She tensed at the criticism. “I didn’t know passion was a requirement.”
“It’s not, but it’s something we all think about when we’re hiring someone to join the executive staff. A passion for the job, the company, the product. A personal connection. If you want this job, Joy, before we make a final decision, I need to know you really want it, and for more than the bigger paycheck. If this is what you want to do day in and day out for years to come. If you have—”
“Passion,” she finished for him, flatly.
“Yes. Exactly.”
Joy withered, sinking back into her chair, thanking Ken as he left. What could she do? It seemed passion was the thing lacking in her life overall, and she had no idea if she’d ever had it, or how to find it.
* * *
Rafe was grinning ear-to-ear as he pulled into Warren’s driveway. He stepped out of the car to see Bessie getting out of her own car across the street, starting to take out sacks of groceries from the trunk. Rafe trotted over to give her a hand. He liked Bessie, and she always fed him when he came over—it reminded him of his own neighborhood back home, where someone was always trying to feed him something. Thankfully his job and time at the gym worked it off.
“Hey, let me give you a hand with those,” he said, lifting the bags out of her arms.
“Well, now, they don’t make many like you anymore, Rafe. I hope that young woman across the street knows she’s found herself a real gentleman,” Bessie complimented him. He acknowledged the words with silence, secretly thinking that if this nice old lady knew what plans he had for Joy later that night, she might not think he was much of a gentleman.
“Lots of groceries here,” he commented, changing the subject as they walked up the steps. “Doing a lot of cooking this week?”
“Oh yes. Baking for church and for friends—among which you may count yourself—and of course my family will be here soon, so I need to start now. They all have good appetites, and I like to make everyone’s favorites,” she declared.
Rafe felt a little twinge of loneliness for his own family. His mother did the same. His favorite was the manicotti that was standard Christmas-Eve fare, along with the homemade custard-and-cheese cannoli. His mouth watered thinking about it.
“You can put those down on the table, thank you very much. Can I make you some lunch?”
He smiled and then shook his head. “Don’t tell my mother if you ever meet her, but your soup is as good as hers, Bessie. There isn’t much that would keep me from it, but I have a Christmas tree tied to the top of Warren’s car, and I need to get it down and inside the house to surprise Joy.”
Bessie’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, you’re a romantic one, too. I’ll send some soup over later—enough for both of you.”
“We won’t say no,” he assured her with a wink.
He returned back to his car, and before long had hauled the Christmas tree into Joy’s house, along with a boatload of decorations he’d bought at the store. He wasn’t going to decorate it for her, but they’d have some fun—and some fun—doing it together.
Still, he looked at his watch and wondered where she was. Time had slid by while he’d put up the tree, and he hadn’t realized it was already a half hour later than Joy normally came home from work. He knew this was a busy week. Maybe she’d gotten caught up in something. He was willing to wait.
Still, she hadn’t replied to any of his text messages after the first few, and he hoped he hadn’t ticked her off again. He sat with an old magazine and the undecorated tree until the sun went down and the Christmas lights were all blinking outside the windows. Finally he gave in to his worry and called Second Chance. No, Joy wasn’t there, and Pam hadn’t heard from her.
By the time he called her cell and left a message, a little chunk of fear had lodged itself in his gut. He’d seen the results of too many times when someone didn’t make it home one night, and it was hard for him not to imagine the worst.
Still, what could he do? He didn’t really know Joy all that well, certainly not enough to expect her to check in with him.
Worry turned to annoyance, which transformed into irritation and near anger again as he saw her headlights turn into the driveway, then relief took over. She was fine, just late. Going out on the porch, he met her on the steps.
“Hey, you’re home late,” he observed, unable to keep the slight accusation out of his tone.
“You were waiting for me?”
Something about that stung; they hadn’t had firm plans, but he thought it was pretty clear they were getting together that evening. The fact that she obviously hadn’t even given him a second thought put a big dent in the masculine ego.
“Not really, I just stopped by,” he lied, his pride digging in.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Rafe. I was out driving.”
“Where?”
“Around. I had to think.”
Rafe’s irritation dissipated as he detected the tone of confusion in her voice, and he went the rest of the way down the steps and took her hands in his.
“Think about what? Us?”
“No…Sort of. Related. I had to think about why I have no passion.”
What the hell? “This sounds like a conversation we need to sit down for. Did you eat?”
She shook her head and they entered the house. Rafe ordered some takeout and then took her coat, leading her over to the sofa to sit with him. Gathering her in his arms, he drew her near and was gratified when she curled in a little.
“You bought a tree.”
“I thought we could have some fun decorating it.”
“I haven’t had a tree in forever. Never as an adult.”
“Really? You did say you aren’t that into Christmas.”
She twisted to face him. “I’m not, and don’t you see, that’s it.”
“What?”
“At Christmas, when everyone is excited, when there’s shopping and gifts and all these celebrations, I don’t get into it. I’m left flat.”
“Why is that?”
