Under His Spell (Holiday Hearts #4)

by Kristin Hardy

  “No,” she said more steadily. “I went into this with my eyes open. I know better than to expect anything. But they don’t. And it’ll be worse with the center. I’m just saying be careful with this. Be careful with them.”

  She turned to go back into the house, looking uncomfortably fragile.

  “Lainie, wait, dammit.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s start this again.” He took a deep breath, struggling with a roiling mix of anger, frustration and a sneaky little edge of guilt. “Look, I’m serious about this center. I want to get it built.”

  “I know right now you do. But plans have a way of changing. Just…just be careful, please. I know this is a lark to you, but it’s not to them.”

  Hands on his hips, he looked off down the street. “Look, I know I haven’t always been Mr. Straight and Narrow,” he said slowly. “And sometimes that’s gotten me in trouble. And, yeah, maybe when I was younger I went looking for that kind of trouble. But I’m not a screwup. I’ve never missed a race. I’ve never missed an event for my sponsor. The only person I could have hurt—really hurt—by my actions is myself.”

  “What does that—”

  “This is different, okay? I know it. I’m not going to hurt these kids.”

  The expression in her eyes softened. “J.J., it’s not that I think you’re a screwup. I know that you’re not. You’ve surprised me a lot since you’ve been here. You surprise me all the time. I just never know what kind of surprise it’s going to be.”

  “That’s part of the fun, isn’t it?”

  She gave him a brief smile. “Please don’t lead them to expect something and then get back into racing and forget all about it. I just don’t want to see anyone get hurt.”

  “No one’s going to get hurt,” he promised, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  “Okay, that’s 150 feet,” Caro read off to Lainie from the laser distance measurer. They stood on the town common, measuring off locations for the Halloween festival. A light breeze sent a few leaves scudding along. Overhead, some of the trees already showed the first signs of fall color among the green.

  “A hundred and fifty feet,” Lainie repeated. “Got it.” She made a note on the clipboard she held and glanced up. “So what do you think about tattoos?”

  Caro blinked and raised an eyebrow. “I’d say go find some sixty-year-old ex-Marine and take a good look at his arms and ask yourself if it’s still as sexy as you think it sounds now.”

  Lainie rolled her eyes. “Not for me, for the Halloween carnival.”

  “You want to put a tattoo booth at the Halloween carnival? It’s a family event, not a biker rally.”

  “A temporary-tattoo booth. You know, henna? On tonight, gone in two weeks?”

  “Ah.” Caro took a breath of relief. “Okay, for a minute there you had me going. Temporary tats, you could do. Although at that time of year, is anyone going to want to bare enough skin to make it worthwhile?”

  “Good point. Maybe we should stick with face paint. I just wanted to try something different.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  “Ha, ha,” Lainie said. “So, okay, you want the food aisle along here, the souvenir and gift aisle opposite and the midway in the back.”

  “Right.” Caro aimed her laser ruler across the common to one of the pillars on the perimeter and then stopped. “They called,” she said in a low voice.

  “Who called?” Lainie asked absently, scratching notes on her clipboard.

  “Them. The museum.”

  “Oh my God, you mean the museum in New York?” Lainie snapped her head up to stare, clipboard forgotten.

  Caro grinned. “I talked with the head curator for forty-five minutes.”

  “Oh, Caro, that’s wonderful. This is so cool. How’d it go?”

  “Perfect. Good chemistry. They want me to come down for an interview.”

  “An interview? Seriously?”

  “Seriously.” Caro’s eyes flashed with excitement. “Next week. They’re going to fly me in for an overnight interview.”

  “Wow, congratulations!” Lainie hugged her. “That’s great.”

  “Tell me about it. I can’t wait to get out of here.”

  “Come on, Salem’s not that bad.”

  “Lainie, we’re talking about Manhattan,” Caro said, as though talking to a slow child. “You know, the city? Restaurants, music, shows? Clothes? I thought you were looking to get out, too.”

