Christie Ridgway (27 page)

That odd pitching movement started up in his chest again—like that night in The Perfect Christmas—and he held his palm there to calm the movement. To calm him.

The shower door clicked open. A flushed face peered out. He saw one rosy breast. A wet knee.

“What’s a girl gotta do to get a man?”

This man was already hers. Still, he went slow. Slow removing his clothes, slow to cross to the shower, slow to open the door and climb in.

Slow to touch her with his hands, even as all her wet flesh pressed against his like a full-body French kiss. He bent his head to meet her mouth, but she stopped him with a hand to his cheek.

“Can your eye patch get wet?”

He caught her fingers and kissed her palm, tasting the water on her skin. “It doesn’t matter.”

Her fingers went back to toy with the elastic strap. “It doesn’t matter to me either.”

“There’s nothing to see,” he said. “It’s not ugly, it’s not anything. It just looks as if my eye is closed.”

“Then let me touch you everywhere,” she said. “With nothing to hide behind.”

When still he hesitated, she whispered the most sultry thing of all. “Trust me.”

So he let her draw the patch away even though he had so few secrets left from her. Her face betrayed nothing of her thoughts as she gently traced the few scars that showed on the outside. At the touch, he felt the old sharp ache in his bones, a phantom pain that would show up at times of stress. He tried breathing through it, but then lost his breath altogether as she went on tiptoe to press kisses to his usually protected flesh.

“Oh, Finn,” she whispered against the missing part of him. “How much you scare me sometimes.”

He groaned, his palms cupping her warm shoulders. “Bailey…”

“Shhh.” She ran her lips down the side of his face to his jaw. Her mouth sipped at the moisture on his neck, his collarbone. She found his nipple and tickled it with her hot little tongue.

Leaning against the tiled wall, he groaned again and refused to let his eye drift closed as it wanted to. He had to feel her
and
see her, searing the image of her going down on her knees in his mind for all time.

Her hands were slick with water. She stroked him, cupped him, ran her fingertip around the pulsing head of his cock. Then she circled him with one slow lap of her flattened tongue.

He pressed his hips against the tile, then forced his left palm against it too, only allowing his right hand to tangle in the wet disarray of her hair.

Her gaze lifted as she licked him like a lollipop. “I always wanted to do this.”

Christ! What was he supposed to say to that?
I always wanted you to do this. I stayed awake during
years of math, English, and social studies classes, dreaming of you doing this
.

Her tongue slid back down his steely flesh. “Do you mind?”

Her little cat smile told him she already knew the answer. Still, he tried to sound casual about it instead of ready to beg. “I’ve always tried to be neighborly.”

It must have been the permission she was waiting for, because she bent over him and drew his cock into the wet heat of her mouth. His breath sucked in, his eye flared wide, he thought he could die happy.

Even happier, as she teased him with her mouth, setting his blood on fire and his pulse beating against his skin. His head clunked back against the tile and he stroked her hair as he watched the water sluice down her naked back and his flesh disappear between her pretty lips.

Then it was all too much. As his balls yanked tight to his body, he yanked her to her feet. “No more,” he said harshly.

“But—”

He half dragged, half carried her from the shower. Laughing, she snagged a towel and managed to throw it down on the bed before he tumbled her there. She tried scrambling to a different position, but it only inflamed him more.

He had to have her now.

With his hands on her hips, he flipped her over. She stilled.

No longer laughing.

No longer a saucy flirt with the upper hand.

“Get on your knees,” he whispered, his voice rough. They’d never made love like this. Teenage Finn would never have dared. He came behind her as she slowly moved higher and then he slid his knees between hers to widen them. His palm slipped from her hip to spread across her belly, his pinkie finding the slick wetness that wasn’t from the shower.

“Finn?” She glanced over her shoulder, her wet bangs in a tangle over her eyes, her mouth swollen. Her voice…unsure?

“All grown up now,” he said. He fit himself to her body, key to lock. Pushed inside as she jerked back against him, her pretty ass snug to his groin. “All grown up.”

Then he rocked, and the hand that held her tight against his body took in the rippling movement of his invasion and her surrender. Of them becoming one. She arched her back and he kissed the place where her wings would meet if she was truly not of this world.

