A Very Merry Christmas

by Lori Foster, Gemma Bruce

She tried a conciliatory smile, but it melted into uncertainty.

  He flipped off the lights, plunging the room into firelit intimacy. “Take off your clothes, Maddy.”

  Four

  She froze. Her heart started pounding. Now? He was going to make love to her now?

  Grant ignored her and went to the fire, adding more logs and poking the coals until he had achieved the original level of intense heat. Once again, he ripped off his shirt and shoes and kicked them aside. He turned to look at her. “It’s getting late. Undress, please.”

  Despite the polite words, it was a command.

  “I thought artists needed a well-lit studio.”

  “I want to paint you by firelight.” The words were a promise, a verbal caress. His voice was deep, whiskey smooth.

  She hesitated still. “I made popcorn and hot chocolate.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “We could do this tomorrow,” she said, grasping any opportunity to postpone the inevitable.

  “I have other plans for tomorrow.”

  His meaning was clear. She flushed from her collarbone to her hairline, and it wasn’t from the fire’s wicked heat. She licked her lips, her mouth and throat as dry as the Sahara. “Will you turn around, please?”

  “No.” His response was unequivocal. Buried beneath his impassive expression was a dare. He expected her to be confident and daring. She wasn’t sure she had it in her.

  She slipped off the floppy clown socks one at a time and dropped the bulky sweatpants. The turquoise flannel shirt covered her respectably, but her legs and feet were now bare.

  A muscle in his granite jaw flexed, but otherwise his face didn’t change. “Keep going.”

  Which would be easier? Panties first or the top? Deciding that the long shirttails provided the most protection, she reached under and dragged her underwear down her legs.

  He was waiting patiently, but she stalled, shaking with nerves. He had seen her breasts only hours before. Why was it so difficult now? Perhaps because he was staring at her with all the hungry intensity of a young cowboy eyeing his first hooker. Not that Grant would ever have been forced to pay for a prostitute. He would have been the kind of Western hero who got the preacher’s daughter and the brothel owner and every other woman in town.

  She unbuttoned the shirt, her fingers clumsy and chilled, despite the room’s toasty temperature. When the fabric hung free, she managed to look at him. His chest rose and fell with his breathing, and his hands were clenched at his sides. She shrugged her shoulders and the shirt slipped to the floor.

  His muttered imprecation was audible in the quiet room, but his next words were calm. “Lie down.”

  She sat awkwardly, tucking her legs protectively to her chest.

  He frowned. “Turn partway on your side. Let your back rest against the back of the sofa.”

  She did as he asked, refusing to look at him. She sensed his approach, and her breasts tightened in anticipation. He tucked a small throw pillow beneath her head, and winnowed his fingers in her hair, spreading it in careful disarray. His actions were matter of fact, impersonal.

  He lifted one leg so her knee was bent, and positioned her arm loosely balanced on her hip. She jerked when she felt his touch between her legs. He fluffed the curls there, combing them with his fingers. Moisture gathered in the secret folds of her body, and hunger began to build.

  He tucked her other hand under her cheek, a position that gave him a clear view of her breasts. Without warning he bent and suckled her nipples, one after the other. “Don’t move,” he said.

  His mouth tugging at the tips of her breasts sent an agonizing wave of need crashing though her body. She moaned, desperate to pull him inside her. She grasped his arm.

  He moved away, his voice unsteady. “We’re ready to begin. Get comfortable. Let your body conform to the sofa.”

  She tried to find a place inside her head where she could exist without being so terribly aware of Grant’s presence. She slowed her breathing, consciously relaxing each muscle, closing her eyes and drifting on a daydream…

  Grant mixed a swirl of paint and saw his hand shake. He wasn’t entirely sure he could follow through with this and not go stark raving mad. He was being ripped apart by opposing forces. The artist in him exulted in the chance to create a painting that would be perhaps the best he had ever done. The man, uninterested in such high-flown ambition, wrestled with primitive lust.

