On the First Night of Christmas... (11 page)

‘Ness, I’m not ready for something like this.’

‘But it’s been nine months since you kicked out that no-good, lying—’

‘I’ve slept with exactly two men in my life,’ she interrupted, not wanting to hear another of Nessa’s tirades against Lance. ‘Well, three now,’ she revised. ‘And I’m not sure I …’

Cassie’s fumbling explanation ground to a halt as Nessa sucked her teeth in derision.

‘What?’ Cassie said. ‘Why do you look so fierce?’

‘Right this second, I’m visualising what I’d like to do to that little cheater’s nuts. This is all
his
fault,’ Nessa snarled, sounding as fierce as she looked.

Cassie sighed. ‘It’s not his fault. Not any more. I got over him months ago.’ The truth was it had been remarkably easy to let go of Lance. Once she’d kicked him out of her life it had become distressingly obvious that they had never been that good together. What had been much harder to let go had been all the romantic dreams she’d had of having a settled secure life with a man who loved her. Something her mother had never managed. Cassie had picked Lance for the male lead in her Happy Ever After plan because he’d been convenient and available and had seemed to want the same thing. She’d never looked beneath the surface of their relationship. Had taken the tepid attraction she felt for him, and the yearning to have a real commitment from a man who wouldn’t break his promises, and turned their relationship in her mind into something it had never actually been.

‘This goes further back than that,’ Cassie admitted. ‘Lance was just the trigger to make me realise something I’ve been refusing to admit to myself for years.’

‘What’s that?’ Nessa said, clearly not getting Cassie’s rambling explanation. Not all that surprising as she was only just starting to understand it herself.

‘Remember how I always fell for my dad’s lies too, Ness? Remember how excited I’d be when he said he was taking me to the zoo, or the cinema? I’d build all my hopes up, convinced this time would be different. And then I’d be devastated when he didn’t show.’

‘It isn’t your fault your daddy was a tool too.’

‘And David?’ Cassie said. ‘Remember him? The love of my life in art college who turned out not to be all that interested in me? Can’t you see there’s a pattern here? That has as much to do with me as them?’

‘What pattern?’

‘I’ve always been so gullible. So easily fooled by even the slightest show of affection. It’s pathetic.’

Reaching across the coffee table, Nessa covered the hands Cassie had clenched in her lap. ‘You’re not gullible. You’re sweet natured and optimistic. It’s not a crime to always think the best of people.’

Cassie met her friend’s steady, reassuring gaze. ‘It is if you always end up letting yourself get hurt … I just don’t want to tempt fate with a guy like Jace Ryan.’

‘Damn.’ Nessa shook her head. ‘That is a shame, when he’s so good in bed.’

Cassie sent her friend a weak smile. ‘He’s
too
good in bed. How can I guarantee I won’t start getting more than just sexually attracted to him? I’ll overdose on really amazing sex. And before you know it I’ll be concocting yet another stupid fantasy that’s going to end up biting me on the backside.’

Nessa threw up her hands, looking exasperated. ‘Now wait a minute. Who says this couldn’t lead to more? Stranger things have happened. Look at me and Terrence. We plain out hated each other at school and now we’re engaged to be married.’

Nessa and Terrence hadn’t hated each other at all; they’d just been in denial about their attraction for years. Something all their friends had figured out long before they had.

‘Now who’s the hopeless romantic?’ Cassie arched her eyebrow. ‘Quite apart from the fact Jace lives in another country.’ She hesitated—or at least she had assumed he did, it was one of the many things they hadn’t discussed during their all-night sex-fest. ‘We’re not talking about Terrence. We’re talking about Jace the Ace. Do you have any idea how many girlfriends he got through at school? Because I do. He was my first major crush.’ In fact he’d been her only crush. Once he’d been kicked out of school, she’d never got so obsessed again, because no one else had ever been able to live up to his perfection in her teenage eyes. ‘Every other week, he’d have a new girlfriend hanging on his arm.’ And every other week she’d gone through the torments of hell, as only a thirteen-year-old could, because that girl hadn’t been her.

What a complete twit she’d been about men. Even then.

Nessa cradled her mug in her palms, scowling slightly. ‘All right, I’ll admit he may not be long-haul material. He certainly wasn’t at school. But people change.’

‘He hasn’t,’ Cassie mumbled, remembering the ‘have I slept with you?’ remark.

‘Maybe. Maybe not. But one thing I do remember,’ Nessa countered. ‘He was always real careful not to be doing more than one girl at once. He was never a cheater,’ she finished pointedly.

‘Great!’ Cassie puffed out a breath. ‘So he’s a serial monogamist. So what? He’s still far too dangerous a man for me to get involved with at the moment. I’m through having my dreams trampled on … and I’ve got to take some of the responsibility for that. I’ve got to be proactive from now on, and make sure I only have realistic dreams.’