And didn’t just feel like heaven.

His mouth went dry as she moaned and pushed back against him, harder. He surged deep, holding there, as his pinkie played over her clitoris. She jerked back again, arched again, and he pressed his mouth to her damp spine as they both came. Adult to adult. Lover to lover. Angel to man.

Afterward, Finn thanked God he hadn’t held on to his idea to go cold turkey. But he couldn’t say anything to Bailey. Not yet. His throat was too tight, his chest too heavy, his head overflowing with memories of how it had been with them this time. So he cupped his body around hers and pulled the covers over them both, burying his nose in the drying hair at the nape of her neck.

He had no idea what she thought about. If she dozed.

If she dreamed.

But as dawn filled the room, casting pink light across her bare arm, he knew she was awake. Her skin goose bumped as he drew his forefinger from her shoulder to her elbow. He sensed the tension in her body.

“Bailey?”

She stiffened. “What?” As if afraid of what he might ask next.

Leaving him with only one question he could speak aloud.

“French toast?”

Gram’s kitchen was quiet, and so was Bailey as she watched him make coffee and then turn to the refrigerator for eggs and milk. He’d taken her there knowing it was stocked with all the necessary ingredients.

“You don’t really cook,” she said.

“All grown up.” He shot her a look, noticing the new color flushing her cheeks. So she hadn’t forgotten that moment, or the new connection they’d forged. It satisfied him for now, just knowing she couldn’t pretend—he’d given up on it, of course—that they were merely two people waxing nostalgic.

This wasn’t scratching an old itch.

This was stroking new skin, caressing a brand-new version of a first love.

It was more than they’d ever had before.

All grown up
.

She cleared her throat. “Finn, I think we should…”

Her voice trailed off as Gram walked into the kitchen. She stopped short in the doorway, a smile breaking over her pale mouth. None of her bright lipstick today. “Bailey.”

The GND popped up from the table. “Mrs. Jacobson!” She rushed around the chairs to embrace the older woman in a gentle hug, as if afraid Gram might break.

Finn frowned. Bailey had a funny expression on her face as his grandmother lifted a thin hand and stroked her blond hair. “I enjoy hearing your voice in this kitchen,” Gram said. “What a treat.”

Bailey cleared her throat again as the two women moved apart. Then she held out a chair for Gram. “Let me bring you some coffee.”

Gram smiled again. “Spoiling me like Finn.”

The GND turned away and he saw her knuckle away a tear from under her eye. His frown deepened and he glanced over at his grandmother. She didn’t look so bad…did she?

But his gut clenched as he saw her through different eyes. When had she become so shrunken? When had the shadows beneath her eyes become so dark?

He hurried forward with her plastic container of pills and a glass of water. Then he stepped back, almost plowing into Bailey. She put a hand on his back, gave him an absent pat.

He felt it to his heart.

She slid a mug in front of Gram and sat down beside her. “He says he can do breakfast,” she said.

“What are the odds?”

Gram’s gaze flicked from his face, then back to Bailey’s. Her smile went secretive as she picked up the hot coffee. “Take me to Vegas right now. I’m feeling lucky.”

The women chatted. Finn moved about the kitchen, then suddenly stopped, an egg in one hand and his coffee in the other.
I’m smiling at nothing
, he thought.
I haven’t felt so relaxed in months
.

Still smiling, he tuned back in to what the women were discussing.

“Actually,” Bailey said, “my mom and Dan are doing well. Better than well.” Her laugh tinkled like glass breaking.

The sound sliced down Finn’s spine. His sixth sense stirred. He turned.

She was looking into her cup of coffee. “They’re back together. It’s official. As a matter of fact, they’ll be opening the store this morning.”

Her eyes lifted to Finn’s face. “That was my good news. What I felt like celebrating about.” Her gaze jolted back to her mug. “I’m going back to L.A.”

Finn’s hand tightened, cracking the egg he held, mirroring what his suddenly coiling emotions were doing to that poor battered organ in the middle of his chest.

Trust me
, she’d said in the shower, and he had. Dumb sap. Because there was nothing new in the fact that she was going to be leaving him. Again.

