The Majors' Holiday Hideaway

by Caro Carson

  She tossed back her hair when she sat up, but Aiden’s knowing grin made her grin, too. She felt a bubble of joy in her chest—it would come out as a laugh any second—as she lunged a little past the other pillow to grab the condom, which brought her hair forward again, all around her face and shoulders. She sat up to tear open the packet. It would be easier to use her teeth to get the tear started.

  But Aiden had gone very still. Every muscle in his body had tightened underneath her, as did his grip on her hips. He was watching her with an intensity that pushed aside the playfulness.

  “What is it?” she asked, tearing the packet halfway with her teeth. She tore it the rest of the way with her hand and scooted back so she could sheathe him. Aiden couldn’t be surprised by this. He couldn’t be. As she smoothed her hand down his length, she leaned in to purr in his ear, “Did I not make it clear that I was taking you up on your offer, starting now?”

  “My beautiful India,” he said, a growl instead of a laugh, “we are a go.”

  Then she was flipped onto her back and Aiden took over. India forgot about revenge sex and rebound guys. She couldn’t think about anything or anyone except Aiden, about any other time of her life except now. Everything fell away, and she surrendered herself to the best lover she’d ever had.

  * * *

  She was falling asleep on him.

  “Hey,” Aiden whispered to the woman he’d exhausted. “Didn’t this start with you bragging that I was the one who was going to need to sleep it off?”

  India stayed on her stomach, her arm stretched over his waist casually, strands of her hair clinging to his chest and stomach as he propped himself up by stuffing an extra pillow behind his neck. It jostled her a little bit.

  “Go to sleep, baby,” she mumbled into the mattress.

  Baby. No one called him baby; it sounded sexy, tacked onto the end of an order like that. Aiden smoothed a few of the wayward strands of her hair back into place as her breathing slowed. Rumpled and sleepy. He smiled to himself. Far beyond rumpled, and sleeping like the dead would be more accurate. He wished he could obey her order to go to sleep, but he had to get home to his kids.

  No, he didn’t.

  He was so used to thinking that way, but they weren’t here. Poppy and Olympia—his chest hurt a little at the thought of them. He hadn’t forgotten them—they were always a part of him—but they’d been relegated to the back of his mind while his focus had been on India, all on India.

  Guilt warred with the afterglow of hot pleasure, which was absurd, because it wasn’t as if he’d abandoned his fatherly duties. His girls weren’t even in the state.

  But Poppy and Olympia...he saw their little faces in his mind. He missed them.

  He looked at India’s face. He brushed her hair off her cheek, so it wouldn’t tickle her nose and wake her. He slid a little lower, making himself at home in her bed. There was no babysitter getting paid by the hour, no clock ticking. He could take an afternoon nap with the woman he’d made love to all morning. There was nothing he’d rather do.

  The novelty of being able to go where the day took him was striking. It was hard to believe he’d been walking a dog just hours ago, completely unaware that he was about to start one of the best days of his life.

  Best day? Part of him felt guilty. Outraged, even. How can you think such a thing?

  He had children; his children had given him the best days of his life, moments of pure love and pride—holding them for the first time, watching their first steps—moments that could not be equaled. He’d been married, had enjoyed many great days with his wife. Carrying her over the threshold of their first house. The sonogram with two heartbeats. Their wedding day—that had been one of the best days of his life. Of course.

  Of course.

  All of that was true: his children, his wife, his life.

  Aiden looked at India’s face for a long, quiet moment. She’d revealed so much to him, her sexiness, her shyness. She’d made him laugh. She’d told him off. And then, there’d been those moments of hot silence where they had felt like one and moved like one, with only one need, one desire. Now she was peaceful. He felt peaceful, too. It had been a miraculous morning, unexpected and perfect. He kissed her very gently, letting her sleep, his lips light on her forehead.

  “And this day, too,” he whispered, “is one of the best days of my life.”

  * * *

  That ringtone was the worst.

