Together for Christmas (29 page)

Well, God only knew what he’d feel. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

“It took
forever
to drive here, didn’t it?” Kristen said breathlessly. The teasing way she said it thrilled him. So did the eager way she tugged off his knit cap and then went for his muffler. “I could barely walk upstairs. All that kissing made my legs feel too wobbly. You’ve got quite a knack for kissing me.”

“That’s not all I’ve got,” Casey promised. “I’ve got—”

Love,
he was about to say, but Kristen cut him off before he could. Thank God. He was obviously drunk on senior center holiday punch and too much fruitcake for any sensible person.

“Way too many clothes on,” she complained, tossing his muffler to the side. In the dark, Casey couldn’t see where it landed. So far, his sense of Kristen’s apartment was limited to catching vague glimpses of the outlines of her furniture, smelling the combined fragrances of cinnamon and pine tree in the air, and sensing that, if he moved the merest inch to the right, he could swing the door all the way shut with his foot.

Chivalrously, he did so. The motion effectively sealed them alone together, with no barriers to
being
together, for the first time ever. Overwhelmed by the realization, Casey went still. Suddenly it seemed that he could have
everything
he’d ever wanted. With Kristen to share it with. It seemed that he could know what it felt like
not
to be secretly yearning for more on a level he scarcely acknowledged, even to himself. That he could be together with her, now and maybe later, too, and—

“Were you expecting to be attacked by grizzlies on your way to Christmas Disco Night?” Kristen grumbled, struggling to unfasten the buttons on his overcoat. Exasperated, she gave a yank. “You’re wearing so many clothes you’re practically armored. Who needs Kevlar when you have this much wool?”

Looking at her downturned face and frisky expression, Casey felt flooded with tenderness. That’s how he knew he had to get her naked. Quickly. Before this attack of mushiness got to him.

Before it made him do something he’d regret.

Because while love was fine
in theory
—say, while planning a Christmas surprise for Kristen or agreeing to cut out paper snowflakes with her at the senior center—actually
feeling
love, in practice, was something else altogether. It was . . . not for him.

“Where’s your bedroom?” he asked, peering into the gloom.

Momentarily diverted, Kristen pointed. “Through there.”

Casey wasted no time following her directions. He was going to strip them both to bare skin, find the nearest soft surface—if that was Kristen’s mattress, so much the better, but if not, he could work with that, too—and then make them one. Over and over again. And if he did it right, he figured, this weird feeling of connectedness would be forgotten about like so many abandoned curbside Christmas trees on New Year’s Eve morning.

They reached her bedroom. Inside, it smelled like clean sheets and girly grooming products, all mingled together in a mélange of let’s-get-busy atmosphere. Or maybe that last part was mostly in his mind. Just then, Casey decided not to worry about it. Basically, just being there let him enjoy the private side of Kristen, and that was the biggest aphrodisiac of all.

If he could have, he would have bottled the essence of her bedroom to take with him after he left. Because nothing this good could ever last. He knew he would miss it. He knew he would never forget it. But there was no way in hell Casey was admitting to a thought as sappy as that one. So, instead of letting her know exactly how deep his newfound sense of Hallmark-worthy mushiness went, he pulled her into his arms.

“Nice bedroom.” He gave her a Lambada-style hip swivel, bringing them into even closer contact. Then another kiss. “I like it.”

His growled approval only made her laugh. Kristen waved her arm. “It’s too dark! You haven’t even seen it properly yet.”

She pulled away before he could assure her he had. Left alone in the semidarkness, Casey waited for her to come back.

An instant later, Kristen flicked a switch. Then, “Tada!”

Holiday lights glowed to life around them, illuminating her bedroom with their miniature, nonblinking pinpoints of radiance. Christmas light strings followed the lines of her ceiling, eliminating the need for a lamp. They wound around her bed’s headboard, making its piled-up pillows and chenille spread look twice as appealing. They brightened Kristen’s face, letting him see how beautiful and how excited and how earnest she looked.