  Keeping one in check while allowing the other to thrive was a challenge that required his utmost concentration. He looked at his subject, trying to view her non-sexually. Her pale skin took on a golden sheen in the flickering firelight. The red highlights in her hair caught the fire’s glow, and the planes and curves of her body reminded him of a medieval canvas he’d once seen at the National Gallery, its ancient beauty still mesmerizing.

  He steadied his hand and began to paint.

  Maddy was dreaming. She lay curled on a blanket beside a gurgling creek. It was spring, and wildflowers bloomed in profusion. Across the water on the other shore, a horse pawed the ground restlessly, its silent male rider eyeing her intently, his hand resting on the hilt of a sword.

  She lifted a hand to wave, but the rider turned the horse suddenly. The animal’s front legs reared in the air. She tried to call out, to tell the man to wait, but it was too late. Horse and master disappeared into the distance.

  Her heart sank. She had missed her chance, and somehow she knew in her heart the silent rider would not return. Sad, bereft, she closed her eyes and wept.

  Grant glanced at his watch and cursed in stunned disbelief. It was almost midnight. He looked at Maddy, with the man’s eyes this time, and saw the steady, gentle evidence of her breathing.

  His lips twisted in wry self-mockery. The artist had won out over the man, but only once, for this one night. Never again.

  He carried the damp canvas to his bedroom, facing it toward the wall. No one viewed his unfinished work. It was a long-standing rule. He returned to the living room and added more wood to the fire, then covered Maddy with the sheets and blankets from the night before. It was late, and she was still tired from her ordeal, though she would never admit it. Only a selfish bastard would wake her.

  Maddy roused sometime during the night, and several things happened at once. She felt an urgent need to go to the bathroom. She realized she was naked. And she saw the empty easel and knew that she was alone.

  She slipped on the flannel shirt, tiptoeing stealthily down the hall to the bathroom. That accomplished, she ventured a few steps farther to pause at the open doorway to Grant’s bedroom. He was snoring softly, his face turned away from her. Enough illumination from the moonlit snow outside sneaked in around the curtains and enabled her to see that his big, long body was nude.

  His bedroom was far cooler than the living room, but he seemed impervious to the chill. She debated climbing into bed with him. She had never actually tried to seduce a sleeping man, but knowing the mechanics of the male species, it surely wouldn’t be too hard, no pun intended.

  She calculated quickly. They’d known each other thirty-six hours as of this moment. Would that meet with his approval? She shifted from one foot to another, her toes curling on the cold, hardwood floor.

  Oh, poop. She was a big, sniveling coward. She’d wait for daylight to launch her offensive, and if Grant Monroe still resisted…Well, then it was his loss.

  Grant listened to her soft footsteps fade away and, with a whoosh, released the breath he’d been holding. His heart pounded and his cock was hard. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and he was pretty damned sure Santa had promised him just what he’d always wanted.

  December twenty-fourth dawned with brilliant sunshine but no sign of warming temperatures. Grant listened to a weather forecast on the radio and heard the promise of a quick thaw on Christmas Day. His jaw twisted in dismay. He didn’t want this little idyll to come to an end, particularly not when things were about to get very interesting. The deep snow was his al
ly.

  After a mostly silent breakfast, rife with heated looks and snatched glances, Maddy holed up in the living room with her laptop. She typed furiously, barely lifting her head other than to occasionally pet Van Gogh and scratch the ecstatic dog behind her floppy ears.

  Grant hovered on the edge of being jealous of the dog. That would be the last straw.

  He paced restlessly from one room to the next, unable to settle on any one activity. He had more than enough wood for two blizzards, and the front porch was swept clean of snow, thanks to yesterday’s snowball fight.

  He retrieved a staple gun from the toolbox in his Jeep and began hanging sprigs of mistletoe from every available doorway. He wasn’t averse to helping Santa out. The old guy was pretty busy, after all.