  Her phone wasn’t even in the room, but it was so high-pitched, it invaded her sweet dreams.

  The phone stopped ringing. Relief. She could fall asleep again if she didn’t move a muscle, and she really wanted to fall asleep again, because she was dreaming of sleeping next to Aiden. She was actually sleeping next to Aiden, but she was dreaming it, too. Her brain didn’t want to miss a minute, apparently.

  Don’t move a muscle. But she couldn’t resist. She opened one eye to see her dream man in real life. Sculpted muscle, warm skin, tan body against white sheets.

  Her phone rang again, down the hall in the kitchen, so obnoxious. It didn’t stop ringing for at least ten rings, which meant it was probably her video app, the one she used in place of international phone calls. It might be Helen, having an issue with the apartment. Helen would forgive her if India explained later that she’d been sleeping with this paragon of manhood.

  Paragon. A fancy way to say “the best.” India smiled to herself. He’d won that Best Lover award decisively.

  Her phone rang again. Maybe Helen had run into a really serious problem. India supposed she had to get up and answer, especially because that high-pitched ring might wake up Aiden, too, and he deserved to sleep.

  She couldn’t answer the video call while she was stark naked. She’d love to slip into Aiden’s shirt, but that was too obvious, and the man had no other clothing here. It would be no hardship for her if he walked around shirtless, but he might get chilly. She wouldn’t want him to catch a cold. She had plans for him this week.

  She tried not to laugh at the thought, because she had an unfortunate tendency to snort if she giggled, and she really didn’t want to wake Aiden. She tiptoed out of the bedroom and went to raid Helen’s room for a bathrobe. One was hanging on the back of the master bathroom door. It was silky and lacy, providing modesty without making the wearer look very modest. Perfect.

  India was tying the sash when she caught her reflection in the mirror.

  Oh, my God. Who is that woman?

  Her hair was wildly messy, but her skin positively glowed. There was a red mark on her neck from a kiss that had held her in place for an extra moment of demand. Her lips were a little puffy, but she couldn’t force them into a frown, not when she felt like she was going to laugh at any second, for no reason at all. She was just happy.

  The woman in the mirror looked thoroughly...ravished? Radiant? That woman had been satisfied in every physical sense—and that made her heart sing with satisfaction, too.

  She smiled at her reflection. “Someone looks like she’s having the best time of her life.”

  Her phone rang.

  She did not want to answer that phone. Helen would guess in a second why India looked so merrily disheveled—or else Helen would give her bad news, like her car had been stolen. India walked briskly down the hall to silence it.

  Naturally, her phone stopped ringing just as she picked it up. Missed Call: Gerard-Pierre.

  That took her glow down a notch.

  There was another notification of a missed call from him. And another.

  Oh, garbage. She knew him. He wouldn’t stop calling. If he felt it was time for him to talk and for her to listen, then that was that.

  India sank into a chair at the kitchen table and tried a few drop-down menu options, but it wasn’t easy to find a way to block his video-chat requests on the app. The phone rang again in her hand.

 
Garbage, garbage, garbage. She couldn’t talk to him now. It was a video chat, and right now, she looked like—

  She looked like a woman who’d had some world-class revenge sex. That’s what she looked like. There was a French term for it: en déshabille.

  She remembered the shock of that teal bra, and answered the call.

  Gerard-Pierre was too indignant to be shocked at her appearance. “Enfin, tu m’as répondu. Où étais-tu?”

  “Did you call me just to yell at me for not answering when you called me?” India kept an eye on the video of herself in the upper right corner of the screen. She made a little show of fixing her mussed-up hair, then rested her chin on her hand, feeling very proud of herself.

  Gerard-Pierre demanded to know who the man in her apartment was.

  Ha. India could just imagine Gerard-Pierre banging on her door, and the shock of having Helen’s husband answer it. Tom Cross was a good-looking man, an officer and a...very good person to be vague about.

