“This fire is nice. The company is nicer.” She tried not to look too wistfully at him. “Really, it’s all nice. I wasn’t even sure I was going to be able to make myself decorate. Buying things online is a lot easier than putting them up. It even feels different. Maybe it always feels different when it’s your own place.”
“What’s it feel like?”
“Kind of comforting. Kind of exciting? Kind of like a trial run, like you said. Kind of like a last Christmas for just me before I devote the rest of my Christmases to my child. That’s not a complaint, just a framework. I should enjoy it so I know what to give her. Or him. And try not to think of it as limiting my adventures, even if sometimes it feels like my adventuring days might be over.”
“They’re not.”
“That’s easy to say. They’re at least on hold for a long, long time. I’ve been trying to think of pregnancy-safe adventures to do around the city, and I don’t have many ideas at all. Can’t go ice skating. Can’t go skiing. I’ve been training for the Empire State Run-Up, where they do this indoor stair-climbing marathon up the Empire State Building. But...I don’t know if I can do that while pregnant. Would climbing eighty-six flights of stairs be dangerous? I don’t know.”
“I don’t know why you want to run up eighty-six flights of stairs.”
“I don’t know why you don’t want to. Don’t you want to find out if you can do it?”
“We climb stairs for work all the time.”
“Not that many floors. And not racing other people. Challenging yourself. Seeing if you’re as good as they are, or how far you lag behind.”
She didn’t even realize how she’d said that, putting herself into a position that was inherently lesser, until he frowned.
“I doubt you’ll lag behind, but you can talk to your doctor about it when you go. You should. If you want to do it, no matter how silly it is.”
She nodded, then waved a hand to him. “Do you have any other pregnancy-safe adventure ideas?”
“I guess not shopping.”
“Boring.”
“Volunteering for a charity? Going to a soup kitchen?”
“That’s nice and I should do more of that, but that’s not adventurous.”
“Dance class?”
She paused. “Dance class? Like, what kind of dance?”
“Interpretive dance.”
That made her laugh, and then made her gesture like an idiot for the fruit salad on the other side of him.
He scooted the bowl to her. “Or couples dancing. The classics.”
“Ballroom?”
“Or something more fun. Salsa? Swing?”
“That...might not suck. That could be fun,” she said, after rolling it around in her head then popping a grape into her mouth. “Go to Georgia and hike the first part of the Appalachian Trail?”
“Camping and hiking? How far is it?”
“I don’t know, like a hundred miles or something.”
“That’s the first segment of the trail?”
“I don’t know. I just know that you can do it, and if you do the whole thing, you end up in Maine.”
“Scratch that one. You’d give birth in the woods surrounded by elves, and then they’d take our baby away. Elves are like that.”
She laughed again at the man, the serious, sober man who was teasing her. “We wouldn’t want that.”
“Everything I’m coming up with seems results-oriented. But I’m guessing, based on your album, that you’re experience-oriented.”
She shifted over to him on the blanket and leaned her back against him. “What results?”
“Photography classes, learning to do different things, practical, tangible things.” He slid an arm around her, encouraging her to turn in toward him.
“Knitting?”
“For instance.”
“Unless it’s some kind of knitting marathon where you compete with people while also running around and playing, I don’t want to do it. What about that obstacle course television series about being super-fit?”
“You could for a while. I think you’ve got about three months before your belly will become un-hideable.”
“What else?”
“I don’t know. Hot air balloons?”
“Oh, piloting?”
“I was thinking riding...”
She tilted her head back to look up at him. “Still, I like that one. I’m keeping it. I’ll research online.”
In the firelight, she could see at least fifteen specks of silver glitter sparkling on his cheek and forehead, and it tickled her.
He either felt her grinning up at him or she made a sound because he looked down at her, brows raised with unspoken questions.
“You’re just sparkly. I’m not sure you haven’t already been to the forest with the elves.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’ve got more glitter on you than a tarted-up Tinkerbell.” She reached up to try and brush it off his cheek, but the glitter didn’t budge.
He rubbed his face too. Still it stuck.
“Did you, by chance, take off your shirt while you were dealing with the glittery things?”
“Why?”
“Because if your chest is all glittery, I have to see it. It’s really non-negotiable, I’m afraid. I have a rule—if my boyfriend’s chest has glitter on it, I get to see it.”
She just slipped the B-word right in there.
The disbelieving laugh he gave her emboldened her. Lifting the front of his shirt, she whisked it up so she could peek at the warm brown skin beneath.
“Penny.”
“I can’t tell. The light’s not getting through the cotton. Take your shirt off.”
“No...”
She pulled her head back up and lowered his shirt, trying to decide if he was serious or not.
“What if I do a wolf whistle? Men do that all the time on the street, I know it’s code for ‘Take Off Your Shirt.’ Granted, it’s a dumb code. I could do catcalls!” Which was when it occurred to her. “Wonder why those two different behaviors are attributed to different animals. And wolves don’t whistle. Unless they have a sinus condition maybe.”
