by Leslie Kelly
That seemed to surprise her. She immediately shook her head. “No. None. Absolutely zero. I can’t believe I ever mistook that boyish face to mean he was someone with integrity and a good heart.” Her tone completely unfaltering, she added, “He’s a creep and a loser.”
“Glad we got that settled. And for what it’s worth, I agree. Creep, loser, asswipe, whatever you want to call him. The guy’s shifty and not worth another minute or your time.”
He’d meant to make her laugh, or at least smile. Instead, Noelle settled deeper into her seat, drawing her arms across her chest. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms as if to ward off the cold, she murmured, “I thoroughly agree. I must have been out of my mind to think I loved him.”
Mark reached for the heater switch, though the car was comfortably warm in his opinion. He was thinking about her words, and the soft, mournful tone in which she’d said them, but before he could ask her about it, his cell phone ring, distracting him. His brother Tony was calling to ask him if he needed a key to the back door of the restaurant, so he could return the insulated pizza bags they’d used to make their long distance delivery. The restaurant closed at eleven, and it was likely to be dark and locked up by the time they arrived.
As he was finishing his call, Mark saw their exit. Pulling off the highway, he headed downtown, noting the decorated homes along the way. Definitely not up to Christmas standards, but in a city as big as Chicago, it was nice to see evidence of the same holiday spirit.
A short time later, when they were parked in the alley behind Santori’s, next to Noelle’s car—which he’d had her move earlier—he remembered her words. “So what’d you mean a little while ago, about being out of your mind to think you loved Jeremy the jackass?”
Noelle didn’t answer. Instead, to his complete surprise, she shifted in her seat and leaned across the console. Cupping his cheek in her hand, she tangled her fingers in his hair and tugged him close, whispering, “Kiss me, Mark.”
Their mouths met and opened, heat snapping in the wet mating of their tongues, just as it always did. He instantly hardened with want for her, want he’d been suppressing for five long days, since the party Saturday night.
“I need you,” she muttered between choppy breaths when the kiss ended.
“I know the feeling.” He was about to ask her whether she wanted him to follow her or just wanted to go home in his car when Noelle climbed across the seat onto his lap. “What…”
“Shh,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck to kiss him again. She tilted her head, thrusting her tongue into his mouth with almost desperate hunger. Mark shifted in his seat, making room for her, and Noelle responded by sliding one leg across his legs so she could straddle him.
Groaning in tormented pleasure when the heated V of her thighs came in contact with his rock-hard erection, he tangled his hands in her hair for another mind-numbing kiss. She was hot and wanton in his arms, and they quickly steamed up the car windows. Noelle twisted and writhed, rubbing against him, making desperate little sounds of hunger. Tugging his thick cotton shirt out of his waistband, she moved her hands over his stomach, trailing fire on his skin. Then she reached for his belt.
“Noelle, honey, wait,” he whispered, drawing on some previously undiscovered well of control. “Let’s get out of here and go someplace more private.”
“No.” She started unbuckling, not even looking at him. “I want it here. Now.”
Now. In the alley behind his family-owned restaurant. If that wasn’t bad enough, they were inside a car which was moderately comfortable for driving, but not at all sufficient for the kind of lovemaking he wanted to share with this woman.
He covered her hands with his. “My place is close.” Pressing a soft kiss on her cheek, he breathed deeply, inhaling her hair. “We have all night.”
“I don’t want all night,” she said, her voice thick and shaking. “I want now. Just this, right now. Do it to me, Mark. Take me.”
The desperate tone in Noelle’s voice suddenly pierced through the haze of lazy lust that had been clouding his mind. Because despite her frenzy and her words, she didn’t sound aroused and hungry. She sounded almost…desperate. Her demands, which had thrilled him their first day at the inn, suddenly sounded less about passion and secret longings and more about anxiety.
“Noelle, I’m not going to have sex with you on a freezing-cold night in a car on a dark street. Let’s go home and I’ll love you all night long.”
