“Natalie,” he said, keeping his voice steady. “What’s fine?”
She stilled. “You don’t want to take a shower and leave me alone in your house. Which is fine. I mean, I wouldn’t violate your privacy—but I understand that you don’t want to take that risk.” She pulled out a roll of colored beads. “Where would you like these?”
He stared at the back of her head. “Natalie,” he said with more force this time.
She stood, but she didn’t turn around. “Do you wrap these around the tree?”
He closed the distance between them and turned her around so she had no choice but to look at him. “Natalie, that’s not what I meant.”
She closed her eyes. “You don’t owe me an explanation. I know this hasn’t been how you wanted to spend your holiday and I—”
She didn’t get any further than that because CJ kissed her. Roughly. Her eyes widened and she gave a little squeak that almost made him pull away. But before he could, her eyelids drifted shut as she sighed into his mouth. Her arms went around his neck and pulled him in close and then she was kissing him back. Her mouth opened and with a groan, CJ dipped his tongue into her.
God, she tasted so good—sweet and earthy, with a hint of vanilla. She was like a cookie and he wanted to nibble at her. Slowly.
But he couldn’t. Dammit, he couldn’t. There were reasons. Okay, so he couldn’t exactly remember what those reasons were—not when she moaned into him like she was doing as his tongue dipped in and out of her mouth. But just because he couldn’t remember them didn’t mean there weren’t any so, reluctantly, he forced himself to lean back. Her eyes were closed and her chest was heaving and he almost kissed her again right then and there. But then her eyelashes fluttered and she looked at him and there was a happiness to her that he hadn’t expected to see. She was happy that he’d kissed her.
Doubt slithered in. Was she happy because she’d wanted him to kiss her? Or was this part of the story she was researching?
But then she touched his cheek and, with a crooked smile, said, “There. You’re warmer already.”
She turned to go, but CJ caught her in his arms and held her tight. “Natalie,” he breathed against her skin but he didn’t know what he was asking. Did he want her to kiss him? Did he want some sort of reassurance that this was real? Did he want something more?
He didn’t know and it was only mildly reassuring that she didn’t seem to know, either. He touched his forehead to hers but even that connection felt significant.
He hadn’t had a serious relationship since college—since the last time he tried to tell someone that he was a Beaumont by birth.
The last time he had told someone about Hardwick Beaumont, it had ruined everything. But Natalie already knew about it. With each passing hour, it seemed to matter less, not more.
God, how he wanted it not to matter at all.
She was the one who broke the silence. “Go take a shower,” she told him, a waver in her voice. “I won’t decorate the tree without you.”
He didn’t want to ask this question but he asked it anyway. “What are you going to do?”
Her smile was a lot sadder. “It’s been a long day. I’ll probably just sit on the couch and watch the fire.”
He could take her at her word because it had been a long day. He had gotten her up early and run her outside to shovel snow and then taken her on a ride on the snowmobile.
Or he could stay down here, forgo a shower and keep an eye on her.
He’d already kissed her. Hell, he had already made his choice. “I won’t be long,” he promised, stroking his fingers over her cheek. Her whole body shook with what he prayed was need.
God, he hoped he didn’t regret this.
Nine
He had kissed her. Hard.
The kind of kiss that left a girl anxious and burning, that made sitting awkward and standing a misery. The kind of kiss that normally led to so much more than a full-body hug.
He had kissed her. And then left her alone.
Those two thoughts repeated over and over in her head as Natalie filled a coffee mug and curled up on the sofa. He had kissed her and left her alone in his house for the first time in days.
That was amazing enough. But what was even more amazing was the fact that she was doing exactly what she had told him she would. She was going to sit here and admire this beautiful tree that he had gotten for her and she was going to watch the fire dance and she was not going to pry into his life.
She didn’t want him to be her story and she didn’t want to share him or this time with anyone else. For someone who had lived so much of her life oversharing in an attempt to get people to look at her, it felt odd that she didn’t want anyone else to know about this. But this time was hers and his. It didn’t belong to anyone else.
So what was she supposed to do now? Keep hoping this semi-involuntary Christmas vacation would go on forever? That was no answer and she knew it. It was one thing to intrude on CJ’s privacy and hospitality for a couple of days, but it was another thing to suggest that anything about this could become more permanent. Besides, she had a job to do—a job she loved.
At least, she had loved it.
Hadn’t she?
She stared down at her coffee as if it held the answers. What if she hadn’t loved her job? What if she actually hated it? What if putting herself on display and hoping to get noticed had secretly made her sick?
Because she was. Sick of the trolling and negativity. Sick of trying so hard to get a reaction that it stopped being about getting good reactions and started being about getting any reaction. She was sick of it all and she hadn’t realized it until CJ had taken her phone away.
No, it was more than that. He had taken her phone away and then relentlessly treated her like a real human being. She wasn’t a commodity or a collection of body parts. She was a woman and, after a kiss like that, she might even be a woman he could like. That wasn’t a bad thing at all.
She didn’t have relationships. So she had no idea if that were even a possibility.