He laughed again then, and didn’t even attempt to stop her when she lifted his shirt. His arms went up, he pulled it over his head, and glitter that had been clinging to the cotton fluttered down like little snowy diamonds.
That landed on his chest.
And abs.
And those freaking hip flexors...
She slid her hand over his skin, unable to not touch him, just a little mesmerized by the combination of his sparkling flesh and sensation sparking over her own.
It might have started out as playful flirting, but she swung a fuzzy, flannel leg over his lap, getting close, wanting closer. Desperate for his mouth, she’d gotten right up to his, could feel the scruff from his upper lip against hers before she found her willpower. With already accelerated breath, a body aching with anticipation, she leaned back enough to look at him.
Even if he’d played along with the shirt, even if he was going to stay for a trial run, he’d said no sex earlier. And there were things she didn’t know, things she needed to understand, and one of them was his boundaries.
As she leaned back, he leaned forward, his gentle hands cupping her cheeks, his wonderful lips brushing hers, beckoning her to forget the words she needed to say. It was the lightest brush, teasing, tempting, and powerful enough to set her heart to hammering.
Nothing could bring her to pull back from him, so it was against his lips, between kisses, that she asked, “What changed your mind?”
The question took his attention and he looked her in the eye. “Changed my mind about what?”
“Between last
night and this morning, what made you decide to come for the trial run with me?”
His brows pinched, what she might have called regret in his eyes as he held her gaze. “I knew last night. The instant that key was in my hand. But I wanted to take my time, to think it over.”
Did he regret waiting, or was it too soon to regret this? “Were you just trying to be sensible?”
That took him a little longer to put into words, and she saw him look long and hard at her mouth, like he was considering just kissing her again rather than answering.
“It’s that bad?”
The quiet ticked on, and whatever words he was running through his mind didn’t seem to be lining up the way he wanted. “Because you’re—”
A sharp, frosty stab to her chest came with his words.
Criticism was coming. No wonder he couldn’t think of the words. She moved back a little further, still on his lap but leaning in the other direction so their torsos made a V. “I’m what? Untrustworthy?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You say it all the time. Just not out loud.” And she knew it, she heard it every time the thought crossed his mind. Why it hurt so much this time, she couldn’t say, but it was there, rotting in her chest. She twisted to the side to climb off his lap.
“You don’t trust me explicitly either.” His hands gripped her hips and he pulled her back, not letting her get away that easily. A dissatisfied breath rushed out of him and he grunted, “What I was going to say was you make me want to trust...this. You. Last night, you said a lot of things about what you could and couldn’t give, and I’m trying to be that resolute, to find some kind of compromise here when it goes against every instinct I have. Because I don’t just want this child, I want you. And I don’t.”
When he’d pulled her back, his firm hands on her hips had brought her into closer contact with his body in ways she was trying not to make contact with while they negotiated boundaries. He wanted her, and he didn’t, which pretty much summed up her feelings on the matter too, only she was trying to confront her own issues on this, to make this work.
“Are we just incompatible? I told you I need time and for this to develop naturally, but my trust issues aren’t quite the same as yours. I don’t trust marriage as a concept more than I don’t trust you. Sure, I think you’re probably going to get to a point where you don’t want me to be who I am, but I think that about everyone. You seem to think I’m going to lie to you, or trick you until I can one day...run off and take the baby and go somewhere you can never find us.”
“I’m not saying I just expect that. I’m saying...it’s possible. I don’t know.”
She grabbed his head to make him look her in the eye. “Tell me what you need. Promises? Do you want to put off the trial period until we’ve been to lawyers to have custody agreements drawn up? Do you want me to write out a declaration of my intent, of your paternity, in longhand right now and sign it? Would that make this feel...less like you’re dangling over Niagara?”
“I don’t know.” He sighed, reaching for her hands to draw them down from his head, a gentle touch as he continued to hold them in the cradle of their joined laps. “I really don’t know. But I’m trying.”
He was there, she reminded herself, but he’d dragged it out over a night because he genuinely expected this to backfire.
“I need a promise from you,” she said, because all she could do was be blunt and direct in this. Every voice in her head that shouted to retreat was a test of her courage, and she couldn’t think of anything more important to be courageous about. “I need you to promise that you won’t try to make me into someone else. And the other thing, the promise I make to you—if this isn’t working, if I decide you’re not the one for me, I promise I’ll tell you quickly, end it humanely, not let it drag us to hell to keep up appearances.”
“Pen...”
She did climb off his lap then and didn’t stop until she was a good foot away, far enough that she felt only the heat of the fireplace at her back, not the warmth of his big body beneath her. “And I promise never to take your child from you unless you do something abusive. If you can put nasty caveats on my future actions—like thinking I’d steal your child from you—I can put caveats on the possibility that you might one day turn into an abusive ass rather than just one unwilling to trust me when I’ve done nothing to earn that.”