‘Realistic dreams!’ Nessa scoffed. ‘Where’s the fun in that? That sounds more boring than one of my Aunt Chantelle’s Bible-study classes.’

‘The fun is,’ Cassie said mildly, ‘with realistic dreams, you might actually have some hope of them coming true.’

CHAPTER TEN

T
HE
loud buzz of the doorbell cut through the hum of the radio. Cassie’s hand jerked and the newly reconstructed Sugar Plum took it on the nose again.

‘Oh, for Pete’s sake!’ She glared at the white card, the intricate design of gossamer wings, willowy body and delicate features ruined a second time.

It had been two hours since Nessa had left and Cassie had set to work recreating her original drawing. After her chat with her best friend, her nerves had finally stopped jitterbugging enough for her to pick up her pen without risking another mishap. And to be honest she had to get this design done today. It was the twenty-first of December tomorrow. She had to get the cards printed this afternoon or she’d risk not getting them in the post in time for Christmas. Something she’d never failed to do before.

The doorbell buzzed longer and louder. Dumping the pen and picking up her washcloth, she marched to her front door. She had lots of friends and neighbours who often popped round to see her unannounced, but this was ridiculous. She’d put a sign on the door after Nessa left so she could draw in peace for the rest of the afternoon, and also because she’d wanted a bit of time to contemplate the revelations she’d finally discovered about herself in the last twenty-four hours.

Her body would always regret having to turn Jace down, and it would have been wonderful to indulge herself over Christmas, but she was coming to terms with the fact that she’d done the right thing. Now all she had to do was persuade her hormones. And the best way to do that was to stop thinking about what she’d left behind in The Chesterton hotel suite this morning and start concentrating on her Christmas card design. Unfortunately her friends were not playing along.

Slipping the deadbolt lose, she wrenched open the door.

‘Can’t you read, you …?’ Her hormones sprang into a brand new jitterbug as her gaze landed on the tall man standing on her doorstep with his hand braced against the door jamb and his pure green eyes glittering with annoyance.

‘Jace? What are you doing here?’ she whispered, her breath backing up in her lungs.

He straightened. ‘What the hell do you
think
I’m doing here?’ He marched past her into the flat, instantly making her tiny living room shrink to shoe-box size.

‘I …’ Her gaze devoured the broad shoulders accentuated by the black leather bomber jacket, the thick waves of dark brown hair brushed back in untidy furrows from that striking face. She was so shocked to see him. She didn’t have a clue what to say. Why had he tracked her down? The bump in her heartbeat, which she had spent the day telling herself she had to ignore, kicked in again.

‘You ran out on me!’ He thrust his fingers through his hair, and she realised where the furrows had come from. ‘I wake up and you’re gone. No note. No nothing. How’s that for a double standard?’ He rested his hands on his waist, sent her an accusatory look. ‘Because if a guy does that to a girl, it’s considered incredibly tacky.’

He didn’t just sound annoyed, she realised. She could hear the low growl of carefully controlled temper vibrating in his voice. And see the muscle clenching in his jaw. Had he been hurt by her silent departure? It didn’t seem possible. But at the thought the little bump in her heartbeat took a sudden unexpected leap.

‘I had to get home,’ she said as guilt made the fine hairs on the back of her neck prickle. ‘And you were fast asleep,’ she added, struggling not to sound too defensive. She hadn’t intended to hurt him. ‘I didn’t think you would want me to wake you.’

‘Oh, come on!’ He stepped forward, towering over her, his scowl darkening and the muscle in his jaw twitching. ‘We used a whole box of condoms last night. I got so deep inside you that last time I could feel your heart beating. Don’t start pretending you didn’t know me well enough to at least give me the courtesy of a goodbye.’

The blunt words made heat pulse low in her abdomen. Colour exploded in her cheeks, but not before she realised something crucial. She hadn’t hurt him. She’d insulted him. And that was entirely different.

‘I’m sorry I left without saying goodbye,’ she said carefully, feeling monumentally stupid. After everything she’d said to Nessa today, after everything she’d finally discovered about herself, how could she have been led astray by her romantic nature again so soon? ‘I really didn’t think you’d be that bothered.’

‘Yeah, well, think again,’ he snarled, so close now she could smell him, that devastating musk of man and soap. He cupped her head, drew her against him. She gasped, stunned by the unexpected contact, and the fierce arousal in his gaze, and then his mouth was on hers.

He thrust his tongue between her parted lips. Her hands braced against his chest, but instead of shoving him back, as she’d intended, her fingers curled into the soft sweater, the forceful strokes of his tongue igniting the heat at her core, and sending it burning through her system like a forest fire.

