Together for Christmas

by Lisa Plumley

  Now though, there was nothing except Casey and Kristen and a handy exterior doorway where they were partly sheltered from the chilly night air. Bringing his hand to her head, cradling her cozy knit cap in his palm, Casey pulled her nearer.

  He opened his mouth at a new angle, teased her with his tongue, and felt a heady sense of gratification when Kristen moaned beneath his kiss and grabbed him right back. Because they were both so bundled against the cold, all she caught hold of were his quilted coat and long woolly muffler, and Casey cursed the stupid wintery Michigan weather all the more as he realized how much more naked they both could have been in California. Or Cozumel. Or Anguilla. Or Kauai. Or anyplace else where freezing subzero temperatures didn’t reign supreme every December.

  Briefly, Casey wondered if Kristen would like going away with him at Christmastime. If she’d like margaritas on the beach and sand between her toes and sunshine and surf and sex. It was possible, he thought as he kissed her again, that he could have his usual escape-from-Christmas getaway and have love, too.

  Surely those two things could coexist. Couldn’t they?

  But then Kristen whipped him against the building’s exterior door, using his shoulders and his daydreaming as leverage, and then she took control of their kiss herself, and Casey forgot all about . . . everything else. If it wasn’t Kristen’s mouth or her warm minty breath or her impatient gloved hands roving all over him, he couldn’t feel it. Or think about it.

  All he knew was her warmth. All he wanted was her touch. All he felt was her, lithe and eager in his arms, and he knew, in that moment, that he didn’t need anything else ever again.

  Except maybe more. More more more. The only way that was happening, Casey realized dimly, was if they made it inside. Because while going on as they were—all but ripping off each other’s multiple layers of coats and scarves and clothes beneath the municipal banners announcing the annual Kismet Christmas Parade and Holiday Light Show—was definitely fun, doing so while inside Kristen’s apartment would be even better. And hotter.

  In every sense of the word.

  “We should go inside,” Casey murmured, caught up in kissing her neck. Her jaw. Her mouth. Her ear. Essentially everyplace that was exposed. “I don’t want you to get too cold.”

  Kristen laughed. “There’s zero chance of that happening. Not with all this going on between us.”

  The amusement in her tone intrigued him. So did the flirty invitation she’d offered by slipping her arms deftly between his overcoat and suit jacket. Clearly more versed than he was with cold-weather gear, Kristen squeezed him closer. Then she did everything except stand on his feet to reach his mouth again—including holding his jaw steady for her next kiss.

  “Mmm,” she moaned. “I like it right here, just like this.”

  Honestly, Casey did, too. Dizzy with wanting her, he gave in to their next kiss. And then the next. And the next. Tendrils of her hair tickled his fingertips; exhalations of her breath warmed his neck as she kissed him. She wriggled with apparent delight, then did it again. Casey was pretty sure Kristen might be capable of making him forget himself enough to risk indecent exposure and frostbite, all for the sake of feeling her hands on him everywhere, without the impediments of all his clothes.

  But there was something invigorating about feeling the cold air against his overheated, exposed skin—about knowing that he and Kristen couldn’t quite forget themselves as long as they were still kissing in a doorway like a pair of insatiable long-lost lovers.

  The chill of that door penetrated through the back of Casey’s coat, but Kristen’s body heat seared him from its front, and as he kissed her again, he realized that she was the only woman he’d ever known who’d actually thrown him against a door and kissed him as though she couldn’t get enough of his mouth, of his body, of him—all the way through—and he realized that he liked that a lot, and he further realized that Kristen’s gloved hand was sliding purposefully downward, over his shoulder, past his chest, over his belly, lower and lower, until . . .

  Whoa. Another few inches and he wouldn’t care anymore that they were in public.

  Deliberately, Casey caught hold of Kristen’s wrist. Their gazes met. In the evening shadows, Kristen’s eyes sparkled up at him. Her mouth curved in a smile that looked far too audacious for its own good, promising him she was up to no good. Her smile all but guaranteed that—if left to her own devices—Kristen would make him lose control in a heartbeat, right there on the deserted Kismet street, with snow falling on his head and his body headed straight for hypothermia.

