The Christmas Husband

by Mary Anne Wilson

  “Hello?” she heard Steven say. “Are you all right?”

  He thought Mark and she were lovers. “So stupid.”

  “What’s stupid?”

  She slowly lowered her hands and knew what was really stupid. She was falling under whatever spell this man wove with women. She could feel herself being drawn to him, being pulled into a fantasy where he wasn’t being paid and he looked at her like that because he wanted to. Not because he had to play a part. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t...understand.”

  Steven seemed closer now, so near she wondered if he knew she only had to put out her hand and she could touch him. “You said something was stupid.”

  “Stupid?” No thoughts were clear for her except images about Steven. “No, you’re not stupid. I jushh...just meant, I’m so...” She shook her head. “Oh, wow,” she whispered as she pressed her hands flat on the tabletop and closed her eyes to try and keep the world from tipping precariously with her on it.

  “Why, Dr. Love, I believe you’re tipsy after only two brandies.”

  He was so close she thought he was whispering in her ear, but when she opened her eyes, he was still sitting across the table from her. “I...I’m drunk, Mr. York,” she breathed and touched her tongue to her lips. “And I think it’s time to go.” Everything seemed to rock slowly back and forth and she couldn’t stop it, not any more than she could stop him from looking at her with barely concealed humor. “There’s no way I can drive, so I’ll definitely have to take a tash...a tabsy...” She swallowed hard. “I’ll take a cab home.”

  “You don’t have your car. Remember? The Mustang. Dead?”

  She sat very still, her hands pressing on the cool surface of the tabletop so hard her fingers tingled. “Right, right. I knew that. I just meant, if I had a car, I couldn’t...couldn’t do that, could I?”

  “You aren’t in any condition to drive anything tonight.” He motioned to the waitress for the bill. “I do have my car, and I’ll drop you at your house.”

  “Shure. Thasha good idea,” she said, her voice getting thicker and her words slurring into one another. Drunk? She hardly ever drank, but she’d never gotten such a rush even when she did.

  Steven motioned for the bill. “It’s time to go,” he said as the waitress brought the bill and laid it on the table right between the two of them. Madison tipped her head back to try and focus on Steven, but that didn’t help. He was blurring more and more, and when he spoke, he sounded as if he were talking from down a tunnel.

  “So how do you want to do this?” he asked.

  “You pay.” There was no way she could count out money right now. “Then I can...reimbersh...I can pay you back later.”

  “Sure,” he said and took out his wallet to lay a bill by the check. Then he looked at Madison. “Ready?”

  “We...we didn’t talk about any of the details.” She frowned at him. “We didn’t, did we?”

  “No, we didn’t.”

  She thought for a minute that she’d forgotten part of their talk or it got lost in the soft haze that seemed to surround her. “Good. I didn’t think so,” she mumbled as she picked up her purse and twisted the strap around her hand to get a good grip on it. “We...we’ve got a long ride to Tahoe. We can talk then.”

  “Whatever you say,” he murmured as he stood and slipped his overcoat back on.

  Madison reached for the edge of the table with her free hand, held on as tightly as she could and tried to lever herself to her feet. But when she scooted forward, she felt the room shift, and the next thing she knew she was sitting in the booth again.

  “Oh, my goodness,” she said. “It’s so...so warm in here.” She pressed a hand to her head. “Maybe I’m sick.”

  “I thought we agreed you were a bit drunk,” he said from right in front of her.

  She looked up at him, a big man who seemed to be towering over her. “I usually never drink. I’m not a good drinker, you know. A soda pop drunk, by brother George says. He says...I get...drunk sniffing the cork.”

  “I’m sure he’s right,” he said at the same time he reached for her hand. She barely had time to feel his heat against her skin before he drew her to her feet in one easy motion.

  The room spun crazily, and she held tightly to Steven to keep from falling sideways against the booth. When she was steady, she kept her eyes on the floor, afraid to look up in case the roller coaster started again. “We...can go now.”