  The air in the cabin was thick with the childhood excitement of the day before Christmas, but the treats in store were entirely adult in nature. Grant wanted to have a gift for Maddy, but he was too selfish to part with the painting. It was his. He brought out his sketchpad and decided to do a drawing of Maddy and Van Gogh.

  Maddy was nearing the end of her book, and the words seemed to be flowing from her fingertips onto the page. Maybe sexual frustration was good for creativity, she mused, not completely able to block out Grant’s disturbing presence. He seemed restless, and if he was feeling a tenth of what she was, she knew why.

  When he wasn’t paying attention, she scribbled lines on a notepad, trying to write a poem worthy of a Christmas present for her host. The words seemed stilted, maudlin. And she despaired of capturing her feelings on paper. What did she feel for Grant Monroe, anyway? She could write an X-rated verse, but she accepted, with no small amount of trepidation, that she felt something deep and significant…something new and exciting.

  Was it real? Could it be trusted? That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.

  They ate the last of the chili for lunch, cleaned up the kitchen and played another game of Scrabble. It was a completely civilized experience. No suggestive words, no cutthroat competition, no heated challenges. It was boring as hell.

  The afternoon dragged on, neither willing to bring their unspoken plans out into the open. Finally, Grant proposed finishing the picture.

  Maddy frowned. “The light won’t be the same.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll make do.”

  She pondered the ramifications of stripping in broad daylight. If she was going to do this, there at least had to be a payoff. She faced him, ready to pick a fight if necessary, her hands propped on her hips.

  He raised his eyebrows. “What, Maddy? Spit it out.”

  “How do you feel about having sex with someone you’ve known forty-eight hours?”

  Heat flashed in his eyes but was quickly hidden. He smiled lazily. “I suppose I could make an exception for you, if it’s that important.”

  She lifted her chin. “It’s no big deal. But our options are rather limited. You don’t even have cable.”

  His lips twitched. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a lackluster host. I’ll try to do better.”

  “That’s more like it,” she muttered. Without any ceremony, she stripped down to her bare skin and sprawled on the sofa. She had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes bulge and his jaw sag.

  After a few long seconds, he removed his hungry stare from her body and went to get the canvas. He returned, holding it carefully, so she couldn’t sneak a peek. His cheekbones were streaked with color, and he walked slowly, as though in pain. When he had positioned the canvas on the easel, he brought the radio and plugged it in near the fireplace. After several spins of the dial, he found a station with less static than most, and Bing began singing about a white Christmas.

  Van Gogh ambled over to the sofa and rested her chin beside Maddy’s arm, begging to be touched. Maddy lavished her attention on the dog, though she was aware of Grant’s every move. As he prepared his brushes, she decided it was as good a time as any to get the rest of the answers she’d been waiting for. “So, tell me, Grant. Why are you spending Christmas alone?”

  He paused for a split second and then continued what he was doing. “I’m not,” he said simply. “I’m spending it with you.”

  “You know what I mean. Why aren’t you with family?”

  He sighed. “My parents passed away in the last five years. They had me when they were well up in years. I was the unexpected baby. My two older sisters live in the D.C. area. I would normally spend Christmas with them but, like I told you, I was restless. I needed to think. About my old career, about painting, about whether or not my life was what I wanted it to be. And to tell you the truth, it’s a little difficult sometimes to be around all that happy-family stuff knowing I had a chance at marriage and blew it.”

  His blunt honesty stunned her. “I don’t think the end of the marriage was your fault.”

  He shrugged. “I wasn’t willing to compromise at the time.”

  “Maybe you weren’t supposed to. You were following your dream.”

  His lips twisted. “Dreams are cold company when you want a woman in your bed at night.”

  “You can’t tell me there hasn’t been an ample supply of women parading through your bedroom.”

  “Fewer than you think. And I’m not talking about having a woman. I’m talking about the woman. The once-in-a-lifetime, other-half-of-me, mother-of-my-children woman.”

  “That’s a tall order.”

