“You look tired.”
Something shifts in his face, a door to honesty opening up, and it makes my breath catch. “Fine. I’m tired. I haven’t been…well.”
My stomach turns a slow loop. “Like…is it bad? I hope it’s not…” Oh, god. What’s the worst thing I could name? I can’t bring myself to name anything.
“It’s not cancer, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He lets out a hollow laugh. “I had the flu. The actual flu, not the stomach flu. I’m still getting over it, I guess.”
“I had the flu shot. So I should be good. In the meantime…” In the meantime, this man needs soup, and now. “You should have a seat.”
“I thought you were seeing yourself out.”
“I think you need me.”
I shrug off my coat, and don’t think I don’t notice the little noise he makes when he sees the dress underneath.
It’s a long-sleeved number that I’ve paired with wine-colored tights. I wanted to impress Sammy. Instead, I’ve managed to impress Adam.
Score one for me.
* * *
I should protest this. That’s what any honorable man would do. But when that coat comes off and I see the little waist flaring out into a luscious ass, all encased in a black dress that does her ever favor…
I’m a weak man.
And yes, I was supposed to be fully recovered a week ago. That hasn’t cleared me of the exhaustion.
This girl—she doesn’t give a fuck.
Holly tosses her coat over the back of one of the chairs snugged up to the little round table at the side of the kitchen and starts opening cupboards like she’s been here before.
“You’re pretty bold.”
She throws a look over her shoulder. “Have you been eating?”
As if on cue, my stomach growls. “I’ve been eating.”
“Not enough, by the sound of it.” She clicks her tongue. “I know how to make a really good soup. Do you have any chicken?”
“I have part of a rotisserie chicken.” This is pure coincidence. I had it delivered with this week’s groceries.
Holly’s face lights up. “Perfect.” She finds it in the fridge, then goes through my other cupboards like some kind of bizarre caroling magician. The book of carols is abandoned on the counter while she finds chicken stock and other assorted soup stuff. And I sit in a chair at the kitchen table and watch her.
“Who are you?”
She laughs a little while she lights the stove under a big pot. “Holly Abshire. I thought I told you that.”
“No, I mean…” Christ, that body. “Who are you that you’d risk your life just to please your friend?”
Holly bites her lip. “It’s more than pleasing her, honestly. It’s that…I’ve been really wrapped up in work. And I’ve let our friendship slide a little bit. Some snow shouldn’t stand in the way of proving to her that I care.”
“Some snow? That’s how you’re going to describe this?”
She casts a worried look over her shoulder. “I know. The Weather Channel was describing it as fairly apocalyptic. But as long as I don’t get trapped in the wilderness, I think it should be fine.”
“I wouldn’t say you’re in the wilderness, but you might be trapped.”
“Yeah…I’m guessing there were no cabs.”
“Not for four hours.”
Holly shrugs. “At least that’s enough time to make you some soup.”
Something raw and aching pulses inside my chest. “What makes you think I deserve soup?”
“Everyone deserves soup.” Holly searches until she finds a cutting board, then starts on the rotisserie chicken.
It’s almost like she belongs here.
Unlike my ex.
“I don’t deserve soup.”
“Why not?”
Cutting. Stirring. Adding. She’s serious about this soup thing.
“Doesn’t feel like it. Not much has gone right the past few months.”
“You wouldn’t consider this going right? I mean, you’re getting free soup.”
“I paid for everything in that soup.”
“Right.” Holly laughs again. “But you still hadn’t put it together. And if I hadn’t shown up, you probably would have thrown this stuff out. In a way, I’m saving you money.”
“That is…so convoluted.”
“You’ll get used to me.” Even from my seat at the table I can see Holly’s face going redder. “Not that…I’ll be here that long. Once this is at a good boil, I’ll make my way back to the train station.”
No. The thought of her tramping through the snow by herself—and in the dark, if the power goes out—is more than I can bear. I thought I was over shit like this, but I guess I’m not. And I’ll run the risk of getting stuck out there myself if I walk with her.
“Wait for the car,” I tell her.
Another little shiver moves through her, and it doesn’t look entirely unpleasant.
“Okay,” she says softly. “If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Okay.”
There’s a zipper at the back of her dress that I’m dying to tug down, but instead I act like a fucking gentleman. “So, Holly. What do you do for work that keeps you so busy?”
“I read books.” The way she says this is like it’s a sacred task.
“Like for a publishing company?”
“Yes.” Another pretty blush. “I’m in charge of the slush pile. And I know I’m not supposed to read them too deeply, but I always do.” Holly shakes her head. “I can’t help it.”
She is so damn earnest I think I might have a heart attack.