  “Are you sure you can make it? Or will one of my extra duties be to carry you to the car?”

  She felt her mouth go dry at the thought of him lifting her in his arms. “I can walk,” she said quickly, but when she took that first step, she knew she’d lied. Her feet felt as if they were mired in mud, and she had to fight to lift them.

  When Steven let go of her hand, she was afraid he was going to do just what he said and pick her up. But instead, he slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side. And she didn’t know if it was better to be against him like this or in his arms. She didn’t know, and she didn’t want to think about any of it.

  When he whispered close to her ear, “Hold on and we’ll make it,” she trembled. The heat of his breath brushed her skin, and his arm around her felt as solid as a rock. She needed his help, she knew that, but as they moved together, she felt an even greater need beginning to build in her.

  When they stepped outside, the chill of the foggy night didn’t do anything to help Madison gather her senses or to clear her thinking. It just made her move even closer to Steven to use his heat to stave off the cold. And by the time they got to the Jaguar, she was holding on to him with her arm around his waist and her cheek pressed to his chest. He smelled good, and he moved good, and he felt good.

  Carefully, he eased her back against the cold metal of the car, and she trembled at the way the cold seemed to surround her now that he wasn’t touching her. She looked up at him in the soft glow of Christmas lights as she hugged her arms around herself.

  “Can you stand there while I get the door open?” he asked as he moved back with his hands held out toward her, just inches from touching her.

  “Of course,” she said, but had to press hard against the car to keep from sliding sideways.

  Quickly, he opened the passenger door, then took her arm and helped her inside. As she settled in the comfort of the seat, he put her purse by her feet on the floor. She’d forgotten all about it. Then he went around and got in behind the wheel.

  As he started the car, the heater clicked on and the minute the warmth touched her, she felt an overwhelming need to sleep. If she closed her eyes, she knew she’d be asleep in seconds, so she forced herself to keep her eyes open.

  “Where to?” he asked as he looked over at her.

  “Home, James,” she muttered with a feeble wave of her hand.

  “The name’s Steven, and I don’t have a clue where home is for you. Give me an address.”

  “Everyone has an address,” she said as she snuggled into the corner of the seat by the door and her eyes fluttered. “Everyone.”

  “Madison, don’t do that.”

  She slowly turned her head in his direction, looking at him from under lowered lids. A man of shadows. A male who could fascinate any woman. “Do what?” she asked thickly.

  She suddenly realized he was cupping her chin, and she drank in the heat of his touch that was more than capable of pushing away the fog and cold of the night.

  “Don’t go to sleep,” he said. “Just tell me where you live.”

  She wondered how a man’s hand could be capable of demanding the attention of every atom in her being. “Over there,” she said, motioning broadly toward the city and managing to hit his arm in the process. Then his touch was gone, and she missed it. “Way over there,” she mumbled as she clasped her hands together so she wouldn’t reach out to make contact with him again.

  “Over where?”

  “Up the hill and down the hill, then around the corner,
” she breathed.

  “Name the hill,” he said. “Give me an address.”

  She tried to remember the address of the garage, but didn’t even bother when she realized that she didn’t want Mark seeing her come home like this, with a man like this. And he’d see for sure. He knew all about her comings and goings. He was worse than her brothers. No, it wouldn’t do at all to have him face down Steven and demand to know why he’d brought her home in this state. “I know where to go.”

  “Well, are you going to share it with me?”

  “My office. My couch makes into a bed. And it’s soft, too. Really soft.”

  “Okay, if you say so. The office it is.”

  From under her lashes, she watched Steven in the eerie glow of the dash light. She knew he was driving, but for some reason she felt as if she were floating. “You know,” she heard herself saying, “you’re good.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Very, very good.” She sighed.

  “I’m flattered, but what am I good at?”

  “Being you.” It made perfect sense to her.

  “And what’s that?”