It occurred to Casey that
she
might be feeling all mushy toward
him,
too. But that wasn’t what this night was all about. This night was about them coming together, raw and urgent and unstoppable, until they erased all the sentimentality and sweetness and were left with just feeling and being and doing.

“It’s really Christmassy,” he said. “It’s very you.”

He realized, as he said it, that he
liked
that about this room. He liked that Kristen’s bedroom was unabashedly full of holiday cheer—that it glowed with celebratory lights and brimmed with plush surfaces and cushy, holiday-themed pillows. Because that’s what made it
hers
. Kristen truly loved Christmas, and she would probably never want to go to Anguilla in December (because then she would miss all this corny holiday stuff), and the thought of that made Casey feel unexpectedly sad. So he took a step forward and squashed that unwanted feeling by kissing her.

“Mmm.” Delving his tongue against hers, he moaned and then kissed her again. Her knit cap was in the way of his roving hands, so Casey pulled it off and dropped it. He made short work of her plaid scarf, her coat, and her gloves, too. With his hands, he tugged her hair gently loose from its knot, letting more tendrils wind around his fingers. “You feel . . . so good.”

“Yeah, I do. Especially now that my hands are free.” With a devilish grin that told him she
did
feel good—and was likely feeling better all the time, as they went on kissing—Kristen clutched at his overcoat. She wrenched it off him, then hurled it toward a waiting upholstered armchair. She grabbed his suit jacket lapels next. “You’re going to be so sorry you made me wait all this time,” she assured him. “Because right now, after all this buildup, I’m feeling pretty insatiable.”

“Me too,” Casey rumbled. “Bring it on.”

“Oh, I’m going to.” Panting, Kristen wrestled off his suit coat. She frowned at his vest and shirt and pants. “By the time I get all this off you, I’ll have earned a reward of some kind.”

“I have just the thing in mind,” Casey promised.

He could not get her naked quickly enough. Not quickly enough to stanch all those caring feelings of his. But that didn’t mean he skimped on the effort. After a few more kisses, Kristen’s soft cardigan joined his overcoat on the armchair.

Both items looked weirdly right together, Casey thought fancifully. It was almost as if he and Kristen were
meant
to be a couple, living and laughing and loving in her apartment. It was almost as if even their clothes were comfortable together.

Then he realized the nonsense he was thinking and pulled himself together. Clearly, being around this much Christmas paraphernalia was doing something damaging to his sense of self. Or his brain. Mostly his brain. Because . . . What the hell?

The rest was psychobabble. And Casey Jackson didn’t do psychobabble. He got in, got things done, and then got out, leaving everyone in his wake feeling satisfied that he’d been there. That was his raison d’être. It was
him
in a nutshell.

To prove it, Casey steered Kristen toward the bed. In a giddy backward tango, they made it there, kissing all the while. Together, they tipped headlong into the glow of the sparkly lights. They landed on the mattress, but somehow Kristen wound up on top of him. She looked right at home there, too.

“Now I’ve got you where I want you,” she announced, straddling him with a suggestiveness that made Casey’s head spin. Her thighs flexed against his hips. Her boots rubbed against his pants, their myriad buckles clanging out a triumphant rhythm. Her red sweater dress rode up, making Casey yearn to pull it off her completely. Kristen gave him a look. “And you thought
you
were in charge of this between us.”

Chapter 18

Kismet, Michigan
T-minus . . . sometime . . . until Christmas

“I am,” Casey said, then he tilted his hips sideways.

Kristen tottered, then fell with a squeal, surprised by his sudden move. Casey was there to catch her, though, rolling them both against the mattress until those damn holiday lights blurred in his vision. All that remained was him, and her, and the anticipation of getting them both fully naked.

“And don’t you forget it,” he warned, then he kissed her to make sure she didn’t. But Casey’s fierceness was all for show, he realized, because when he raised his head at last, Kristen was gazing intently at him with the reflections of those tiny holiday lights in her eyes, making her look all dreamy and full of longing. He felt a tug of protectiveness toward her then—as though he wanted to make sure he didn’t hurt her feelings or break her heart or something else in between—and Casey knew he had to extinguish that burgeoning sentimentality of his before it got out of hand. Because Kristen probably didn’t know the difference between wanting and needing and not having—not in the way that Casey did—and there was only one way to handle this.

