Once Upon a Christmas (27 page)

“Do you really think so?” Stacey asked innocently.

Her fingers wriggled amongst the stuff in his pocket.
Another second, and she’d get her hand loose enough to flash her nonexistent
wedding ring. Dylan tried to hold her wrist tighter.

She goosed him.

“Yeow!” Both women looked at him, eyebrows raised.
Stacey had the gall to smirk, too. “Oww, oww, oww,” he went on,
letting go of her wrist to glare at his watch as though
that
had somehow
caused all the ruckus.

“Look at the time.” He shook his head with what he
hoped looked less like an overwhelming urge to pinch his “wife” and
more like husbandly concern. “We’ll be late if we don’t get going,
Snookums.”

Stacey batted her eyelashes at him. He hadn’t even known
women could actually
do
that outside of cartoons.

“In a minute, Pudding,” she cooed. Regally, she
extended her hand, knuckles facing. Dylan closed his eyes.

Inconspicuous,
she’d said.
Let’s keep a low
profile,
she’d said. And here she was, flashing her embarrassingly bare
knuckles at a total stranger.

“Awww,” the purple jogging suit lady said. “That
is
sweet. Congratulations again.”

Dylan opened his eyes.

The purple jogging suit lady turned to leave, shaking her
cup of quarters. “Good luck, you two. I’d better get back to it before my
luck turns cold.”

“Nice meeting you,” Stacey called, waving.

Dylan only stared at the diamond and gold wedding band
flashing on her finger beneath the casino’s brilliant lights.

“Where did you get
that
?” he asked,
glancing up to make sure Mrs. Jogging Suit had reached her slot machines again.
She had. He grabbed Stacey’s hand to make her quit waving, then scowled down at
the ring on her finger. “Well?”

“You didn’t think I’d try to pull off this honeymoon
ruse totally unprepared, did you?” she asked, batting her eyelashes some
more.

He squinted at the ring, then at her. “You didn’t even
think to bring along a pretend husband for this honeymoon ruse,” he
pointed out. “How well-prepared could you have been?”

Stacey puckered her lips, appeared to think about it, then
pulled her hand out of reach.

“It was from Charlie,” she admitted. “I used
to be married, remember?” Turning, she scooped up their silver dollar
winnings. “Come on. We’re already late for dinner.” She tossed the
coin to him.

Dylan caught it and followed her toward the dinner theater
entrance. “Why do you still wear your wedding ring? You’ve been divorced
for months.”

Did she still care about her ex-husband? Was that why she
didn’t want to get involved with him again? Hell. Why couldn’t anything be easy
with her?

Stacey stopped at the edge of the stairway leading to the
theater just as he caught up with her. She gazed thoughtfully at him, and a
strange expression crossed her face. Then she shrugged.

“Why shouldn’t I wear it? I like it.”

“It’s puny.”

She smiled at him—one of those irritating, superior smiles
only a beautiful woman wearing heels and a skimpy cocktail dress could give.
Mister,
you’re putty in my hands
, it seemed to say.

“Does it bother you? Because I could take it off if you’re…jealous,
or anything.”

Was that hopefulness in her expression?

Nah. Just pleasure at teasing him, Dylan figured. He wrapped
his arm around her waist and gave her an enigmatic smile of his own.

“No more than pretending to be my wife bothers you.”
He guided her downstairs to the dinner theater. “And you seem to be
handling
that
pretty well. So, are you hungry? Let’s eat.”

Dylan’s hand slid onto her knee for the fourth time just as
the Renaissance’s special medieval dinner was served.

Stacey held her breath and looked down. His tanned, muscular
arm stretched right across her lap with two hundred proof masculine assurance,
and his hand cupped her knee as though it belonged there. Slowly, his fingers
spread wider, then started inching up the inside of her thigh.

She waited for him to goose her the way he had the first two
times. He didn’t. Instead, his palm skimmed higher on her leg, then stopped
just below the hem of her dress. Beneath it her skin prickled—not because the
huge, arena-style theater was cold, or because the rustic wooden benches they
sat on were too rough, or because of any other harmless thing she could name.
Just because it was Dylan touching her. Dammit.

Their waiter approached, dressed in a laced-front medieval
tunic, some sort of buccaneer sash, and brown leggings. Apparently somebody had
decided a true “Middle Ages” look required lots of spandex. Stopping
in front of the long wooden table she and Dylan sat at side by side with the
rest of the show-goers, the waiter brandished a pitcher of something.