  “A giggalooo.” That wasn’t right. “I mean, a...a giginglo.” Not even close. “Oh, you know, a date person.”

  “A date person? Is that what I am?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” she said and rested her cheek against the seat back while she kept watching him. “But you’re good at it.”

  “You said that before.”

  “You say the right things, and you do the right things, and you...you know just how to look. You look right.”

  “No Vegas lounge lizard?”

  “No way,” she mumbled as her eyes fluttered closed and soft grayness crept up to surround her.

  “Madison?”

  She felt Steven’s voice drawing her out of the soft grayness, then hands were on her shoulders. “Mmm?”

  “We’re here.”

  “Here?” She opened her eyes just a slit and saw they were at the security gate for the parking garage. “Oh, yeah,” she whispered.

  “How do I get in?”

  “The guard...”

  “The booth’s empty.”

  She was sure that she knew how to get in, but she couldn’t grab at it until Steven said, “Is there a code?”

  “Oh, yeah, a code,” she murmured and gave it to him.

  The next thing she knew the car had stopped and the passenger door was open. “Madison? Wake up.” She turned and she could barely focus on Steven crouched by her, the lights of the parking garage behind him.

  “I...I’m awake,” she said.

  “Do you need any help?”

  “Help?”

  “As in, let me help you get upstairs. No extra charge,” he said softly as he picked up her purse by her feet, then held out his other hand to her.

  She felt his hand touch her, then close around hers, and gently he pulled her out of the car and onto her feet. She thought she could walk, that she could cross to the elevator and get upstairs, but when she tried to take a step, she knew that she couldn’t do it at all.

  “Oh, my,” she breathed as she felt herself start to pitch forward.

  But she never fell. Instead of hitting the cold concrete, she was being held by Steven. Then she was in his arms, being carried like a child cradled to his chest. “I’ve got you,” he said, his voice a rumble near her ear.

  “A hundred dollars,” she whispered.

  “What?” he asked as he carried her toward the service elevator.

  “I’ll pay one hundred dollars if you carry me all the way up to my office.” She closed her eyes, fascinated by the way she could hear the steady thudding of his heart against her ear. She pressed her hand to the soft material of his coat where it parted, and closed her eyes. “All the way up.”

  “Any bonus if I don’t drop you?”

  She smiled, the absurdity of the situation very real, yet veiled by the softness and heat all around her. “Sure, a bonus. Name your price.”

  They were in the elevator, going up, and Steven was speaking, but she had no idea what he’d been saying. She’d been too lost in the sensations that were filtering through her. Safety, peace, awareness of another human being. A sense of rightness that was all wrong.

  Steven shifted her, and she realized they were at her office and he was opening the door. Then they were inside; the door closed softly, and he stopped.

  “The famous couch,” he said.

  “It’s like a taxi,” she said without opening her eyes.

  “Well, it’s not yellow or hard or with four wheels.”

  “No, you. Ding...the price goes up. Ding...it goes up again. But no coats on puddles.”

  “Not when the coat costs fifteen hundred dollars.”

  “Sure, I bet your coat costs that much.”

  She heard the pleasant sound of his rumbling laughter in her ears. “It did and it was on sale.”

  He crossed the room and she felt him easing her down onto the soft cushions. She settled into the comfort, yet knew it was nothing compared to the warmth she’d felt with him carrying her. When she opened her eyes, Steven was over her, and only the low light on the desk was on. Shadows played at his throat and the line of his jaw. And his eyes, dark and unreadable.

  She wished that she could ask him to take off his overcoat and his suit jacket, take away those barriers, no matter how much it cost. And to open his shirt. She touched her tongue to her lips, which seemed cold and uncooperative. “You got it on sale?” she asked.

  “Sure did,” he said in a low voice.

  Then he was moving, slipping off the overcoat, letting it fall to the floor without caring. And his jacket was undone, gone as if it had never been, and the shirt buttons slipped open. She felt as if she were watching a movie, slow motion, slightly out of focus, but a fulfillment of her secret wishes.