She was so lost in thought that she didn’t hear him come downstairs. One moment, she was contemplating what life would be like if she just...stopped. Stopped being the Natalie Baker of A Good Morning with Natalie Baker, stopped tweeting and sharing. Stopped trying to get everyone’s attention and instead focused on keeping one man’s attention.
The next moment, CJ was standing in front of her, smiling down at her as if he were relieved to find her exactly where she’d said she’d be. His hair was damp from the shower and she had the overwhelming urge to press a kiss to the base of his neck and see what he tasted like.
But she didn’t. “Are we going to decorate the tree now?”
He looked so happy. This had been building for days now, this slow thaw. What would he be like if he melted completely?
“Let me put on some Christmas music and we’ll get started.”
Everything about this was new and exciting. She only listened to Christmas music when she was on the air or in stores.
CJ loaded a streaming music mix, which meant they bopped from Elvis to Mariah Carey and then back to Bing Crosby. CJ knew the words to every single song and his singing voice wasn’t half-bad.
They strung lights and beads and hung ornaments—some of which clearly went back to his childhood. But she didn’t ask. It was enough to know that he’d had a wonderful childhood—because that much was obvious.
She thought of everything she knew about the Beaumont family—the divorces, the scandals, the rumors that people whispered. She knew a great deal about the Beaumonts—far more than was probably common knowledge. And she knew that a lot of them had not had happy childhoods. In that regard, she was more like his family than he was.
But he’d had a different life. One filled with homemade ornaments lovingly preserved and displayed every single year and Christmas carols and hot cocoa.
How would her life have been different if there’d been a little bit of hope at Christmas?
Why hadn’t she ever done this? She could’ve gotten a tree—even a small one, with twinkling lights and cute little ornaments that meant something to her, even if they didn’t mean a single thing to anyone else. Why hadn’t she celebrated Christmas before now?
Because Christmas was joy and happiness and fun. Christmas was hope and peace and she...
Did she deserve any of it?
“Christmas movies or football?” CJ asked, snapping her out of her thoughts.
She gave him a dull look, but couldn’t keep the smile off of her face. “Movies,” she said decisively. But then she added, “I haven’t watched a lot of Christmas movies before, so you’ll have to tell me what’s good.”
CJ popped a big bowl of popcorn and made more cocoa—he went a little lighter on the peppermint schnapps this time, but he still added some. Then they curled up on the couch and Natalie pulled the blanket over them and they started watching something called A Christmas Story.
“You’ve really never seen this before?” CJ asked as she giggled at the leg lamp.
She was trying so hard to seem normal—but clearly, she wasn’t making it. Apparently, the whole world knew about the leg lamp. “I’m usually pretty busy during the holidays,” she lied.
He stared at her for a long moment and she remembered that she had a tell. She was just about to say something else to cover her embarrassment when he said, “Well, I’m glad you were able to take some time off and hang out with me.” Which was also not exactly the truth. “Surely you’ve seen some Christmas shows?”
She ignored the pity lacing the edge of that question. “Oh, yes—I remember A Charlie Brown Christmas and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer when I was a kid.”
She remembered the feeling both shows had conveyed—of not belonging and wanting to so badly. And when she’d tried to watch the shows one long year after her mother had left, her dad had shattered the television screen with the remote.
How old had she been? Seven?
She pushed the unpleasant memories away and focused on the movie. And on CJ. His body was warm next to hers, and she once again found herself fighting the urge to press her breasts against his chest and kiss him. Not as thanks but because she wanted to.
And after that kiss earlier? Because he wanted her, too.
But she didn’t. The kiss earlier had been damned near perfect and for the first time ever, she wondered if sex might make things...well, not worse. But more complicated. And she didn’t want this to be complicated. She didn’t want to kiss him and have him set her aside again.
She didn’t want the rejection. And she really didn’t want that hollow feeling afterwards. If she and CJ had sex, she wanted it to mean something.
She wanted to mean something to him.
So it was better not to ask the question. Besides, there was a movie on. By the time it had ended, darkness had settled back over the living room. The popcorn bowl had been set aside and the empty mugs were somewhere on the floor. They had shifted so CJ was sprawled out on his back and Natalie was lying on his chest, the blanket pulled up over both of them. He was warm and solid—and since she was not imagining how warm and solid he’d be without his layers on—she was tempted to close her eyes and fall asleep in his arms. Because she knew that when she woke up, he’d be there and everything would be all right.
The temptation got a lot harder to avoid when he started stroking her hair. “Have you decided what you’re going to do tomorrow?” he asked as he turned off the TV with the remote and wrapped his arm around her.
He was in no hurry to get up and that made her feel better. “I can try and see if someone can come get me in town tomorrow, if you want. But I’ve never had a Christmas like this,” she told him truthfully.
He was silent for a long time but his hand still stroked over her hair. It should have been lulling her to sleep—but it wasn’t. Every inch of her skin tingled with awareness. “It might be a while before your car gets out. And I don’t know what the roads between here and Denver are like.”