“You’re too gorgeous to work at a publishing house.”
My god. What am I thinking? What am I saying?
Holly turns toward me, an amused smile playing at the corners of her lips. “Thank you. But I would have expected you to say I’m too much of an idiot to work at a publishing house.”
“Why would I think that?”
“Only idiots go out in this kind of snow.”
A blaze of heat through my core. “I’m beginning to think it was a good idea after all. Very stupid. Very reckless. Very dangerous. But a good idea nonetheless.”
* * *
I want him to come closer.
I know I told him to take a seat, but really I want a scene out of the movies. I want his arms wrapped around me from behind. I want his voice running up and down the back of my neck. I want all of it.
Look, he’s handsome, okay? He’s the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen in my life, and the hole at the center of him is waiting to be filled by me.
By my soup, anyway.
It would be unseemly as fuck to say this to him. Adam, by the looks of him, isn’t the kind of guy to get wrapped up in a girl like me. Even on a night like this, when everything is crazy and anything could happen.
What if we made out? The question reverberates through my mind. What if we did? What if I did ask him?
I open my mouth, filled with the Christmas spirit and a certain recklessness that I usually only feel when I’m several eggnogs in. But what comes out is a totally different question. “Come taste this.”
I give the soup another stir.
For a guy who’s falling into a very handsome pit of despair, his house is well-stocked. Everything you need to make a hearty chicken soup.
He gets up from the chair and I’m reminded again that mystery Adam is the perfect height. Over six feet tall at the shortest. And when he comes over, I’m reminded that he wears a cologne that makes me weak in the knees.
I hunt around in the cupboards for a spoon, then dip it into the soup. I can feel him watching me while I blow on it to make sure it’s not too hot and then, with a hand that only trembles a little, I lift it to his lips.
His eyes lock on mine, dark and searching, and it’s like someone’s rung a gong right next to my head. Maybe the cold has gotten to me, freezing my brain, but this…this feels like something.
<
br /> Adam opens his mouth. He has a perfect mouth, with elegant lips, and I bet if he smiled it would be wide enough to stretch across his face.
But he doesn’t smile.
He bends down a few inches and closes his mouth over the soup.
And swallows.
And oh.
My.
God.
It is the most erotic moment of my life.
I blow out a little breath and watch him register it as he straightens back up. I’m an inferno. This grumpy, incredulous man has lit me on fire.
“How—how do you like it?”
He looks down at me and I can’t catch my breath.
“It needs more salt.”
Oh, it’s so gruff and cutting and I love it.
“Wow. I’ve gone to all this trouble, and all you have to say is that it needs more salt?” I turn back to the pot in a faux huff. I’ve got salt here, somewhere—
He catches me by the elbow and my entire body thrills at the touch.
“This is crazy,” he says. “It’s…fucking crazy. But I’d really, really like to kiss you.” There’s a fire in his eyes that matches hte one between my legs. “I’d like to ask you if I can kiss you.”
“Fuck, yes.” I throw the spoon to the counter with a wet clatter, and the next moment I’m in his arms.
Maybe Adam did have an intense bout with the flu, but it’s done nothing to diminish the incredible muscles in his arms. I can feel his abs straight through his shirt. I can feel everything, but most of all, I can feel that perfect mouth against mine, insistent and lonely and warm.
I let him in.
How could I not?
I’m here in his kitchen making soup for this man and when his tongue brushes against my bottom lip I’m lost. Maybe forever.
“We shouldn’t be kissing,” I murmur against those lips. “It’s probably against the rules for caroling.”
“Going caroling by yourself should be against the rules. And, by the way, you’re terrible at singing.”
I take a breath in to tell him that at least I was trying, but his mouth is on mine again, hotter and harder and it. Feels. Amazing.
It feels fucking amazing.
I want this. I want this more than I want all the extra hours at work, losing myself in manuscripts because the men in the city bars don’t want anything to do with me. I want this because the one guy I took a chance on in the last two years said I was married to that damn job and then got engaged to a high-powered lawyer instead.
I want this because it’s Christmas, and Adam is hot, and he tastes like hope and a hint of chicken noodle soup.
I’m gasping for breath by the time he sets me gently on my feet, his hands steady on my arms, gaze searching.
“Was that okay?”
“That was…incredible.”
“Good.” He rubs up and down my arms, then steps back. “Don’t forget the salt.”
* * *
The horror—the absolute horror—is that the moment I broke the kiss I heard my fucking phone.
It’s over on the table, and I leave her trembling by the stove in order to get to it, my heart sinking with every step.
Wow.
A Christmas miracle.
Waiting outside for pickup, the text reads.