By ignoring it. Because he didn’t want it. He wanted
her
.

Confidently, Casey kissed Kristen again. Urgently, he roamed his hands over her body, feeling all the curves that she seemed passionately insistent on pressing against him. And he was pretty sure he was hearing things, because he thought that, as he stroked Kristen over her sweater dress, she spoke to him and said something that was pretty much unimaginable.

“I want you, Casey,” she whispered, kissing his jaw, his neck, his cheekbone, his mouth. She stroked him all over, to mind-bending effect, making him shake in her arms. “I do. I want you
so
much. And not just because you’re hot and sexy and outrageously good at kissing, but also because—”

“Hey, give a guy a chance to earn all those accolades,” he interrupted before she could go too far and break
his
heart by changing her mind later. He knew people sometimes changed their minds about him—and not necessarily for the better. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have switched foster homes so much as a kid. “We’ve only just gotten started.”

“Yeah, but I can tell it’s going to be good already.”

Casey could, too. But still . . . “You’re not even halfway naked,” he pointed out. It felt like a condemnation of his own damn failure to stay on track and quit thinking about her in all those syrupy, overemotional ways. “I thought by now I’d have your boots off, at least. Although, as a California native, I’m inexperienced with heavy winter boots like those, so—”

“So I can fix that.” With a grin, Kristen shucked her boots. They clunked to the rug covering the hardwood floor. She wriggled atop the mattress with her back to him for a few more seconds, then she tossed aside something else. “And a bonus for you, too, just to help you out as a wintertime novice.”

Grinning, she launched herself at him again. They collided on the bed in an impassioned tangle of arms and legs and heart-pounding middles, and Casey realized in a daze that it had been her tights that Kristen had sent sailing across the bedroom. Which meant her legs were bare now, bare and silky beneath his hands, and it occurred to him that she might have slipped off her panties, too, in which case there would be no stopping them.

Riveted by the thought, Casey felt himself grow twice as engorged, twice as hard, twice as ready. If he didn’t get his pants off soon, he might as well kiss the zipper good-bye. Because there was no way a measly few inches of metallic fastener could contain . . . well,
everything
he felt for Kristen.

Flatteringly, she noticed. Before he could fully explore her potential under-the-dress nudity, she wriggled sideways, took a good, long look at the bulge in his pants, then drew in a deep breath. Her dark-eyed gaze lifted to his.

“Yes, please,” Kristen said with a seductive eyebrow raise. “I’d like
all
of that. As quickly as possible, too.”

Casey almost groaned aloud. “I can’t wait to give it to you.”

She smiled. “I’d like to point out that you’re
already
waiting. Seeing as how you’re still wearing all those clothes.”

“Well, in the interest of fair play . . .”

Casey whipped off his suit vest, unbuttoned his shirt, and did his best not to pant too loudly. He’d never felt so driven, so desperate, so full of desire and need and . . .
tenderness?
Again?

No, it couldn’t be that. Because they were only here to have a good time. Yes, he’d assured Kristen that there was more between them than just a deskbound quickie, but there were miles of wiggle room between that and what he
might
be feeling now.

Even if he loved her, it would be a mistake to let her know. Being vulnerable could only lead to trouble. Casey knew that. He knew that the same way he knew how it felt to breathe.

Which he
almost
forgot to do just then. Because while he’d been wrestling with his demons and the many buttons of his shirt, Kristen had been busy working her magic on his zipper.

Biting her lip in anticipation, clearly reveling in her erotic victory over his pants, she trailed her fingers over his crotch. This time, Casey
did
groan. He couldn’t help it. He levered his hips upward, all thoughts emptying from his head like the unnecessary complications they were. There was nothing in the world better than Kristen touching him. There was nothing better than her looking at him, devouring him with her eyes, letting him know that she wanted this, wanted him, wanted
more
.