He smiled. “Shickenzoop?”

They both stared up at him. “Pardon me?” Stacey
asked.

He twitched the pitcher. “Shickenzoop.”

As though that explained anything, he mimicked pouring it
into the teacup-sized pewter bowls in front of them.

She looked into her empty bowl. It, along with a matching
pewter plate, a mug of water, and a heavy cloth napkin, had been at their table
when they arrived. Dylan looked into his bowl, then at her.

“Shi—cken—zoop,” repeated the waiter, scanning the
long row of pewter bowls lining the rest of their table. He sighed, looking as
though he might pour the contents of his pitcher on their heads if they didn’t
catch on pretty soon.

“Shi—cken—zoop,” Stacey repeated, speaking slowly
enough that he’d be sure to hear her plainly.

Dylan’s lips nuzzled her ear. “Gib—ber—rish?” he
whispered. His tentative tone matched hers perfectly.

“Cut it out,” she whispered back, but she couldn’t
help smiling.

The waiter looked into his pitcher and nodded. “Shickenzoop.”
That’s what I said
.

“Sure. Why not?” Dylan pushed his bowl forward
with his free hand. She felt his shrug all along her thigh as his arm moved
with his shoulder. “We’d love some.”

The waiter poured milky broth into their bowls, then moved
on down the row. “Shickenzoop,” he said loudly, like a peanut vendor
at a ballgame. He stopped in front of the next couple at their table. “Schickenzoop?”

Interrupted in the middle of the tankard of ale they were
sharing, they both looked at him with puzzled frowns. “What?”

“Just take it,” Dylan said. “It’s easier that
way.”

He turned his smile on Stacey and caught her in the middle
of trying to twist her wedding ring from her finger. She started scratching
furiously in the hope of faking a massive itch beneath the gold band.

He raised an eyebrow. “Allergic to rings? Or allergic
to marriage? Or is it just that ring in particular that’s giving you trouble?”

Actually, it was the fact that she couldn’t wrest the darn
thing from her finger that was giving her trouble. She’d gained a few pounds
since her wedding to Charlie four years ago, but Stacey would rather die than
admit her ring was too tight to take off.

She plunked her hands in her lap. “Acupressure,”
she mumbled, staring into her bowl of Shickenzoop. “Massaging your ring finger
relieves stress.”

“I know a lot of single guys who’d agree with you. They
like to keep that area nice and limber. And unencumbered.”

“You among them?” She picked up her bowl and
sniffed, trying to seem as though his answer didn’t matter one way or the
other.
It didn’t
, Stacey told herself. It was simply idle curiosity
among friends that made her ask. Nothing more. What did it matter to her if he
wanted to remain a bachelor the rest of his life?

“Are you kidding?” Dylan stroked his thumb over
her bare thigh and gave her an exaggeratedly goofy grin. It was, she was
beginning to realize, his “newlywed husband in love” look. “They
could slap a pair of handcuffs on us and I wouldn’t mind.” He waggled his
eyebrows suggestively. “There’s nobody I’d rather be hog-tied to than you,
babe.”

“Hog-tied, huh? I’m flattered.” She sipped from
her cup, and Dylan did the same. The broth inside tasted salty, slightly
meaty…she thought she even detected a noodle. Lowering her cup again, Stacey
peered inside. So did Dylan.

“Shickenzoop,” he said, “is….”

“…chicken soup!” she finished, laughing. “No
wonder the waiter looked at us so strangely.”

 The rest of the meal arrived in less cryptic form—savory
roasted game hens, chunks of potatoes, broccoli spears, and individual loaves
of crusty bread. The waiter served everything with an elegant dip of his
medieval spandex-clad knee, then retreated as the lights lowered, signaling the
beginning of the Renaissance’s featured show.

“Excuse me!” Stacey called after him.

He turned. The linen cloth he carried over his bent arm
whipped along with him, passing mere inches from another diner’s eyebrows. She
ducked, then glared toward the source of the trouble.

“Sorry!” Stacey called with a wave.

The waiter stopped in front of their table. Assuming his
presence meant he was listening, she asked, “May I have some silverware,
please? There doesn’t seem to be any at my—”

“We don’t use utensils in the Middle Ages.” He
glanced meaningfully at the other diners’ place settings. They were all, Stacey
saw, devoid of utensils. “Perhaps your…” His gaze shifted to Dylan,
and he arched his eyebrows.

