to help.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’m trying to get out of here as soon as possible.”
“No problem.” She was gorgeous, but he’d never been interested in asking her out, even before her engagement. She bore a faint resemblance to Connie. “Heading out of the city?”
“Teddy and I are going to D.C. to see his parents tomorrow. I have one more gift to buy and then I have to pack.” She rolled her eyes. “First holiday with the almost in-laws. Teddy’s mother considers me the whore who seduced her son. His neurotic sister is also coming with her shih-tzu who has potty issues. It should be delightful.”
Cole laughed. “Sounds like fun.”
“So what’re you up to?”
The same vague holiday restlessness he experienced every year around this time seized him. Everyone seemed to have a long list of last-minute preparations except for him. “I’d planned to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my sister and her family in Connecticut. But she called this morning and my niece has the chicken pox. I’ve never had them, and since, according to Connie, it can cause impotence in adult males, I’m opting to stay home alone.”
“Yeah. Sounds like a good choice to me. What about your parents?”
“They’ve got other plans.” He didn’t have a clue what they were, but they’d had other plans for the last fifteen years.
They finished placing the last of the chairs around the smaller tables that had been pushed to the wall. Elle picked up Tatiana’s gift. “I suppose I’ll leave it on her desk for her. If my schedule wasn’t so crazy, I’d run it by and check on her, but I suppose she’s okay or she would’ve called me.”
Quite frankly he couldn’t imagine Tatiana picking up the phone and calling anyone for help unless it was a dire emergency. She could be home alone, running a fever, sick….
He had nothing but time on his hands. “I’ll take it by and check on her.”
“That’s nice, but I’m sure you have other things to do.”
“The only thing on tonight’s schedule was dinner with her, and now that’s not happening. It’s no problem.”
Elle handed him the gift he’d bought earlier that morning.
It wasn’t as if he was disappointed that she couldn’t make dinner tonight. It wasn’t as if he was worried about her. It wasn’t as if that carriage kiss had tormented him since last night. No, he simply had time on his hands to kill.
TATIANA PULLED HER tattered pink chenille bathrobe closer around her. This was her special robe. Guaranteed to make her feel better. Its healing powers had been attested to for the last twelve years, ever since Grandma Rumasky had given it to her and told her it was guaranteed to cure whatever ailed her—even if redheads shouldn’t wear pink. Today she was in major need of a cure.
Jimmy Stewart flickered on the screen in black and white as the townspeople rushed his family’s bank for their money. This was her least favorite part of It’s a Wonderful Life.She shoved off the couch and wandered into the kitchen. Cole would’ve opened his cookies by now. She was almost sorry she’d been too much of a chicken to stay and watch. She’d come home last night in such a state, longing to do something for him…well, yeah, she’d like to do that, but she also wanted to do something special that went beyond sex. The anonymity of Secret Santa afforded her the opportunity. Home-baked Christmas cookies. She knew what it would mean to the man who’d grown up without any holiday traditions other than making the most out of being exiled with his sister. She’d felt the longing she wasn’t even sure he knew he possessed when she’d talked about her family. For the span of one present, she could give him the gift of caring enough to prepare something special for him.
She opened the canister on the counter and counted out four almond cookies. Four should do her. Forget it. She put two more on her plate. She was going for six. People, on average, gained one and a half pounds over the holidays. She could at least do her part to uphold one holiday tradition considering everything else was a lost cause.
She poured herself a glass of organic skim milk and settled back down on the sofa. She dipped a cookie in the milk and then nibbled at the sodden edge. She’d spend her holiday stuffing herself like a turkey. And, who knows, maybe she’d actually get sick after telling that whopper of a lie earlier. Still, it had gotten her out of dinner with Cole. She’d been at an all-time low today when she’d skipped out of work—
A knock interrupted her cookiefest. Who was this? Maybe it was Mrs. Abramonoff’s Harry David fruit delivery. Ostensibly Edgar should have snagged the delivery guy in the lobby, but Edgar was the worst doorman in New York. Mrs. Abramonoff spent each December in Miami with family, and it seemed her December pears usually came after Christmas, but maybe this year…Tatiana would like to ignore it and pretend not to be home, but she hated to think of those pears in some frigid warehouse. “Just a minute,” she called out.