  He was over her, his chest bare, the skin taut and touched by a cross of dark hair, then his hands were at the waistband of his slacks.

  “I don’t...don’t know if...” she said as she tried to push herself up to sit on the couch.

  “You don’t know what?” he was asking, and suddenly she realized that he was crouched by her, his jacket and shirt and coat still on. She’d been imagining the whole thing. Images brought on by the brandy and wishful thinking and a peculiar insanity this man could produce in her.

  “I was just...” She swallowed and sank back in the cushions. “I’m tired. So tired.”

  “Do you need anything else before I go?”

  The world blurred, and she was back in the place where wishes were fulfilled. “A kiss,” she whispered. “Just a kiss.”

  It was as if she were sitting back, watching herself, as she lifted her hand to touch his jaw, to feel the slight roughness of the beginnings of a new beard. Her finger moved to touch his lips, soft and sensual. And she could see something in his eyes, an echo of whatever had sprung to life in her when he’d kissed her under the mistletoe.

  Then his head lowered, and all sense of watching the two of them was gone. She was in the middle of it, tasting him, opening her mouth for his invasion, giving herself to the needs that rocked her with a wild abandon that she’d never known before.

  Imagination was a powerful thing, so strong that she almost believed that it was happening, that his hands were on her, that when he cupped her breasts through the thin silk of her blouse, she moaned and arched to him.

  Then the buttons slipped open, and the silk was being pushed aside. The flimsy lace of her bra was the only barrier to skin-on-skin contact that she wanted desperately. His hands moved on her, circling her, going to her back, then the fastener of her bra was opened, and the lace fell away. Her wish was granted when his hand found her breast again, when his thumb teased her nipple, and she moaned at the exquisite pleasure his touch gave her.

  Fantasy, imagination. In the real world the ache in her wouldn’t be something that only this man could satisfy, and life wouldn’t play such a cru
el joke on her. A paid escort wouldn’t be the man she thought she’d been looking for all her life.

  Her arms circled his neck, and she strained to be closer, knowing that at any moment she’d blink and Steven would be there, but not kissing her or exploring her with his hands. That her bra was in place, and that she would know she’d been lost in her own imagination again.

  But that never happened. As she buried her face in his throat, she started to drift. Grayness surrounded her, and soft nothingness came to claim her.

  “Oh, my,” she breathed, then everything was gone.

  Chapter Nine

  Even though it hadn’t happened very often in his life, Steven knew insanity when he experienced it. And right then he’d fallen so far into insanity that it terrified him. He was kissing Madison, caressing her as if she were the only woman in the world. The only female who could rock him with her touch, who could look at him with those blue eyes and make all sorts of imaginings spring to life in him.

  And when she’d asked for a kiss, when she’d reached up to him and touched him, he knew that insanity had sprung to life in him. Instead of getting the hell out of there to let her sleep off the brandy, he’d given in to a need that had been there since he’d first bumped into her at Harrington’s.

  And the kiss destroyed any protection he’d thought he had against the effect she had on him. At the restaurant he’d known he was at a dead end with her. And when she’d started to show the effects of the brandy, he’d been relieved to leave. He didn’t need to sit across the table from a woman who only had to look at him and he’d forget why he was there.

  He’d been ready to take her home, to turn and leave, but nothing had worked out the way he’d planned it. She hadn’t gone home, not about to let her husband see her like this, then they’d come here and he’d carried her upstairs.

  His jaw still hurt from clenching it when she’d snuggled into him, and the feeling of her in his arms and the scent that clung to her had assaulted him. And now his body was aching. She was offering herself to him and he wasn’t noble or altruistic enough to turn his back on her. The kiss deepened, and his hands found the swelling of her breasts, then he’d managed the buttons on her silk blouse and only fine lace separated his touch from her bare skin.