  “I was. I mean, I am,” Lainie amended. “It’s great, Caro, really great. We’re just going to miss you here, that’s all.”

  “Don’t talk so seriously. I haven’t gotten it yet.”

  Lainie gave her a smile. “You will.”

  No matter how much they needed to do site work, the main labor of pulling together an event like the Halloween festival lay in the endless phone calls to arrange work, check details, confirm participation. Lainie sat at her desk, going through the checklist she’d written up the night before.

  All things considered, J.J. had been pretty patient with her working for most of the evening. Until he’d started licking his way up her thigh, anyway. A little flight of butterflies fluttered in her stomach at the memory. Things had smoothed out after their argument at the Human Habitat site. Trust him, he’d said, and she figured over the past two months he’d maybe earned that. It didn’t mean she wasn’t still nervous about it all, but she’d said her piece.

  Now she’d wait and see what happened. Maybe he had changed, and if he had, she approved of the new J.J.

  She approved very much.

  He’d left for Buffalo just that morning. Only hours before. Already it seemed too long. Sighing, she looked back down at her folder and flipped through to find a printed estimate.

  A slip of paper fluttered out.

  I’m missing you.

  The writing was J.J.’s. She stared at the scrap of notepaper with a smile. Only that morning, they’d been wrapped together in bed, naked. Only that morning, they’d showered, making love amid the soap and steam and hot stream of water….

  The sound of voices in the hallway broke her out of her reverie. She blinked and went back to work. Sitting around moony-eyed wasn’t going to get the Halloween festival together. She gave her head a shake and flipped through for the printed schedule she’d made notes on.

  Another slip fluttered out.

  I’m thinking about you.

  A little giggle slipped out. Who would have thought that J.J. was a romantic? A fun companion, sure. A stupendously talented lover, no doubt. A romantic? She shook her head. He simply continued to surprise her.

  She dug deeper in the stack and saw another sheet.

  I’m wanting you.

  And she reached for the phone. She didn’t have to look up his cell phone number but dialed it by heart, listening to the tones signifying a ringing phone five hundred miles away.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m missing you, too.”

  She could hear the smile in his voice. “Hey, sweet girl.”

  Sweet girl. She couldn’t tamp down the little surge of pleasure.

  “So you’re missing me?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Are you prepared to demonstrate it?”

  “Just what did you have in mind, Speed?” she drawled in her best Mae West voice.

  “Phone sex?” he asked hopefully. “You know what your voice always does to me, and any bumps in my speed suit will create drag.”

  She suppressed a snort of laughter. “Well, as much as I’d like to help you stay as aerodynamic as possible, I can’t do anything for you right now. But if there’s anything else I can do…”

  “Oh, I can think of a whole lot of things. I’ll show you when I get back tomorrow. You did read the third note, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “That’s a guarantee. Anyplace, anytime.”

  “Talk is cheap,” she sniffed.

  “Not when yo
u can back it up. Hey, I’ve got to run. I’m up in a couple of minutes. I’ll call you tonight, okay?”

  “Okay. Be good.”

  She could hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll be great.”

  She slid the receiver back into its cradle and just stared into space, a ridiculous smile plastered all over her face.

  It was the noise that always surprised him. When the giant turbines of the wind tunnel cranked up, they roared. Louder than a thousand freight trains, louder than a shrieking storm, they howled in his ears, even through his helmet.

  J.J. moved into his tuck and held it as the wind whistled by, buffeting him. With a hiss, the narrow ribbon of white smoke released, the white smoke that would show observers where he was creating drag.

  I’m missing you.

  He forced the thought from his mind. Now wasn’t the time to think about Lainie. When he was doing testing that cost the ski team a bundle, he probably owed it to them to concentrate. It was just damned hard to keep her off his mind.

  He tensed against the wind flow, imagining himself heading down the piste at Sölden. In just weeks, he’d be there, racing on his favorite mountain, looking for the first win of the season.