She left her cookies and milk on the coffee table. It was a testimony to her Indiana upbringing that she had already thrown the dead bolt by the time she looked through the peephole. No brown-shirted delivery person bearing fruit stood on the other side. Nope. All six feet and some inches of broad-shouldered, blue-eyed, sether-on-fire-with-his-kisses Cole Mitchell stood there.
She looked down at the chenille robe with its bald spots and the thick socks on her feet. Yep, she was pretty much hideous.
He knocked on the door again and she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Tatiana? Are you okay? I heard the lock. Are you too weak to open the door? Do I need to call 911?”
Although it might serve her right for lying, she didn’t need him to call 911. She did the only thing she knew to do under the circumstances. She opened the door…and hoped she didn’t live to regret it.
8
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING here?” she asked.
“You know, you could give a guy a complex. I told Elle I’d drop off your Secret Santa gift,” Cole admitted stepping into her apartment. At work she was the cool snark. At dinner she was engaging. And more than once he’d imagined her naked or nearly naked. But this was a version of Tatiana Allen he’d never imagined. In her boxers and tank top with thick socks and a pink robe, her hair pinned up with a giant clip, she looked cute. Adorably sexy.“You really shouldn’t have.”
“Well, it’s a lousy time to be sick.” Except she didn’t look very sick to him. In fact, right now he’d peg her for looking extremely guilty. He hefted the bag in his right hand. “I stopped by Lemwitz Deli and picked you up some chicken soup. Mrs. Lemwitz makes it fresh every day, including her own noodles. Nothing’s better than chicken soup when you’re sick.”
“Thanks. Thanks a lot. I’ll just take these and you can be on your way. I don’t want to tie up your time.”
Hmm. She looked a little flushed, but he didn’t see any watery eyes, red nose or signs of a cough. And her voice didn’t sound scratchy. Not to mention that she was trying to hustle him out of there faster than a two-bit pimp.
“I’ve got plenty of time. Remember, I was planning to spend my evening with you anyway. So I’ll just put these in the kitchen. I’m not going anywhere until I’m sure you’re okay.” More like until he was sure she’d faked being sick, which seemed increasing
ly likely. “You sit down and I’ll warm up a bowl of chicken soup.”
He stepped around her and into what was obviously the kitchen. She followed behind him. “You don’t listen very well. I don’t need to be taken care of.”
“You obviously don’t listen well either since you’re not sitting on the couch like a good girl waiting on me to nurse you back to health.”
“I don’t need to be nursed. I’m feeling better. Do you ever listen?”
“Huh?” He laughed at her flash of irritation. “I do listen, but sometimes my other senses distract me. Like my sense of sight, which happens frequently when I’m around you. By the way, you look adorably sexy in that outfit and not nearly as intimidating as you do at the office.”
“There’s nothing adorable about me in general. And as for sexy in this outfit, you obviously think I’ve developed a brain flu if I’m buying that.”
Cole laughed and shrugged. “It really doesn’t matter whether you buy it or not as long as it’s what I think.”
“You’re infuriating.”
“Am I?” He brushed the back of his hand down the length of her neck. “Hmm. No fever.” He bent his head and breathed in the scent of her skin, her heat. “Well, you’re enchanting even when you’re at your snarkiest.”
“You’re sick.”
“Very possibly. I’m feeling rather lightheaded now.” He nuzzled the length of her neck.
“I might be contagious,” Tatiana protested but didn’t pull away. Instead she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“I’m sure you are and I’m sure I’ve already got a pretty bad case. I’ve got a theory.”
“I can tell by your voice it’s going to be something gnat-brained.”
“Maybe I have a masochistic streak, because I love it when you talk like that.” Her fingers in his hair, against his neck, caused heat to sizzle through him. “I think you bagged work today because you’ve got the same thing I’ve got.”
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