All I Want for Christmas is…: The Complete Series

by North, Leslie

  Reluctantly, he stepped back to allow her inside, exhaling hard as he checked the hallway then closed the door behind her. “It’s a little early for booze, isn’t it?”

  “Save them for later then.” She glanced at him over her shoulder as she bent to put them in Aileen’s fridge. And damn if that fine ass of hers didn’t all but beg him to cup it in his hands and pull her tight against him. Shayma turned fast and caught him staring, then raised a brow like she was challenging him to do something. “So, I talked to my father last night,” she continued, shrugging out of her coat then making herself at home like she planned to stay awhile. “He’s going to call EnKor today and set up a meeting for this afternoon. Heath said you and I are to go in and pretend to be representatives of Al Dar Nasrani’s largest energy producer. I spent enough years listening to my father’s phone calls with his business colleagues that I think I can bluff my way through a conversation with them and—”

  “Wait a minute.” He crossed his arms. “If you’re the pretend boss, then what am I?”

  “My security, of course.” She smiled up at him. “It’s quite normal in my country for corporate dignitaries to travel with their own security entourage. As you well know, serving in the region for as long as you did. Why? Do you have a problem with working for a woman?”

  “No. Not at all. Some of the best bosses I’ve ever had have been women. It’s just—” He sighed and turned away.

  “Then you have a problem with me, you mean.” The disappointment in her tone nearly had him rushing to her side to apologize. Instead, he dug in his heels and remained where he was. Getting too close to her now could only spell trouble with a capital T. “Look, I apologized already for running into you the way I did yesterday and I’m so sorry for messing up the plans you had to question that man, but I was truly concerned for his safety at that point. And I didn’t want to see you get arrested for hurting him. You’re having a hard-enough time finding your sister. Being in jail would only make things that much more difficult.”

  Damn. When she put it like that, the whole mess almost seemed logical. Almost.

  “Why won’t you accept my help?” she asked quietly when he kept silent. “The truth.”

  A strange intimacy settled over the place as he stood in his sister’s quiet apartment. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked to anyone about his past. There were some things best kept locked away. They were too painful. Yet, for some reason he didn’t want to think about too much, Shayma made him want to open up to her and tell her all his secrets. He slumped down into the arm chair across from where she sat on the sofa and rested his forearms atop his spread knees. Murphy stared at the floor as he spoke, fearing direct eye contact with her might break the spell. “My sister and I grew up in a household where asking for help was discouraged. You learned to depend on no one but yourself from early on. And you think I’m bad? Aileen’s five years younger than me and twice as stubborn. Little thing too, yet she thinks she can take on the whole world. I remember the day she called to tell me she’d scored the job here in New York. Nearly broke my eardrums screaming her excitement into the phone.” His grin fell and his eyes burned. He squeezed them shut. He wouldn’t cry. He never cried. Hadn’t shed a tear since he’d been six years old and his mother had walked out on their family forever. Hell if he’d start now, no matter how badly he missed Aileen.

  “She’s been gone three weeks,” he said, his voice strained. “If we don’t find her soon, we never will. We’re already well past the crucial first forty-eight hours.”

  Shayma watched him for a long moment before nodding. “A friend of mine in college disappeared once. She was my best friend. I was able to help the police find her and bring her back safely. I’d like to do the same for you, if you’ll let me. I wasn’t an expert, but I have a knack for getting people to open up to me, tell me things.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you want to help me?” Murphy looked up at her at last, wanting so much to believe, yet his past was making that impossible. “What’s in it for you?”

  Shayma gave him a sad little smile. “It’s in my nature, I guess. When I was in college, I wanted to use my psychology degree to go into counseling or charity work, maybe help find missing girls and women around the world, something like that. Of course, that was out of the question as far as my father was concerned. I was expected to marry Daveed, start a family, raise our children. Nothing more. Since things have changed in that department, I feel like maybe this is my second chance.”