  “You don’t think it could happen?”

  “I’m not sure. I used to.”

  He began painting, his brow furrowed in concentration as he glanced from her to the canvas to her and back again. “How do you feel about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?”

  “I wonder why we lie to our children. Maybe the whole ‘happily ever after’ thing is a lie, too.” She heard the cynicism in her voice and winced. Was she asking him to convince her otherwise?

  He worked in silence for several minutes. Finally he looked up. His dark gaze tracked over her body, male appreciation assessing her femininity and letting her know he liked what he saw. Her skin warmed, his admiration almost physical. She willed him to forget the damned picture, but he didn’t move.

  She felt the velvet beneath her, smelled the slightly acrid tang of wood smoke in the air. The radio’s melodies evoked memories of Christmases past, happy Christmases. In the corner, the small, unassuming Christmas tree blinked and twinkled brightly. Suddenly, fiercely, she wanted to believe. True love. Forever. The Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. She wanted it all.

  But believing was so hard, so scary. It demanded everything. And if you reached for the star at the top of the tree and missed, it was a long hard fall.

  Not for the first time, Grant seemed to see inside her head, recognizing her yearning, her fear. His smile was gentle, filled with warmth and affection and something else that made her shake. He sighed softly. “Happiness isn’t a lie or a myth. Christmas is about magic and miracles, Maddy. Your coming here was a miracle. What I feel for you is magic.”

  He laid down the brush he was holding and stepped back, his eyes sober as they looked at the picture. “Want to take a look?”

  She dressed rapidly, glad she was once again wearing her own clothes. Did she really want to see herself as he saw her? She approached warily, expecting to be slightly embarrassed. After all, she hated looking at herself in dressing room mirrors. This would probably be infinitely worse. He stepped to one side, allowing her to view the canvas full on.

  A sharp, quick gasp escaped her throat, and she twisted her hands together, almost needing to touch the wet paint. It was beautiful, amazing. The colors glowed, and the sensuality of her own image stared back at her.

  She looked up at him. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “That’s much too tame a word,” she whispered. “It’s…I don’t know…It’s more than I expected.”

  He seemed pleased by her response, although she felt inadequate to express what the painting made her feel. Hu
mbled. That was part of it, and awed—awed that a man could be so gifted.

  He stepped up onto the stone hearth and lifted the heavy painting of Jillian off the wall. Gently, careful not to smudge the wet paint, he rested the unframed canvas on the exposed nails. Maddy’s heart turned over in her chest. As a grand gesture, it was a doozy.

  Then he took her in his arms, his firm lips finding her softer ones in a long, lazy, exploratory kiss. He was a heck of a good kisser. They were both breathing hard when he released her.

  He cupped her cheeks in his hands. “When we were growing up, we always got to open one present after dinner on Christmas Eve.”

  She looked at him, mute, confused.

  He traced her lips with his fingertip. “I want you to be my Christmas Eve present, Maddy…more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”

  She shivered. “Yes,” she said simply. “Me, too.”

  And so they set about preparing the cabin for that most magical night of the year, December twenty-fourth. Maddy was light-headed with excitement and anticipation and plain, old-fashioned horniness. While she raided the fridge and kitchen cabinets for anything that could remotely be considered festive cuisine, Grant was busy transforming the living room into what he called, with a leering grin, the love nest. His cheerfulness was contagious.

  The table was pushed to one side, ready to bear their holiday repast, and the sofa cushions were commandeered along with several blankets to make a cozy bed in front of the fire. The Christmas tree, lifted to a spot of importance atop an end table, shone down on it all.

  Grant brought in extra wood, enough to last through the night, he told her with a chuckle, laughing when she blushed. Maddy found the last of the mistletoe and tied it in little bunches to the prongs of the antler chandelier overhead.

  All in all, they created a pretty darned good holiday ambiance, Maddy decided, frowning as Grant put a small, newspaper-wrapped present under the tree. “What’s that?” she asked.