She stiffened, simply staring at him. Her mouth opened, then closed, as if she had something to say but couldn’t make herself say it. Finally she squared her shoulders. “I don’t want love all night long from you. I want sex. Remember? Hot, wicked and erotic, with no repercussions.” She paused before adding, “No blame, no expectations. No morning after.”
He stared at her in disbelief, wondering what the hell she was talking about. This wasn’t the same woman he’d held hands with earlier this evening, the woman who’d socialized with his family and charmed them all. She couldn’t be the Noelle who’d shared her memories of childhood heartbreak in this very car a few hours ago. This wasn’t even, he suspected, the hungry woman who’d given herself over to all her erotic fantasies at the Candy Cane Inn.
No, this was a desperate, anxious woman who seemed determined to return their relationship to the place they’d started. He just had no idea why.
Wondering what was driving this sudden reversal, he opened his mouth to ask her, but suddenly a sliver of light cast a long thin line of illumination on the ground. The back door of the restaurant was opening. His father appeared there, carrying a bulging bag of trash. Noelle dove to the other side of the car, even as Mark shifted around, thanking God his hard-on was at least contained by his straining zipper. “I thought everybody was gone,” he muttered tightly.
Spying them in the car, Pop waved. Mark reached for the door handle, to go help the old man, saying, “I’ll be right back and we can finish our conversation.”
But as he stepped into the cold night and took the heavy trash bags out of his father’s hands, he saw the passenger door of his car open. Noelle got out. “Thanks for your help tonight,” she said, focusing only on Mark’s father. “My cousin adored your pizza.”
“Your cousin, she has good taste!” the old man said with a big smile. “Like my son.”
Noelle didn’t respond to his father’s broad hint. Finally, she turned her lovely face toward Mark. Their stares met and held for a long, silent moment. He remained very still, asking dozens of questions, receiving absolutely no answers. None that made any sense, anyway.
Then, without a word, Noelle walked over to her own car, got in it and drove away.
11
NOELLE WAS in very serious trouble. She’d made a huge, enormous mistake, probably the biggest one in her entire life. The kind that was going to haunt her for a long, long time, unless she corrected the situation immediately.
Unfortunately, she didn’t believe there was a way to fix the situation. How could she fix the longing, the ache in her heart? Because she’d done the unthinkable. She’d fallen in love with Mark Santori.
Over the next couple of days while she’d focused on the shopping, planning, wrapping and baking for the Give A Kid A Christmas program, she also screamed at herself for being such a complete fool. After all the talks she’d given herself, all the justifications and warnings, she’d somehow let her heart slip away.
She’d realized it when Jeremy had shown up at the inn the other night. Until that time, she’d been able to fool herself that what she felt for Mark was simply intoxicating lust. But when she saw her ex, the man she’d been set to marry, standing there with her lover, she’d been forced to confront the truth.
While sitting there staring impassively at the face she’d once thought she loved, she’d been comparing her old feelings to the ones she had for Mark. It was like comparing a child’s Etch-a-Sketch to the Mona Lisa. And suddenly she’d understood. Her feelings had washed ov
er her in a sudden rush, literally making her shake where she sat. Because Jeremy had made her feel nothing compared to the everything she felt when she was with Mark.
And oh, God, if there had ever been a moment that had left her feeling completely out of her depth, vulnerable and utterly exposed, it was that one. When she’d looked at the worthless man who’d betrayed her and hurt her so badly—even when, looking back, she knew she hadn’t truly loved him—she’d felt terror roll through her. Because the sadness she’d felt at losing Jeremy was nothing next to what would happen to her the day Mark realized she wasn’t enough for him. Whether he came to that realization first, or simply admitted that he wasn’t going to allow himself to even try to love her because of his painful past, she was the one who was going to be crushed.
Panic. Pure, undiluted terror had made her sit there silently in Sue’s bedroom while the world continued on around her, oblivious to her epiphany.