  India shrugged. “C’est important? C’est un ami,” she said, because French was very good for sounding blasé. Does it matter? He’s a friend. India hadn’t actually met Tom in person yet, but he was a good sport every time he got stuck in one of her video chats with Helen.

  “He took my key,” Gerard-Pierre said in French, his tone getting more indignant by the second. “Right out of my hand.”

  It sounded like Tom had been a great sport about getting stuck between his wife’s friend and her ex. Kudos to Helen for marrying a hunk who automatically backed up anyone his wife backed up.

  “I hope you didn’t put up a fight. Tom’s a military police officer. He’s got...moves.” She was speaking double entendre and doing it in French, too. Aiden would be so proud.

  India propped her phone against the napkin holder and sat back a little bit. She didn’t have to fake her slow, sleepy blink. She had a man in her bed whom she wanted to get back to.

  “Where are you?” Gerard-Pierre demanded. “What are you doing?”

  Her slow, secret smile wasn’t fake, either.

  “Who is he to you, this Tom?”

  Obviously, Gerard-Pierre had no idea India was out of the country and Helen was in her apartment. He could assume what he wanted to assume about Tom. India owed her ex no explanations, but he sure owed her one.

  “You’re not going to tell me, India? You want me to guess?”

  Her name had always sounded odd, coming from his lips. With his soft, slurry French surrounding it, the three short syllables of In-di-a were too obviously not part of his language.

  He scowled. “I can’t believe you let another man into your apartment.”

  She snorted—a disgusted snort, no giggle—at his imperious tone. “I can’t believe you let another woman into my apartment and slept with her on my couch.”

  Gerard-Pierre tried to switch to an imploring puppy-dog-eyes expression. “This is why it is important that we talk. This is why I had to keep calling until you answered. I must explain my heart to you. I must.”

  He was crooning to her in French, laying it on thick, preparing to deliver a monologue on his heart and soul and his feelings and life and his dreams and...yuck.

  She decided to never speak French to the man again; she tried to forestall him in English. “I’m not interested in your heart. Your heart didn’t screw another woman on my couch. I put all your stuff in the hallway. You returned your key. I think that concludes this relationship.” She glanced at herself in the little corner screen. She was losing that drowsy, glowing look. She wanted it back. She wanted Aiden.

  “I didn’t know, India. I swear it to you. I didn’t know my own heart until my family told me they were coming for Christmas to meet the woman with whom I’d been sharing my life for over a year. That was the moment I knew I had to leave you.”

  Likewise.

  “Because when I imagined my family meeting the woman I loved, I thought of her. Not you. She has to be, she must be, the woman they meet this holiday.”

  Ouch. She’d assumed his note had meant he wanted to introduce her to his family. He hadn’t wanted them to meet her at all. That shouldn’t have stung, but it did. A whole darned year, after all...

  Gerard-Pierre was still continuing his monologue in the slurry, blurry French he spoke after a few glasses of wine. “I could not pretend to love you in front of my family. They would have seen through the charade. They would want me to follow my heart, and my heart chose her. There was no other option. You understand, mon amie, don’t you?”

  She kept her English short and crisp. “Yes. Your heart chose to boink someone in my apartment, and your family will be very happy to meet your side chick. A very merry Christmas for everyone.”

  Boink didn’t have a French equivalent. Like the language expert she was, she could conjugate it for Gerard-Pierre: boink, boinked, boinking, has boinked.

  “Cherie, it is tragic that you don’t know true passion. I could not bear to wait a minute longer to make love to her when she came to me at your place and gave me her heart,” he said, patronizing and pitying her at once. “Maybe you’ll find that out yourself, some day. I understand that you are hurting right now, but when enough time has passed and you think you are ready to take another lover, you should try being more—Who is that?”

  Qui c’est? India looked at her video self in the screen’s corner. Behind her, Aiden was walking into the kitchen, jeans on, shirt off. Oh, my.

  She turned around. Aiden strolled to just outside of the camera range. As he started to get himself a glass of ice water, he met her gaze and winked.