Here came the get-ugly part.

The night before, when her mother had finally called to tell Bailey where she was and why she wasn’t coming home, Tracy had urged her to take the next day off. Yet at midmorning, Bailey still found herself at The Perfect Christmas anyway. Because she wanted to make sure her mother and stepfather were
really
together, she told herself.

Not because she missed the store already.

Not because she had to get away from Finn, so close by next door.

God, and Mrs. Jacobson! Finn had said she’d been sick, but her frailty turned Bailey’s stomach inside out. Just another thing to run from…and now she could.

The bells jingled their familiar tune as she pushed open the door. It wasn’t quite opening time, but on the hospitality table, the cookies and chocolates she’d ordered last week sat on the holiday platter in perfect circles. The coffee urn beside them gleamed. A rich java smell mingled with the store’s distinctive scent.

She saw her mother unpacking a box and hanging an ornament on the tree by the register. “Mom!” She hurried over. “I think that one looks better with all natural ornaments. Just the shells and coral and such.”

Tracy looked down at the glass figurine in her hand. “No Little Mermaid?”

“Oh! Well.” Embarrassed, Bailey stepped back. “Of course you can do it however you want.”

“There she is!” From the back room, Dan strode out, a happy grin on his face. His gaze met Tracy’s, and Bailey swallowed, watching them exchange a secret communication. She remembered it from the past.

Then Dan swept her up in a strong embrace. She clung, even aware that she was doing it. But couldn’t she be happy for them? Her cheek pressed against his shoulder, hard.
Shouldn’t
she be happy for them?

Dan’s arms didn’t let go. “There, there,” he said, as if she were eight years old and had fallen off her bicycle. His palm stroked the back of her head, as Mrs. Jacobson’s had done in her kitchen. Bailey blinked away a tear.

Silly me. Nothing hurt here
.

She broke away, and smiled as wide as the empty place in her chest. “It’s great to see you guys back at the helm.”

Her mother and Dan telegraphed another quick thought. Indecipherable to Bailey. “We’re glad to be here together,” Tracy said. Her hand reached out and Dan clasped it, that goofy grin back on his face.

“We’ll always be together,” he said.

Good luck with that,
Bailey thought, another stupid tear welling.

She cleared her throat. “Can I do something? I know you said to take the day off…”

Tracy’s gaze cut to Dan’s, then back to her face. “Well…”

“Or if you don’t need me, I was thinking about heading home.”

Tracy stilled. “Home to…to Walnut Street?”

“No.” She shook her head. “
Home
home. L.A.”

An awkward silence welled.

Dan rubbed his hand over his gray-less head. “Here’s the thing, Bay—”

“Harry will be home day after tomorrow,” Tracy interjected. “Can’t you stay through the holiday? We’re only open until noon on Christmas Eve.”

Bailey frowned. “You’re going to be closing at noon? The Christmas Eve afternoon hours are primo time, Mom. All those people on the way to holiday dinners making a quick stop for the perfect hostess gift—

which means the quick hostess gift. I was planning to put the most expensive stuff at the front of the store and also right beside the register. Christmas Eve shoppers are desperate.”

“Noon on Christmas Eve,” Dan said, his voice firm. “We’re going to start doing things differently.”

She shrugged. “Okay. It’s your store.”

“That’s what we wanted to talk about on Christmas Eve afternoon,” Tracy said, the words rushing out.

“The store. I mean, that it’s ours.”

Bailey frowned. “Well, it is.”

“We might as well tell you we’re thinking of making some changes in our life,” Dan said, his gaze gentle on Tracy’s face.

Her mother swallowed, hard, her eyes unwavering as they met Bailey’s. “And we want to give The Perfect Christmas to you.”

Bailey Sullivan’s Vintage Christmas

Facts & Fun Calendar

December 21

In Mexico, the Christmas season includes the tradition of the
posadas
. People travel to one another’s homes, reenacting Mary and Joseph’s search for lodging, with some taking on the roles of mean innkeepers and others the Holy Family. What follows is food, fun, piñatas, and fireworks.

“Of course I told them no.” Bailey rocked from one foot to the other while Adam Truehouse, ragdoll-asleep, drooled on her neck.