Healed Under the Mistletoe

by Amalie Berlin

  Which was how she found herself on her first road trip out of the city, tense because last night had been so emotionally draining, she selfishly didn’t want to dig back into the wound. And she didn’t want him to either.

  He’d taken it all more stoically, at least until she’d told him about Noelle. Her phone was still hidden somewhere in her apartment, which was some crazy leap of faith to take.

  “What’s the plan?” she asked, fidgeting with her seat belt, and then with her scarf to keep the belt from rubbing against her neck, and because she needed to fuss. Having something to do with her hands, anything to do with them, would keep her sane. Ish.

  “Drive there. Park. Go into Emergency. Say hi if I recognize anyone. Go back to your apartment, spend the rest of the day in bed.”

  She felt her cheeks heat and, despite her nerves, smiled. “Well, I like most of that plan.”

  Then, “How much longer?”

  “Two exits.”

  It had taken literally no time. She’d blinked and they’d gotten there. Where was that New York traffic when she needed it?

  He didn’t say another word until after he’d driven up every level of the parking garage, past loads of free spaces where they could’ve parked, and back into the daylight on top.

  She didn’t want to stare at him, but she couldn’t help herself from looking, and when she saw him again in the light of day, his pallor made her neck run cold.

  He’d entered the garage a normal shade of pale Scotsman, but six levels later looked as if he’d never seen sunlight before.

  Still, he maneuvered the car into a parking spot and turned it off. Said nothing.

  “Which building is it?”

  He gestured and dropped his hand onto the gear shift. Was he trying to bolster his gumption to complete the trip, or was he looking for a way out?

  Give him an out.

  She laid her hand over his and squeezed. “You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to.”

  “We drove for an hour.” It was self-criticism, complaint about him not doing what he’d decided he’d just be able to run right in and do.

  “Yes, it was a nice drive.” She tried to spin it. “We didn’t hear a single Christmas carol on the radio.”

  “We didn’t listen to the radio.”

  “I didn’t spontaneously burst into Christmas carols.”

  He tried to smile; the corners of his mouth twitched, the tiniest micro-movement, and settled back into that deep, worried frown.

  “Let’s go.” He slid his hand from beneath hers, grabbed the keys from the ignition and climbed out.

  She said a little prayer under her breath then scrambled out of the car to go with him. If he was going to go, it wouldn’t be alone. She knew about alone, and was starting to see she never actually did the hard things alone. Not the emotional work, only the physical. She’d buried her twin on autopilot—picking out a coffin, a dress, flowers, buying a burial plot near Dad and Nanna, ordering a gravestone.

  She’d done the things as if they were for a stranger, and left town the day after the funeral. Then pretended.

  Until last night. With this man. She wouldn’t let him face this alone.

  That wasn’t even counting the people he’d see and what if they said something hideous to him? Although she felt he was on the way to recovery—maybe they both were—he still needed kindness more than anyone she knew. Having hate spewed at him would only make him feel worse.

  He waited for her, masking his emotions behind the grim set of his brow, but took her hand and walked resolutely toward the elevators.

  When he didn’t immediately press the call button, she searched his face again. His jaw—which he’d shaven when he’d gone to fetch his car—gritted so hard it looked as if that muscle at the corner was beating out an SOS.

  She could push it for him, but that would be pushing this whole thing another step forward, and he wasn’t ready. If he was ready, his subconscious wouldn’t be signaling for help through jaw-based Morse code.

  “Is there a good place to get coffee in Pomadoo?”

  Yeah, she’d said the name wrong, but it was a silly name and that was the pattern, and she couldn’t remember the right syllables at that second.

  He’d worn the woolen hat she’d knitted again, and she let go of his hand so she could move to stand in front of him and give it a little adjustment, pulling it better over his chill-reddened ears.

  “Ramapo,” he corrected woodenly, but let her fuss. They hadn’t summoned the elevator, but it dinged anyway, announcing the arrival of someone in search of their car.

  A disgusted shake of his head followed, and before the doors opened he took her hand again to walk far too quickly back to the car.

  This time, he didn’t just let her put herself inside his fancy Infinity. He held the door, and when she sat, he actually fastened the seat belt.

  Suddenly she understood the way he checked her windows, the way he prowled the department seven hundred times a day to give some more rambunctious patients the stink eye. When Lyons was upset, he made sure everyone else was safe. His friend had died, and he hadn’t been able to save her. And he had almost died.

  That thought still made her eyes burn and ate through her ability to draw a full breath.

  It was the same way she felt when she thought about Noelle, only mixed in with other feelings. The heart of it was the same choking desperation at the idea of losing him. She couldn’t even imagine how it happened so fast. It was just over a week since she’d met him and suspected he might eviscerate the HR lady with his words.

  Now she could barely stand the idea of not talking. Outside his pallor and the tic of his jaw, she had no idea what he was thinking.

  Once he’d climbed in and buckled up, he still sat there with the keys in the ignition.