  “On the other hand,” she told him, “I can’t touch you the way I want to out here on the sidewalk. We’d better go inside.”

  As far as Casey was concerned, she could have anything she wanted, as long as it involved her and him and nakedness.

  “Since I can’t feel my toes anymore,” he said, “inside sounds great. I think I might be getting frostbite.”

  Kristen laughed. “That’s not frostbite. All your blood has rushed elsewhere.” She gave him a cheeky look. “I think I know where, too. I’ll make it a point to double-check in a second.”

  “Anything that’s mine is yours,” Casey promised.

  Kristen wasted no time in making her move, but it still took much too long to reach her second-floor apartment. After all, there was the exterior building door to unlock, then the hallway to navigate, then the stairs to ascend . . .

  By the time they reached the landing that led directly to Kristen’s apartment, Casey thought he might be losing his mind.

  Could unfulfilled lust do that to a person? Just then, it felt as though it could—and as though the only way to stop it was to grab Kristen’s arm, pull her close, and kiss her again.

  Gratifyingly, she melted against him in response, her keys jingling as she brought up both hands to his chest. Completely inflamed now, Casey caught her head in his palms and kissed her with a sense of purpose that kept him rooted in place, even as snowflakes melted and turned to wet spots on his coat and his head and even his face and his eyelashes, and he knew he’d definitely never kissed anyone who made him feel the way Kristen did, which was why it suddenly seemed imperative that they get inside her apartment and get on with things, because if these mushy, sentimental feelings kept welling up inside him, Casey wasn’t sure what would happen. It made him feel a little crazy and a lot uncertain, and since he didn’t like uncertainty . . .

  “Is it this one?” He took her keys and, at Kristen’s wide-eyed nod, unlocked the only door on that floor. A few seconds later, they’d practically dived inside her apartment together. Without looking around, Casey found the first available empty space: the wall beside her front door. “Aha. Home at last.”

  As a sort of welcome home maneuver, he kissed Kristen against that wall, then caged her in with his arms and kissed her again. She felt so good and so right, and as she glanced up at him between kisses, wearing a smile that was as uniquely her as it was ridiculously alluring, stroking his face with her gloved palm as though she cherished him and needed him and wanted him beyond all else, Casey felt another glimmer of that schmaltzy feeling that had blindsided him a minute ago, and he knew that he had to get things going between them in a more purposeful and sexual way, or else he might start feeling . . .

  Well, God only knew what he’d feel. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

  “It took forever to drive here, didn’t it?” Kristen said breathlessly. The teasing way she said it thrilled him. So did the eager way she tugged off his knit cap and then went for his muffler. “I could barely walk upstairs. All that kissing made my legs feel too wobbly. You’ve got quite a knack for kissing me.”

  “That’s not all I’ve got,” Casey promised. “I’ve got—”

  Love, he was about to say, but Kristen cut him off before he could. Thank God. He was obviously drunk on senior center holiday punch and too much fruitcake for any sensible person.

  “Way too many clothes on,” she complained, tossing hi
s muffler to the side. In the dark, Casey couldn’t see where it landed. So far, his sense of Kristen’s apartment was limited to catching vague glimpses of the outlines of her furniture, smelling the combined fragrances of cinnamon and pine tree in the air, and sensing that, if he moved the merest inch to the right, he could swing the door all the way shut with his foot.

  Chivalrously, he did so. The motion effectively sealed them alone together, with no barriers to being together, for the first time ever. Overwhelmed by the realization, Casey went still. Suddenly it seemed that he could have everything he’d ever wanted. With Kristen to share it with. It seemed that he could know what it felt like not to be secretly yearning for more on a level he scarcely acknowledged, even to himself. That he could be together with her, now and maybe later, too, and—

  “Were you expecting to be attacked by grizzlies on your way to Christmas Disco Night?” Kristen grumbled, struggling to unfasten the buttons on his overcoat. Exasperated, she gave a yank. “You’re wearing so many clothes you’re practically armored. Who needs Kevlar when you have this much wool?”