His hands flew up and rubbed over his head to the back of his neck. “You went from kissing to angry, and—”
“Yes. I did.” She climbed to her feet and began gathering up the remains of their Christmas tree picnic to take to the kitchen, to clean up so she could go to bed alone.
Gabriel rose behind her, disgruntled at himself as much as he was with her. He’d decorated the apartment on a whim because, no matter how much he tried to rationalize his way out of getting too close, he wanted to be there with her, and he wanted her to see it. See...what was too soon to say. Know that he knew how to make a home. He was husband material, not just parental partnership material, because that was the only thing he could think of to get this point across. Prove this by deeds. His mind was already made up about her, but she needed time and reassurance.
And he’d probably also done it because he didn’t know what to tell her.
She clearly didn’t want help with the dishes, so Gabriel went to pick up the boxes of ornaments they hadn’t hung on the tree yet, clearing up something of the mess. “I only know how to do this one way. I only know how to reason my way through steps to show you that you can trust me. You want promises, fine. I won’t stay with you for the baby if—”
“Children. It’ll be more than one in a few years if you truly see us being together forever,” she cut in, turning back from the sink with a towel to dry her hands. “Because you want me. And I want you. Most of the time. You might be able to hold off, control whether you want me, or how much you want me, but I don’t work that way. I don’t want to rush you any more than I want you to rush me, but it would probably go a long way toward convincing me that you feel something for me besides attraction and affection if you stopped holding yourself back so much.”
“What am I holding back?”
“I don’t know. I know you take a year to come up with a half-sentence, you hold me back when I want to kiss you. The other day? That kiss was amazing, and I’m sure a lot of that was because you made me slow down enough to really appreciate it, but between your half-finished thoughts and your insane restraint levels, you can tell me you want me until you’re out of breath, but it’s only words.” She tossed the towel on the counter, and as he stood between her and the stairs, she stepped to the side to go round him. “I’m going to bed.”
She passed him, having every intention of continuing toward the stairs. Leave him down here with his perfect, glittery chest and his impermeable walls. Let him control the downstairs, she was going up.
She was almost past him when she felt the air stir as he reached for her, one large hand catching her by the back of the neck and the other arm swooping around her waist, spinning her toward him.
Alarm spiked in her belly, but it turned to delight as his mouth came down on hers, tearing from him a groan so loud she’d have thought him in pain. Like steel girders twisting and buckling under the pressure, the sound of Gabriel’s control snapping.
Her feet, unprepared, tangled and she grabbed for his shoulders, relying on his strength and the vestiges of his control to keep her upright. It worked as long as she hung there, taking his ravenous kisses, his demanding tongue, his heat and need as she struggled to catch up.
Trying to get her footing, she pulled on his shoulders for support, and just to get closer, and shifted her feet around to find some balance that didn’t rely on him, but one of her feet crossed his and he stumbled backward, pulling her with him.
The twinkling Christmas tree broke their
fall, and the fall broke their kissing. Gabriel managed to twist them so that she landed on his chest with a grunt on the pillows and comforter they’d picnicked on earlier.
“Are you okay?” she gasped against his lips, lifting enough to look at him, but he only nodded and rolled them, grabbing the cotton-candy-pink fuzzy pajama bottoms and dragging them off her roughly, panties and all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
PENNY’S TOP FLEW off next, and even though she was naked from the waist down, as soon as Gabriel saw another of those strappy white tanks she liked to wear, as she’d worn in Schenectady, he actually moaned before lunging at her chest. Through the snug, stretchy fabric, he caught her nipple, and every inch of her body sparked.
This was what happened when Gabriel lost control? The material scraped over the stiff peak of her breast, hot and wet from his mouth, and left her too shocked to do anything but grab at his shoulders while his big body pressed her into the pillows.
He finally seemed to realize the tank was there, and let go of her long enough to shove the material up over her breasts, where he could get at the now insanely sensitive flesh.
One hand stroked downward, over her belly, to land between her legs, cupping, warming with his palm, then pressing just firmly enough to part tender flesh and stroke her.
She should be touching him, the thought drifted through her mind. Getting those damned pants off him at least. But she’d never felt so wanted, and it overrode her senses, left her quaking, arching, gasping, full of involuntary movements and sounds. Uncontrolled, desperate, and stunned, she clung to him because her fingers wouldn’t stop gripping his shoulders.
They weren’t just words, thank the Ghost of Christmas Sexy-Time... He wanted her. He really, really wanted her.
* * *
Gabriel closed his eyes and kissed and nibbled up her chest, up the side of her neck, trying to wrest some control back before he accidentally hurt her, went too fast, got too rough.
The taste of her skin and the feel of her writhing made an urgent beast inside him roar to life, but seeing how deeply pink she’d grown and the wild, blank look in her eyes made it too hard to even try to hold back.
The Rescue Doc's Christmas Miracle Page 10