  Too bad Lainie couldn’t be there with him.

  “Head forward a little, J.J.,” said the voice in his ear.

  When he obliged, he felt a lessening in the resistance. Like he was feeling a lessening resistance from Lainie. In the tunnel, less resistance meant a smoother profile. With Lainie, he wasn’t sure what it meant. Then again, he wasn’t sure what he wanted it to mean. There was something between them, that much he knew. Where they went from here, he hadn’t a clue, but just because he was leaving town didn’t mean it was over.

  Maybe the thing to do was to get her to come to some of the races. If she were there with him, she wouldn’t get as freaked out about the lifestyle. She might even start enjoying it. He could show her places on the off days, Innsbruck, Torino, Lyon.

  “You’re stiffening up, J.J.,” said the voice. “Relax back on your heels a little.”

  When in doubt, relax. Maybe he needed to just step back and let things flow for a while until she got used to the idea. Try to get her to one race, maybe. Show her that he could ease off on the party thing. Show her that she could depend on him.

  “That’s perfect, J.J. You’re good to go,” said the voice in his ear.

  Good to go. It was the best news he’d gotten in a while.

  Lainie sat on her couch in jeans and a light sweater. The Indian summer heat wave was over; an evening chill had begun lingering in the air in the evenings. The weather was fitting—she’d been so focused on planning the Halloween festival that in her mind it was already late fall. She found herself almost surprised to see the leaves still green on the trees. It seemed that they should have been awash in color. It felt like it was already time for Halloween.

  And the start of the World Cup season.

  She looked around the empty room and sighed. Always before, being alone had been good. It had been what she liked, a luxury after the craziness of growing up with four siblings. She’d never missed company. She’d never found herself at loose ends.

  Not the way she was now.

  It was hard to say when it had happened, but somewhere along the line she’d gotten used to having J.J. around. She sighed again. She’d schooled herself to expect nothing, but it was getting harder and harder. Each time he did one of those startlingly sweet things like leaving the notes, another chunk of her armor fell away.

  And a little more anxiety crouched in her throat.

  Sweet girl.

  It was a risk to get used to the sweet things. She knew he cared, but she just couldn’t see how they could make it work. Right now, she and Salem were his substitutes for the life he knew, a way to feel on solid ground. She was very afraid, though, that it wasn’t anything more.

  He’d fled mundane, everyday life when he’d been fourteen, to go off to ski academy and, eventually, the travel and excitement that was the World Cup. That was the life he’d known for fifteen years. That was the life he obviously loved, one that took everything he had. Once he was back on the slopes again, racing and winning, Salem wouldn’t matter anymore.

  And neither would she.

  Lainie blinked fiercely and swallowed. All she could do was enjoy the moment and focus on anything besides what came next. After all, who could say what came next for any of them? So what, if two months from now, J.J. would be in Europe. Who knew where she would be? Maybe it was time to get serious about looking for work. Caro wasn’t the only one who could change jobs.

  Maybe it was time.

  The doorbell rang. Lainie frowned at the little jump of excitement in her stomach. It was scary how conditioned she’d become. A caller at night had come to mean J.J. Not this night, though—he was still in Buffalo, not due to return until morning.

  Scolding herself for being foolish, she still sprang up from the couch and hurried down the stairs. She might as well get it over with. The sooner she dealt with her caller, the sooner she’d get back to…what, staring at the walls and trying not to go nuts?

  Shaking her head at herself, she went down the short hallway to the front door. Twisting the knob, she opened it wide.

  And there, waiting for her, was J.J.

  Nothing he’d ever seen or felt was as right as watching Lainie open the door to him. He saw her eyes light up and suddenly he felt the same way he did when he skied off a knoll that launched him into the air, the punch of adrenaline, the great gulp of oxygen, the soaring sense of being able to do more and better and faster.

  The sense of everything being right in the world.