Somehow, one of those drivers got free. Somehow, they got all the way here in the driving snow, and they want to drive her away from me.
I hear her adding the salt, and then I feel her noticing me.
“What’s wrong?”
I swallow hard. “There’s a car here for you.”
“Oh.” The light goes out of her voice. “All right. I can’t believe they made it.”
“I can’t either.”
“Must be a Christmas miracle.”
I turn to face her, that gorgeous pink face with those gorgeous pink cheeks and blue eyes the color of summer, and Holly is already shrugging on her coat.
I can’t stand it.
I don’t know what this is, but it feels right. And I know if I let her leave in that car, it’s over. It’s over forever.
But I told her to go. I called a car. The ride is here.
Holly goes to the front entryway and slips her feet into her boots without untying the laces. She peers out the front window to the whirling, cutting snow and I see her shoulders rise and fall with another little sigh.
Then she turns back to me and extends her hand to shake. “Thanks for letting me carol to you, Adam. You’ve saved a long and storied friendship today.”
I take her hand and shake it. What? What? We’re going to shake hands?
Holly rises up on tiptoe and presses a kiss to my cheek. “But mostly thanks for letting me come in. It’s cold as hell out there. The kind I might not have survived for long.” She says it dramatically, but it has the ring of truth to it. My body bends toward her voice.
“Okay,” Holly says. “Well…have a Merry Christmas.”
She pulls open the door with a confidence that breaks my heart and stomps out onto the porch, down the steps, into the snow.
This girl.
This girl who came to my front porch, sang me the worst Christmas carol I’ve ever heard, and took over my kitchen. She left soup simmering on the stove. She kissed me, and I felt her melt into my hands, into my arms.
She tasted like mint and snow.
And the snow—speaking of the snow. It’s so thick and white I can barely make out the car’s headlights. I can barely see her outline through the gusts.
It’s like she’s disappearing.
And I can’t let her disappear.
I lurch for the coat closet, summoning all my strength, and rifle through my coat pocket until I come up with my wallet. Then I hurl myself through the front door, no shoes, no coat, nothing, and chase her through the snow.
Holly has the back door of the car open and is bending down to talk to the driver when I get there. The storm is so loud it’s impossible to hear what she’s saying.
“Holly,” I say. She doesn’t hear me. “Holly,” I shout. And she straightens up and sees me.
“Did I forget something?” she calls over the howling wind.
“Stay.”
“What?”
“Stay here. With me. Don’t go.”
She gives a worried look inside the car. “But this guy came all the way out—”
My hands are blocks of ice, which makes it harder to whip the wallet open. But I do it, pulling out way too much cash. At least a hundred. Maybe more. I tap on the passenger window and it squeals down halfway.
“Yeah?”
“Take this.” I press the money inside to the driver’s waiting hand. “And get the hell home. She’s staying here with me.”
“All right,” he says, then revs the engine a little bit, impatient.
Holly gets the signal.
She slams the door shut and then she’s coming for me. I think it’s going to be a romantic moment, that she might jump into my arms and kiss me again, but instead she hooks her arm through mine and tugs me through the snow. I’m too big for her to actually drag, but she tries her best anyway.
“What are you doing?” My laugh gets sucked away in the wind.
“Taking you inside. Only an idiot comes out in the cold like this. And no shoes, either.”
Her hand on my arm is pure warmth. Her voice, cutting through the snow, is fire. And as we tumble in through the front door, which I’ve left open, her laughter is a new day dawning.
Holly surveys me with narrowed eyes. “You need to get changed. Your clothes are soaked.”
“Come with me.”
“I should finish the soup I’ve been making for you. Don’t you want the soup?”
“Come with me,” I say again.
“Consider it my Christmas gift to you.” She takes my hand and follows me up the stairs, one snowstreaked step at a time.
“Consider it done.”
“That, and the soup.”
I stop her at the top of the s
tairs and kiss her again. “Merry Christmas.”
She laughs, so pretty, and then whispers in my ear: “Get those pants off.”
* * *
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R. Linda
* * *
Three Years Ago
Everything had to be perfect. He would be home with her soon, and I needed to make sure everything was ready. If it wasn't, I would pay for it later. I always did.
I had just finished smoothing out the decorative covers on the cast-iron bed and tucking in the sheets when I heard the garage door open.
Rushing up the stairs and into the hall to the only mirror in the house, I checked my reflection in the dirty glass to make sure I looked presentable. The bags under my eyes were unavoidable. Nightmares did that to a person. The bruise on my cheek had started to fade; yet another imperfection that was inevitable. I was used to them by now. I couldn’t remember a time where I didn’t have a bruise or more on my body.