“My father pretty much gave up on Christmas the year my mother took off with her lover. He would buy me a gift each year and leave it on the kitchen table, but we didn’t do trees or any of those things. I think it was too painful for him—it all reminded him of her.”
Rafe paused, absorbing what she’d said. “She took off at Christmas?”
“Yeah. He—the man she was seeing—was taking her to Paris for the holiday. So she went. We never heard from her again. I don’t even know if she’s alive, or where she is,” she stated matter-of-factly. She didn’t really have any emotional trauma over the issue anymore.
“That must have been a huge blow.”
“Yes, it was. Dad was never the same. He worked hard, made a decent living and we had a good life, but I guess our life wasn’t glamorous enough for her. He worked a lot, long hours—”
“I meant for you, Joy. Sure it was hard on your father, but he was an adult. What about you? To have your mother leave you like that. How old were you?”
She shifted uncomfortably. “Nine.”
“Old enough to know what was happening.”
“I understood as much as I was able, yes. I heard them arguing the night she left. I took care of him the best I could—we took care of each other, I guess.”
“It sounds like it was difficult for both of you, but to never have Christmas again? That’s harsh for a kid.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t want it either. If I had asked, he would have done it, but it reminded me of everything bad, too, so why bother? I guess I still feel that way about the holiday.”
She was partly lying. A few years after her mother had gone, she had often wished her dad could celebrate Christmas with her. She would sometimes sit in school and fantasize what gift he would buy her, or how they might decorate the house or send out cards, the way other kids did. Those things had never happened, and she’d loved him enough not to ask for them. She hadn’t wanted to cause him more pain. So she’
d shut down her own emotions and memories as well, learned to temper her expectations.
“It wasn’t right, Joy, and it obviously affected you—question is how long are you going to let your past dictate your present?”
“Rafe, Christmas is one thing, but I’m not passionate about anything! I’m good at my job, but I’m not wild with excitement about it. I was in a meeting today about the best color for new toys and I could not have cared less. I don’t have hobbies or boyfriends, and I’m not even that good at sex, because I’m lacking basic passion. That’s it. That’s the bottom of it.”
Rafe was stunned at the tirade, and not entirely sure how to respond.
“You were led to this conclusion because?”
She dropped her head back, groaning. “Ken, my boss, he told me I was a strong contender, maybe the best, for the new position I wanted.”
Rafe smiled, unsure how this fit in, but going with it. “That’s terrific news!”
“Yes, but he also suggested that while I am very good at my job, I don’t have passion for it. Ken says maybe I should rethink if I want the new position, because it demands passion.”
She made a face when she said the word, crossing her arms tightly in front of her in what Rafe recognized from life with his sisters as a classic female defensive posture. “This is the one thing that I do not have, apparently, across all areas of my life. I’m passionless.”
Rafe wasn’t sure how to respond, but he took in her deflated, disgruntled posture as she slumped away from him on the sofa, and did the only thing he could do, under the circumstances. He burst out laughing.
He laughed, in fact, so hard that he started to tear up, and could hardly defend himself against the repeated thumps with the bolster pillow that Joy was hitting him with.
“What is so funny, exactly?” she demanded, up on her knees and lording over him with the pillow, her face fierce, which made him laugh all the more—she made quite the picture.
“You—you are. The fact that you think you don’t have any passion is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.”
“I don’t have it, Rafe, I really don’t. It all makes sense now—the job, the sex, everything.”
“I personally disagree, especially about the sex, but do you think maybe you might have grown up thinking passion was a bad thing? Passion was the reason your mother left your father, and took off to Europe with another man. So it got a pretty bad rap even when you were a kid.”
She sat up straight, and he could see the thought take root in her mind.
Joy sat back on the sofa, stunned by the revelation. She was a thirty-year-old woman who’d spent her life, even as a child, holding tightly onto any emotion, not letting anything squeak out, lest it lead her down the same path her mother had gone. She’d been living her life by rote, and she’d never even known it.
“Joy?”
“Oh, God, Rafe…I’ve been so stupid. I never even realized what’s been missing in my life, how afraid I’ve been of everything that’s asked me to make any small emotional investment. It’s all been locked up inside, all this time….”
“Coming out in your dreams, though…I guess it was time for you to have this realization. My mother always says things happen when we’re ready for them to happen.”
“I don’t know how I could have lived this way for so long, not really caring about anything, just going through the motions.”
“Well, maybe it’s not quite that drastic. You cared about your father enough to set your own needs aside, and you care about your friends, like Pam, obviously, and you care about Second Chance—you seem pretty passionate about that to me. You’ve been really excited about the party, and even about Christmas, the last few days,” he offered.
“I do feel differently about my work at the shelter. I never thought about it as work, per se, so I didn’t make the connection to how much more involved I am there than at my regular job. I guess that’s what Ken means about passion. I had it, have it, I just didn’t see it.”
“Well, it can go both ways—I loved my job with complete passion, and I think I might have been a little too obsessed with it, to a degree that I burnt out, and now I have nothing else to do. It’s not a great feeling.”