  And then she was in his arms, soft and fragrant against him, fitting so right, tasting of promise and pleasure, and suddenly he felt as if he could just hold on to her forever.

  Suddenly he was home.

  Chapter Eleven

  It must have taken time to open the door, to get upstairs to her apartment, Lainie thought hazily. She remembered none of it—all of it was parsed out in desperate kisses, in the immediacy of J.J.’s arms hard around her. And still, standing in her bedroom, they were too far apart, separated by the barrier of clothing.

  It didn’t matter that cloth tore as it came off, ripped by their impatient hands. It didn’t matter that they never made it to the bed. The only thing that mattered was slaking the burning desire they had for each other.

  It was hard and fast and furious, heedless, desperate.

  And even then, it wasn’t enough.

  “I thought you weren’t coming home until tomorrow,” Lainie murmured against J.J.’s chest, feeling the measured, hypnotic stroke of his hand on her back.

  “I thought maybe I needed to see you sooner.”

  “I like the way you think.” And at some point, she was going to have to think about that little leap of excitement she’d felt when she’d seen him. and about when “just an affair” became something altogether more serious. “So are you home now for a while?”

  “A few days. The rest of this week, anyway. Gabe’s wedding. Then I go out to Aspen to get some slope time. I’ve got a lot of prep work to do. Sölden is only three weeks away.”

  “Right. Sölden.” And the tension gathered, for all that she tried to wish it away.

  J.J. seemed to sense it. “Relax. We’ll deal with it when it happens.” He pressed his lips against her hair. “I can think of a whole lot of other things I’d like to do first.”

  “I know one thing that comes first. Gabe’s wedding.”

  “Yeah? What about it?” He traced his fingers slowly down her back again, so lightly that she could barely feel them.

  Lainie melted against him for a moment before stirring. “Well, we’ve got to figure out how to handle it.”

  “I didn’t think it needed handling.”

  “Of course it does. You’re talking about people who have known both of us our entire lives. If we show up as a couple, they’re going to
ask questions. What are we going to say? Or do we just drive up separately?”

  She could feel his brows lower. “Why the hell would we drive up separately?”

  “Oh, maybe because otherwise people are going to think we’re together? I mean, what else are they supposed to think?”

  “We are together.”

  The words stopped her for a moment. It felt too good to hear them, especially when she could practically still feel him inside her. But she had to keep it in perspective. She couldn’t let herself hope for too much. She sat up. “We’re not together, J.J. This is just something we’re doing for now.”

  “And you have a reputation to protect?” he drawled, and reached out an arm to tumble her back against him.

  “Stop it,” she yelped.

  “Not a chance. Just in case you’re confused, I’m going to show you how together we are.”

  He bent to fasten his mouth on her breast and pleasure flowed through her, thick and hot. She shouldn’t lose track like this, she thought, they needed to talk. But he caressed her nipple with lips and tongue, scraping it lightly with his teeth. When he ran his hand up her thigh to find her where she was slick and wet, she jolted. How on earth could she be ready again after the hours they’d been through? How was it he knew just how to touch her?

  Practice, said a mocking voice in her head and she gathered her wits together.

  “J.J., no.” This time she managed to sound serious enough that he raised his head to look at her, hands stilled. She waited a moment for her heart rate to level before she went on. “Look, I don’t want this to turn into something where we’ve got everyone watching. Can’t we just keep it between us?”

  “Why, are you embarrassed?”

  “No. I just don’t want to be under a microscope later on.”

  “Later on?”

  “If something happens.”

  “You mean when something happens.”

  Something cooled in his gaze. “Sounds like you’ve got it all planned out.”

  “No, I don’t. I’m just trying to use some common sense. You’re going to get skiing again, and you’ll be back to living the World Cup life. Salem, me, we only make sense now because you’re here. And anyway, you told me yourself that you only spend about six weeks a year stateside. That sounds pretty done to me.”