  Murphy needed all the second chances he could get right now. “You’ll have to follow my orders. Even if you’re playing the boss in this meeting of ours. Whatever I say goes. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Her cautious enthusiasm was contagious and soon he found his grin returning. “Okay then. We’ll do this together.”

  * * *

  Later that night, Shayma finally set aside the stack of papers she’d been going through from Aileen’s desk and stretched her sore muscles. A quick glance at the clock on the wall showed it was nearly midnight now. They’d been working all day in the apartment—her meticulously going through Aileen’s things while Murphy fielded calls from the guys and searched Aileen’s laptop and USB drives—and they had nothing new to show for their efforts. It was enough to make a girl scream.

  Except Shayma wasn’t an average girl and she didn’t give up without a fight.

  She circled her ankles to get some circulation flowing to her numb toes and stared at the last slice of delivery pizza in the box on the coffee table. There were napkins and empty soda cans and used paper plates strewn everywhere and her inner neat freak protested loudly.

  Tentatively, she stood then winced as pins and needles surged up her legs. She’d been sitting for far too long. As she gathered up their trash and disposed of it in the bin in the galley-style kitchen, she hazarded a look over at Murphy at the desk in the corner. The greenish light from the computer screen highlighted the dark circles under his eyes and the faint lines of worry and tension in his handsome face. Her heart ached for him and what he must be going through. If any of her family members ever went missing like that, Shayma would’ve been devastated. She didn’t have any siblings, but she imagined if her mother or father vanished without a trace it would be horrifying.

  She tossed away the last of their trash, then washed and dried her hands before shoving the pizza box in the fridge and joining Murphy at the desk. She kept her voice low, so as not to startle him. “Perhaps it’s time to take a break. It’s nearly midnight.”

  “I’ll take a break once I’ve found my sister.” Murphy didn’t look away from the computer screen, his tone flat and tired. “You find anything?”

  “No. Nothing you didn’t already know.” She sighed. “I’ve finished going over all the paperwork. What would you like me to work on next?”

  Murphy frowned, then looked up at her, his expression blank, as if he was just now realizing she was there. “I’m sorry. Say that again?”

  They were both mentally exhausted, that much was obvious. Only caffeine and conviction were keeping them going at this point. But much as she wanted to help Murphy, the thought of sorting through another stack of files and notes now nearly made her weep. It was time to stop for the night, at least for her. “I, uh, I should go.”

  Frowning, he minimized the open window on his sister’s laptop and squinted at the clock in the upper left-hand corner. “Shit. I didn’t realize it was so late. You should’ve said something.”

  Shayma opened her mouth to remind him that she had mentioned it, just now, but refrained. He looked so lost and lonely and adorable sitting there all rumpled. The hint of dark stubble on his chiseled jaw had now become a thin scruff and she had the crazy urge to trace her fingers over it to see if it felt rough or soft against her skin. She clenched her fists and stepped back from him. Yes, Murphy was gorgeous and yes, she was more than a little attracted to him, but he was
off-limits. The best friend of her ex-fiancé, the worst possible choice she could make for a rebound booty call or for anything else, for that matter.

  It was fatigue talking, that had to be it.

  “I’m going to get my jacket and I’ll be back in the morning.”

  “No.” Despite his height and muscular size, he moved with the grace and speed of a cheetah. Murphy was on his feet and standing before her, his warm fingers encircling her wrist in a gentle touch. Electric jolts of awareness sizzled through her bloodstream and throughout her body as she stared up at him. He stood at least a good six inches above her five-ten height and it was always a welcome gift to find a man who was taller than her. This close, she could feel the heat of him through her fuzzy black turtle neck sweater, could smell a hint of his woodsy, citrus aftershave, could see a spark of the same sexual attraction in his fathomless eyes. She found herself leaning in closer to him, as if drawn by an invisible string, until he seemed to snap out of the spell between them and his posture stiffened. “What I meant was, it’s too late for you to be out on the streets alone. You should stay here tonight. With me.”