  “Do you feel up to driving?” She did ask that, because she wasn’t going to risk him in that way or make him feel forced to hold it together to keep her safe.

  “I’m fine.”

  He wasn’t fine.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “About the fastest way to The Roast.”

  Still a lie, but one that got coffee for her because she’d asked for it. Still taking care of her. If it helped him, she’d let him keep doing it.

  “Do they have food too?”

  * * *

  Although he looked better by the time they’d finished their coffee, he hadn’t wanted to speak about the hospital.

  She knew how much it ate at him by his entire lack of speech, and by the kiss he gave her as they left The Roast, pressing her against the passenger side of the car.

  He never spoke, but his kiss was a confession. He was shaken, but also angry with himself, with the situation? She didn’t know. All she knew was that last night’s slow, savoring kiss turned deep and demanding. Frigid winter winds blustered and blew against them, but the kiss stoked a fire within hot enough to bat back the cold. It took someone blowing a car horn right beside them to break them apart.

  The drive back to her apartment was long and silent, convincing her that he’d just drop her off and take his leave.

  But when they arrived, he parked and entered the building with her, still silent. As the door closed, Belle found herself pinned to it, his mouth on hers again, as if the hour between the Ramapo parking lot and her door had been a half-mile drive.

  “I feel like I’m using you,” he said, his mouth still against hers, hand cradling the back of her neck to keep her close, to get her closer.

  “Using me?”

  “Every time I feel too badly, I want to just drown it all out in your kisses.”

  “You didn’t last night,” she whispered, tugging his sweater up so she could get at the firm male flesh beneath. With the months that had definitely passed between last night and today, his bare fles
h stirred a different feeling in her. She still wanted to protect him, but she mostly wanted closer. To feel his heat, heating her in return. She wanted to feel something good, and make him feel something good after a night and a day of shared suffering.

  He let go of her, allowing the air to open up just long enough for her to draw the material off his raised arms. She took the undershirt with it and spread her fingers over the muscled strength rippling under soft skin and the crisp, dark hair on his chest and tapering lower.

  “No, last night I just wanted to hold you.”

  He did pause, needing to check the locks on the door they’d just passed through and locked back up, then began steering her back down the hallway to the bedroom they’d left this morning.

  Belle had grown up in Arizona, her body adjusting to the heat over the course of a lifetime. December in New York, she survived the cold with layers.

  He got her own sweater off and found the second sweater—a ribbed turtle neck. Once that was off, there was an undershirt.

  “You’re dressed like a Russian doll,” he complained between kisses, but, once he got the long-sleeved shirt off, stepped back far enough that he wasn’t even touching her anymore. He’d reached her bra, and he just looked, that frustration she’d heard diminishing in his eyes.

  She felt his gaze in a tingling wake that had her body tightening and all her own patience evaporating, taking the rawness last night had exposed with it, or at least softened that year-old pain.

  She wanted to be that for him, but his was even closer to the surface than hers. It felt fragile, like the tender first layer of skin over shredded tissue. Something to protect and nurture because even a touch could rip it open again.

  This wasn’t using her if she felt it too, if she wanted to give to him, to share with him, to be with him. The only place he touched her was the hand he’d taken when he stepped back, opening up the distance that kept her from reaching for him.

  She croaked the question, mouth too dry for smoothness. “What are you doing?”

  “Appreciating.” The response was simple, but the look in his eyes deep with meaning. This wasn’t simply lust or need.

  “I haven’t wanted in over a year. Not a hint of desire for anyone. The day I met you, there was a spark, and it’s had a week to combust. I want to see you.”

  She might be quaking so hard her knees wanted to buckle, but she couldn’t deprive him, not when it so clearly meant more than she’d have even had in her to hope for. But she wasn’t strong enough to admit how much his words meant. It was all she could do to fumble open the closure on her jeans and shove them down. Helping. Just to provide what he needed. What she needed.

  The corners of his mouth lifted as the material flopped around her ankles, pooling over her shoes.

  “Can’t wait?”

  “In my head, it was a lot sexier.” Her nervous, breathless laugh did nothing to add to the seduction. “Of course, that was last night, when I was going to show you the original set I’d picked.”

  She wobbled as she tried to toe the heels of her sneakers off and reached for him to keep from falling on her face. Not a smooth seduction. Probably not a seduction at all.

  Except he took the hint and knelt down to help her, then stayed knelt low so that he got an entirely different, up-close inspection and perspective of her silky pink lace as his eyes locked to hers, and though she still saw amusement there—something she was actually thankful for after the past twenty-four hours—the stomach-clenching intent made her want to follow him down. An inch between them further than a mile. A look she’d have waited her whole life to see. He wanted her, and everything about the way he looked at her and touched her said he was better because he was with her. She had no doubt she felt better when she was with him. Even if it was only temporary.

  “What were last night’s like?”

  “Red for extra sauciness.” She smiled a little, then gave in to the urge to brush her fingertips down his cheek. The first touch had him rising, hands coming to cup her face in return, bringing her mouth back to his, his kiss sweeter than the blistering need of moments before, but no less devastating.