  I am also available this week for revenge sex. He’d done that hot walk on purpose.

  Her blasé expression was slipping. All the happy-glowy-ness had returned to her face—and Gerard-Pierre’s face was looking far less smug.

  “Who is that?” he repeated, his French higher-pitched. “Where are you? That’s not the same man who was in your apartment. Is it?”

  “That’s my rebound guy. Now, you were about to give me some advice, weren’t you?”

  But Aiden’s strong hand was suddenly onscreen, passing her the glass of ice water—“Thank you,” she said—then his profile was visible as he kissed her temple—“I was so thirsty,” she lied—then his strong jaw was on the screen as he placed his mouth very close to her ear and asked, “Are you ready for more?”

  India’s eyes opened as wide as Gerard-Pierre’s at that. She sat very still, holding up the ice water as Aiden lowered himself to one knee, kissing the silk lapel of her robe as he sank down, his head slowly disappearing from the phone screen.

  She and Gerard-Pierre were left staring at each other for one second, and then India burst into laughter. Aiden was crouched under the table, but he was cracking up, too—silently.

  “Qu’est-ce qu’un rebound guy?”

  At Gerard-Pierre’s demand to know what a rebound guy was, India laughed so hard that she spilled a little ice water in her lap. She squealed at the cold and put down the glass hastily, but Aiden started tugging on her robe, pulling her down to the floor. She could only gasp, “Okay, bye now, Gerard-P—” before Aiden tickled her waist and she squealed again and tried to dodge his hands, which made it a challenge to tap the phone’s disconnect button as she fell out of the chair and landed on top of Aiden.

  They continued to kiss and laugh and tickle until they were lying on the floor, half under the table, smiling at each other like a couple of teenagers who’d just pulled off a prank.

  “Much better,” Aiden said.

  “What is?”

  “Your smile.”

  “How did you know who he was? Do you speak French?”

  “I didn’t like his tone of voice. I could tell everything from that.”

  “Wow, really?”

  He squeezed her waist and gave her a little shake. “No. You were answeri
ng him in English, you know. It wasn’t hard to figure it out. ‘Your heart chose to boink someone.’ Great line.”

  “The way you sank out of the screen—the look on his face! That was priceless.”

  Being under the table gave her a cozy feeling, like they were in a kid’s fort, hiding away. She propped her head on one hand and trailed her other hand over his muscled chest. He was strong—when he let go during sex, breathtakingly so. When his body had covered hers, she’d reveled in it, even then not realizing just how much power it contained, not until that final second before his release, that last stroke that had pushed her whole body up the mattress. It had been thrilling.

  She wanted to feel it again. With a sigh, she stopped tracing his muscles with her fingers and settled her head onto his chest.

  “He wasn’t good enough for you,” Aiden said.

  She laughed softly. “You are such a good rebound guy. Tell me more.”

  “You didn’t need him. You’ll find someone much better.”

  I already have. The thought was so clear—and so scary.

  This was just for fun. Just a few vacation days.

  It won’t be long enough.

  Too clear. Too scary. She needed to distract herself. She started kissing her way down his body.

  He kept up his rebound-guy reassurances, barely stumbling over a word as she kissed her way lower and lower, and his hand began to smooth her hair gently. “They say it takes two, but it doesn’t. He’s the one who screwed up.”

  “Good one,” she whispered over his navel.

  “It was definitely him, not you, because you’re...damn...terrific.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “India—” A sharp inhalation, and then all he could say was India, repeating her name in their cozy hideaway, each syllable sounding like it was part of a language he’d always spoken.

  Chapter Eight

  Aiden crossed the bridge, heading back to his house twenty-four hours after he’d first followed Fabio over this same bridge and walked straight into India’s arms.

  Straight into her arms—that wasn’t an exaggeration. How long had he spoken to her yesterday morning before he’d had his hands on her? Two minutes? No more than three, before Fabio had bumped her into him, like the world’s best canine wingman.