When he finally lifted his head, both of them were breathing heavily.

He dropped his hand, looking as shocked as she felt at the instant and violent attraction that had blazed to life in seconds.

Last night had been fun, flirty and intense, but only ever in a sexual sense. Why should a simple kiss feel more intimate?

‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. ‘That was out of order. I guess I was more pissed off than I realised.’

‘That’s okay,’ she said, feeling both stunned and wary. Although it wasn’t okay. Not really, but not for the reasons he thought. She’d welcomed the kiss, her body reacting instinctively to it. So how on earth was she going to get her jitterbugging hormones back under control now? And how was she going to persuade herself that she didn’t care what she was giving up, when her body would probably never stop reminding her?

‘It was rude of me to leave without saying anything,’ she whispered.

He propped his butt on the edge of the sofa. Hitched his shoulders as he shoved his fists deeper into his pockets. ‘You never gave me an answer.’ A crooked smile lifted his lips. ‘I guess I’m not used to women doing that. I wasn’t expecting you to be gone this morning.’

It was as she suspected. His ego had been dented. Nothing more dramatic than that.

He levered himself off the sofa. ‘Let me ask again, the way I should have done when I walked in. Instead of giving you a hard time.’

And a kiss that had nearly blown the top of her head off, Cassie added silently as he took one hand out of his pocket and touched her cheek.

She shivered, the contact as electric as it had been a moment ago, even though he was barely touching her.

He stroked his thumb across her lips. ‘How do you feel about hanging out with me, till I go back to New York on New Year’s Day?’

‘You live in New York?’ she said a bit inanely.

‘Haven’t I mentioned that already?’

She shook her head.

He smiled. ‘Seems like we’ve got some catching up to do. We’ve kind of done this thing backwards, haven’t we?’

What thing? They didn’t have a thing, she thought, her panic button tripping again.

‘So do I get an answer this time?’ he prompted.

But he didn’t sound nearly as sure of himself as he had yesterday. The thought made her feel a little less wary of him. That cast-iron control had slipped when he’d kissed her. If only for a moment. And it made him seem a tiny bit less overpowering.

She took a steady breath and opted to tell him the truth. ‘My answer is, I’m not sure.’

He tilted his head to one side, rubbed one of her curls between his thumb and forefinger. ‘What’s not to be sure about?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know you.’

‘We’ll get to know each other.’ His lips curved into a rueful smile. ‘As much as I’d like to spend the next ten days making nonstop love to you, even I have my limits. And we’ll probably have to eat occasionally. Which means we’ll no doubt have to talk to each other.’

She stepped back, tucked her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, impossibly tempted by the chance to get to know him better. But she would have to tell him the rest first.

She met his eyes. ‘I got hurt. Nine months ago. When my last relationship ended. And I don’t want to get involved with anyone right now.’

‘Involved?’ His eyebrows shot up. ‘How does ten days of small talk and great sex equal involved?’

‘It doesn’t,’ she corrected quickly. She didn’t want him thinking she was a romantic fool. Because she wasn’t. Not any more. ‘I know it doesn’t. Which is a good thing. Because that’s definitely not what I want.’

He slipped his hand round her waist, hauled her against him. ‘Then there isn’t a problem.’ He kissed her, lingering on her lips this time, making her sex ache and her breasts swell and tighten. ‘Is there?’

Could it really be that simple?

The crooked smile became even more charming. ‘You know, Cassidy, you’re being a bit of a girl about this.’

‘That’s possibly because I am a girl,’ she pointed out, not sure whether to laugh at the statement or be affronted.

‘I know.’ He kissed her again. ‘And that’s a very good point. But why don’t I give you a guy’s perspective?’ he said, as if he were humouring her. ‘To help clarify things.’

‘Okay,’ she said, intrigued to see where this was going.

‘The truth is,’ he began, ‘I’m not the sort of guy anyone gets
involved
with. And for a very good reason. I’m not remotely reliable,’ he said, not sounding in the least bit ashamed of his lack of constancy.

‘You got involved with your wife, didn’t you?’ she countered.

He cleared his throat. ‘She’s my ex-wife. Which sort of proves my point.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘So as I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted,’ he admonished, his eyes twinkling. ‘You don’t need to worry about me expecting more from this relationship than you want to give me. Because I can guarantee you. I won’t want more than I’ve asked for, which is—’

‘Great sex and small talk,’ she finished for him.

‘Exactly!’ he said as if she were a brilliant student and he the teacher. ‘You see, guys are very straightforward. We want what we say on the tin. There is hardly ever a hidden subtext. And there certainly isn’t one here.’

‘And what does your tin say?’ she asked, unable to stifle a grin.