  Her eyes widened and she raised a brow at him. Surely he couldn’t mean…

  Faint dots of crimson dotted his high cheekbones and he let her go to run a hand through his already spiked hair. “Dammit. That came out wrong. What I meant was you should stay here at the apartment. It’s clean and safe and there’s a bed, which you can have. I’ll sleep on the couch. That way we can keep working.”

  Disappointment swamped her despite her knowing it shouldn’t. She wasn’t going to sleep with Murphy Coen. Not tonight. Not ever. The sooner her stupid libido got onboard with that, the better. She rubbed her wrist where he’d held her, the skin still tingling from the phantom pressure of his fingers on her flesh. She didn’t want to admit he was right, nor did she really want to bring up the fact she was well-trained in self-defense from her mandatory stint in the Al Dar Nasrani military, as well as the black belt in Brazilian Ju-jitsu she’d received once she’d gotten out of the service. Most men she’d known found a woman who could kick their ass a definite turn off. Then again, she wasn’t trying to date Murphy anyway so what did she care? “I can take care of myself, thank you. This apartment is awfully small and I think if I have to look at any more of your sister’s papers tonight, my eyeballs will explode.”

  She grabbed her coat and pulled it on then headed for the door, only to be halted by Murphy’s voice behind her. “Have you looked at her books yet?”

  “You mean like account ledgers?” Shayma asked, turning back to him with her hand on the door handle. “Pretty sure that goes along with the whole exploding eyeballs thing.”

  “No.” Murphy chuckled. “Bonus points for the gross-out factor though.” He walked over to the far wall and pointed at the shelves. “I meant regular books. These are where we found those original notes that pointed us to the address for EnKor. Daveed went over them all and said he couldn’t find anything, but maybe another set of eyes would turn up something different.”

  Shayma hesitated. Part of her wanted to continue out the door and give herself some much-needed time and space away from this too-tempting man. But the other part of her, the part that had always been a sucker for desperate men and lost causes, kept her feet rooted to the spot. Add in the fact that she did love a challenge and her interest was piqued anew. Her shoulders slumped as she slipped off her coat again and walked across the room to where Murphy stood. “Fine.”

  Murphy showed her the books where they’d found the notes and she settled in on the sofa with those while he returned to the laptop.

  “I may have found a new lead,” he said to her over his shoulder. “I’ve been going through Aileen’s browser history to see what she’s been researching and I found this guy, Sam Heard. From what I can tell he’s an inventor, working in the green energy sector. Lives over in Queens. Think I’ll pay him a visit tomorrow.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” She picked up one of the books, a hardcover of a popular thriller novel, and thumbed through it, noticing quite a few pages marked with a folded corner. It could be nothing, but knowing how clever Murphy was maybe not. “Those notes of your sister’s,” Shayma asked, staring down at a page of text. “Was there anything unusual about them?”

  “Other than the fact they were in code, you mean?” Murphy glanced back at her, his sexy little half-grin making her heart stutter. “No.”

  “Code, huh?” she said, the words coming out breathier than she’d intended. “Okay.”

  “Why?”

  “No reason.” She concentrated on the book in her hands to keep from drooling over the last man on earth she could ever have. “I’ll keep that in mind as I look at these. Maybe she hid some other things in these books as well.”

  Much as she loved solving puzzles, however, her mind wasn’t in it tonight. Maybe because of her exhaustion. Or maybe because the distractingly beautiful man sitting across the studio apartment from her had decided to remove the plaid workshirt he’d been wearing over his white T-shirt, giving her an excellent view of his broad shoulders and back, the muscles stretching the material taut and making her fingertips itch to feel them as he hovered over her, drove inside her, brought her to a screaming, earth-shattering climax…

  Yep. Definitely time for bed. Alone.