She curled her fingers into his sweater and lifted her chin up so she could look at him. His eyes were half-closed, but he was watching her. The hand that had been stroking her hair shifted so he was brushing a few stray strands away from her face and the other hand, which had been laying on her back, began to rub in circles that seemed to push her closer to him. Closer to his mouth. “And if I want to stay?”
“Because you want to go to the Christmas party tomorrow night?”
She shook her head.
She saw him swallow. “Because you’re still gathering facts for your story?”
Just thinking about that made her want to cry. “No. This isn’t about that.”
He met her gaze with such strength that it made her quiver. What would it be like to have such conviction? “I don’t want to be just a story to you.”
“You’re not,” she promised, even as she wasn’t entirely sure it was a promise she could keep.
He sighed and flopped his head back on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. “But you need your story, don’t you? And because my parents insisted on hiding the truth, now it’s a thing. There’s the small matter of the family fortune—and the family.” His chest rose and fell with another heavy sigh. “I have brothers and sisters, but I don’t want to give up my life to get them. Do you understand?”
She stared at him, trying to make sense of his words. Was he offering to—to what? Be interviewed? Even if he was, that didn’t change the fact that he couldn’t come out of obscurity without people noticing. That’s not how this worked.
He was stuck—no way forward and no way back and she’d been the one to back him into this corner. But then he said, “I’m tired of hiding, Natalie.”
She froze. What? She didn’t have anything to do with him hiding. She wasn’t the one keeping him out here, alone in the darkest part of winter.
Maybe she wasn’t the only problem here. For some reason, the realization made her feel light-headed as she studied his face. Not a muscle clenched in his jaw. The man didn’t know how to lie. Maybe...
“I’m tired of keeping other people’s secrets,” he went on. “I’m tired of lies. I don’t want you to lie to me. Not anymore.”
“I won’t.” Tentatively, she touched her fingertips to his cheek, above the line of his beard. This time, he didn’t grab her hand and he didn’t push her away. He let her stroke her fingers over his skin, exploring him.
It wasn’t until she dragged her thumb over his lower lip—the same lip that had kissed her earlier—that he stopped her. “Natalie,” he said as he stilled her hand—but even then, he didn’t pull it away. Instead, he pressed a kiss to her palm. “Tell me what this is about,” he pleaded. “Tell me the truth.”
The truth. She couldn’t give him much, but she could give him that. “You’re a good man,” she told him. “You’re a kind, hard-working, damnably decent man and I like you.” He was too good for her, but she liked him anyway.
She could use everything he’d said against him. She was pretty sure that, if she tried hard enough, she could convince herself she was doing him a favor, dragging him out of the shadows and into the bright spotlight that was always fixed on the Beaumont family. He didn’t want to hide anymore? Well, she could fix that for him.
But that wouldn’t be fair to him and the more time she spent with him, the less she could turn him into just a story. Just some ratings. Just...
Just something less than a man. A flesh-and-blood man who was studying her closely while he held her palm to his cheek.
She liked him far more than she should.
It might wind up costing her the one thing she’d always valued most of all: her job.
“I won’t, CJ,” she repeated, knowing this was right. God, everything about this was right. “You’re more than a
story to me.”
This was the point where he should tell her not to touch him, tell her that he didn’t trust her. At the very least, he should pull away and tell her to go to sleep.
He did none of those things. “If you stay,” he said in a low, deep voice that did things to her, “I won’t be able to keep myself from doing this.”
His hands slid down to her bottom and pushed her up and she let him. She wanted him to. She braced her elbows on his chest and leaned into him and this time, she kissed him. He tasted like cocoa and peppermint—like Christmas. And all she wanted to do was drink him in and pretend, even if only for a little while, that she was good enough for him.
She buried her fingers in his hair and pulled back only long enough to tell him “If I stay, I won’t be able to keep myself from doing this, either,” before she kissed him back—harder this time. She sucked his lower lip in her mouth and bit down. He groaned and yanked up the hem of her sweater. And then her shirt. And then the T-shirt she had on underneath that. But eventually, he got to her bare skin and when he touched her there, she shivered.
“Are you cold?” he murmured against her skin.
She wasn’t. She was burning with the heat that started at her core and radiated out. She had on far too much clothing—and so did he.
“Maybe.”
He leaned back and, cupping her face in both his hands, stared at her. “If you’re cold, maybe I should warm you.”
Please let me be good enough for him. “Maybe you should.”
Somehow, they made it up the stairs. It wasn’t easy—she was trying to yank his sweater over his head and he was doing the same. And then there were the shirts underneath. Hands and mouths were everywhere as she jerked at buttons and he slid down the zipper on her pants. There was an advantage to wearing jeans that were too big for her—they skimmed over her long-underwear-clad hips and she was able to walk out of them in the middle of the hallway.
“Which way?” she asked because she’d only been in one room up here, the impersonal guest room.
She didn’t want this to be impersonal. She wanted every single thing to be deeply personal—from the way that CJ was kissing her and skimming his teeth over her neck and biting down against her skin to the way the muscles of his stomach tensed when she scraped her nails over his shoulders.
Rich Rancher for Christmas Page 10