The feeling had set in throughout the long ride back to the city, and with every passing mile, she’d grown more and more terrified of what she’d done. Falling in love was not supposed to happen. She’d just wanted a fling, not to open up her heart and let somebody throw rocks at it again.
Which was why she’d been so stupid, so awful, when they’d arrived back at the restaurant. She still wondered how she’d ever have the nerve to face him after the way she’d behaved in his car.
So far, she hadn’t had to. She’d ignored his calls and when he’d come by the shelter Saturday, she’d had Alice tell him she wasn’t around. Even though she was avoiding him, the man had still handed Alice an envelope bulging with donations from the restaurant, and from Rachel’s bridal shop. Alice had had joyful tears in her eyes when she’d handed it over to Noelle.
What an incredible, wonderful, loveable, sexy man.
And she had to shove him away, to save herself from even more heartache in the future.
“Sometimes life really sucks,” she whispered in the stillness of her bare, undecorated apartment Sunday night. She looked around, wondering why she suddenly had a longing for the smell of evergreen. She’d been so sure she wouldn’t miss Christmas that she’d mentally removed it from her to do list. Yet here it was, one week away, and she was wishing she could find the comfort of some pretty lights or tinsel, if only to escape the ugly mess she’d made of her life.
“You’re going to have to face him eventually,” she whispered. She just needed to pull her thoughts together enough to prepare for it. Somehow, Noelle would have to explain her way out of this without letting Mark know she’d fallen so hard for him.
It wasn’t that he’d intentionally hurt her. She knew that, just as she knew he’d do anything to protect the kids in her care, or to stop a criminal. It was his nature to be a caretaker.
But love was a different matter entirely. They were both too closed-off, too self-protective, to even think of letting emotion cloud their relationship. Mark had given her only brief details about the heartbreak that had left him cold to romance for the past five years, but given the length of time, it had to have been bad. Really bad.
So no, the two of them had absolutely no business letting this physical attraction they shared get all tangled up in emotion. And if he found out she’d already done it, he’d either feel obligated to try to care for her in return, or he’d run for the hills. Either way didn’t bode well for Noelle.
All that was firmly settled in her mind as she changed into a pair of warm sweats and fuzzy socks, figuring she’d down her sorrows in popcorn and a Christmas movie. Tomorrow, she’d call him and ask him to meet her for lunch. She’d make light of what had happened in his car, thank him for the great time, and let him know she intended to move on.
Thank God she had a physical escape to look forward to in another week. To her great happiness, they had managed to replace all the money that had been stolen a few weeks ago, and then some. Meaning Noelle wouldn’t have to lose out on the nonrefundable hotel deposit or hand over the money she had saved to pay for her expenses in St. Lucia.
Late on Christmas Day, she was flying south. Not to hook up with a sexy stranger, but to recover emotionally from the incredible man she’d so foolishly fallen for already.
Opening the popcorn package, she was startled by a knock on the door of her apartment. She glanced at the clock and saw it was after nine. A tiny frisson of tension shot through her, considering she didn’t have any friends in the building and had no idea who’d be stopping by this late on a Sunday evening.
Going to the door, she looked through the peephole and was shocked to see Mark standing in the hall. “Oh, God,” she whispered.
He knocked again. “Noelle, come on, I saw your car in the parking lot. Let me in, I need to give you something.”
Hmm, she could think of something she’d like the man to give her. A very big something. Forget it. That’s over with!
Swallowing hard, she unlocked the door and slowly swung it open. “Hi,” she said, wishing her heart would stop cartwheeling in her chest over how damned sexy he was. He looked, as always, incredible. Wearing his soft leather jacket and some faded jeans, he was unshaven, his hair windblown. Warmth trickled through Noelle’s body, settling between her legs, just at the sight of him.
“Can I come in?”
Stepping out of the way on somewhat wobbly legs, she ushered him into the apartment. He looked around while she shut the door behind them. “I like your place.”
“Thanks.” Clearing her throat, she added, “You have something for me?”