  Shayma set the book aside and stood, keeping her head down as she headed for the opposite corner of the large space and the queen-sized bed that was set up near the windows. She toed off her stiletto pumps and turned down the lovely looking white down duvet, then glanced out the windows. The apartment was on the top floor of an old brick building in Manhattan’s meat-packing district. She’d bet Aileen paid a pretty penny for this address, despite its small size and lack of real privacy. The only separate room that had a door was the bathroom, thank goodness.

  “Going to sleep?” Murphy asked, his voice low and rough with tiredness. “I think I’ll turn in too.”

  From the corner of her eye, she watched him stand and stretch, then bend over to shut down the computer—giving her a great view of his perfectly formed ass. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. Thoughts like that would not make the night go any smoother. He checked the locks on the door then shut off the lights in the rest of the room, leaving him bathed only in the soft, golden glow of the lamp by the bedside. Then, Murphy headed for the sofa and tossed the numerous pillows aside before yanking off his T-shirt and taking off his boots. Naked from the waist up, he flopped down on the couch and grabbed the afghan draped over the back to cover himself. “We can get started again in the morning. Good night.”

  Shayma stood there blinking at him for several moments. The cut lines of his tanned torso were now burned into her brain forever. Lord help her. With shaky hands, she climbed into the bed and shut off the lamp, then laid back on the comfortable bed. Sleep. She needed sleep. But the more she tried to doze off, the more restless she became. Sleeping in strange places never went well for her the first night anyway, too many strange sounds and sights and smells. But now, knowing that Murphy was only a few feet away, hearing the sounds of his deep breaths and the rustle of his body as he moved on the sofa, kept her nerves on high alert. She turned over to face the window and watched the glittering snow fall outside.

  Hard to believe Christmas was only a week away. Being here inside this apartment, with no decorations at all, it was easy to forget. But she loved the holidays and things just didn’t feel right without at least a tree and maybe a few strings of lights around. Even her room at the Plaza was decorated, courtesy of the concierge for her floor. Perhaps tomorrow, after they went to see the inventor Murphy had discovered, they could stop and buy a few decorations for his sister’s apartment. After all, if they were going to be spending more time there, which it sounded like they were, she wanted it to be festive. And if their prayers were answered and Aileen was found in time for Christmas, then she’d need a cheerful place to come home to.

  Mind r
acing with ideas now, Shayma turned over onto her other side and gazed out at the moonlit apartment. There was space in the one corner for a small tree, and a length of evergreen garland would look marvelous strung atop the fireplace mantle. Add in some bulbs and lights and she’d have the place looking like the North Pole in no time. Whenever she was home in Al Dar Nasrani, she was always in charge of the decorating for her parents’ home. While many of the other Middle Eastern nations around their island had converted to Islam over the years, her country had stayed Christian since the 5th century AD. So Christmas and all it signified were a big deal in the bint Amr Kahlen household.

  A list, she needed to make a list so she wouldn’t forget anything tomorrow.

  Trying to be as quite as she could be, Shayma got up and tiptoed over to the desk in the dark to find a pen and paper. But she stubbed her toe along the way and the hardwood floors creaked and damn.

  “What the hell are you doing now?” Murphy asked, sitting up to peer over at her through the shadows. “I thought you were tired.”

  “I am tired.” No lie. “But I can’t fall asleep. So I thought I’d make a list of things we can buy to spiff this place up tomorrow.”

  “Spiff?” Murphy’s frown was evident in his tone even though it was too dark to see his expression. “Not sure I like the sound of that.”

  “We need a little Christmas around here.”

  “Oh, God. You’re not going to sing, are you?”

  “Maybe.” She giggled and cleared her throat as if she was going to belt out a carol or two.

  “Wait! Please, no.” He moved into a shaft of moonlight and she saw his grin. She also saw all that delectable bare chest and swallowed hard. “I’m a little too wound up to sleep right now too. How about I turn on the TV and we see if there’s anything good on?”

  “Okay.”

  He picked up the remote and clicked on the flat screen then patted the sofa cushion beside him. “Sit over here. You’ll be able to see better.”