  “I like the pink,” he said against her mouth, “but I want to see the red sometime...”

  Sometime. In the future.

  It wasn’t a promise, just a request for something to continue between them. Not just today. Was it the start of something? She couldn’t have forever, couldn’t risk it, but maybe they could have something for now. And maybe now could last for a little while.

  “When?”

  “Christmas,” he murmured. “Red for Christmas.”

  He wanted to spend Christmas with her. Her eyes stung, and she pressed against him, arms wrapping around his shoulders, relishing the mind-numbing wash of feeling that came when skin-to-skin with him. She’d choke on the hope filling her throat if he said anything else. Even knowing it couldn’t last. Hope paid no mind to logic. This was only for now. For a little while longer.

  His arms came around her and he lifted to move the few remaining feet to the bed, where he laid her down.

  Every piece of clothing they removed tore away another burden that had pressed into her. And he felt it too. The intensity in his eyes when he looked at her didn’t waver, but it did brighten. There was something so bright and hope-filled between them, it glowed like a thousand tiny lights. Or maybe a thousand tiny candles, which could be extinguished with a careless breath.

  They burrowed into the still-tangled bedclothes, and he took his time—looking, touching, savoring—to the point her trembling became a second language, announcing what he did to her, and exactly how badly she wanted him to do that again.

  It was a day of extremes. Sadness and worry to teasing and play, to the sexiest she’d ever felt.

  By the time he’d reached his breaking point, she was almost mindless from his touch, from his deep, narcotic kisses, and it took him actually leaving the bed to paw through the bedside table to regain her senses enough for speech.

  She rolled onto her side, the terrible, wonderful trembling in her body subsiding just enough for her to move. “Lyons?”

  Lyons looked at her, her body a deep, gorgeous dusty rose, and shook his head. Too rushed, too drenched with need and frustration for speaking. He spotted the familiar shade of a bright blue box of condoms, grabbed it, bit into one corner and ripped the thing open to spill the shiny foil packets onto the bed.

  Belle didn’t say anything else, just tore one packet free and open, then reached for him. Her hands shook, which actually felt kind of amazing as she rolled it onto him. There was no grace in either of them in that moment, except when she met his eyes. He’d never seen anyone bestow serenity in a look. It was almost a religious experience, warming all the cold corners of his being he’d neglected too long. No matter how foolish, he wanted to worship.

  When she’d settled it, the last piece of his patience shattered, and he followed her down onto the bed again.

  A smart man would’ve urged her to turn over, taken her from behind so he couldn’t fall into her eyes again. But he was an idiot. Or weak. Or a glutton for punishment. Like Wolfe, tempted to just let go and accept whatever price he had to pay to be with her. To stay here, in this small apartment, and have some peace.

  He settled into the cradle of her thighs and held her gaze as he eased into her, a spike of pleasure already punching through his belly. Her eyes rolled back and closed. It had hit her too.

  Starting to move, he found a rhythm that would ruin him far too quickly, but need had taken over. When her eyes opened again, that connection—already too intense—surged, locked as surely as their bodies; even when they’d spiraled to a place where focus abandoned them, it remained, even deepened.

  The first pulse of her climax finished him, and his jerking hips lost all semblance of control. But it was the sweetness that filled him, beamed stra
ight into his chest from her eyes, that had him shaking long after he’d moved to her side and dragged her close.

  She didn’t ask him anything, not out loud, but with her head cradled on his chest, her eyes still on his face and him unable to look anywhere else, he still heard it.

  “I’m all right,” he whispered.

  “You’re still shaking.”

  And it had been a while.

  He wouldn’t deny it. Instead, he said, “I’m better than I’ve been in a long time.”

  And it was true. A feeling he could become addicted to.

  “It’s okay. This is scary.” She misread him, but the way she said it—her eyes finally drifting away—he knew she was speaking to herself.

  “Are you scared?”

  She didn’t answer immediately, but the worry he saw when she looked back was a megaphone. “Everyone I love dies.”

  The word quadrupled his pulse.

  It wasn’t an admission. It was too soon for that. Just an expression of fear, of what might happen if she grew to love him. Sex and intimacy, gateway drugs to love.

  “Everyone dies. It has nothing to do with you.” He touched her face, making her look him in the eye to make sure she’d heard him. “Noelle didn’t die because you loved her.”

  He knew about guilt, how it could twist things.

  When she nodded, when he was certain she’d heard him, he kissed her again and reached for another condom.

  She didn’t love him. This was comfort. And only until Christmas, until they’d both survived the most wonderful time of the year.

  * * *

  There had still been daylight when they’d reached the bedroom, but Lyons felt like a teenager—even after another, slower exploration of one another, and a pause to eat dinner, he’d made his dessert a feast of pleasure.

  Now, at almost midnight, it was catching up with him.

  “Your breathing is mighty slow and steady,” Belle murmured, her arm wrapped over the arm he’d draped across her waist, then wiggling back against him a little more snugly.