Mark lifted his hand, in which he held a tissue-wrapped package. “Yeah. Another thank you gift from your cousin Sue. She slipped it to me the other night and I forgot to give it to you on the way home.”
Noelle felt heat rise in her face, remembering exactly what Sue had given her the last time. God, if Mark ever found out he was hand-delivering X-rated videos, Noelle was going to die.
She took the package and hugged it close to her chest.
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
“Nuh-uh.” Her cheeks were flaming—she just knew it.
Mark finally seemed to notice. Stepping closer, he tilted his head and stared at her. “What’s wrong?”
Noelle took a tiny step back. “Nothing, nothing at all. Sue’s just got a crazy sense of humor. I can only imagine what’s in here.”
His lips parted, as if he was about to press the matter, but he finally let it go. She almost wished he’d pressed her on it because his next question was even more uncomfortable. “So, why have you been avoiding me?”
Noelle walked past him into the living area of her apartment, stuffing the lumpy package into the oversized front pouch of her hooded sweatshirt. “Avoiding you?”
Following her, Mark caught her arm and made her turn around to face him. “Don’t deny it. You’ve been avoiding me even though you know you and I have some unfinished business.” Through half-lowered eyes, he raked a slow, thorough glance over her, from the top of her head to her fuzzy-covered feet. And suddenly even before her mind had caught up, her body figured out exactly what kind of business he meant.
Her heart stopped cartwheeling and began to do flips instead. “Mark…”
“You said you wanted me,” he murmured, reaching up and stroking the fleshy pad of his thumb across her bottom lip. His voice was low, intense, throaty. “You begged me to do it to you, Noelle. No strings. No repercussions. I know you want me to take you places you’ve never been.”
She was breathing in short, raspy gasps, stunned by his intensity, by the almost dangerous look on his face.
“Are you denying it?” he asked in a silky whisper, stepping closer.
Crowded by the sofa behind her, Noelle couldn’t move away. They were only an inch apart, close enough to feel the heat and sense the electric passion surging up between them, just as it always did. “I’m not denying it.”
He smiled lazily. A slow, wicked smile. Saying nothing, he unzipped his jacket and tossed it away, as if
the decision had already been made. His words confirmed it. “Where’s your bedroom?”
Gulping, she thought for one split second about the choice she had to make. Despite everything she’d told herself earlier about why she needed to stop seeing Mark, there was absolutely no way she could stop desiring him. And now he was offering her what she’d wanted: a night of erotic delight, without any expectations or promises.
It could only be one night. Her heart couldn’t take the battering of drawing this out any longer. So she only had a few hours to build up some amazing memories that would last her whole life. She’d be absolutely crazy to refuse.
Mark moved closer, eliminating that tiny bit of space between them. When he slid a hand in her hair to tug her to him for a deep, wet kiss, she knew she wasn’t going to refuse. The excitement sending her blood roaring through her veins wouldn’t allow her to. Neither would her heart, which wanted him despite her certainty that they could never make it work. That either she would never be enough for him in the long-term, or else he’d never be able to completely let her past his self-protective wall that had kept him single for five long years.
But for now—right now—she wanted him heart, body and soul. So Noelle gave up all pretense of resistance, even in her own mind. Pressing hard against his body, she gave him her answer.
His slow, devouring kiss matched his mood…quiet, deliberate, oh-so-sensuous. Noelle met the slow, lazy thrusts of his sweet tongue, even as she rubbed her cheek against his rough hand. She wanted that roughness on other parts of her body. “Through there,” she whispered against his lips, nodding toward her closed bedroom door.
He bent and picked her up, easily carrying her across the living room. It was the first time any man had ever picked her up like this. Somehow, whenever Noelle had fantasized about being swept off her feet by a man—literally—she’d imagined a lovely, romantic, old-fashioned gesture.
This was hot. Mind-blowingly sexy. Rhett carrying Scarlett up the stairs, not about to take no for an answer.