She lifted her eyes to his, and the zap of heat in her gaze, of understanding, sympathy, and passion, had his heart thumping madly.
“I think you were probably astonishing at your job, but maybe when one passion flags, there’s a reason, and it’s time to find another,” she said softly, reaching up to touch his face. Something good—something very good—was happening between them, and for the moment, Rafe didn’t care to talk about work anymore.
“I never knew passion before. Until you,” she confessed.
Rafe rubbed his hands lightly up and down her arms. “You’re a passionate woman, Joy. I’ve known it from the moment I…heard you. Definitely when I touched you.”
“Rafe,” she whispered as he eased back the jacket from her arms and started unbuttoning her shirt, dragging his knuckle along her collarbone.
“You’re so soft…. Your skin is like butter, but you’re strong, too. It’s very sexy,” he added, unhooking her bra and working it downward.
“Rafe…how can you be thinking of sex right now? When we’re having this serious talk?”
“I think of sex whenever I look at you, think about you, and most definitely when I’m next to you. You’re the first woman to turn me on in a long time, Joy—you have no idea. The insomnia, and the stress from the job…I haven’t been with anyone in a while. My passions were robbed from me, too, but you’ve helped bring them back to life.”
His hands covered her breasts, massaging gently, and her heartbeat quickened.
She wound her arms around his neck. “Really? You haven’t been with anyone since you started losing sleep?”
“Before that, even. I haven’t been in the mood. I don’t know why. I still can’t sleep, but I sure enjoy being awake more than I have for a long time,” he said against her skin as he bent to plant kisses across her midriff. “I am most definitely in the mood.”
“Rafe, what about the tree?” she asked, relaxing into his touch and encouraging him to continue his exploration.
“Later,” he said as he pulled her close in a deep, promising kiss.
Chapter 11
Rafe had the most gorgeous shoulders she’d ever seen. She loved running her hands over them, squeezing them, watching the muscles bunch and relax as she stroked his skin. A physique like his was built from the hard work of carrying stretchers and lugging heavy equipment. He was solid…everywhere. She slid her hand down between his taut thighs and rested it against the ridge in his jeans, sighing. Yep, solid.
“Tempt me all you want, lady, I’m bound and determined to hold out against your feminine wiles,” he quipped, tugging the firm tip of one breast between his lips. When he sucked the tender flesh, darting his tongue over her as he did so, the sensations ignited a desire so fierce that she couldn’t think clearly.
“I don’t think either of us will hold out for long,” she panted. Her clothes gone, she could finally glory in the touch of his lips and hands on her skin. He scraped his beard-roughened cheek against the side of her breast, and she loved it. She wound her hand around the back of his neck, urging him on.
She’d never had sex on her living-room floor—or any floor—before. Lame, but true.
“Hey, what about you?” she asked since he hadn’t taken off anything but his shirt.
“There’s time…. I want to explore you first,” he murmured against her skin, and she moaned when he ran his hand up her leg. Suddenly her mind clicked in again, making her feel too exposed, too much at a disadvantage.
“You could undress, too,” she suggested, but when he looked up at her, shaking his head, the hot intentions in his gaze shut her up.
“I don’t want to be tempted to go too far. You tempt me, Joy, to the edge of reason. Just lay back, relax…Let me enjoy you…and I want y
ou to enjoy me doing it. I want to show you how much passion you really have,” he said gently.
“Oh!” she gasped as his mouth traced a path from her navel down to the slick opening between her legs and back again; every muscle in her body clenching in exquisite expectation.
“You fine with that?” he checked. He did it again, and she could only moan out her agreement.
It was so fine that she widened her thighs, inviting him in. The uncomfortable sensation of exposure had passed, replaced with need.
One delicious lick of his tongue on the oversensitized flesh of her sex had her shuddering. She focused on the sensations as he deepened the intimate kiss, stroking his fingers over her skin, urging her along.
She was more than willing to comply, and wiggled a little. She was even so daring as to raise her hands to her breasts, touching herself. He must have noticed and muttered his approval as he brought her closer and closer to the edge. Yet a part of her still held back. Whatever he wanted her to give, she didn’t seem to be able to do it. She was having a hell of a lot of fun, but was unable to release the tightly coiled tension.
Then Rafe withdrew his hot touch and began trailing kisses down her thighs, then back up, bringing himself beside her. He gathered her against him, but she pushed back.
“Rafe?”
He put his lips to hers, the taste and scent of her own essence mingled into the kiss, and a wave of excitement washed over her. She clenched her thighs together, hiding her face in his shoulder, unabashed and yet embarrassed by her own raw neediness.
“I—I want more, Rafe,” she begged, planting kisses from the column of his neck to his shoulder, pressing herself into him wantonly. He was still erect, still excited; the heat emanating from his skin was more than she thought a human being could generate.
“I know. Me, too. Now isn’t the time.”
She looked down over her naked, aroused body. “You stopped because I tensed up,” she whispered, dismay replacing her arousal.
Talking In Your Sleep... Page 12