“Husband,” Dylan supplied helpfully, wrapping his
arm around Stacey’s shoulders. “We’re newlyweds.”

“Husband can help you.” With that suggestion, the
waiter glided away from them—to retrieve his Shickenzoop pitcher, no doubt.

Biting her lip, Stacey examined her plate. Around her, the
other diners had begun biting into tiny roast drumsticks and breaking off
chunks of bread. Spotlights played over the arena and the packed-earth floor in
its center. The show was about to begin.

“I guess we’d better make like newlyweds.” Dylan
scooted closer. He raised his hand, and something warm and spicy-smelling
nudged her lips. A piece of roast chicken, she guessed.

“I—” As soon as her mouth opened he slipped the
first bite between her lips, leaving her no choice but to chew. She did, and
was surprised to find it tasted delicious. “Mmmm. It’s good, but I—”

But I can’t get a word in edgewise, between bites
.
Next came a piece of warm bread with butter. It melted in her mouth, rich and
yeasty and exactly as chewy as good bread should be.

“Mmmm.”

Dylan watched with a smile as she chewed and swallowed, then
he used his thumb to brush away a crumb from the corner of her lips.

“Really, I can do it my—” she started to say, but
he only shook his head and fed her a bite of herb-scented roast potato.

“We’re newlyweds, remember?” he said. “We’ve
got to make this look good. Besides, don’t you find this romantic?”

Actually, considering the way he did it…she did. His
attention was all for her, his actions focused on selecting just the right
morsel to satisfy her, his gaze centered on her lips as he gave her one taste,
then another. To be the focus of so much attention was more than Stacey had
expected—more than she’d experienced in a long time, too. Maybe ever. At the
end, she and Charlie had rarely shared meals together at all, much less tried
anything like this. With a sexy half smile, Dylan broke off a thin spear of
broccoli and brought it to her lips.

Yuck. Broccoli was way too ordinary for a setting like this.
Raising her head, Stacey made a face and pressed her lips together.

“What, you don’t like anything that’s good for you?”
Dylan followed her movements with the broccoli. Slowly, he drew it across her
lower lip.

The sensuous glide of it nearly made her open her mouth
without thinking. Good grief! Leave it to a guy like Dylan to figure out how to
make vegetables sexy.

“And I had you pegged as a good-girl type,” he
teased, tracing the edge of her mouth again. “Still no? Then maybe you’re
in the mood for something a little more dangerous.”

His gaze met hers. It felt as though he was seeing her,
really
seeing
her, for the first time. The sense of discovery she saw in
his eyes made her mouth go dry and her pulse beat faster. Around them, the
lights dimmed all the way and festive Christmas-style show music began playing,
but those things might have been a hundred miles away for all the notice Dylan
paid them. He must have dropped the broccoli on her plate because she didn’t
feel it against her lips anymore, but Stacey didn’t want to look away to find
out.

“On the other hand, you and I have different ideas
about what’s dangerous, don’t we?” he murmured, lifting his goblet of
water from their tabletop. Ice cubes clinked together softly as he raised it
between them, then swirled it. “To you, this is just water. Plain and cold
and that’s all. But to a man who hasn’t drunk for hours, a thirsty man, it’s
everything he needs.” His gaze joined with hers, then lowered again. “And
to me, it’s opportunity.”

“Opportunity?”

“Mmmm-hmmm.” Dylan stroked his fingertips against
the goblet, leaving slippery trails of condensation on the glass.

He raised it higher, gazing into the water as though
considering whatever opportunity he’d meant, then brought the goblet nearer to
her. Stacey sensed its chill just above the bare skin at the neckline of her
sundress.

“Opportunity for sensation,” he explained, raising
it to her lips. “Maybe for you, that’s a little dangerous.” Slowly,
he tipped it forward, allowing her to drink.

She did, knowing he watched her and feeling acutely aware of
her reliance on him. Dylan knew her thirst, controlled the glass…and her
satisfaction. The water slid down her throat. Shivering at the icy wetness of
it, Stacey leaned forward for another sip.

He tilted it away. “More?” He watched her over the
goblet’s rim. She nodded, but still Dylan held it away. “Tell me what you
want.”