  Looking at her downturned face and frisky expression, Casey felt flooded with tenderness. That’s how he knew he had to get her naked. Quickly. Before this attack of mushiness got to him.

  Before it made him do something he’d regret.

  Because while love was fine in theory—say, while planning a Christmas surprise for Kristen or agreeing to cut out paper snowflakes with her at the senior center—actually feeling love, in practice, was something else altogether. It was . . . not for him.

  “Where’s your bedroom?” he asked, peering into the gloom.

  Momentarily diverted, Kristen pointed. “Through there.”

  Casey wasted no time following her directions. He was going to strip them both to bare skin, find the nearest soft surface—if that was Kristen’s mattress, so much the better, but if not, he could work with that, too—and then make them one. Over and over again. And if he did it right, he figured, this weird feeling of connectedness would be forgotten about like so many abandoned curbside Christmas trees on New Year’s Eve morning.

  They reached her bedroom. Inside, it smelled like clean sheets and girly grooming products, all mingled together in a mélange of let’s-get-busy atmosphere. Or maybe that last part was mostly in his mind. Just then, Casey decided not to worry about it. Basically, just being there let him enjoy the private side of Kristen, and that was the biggest aphrodisiac of all.

  If he could have, he would have bottled the essence of her bedroom to take with him after he left. Because nothing this good could ever last. He knew he would miss it. He knew he would never forget it. But there was no way in hell Casey was admitting to a thought as sappy as that one. So, instead of letting her know exactly how deep his newfound sense of Hallmark-worthy mushiness went, he pulled her into his arms.

  “Nice bedroom.” He gave her a Lambada-style hip swivel, bringing them into even closer contact. Then another kiss. “I like it.”

  His growled approval only made her laugh. Kristen waved her arm. “It’s too dark! You haven’t even seen it properly yet.”

  She pulled away before he could assure her he had. Left alone in the semidarkness, Casey waited for her to come back.

  An instant later, Kristen flicked a switch. Then, “Tada!”

  Holiday lights glowed to life around them, illuminating her bedroom with their miniature, nonblinking pinpoints of radiance. Christmas light strings followed the lines of her ceiling, eliminating the need for a lamp. They wound around her bed’s headboard, making its piled-up pillows and chenille spread look twice as appealing. They brightened Kristen’s face, letting him see how beautiful and how excited and how earnest she looked.

  It occurred to Casey that she might be feeling all mushy toward him, too. But that wasn’t what this night was all about. This night was about them coming together, raw and urgent and unstoppable, until they erased all the sentimentality and sweetness and were left with just feeling and being and doing.

  “It’s really Christmassy,” he said. “It’s very you.”

  He realized, as he said it, that he liked that about this room. He liked that Kristen’s bedroom was unabashedly full of holiday cheer—that it glowed with celebratory lights and brimmed with plush surfaces and cushy, holiday-themed pillows. Because that’s what made it hers. Kristen truly loved Christmas, and she would probably never want to go to Anguilla in December (because then she would miss all this corny holiday stuff), and the thought of that made Casey feel unexpectedly sad. So he took a step forward and squashed that unwanted feeling by kissing her.

  “Mmm.” Delving his tongue against hers, he moaned and then kissed her again. Her knit cap was in the way of his roving hands, so Casey pulled it off and dropped it. He made short work of her plaid scarf, her coat, and her gloves, too. With his hands, he tugged her hair gently loose from its knot, letting more tendrils wind around his fingers. “You feel . . . so good.”

  “Yeah, I do. Especially now that my hands are free.” With a devilish grin that told him she did feel good—and was likely feeling better all the time, as they went on kissing—Kristen clutched at his overcoat. She wrenched it off him, then hurled it toward a waiting upholstered armchair. She grabbed his suit jacket lapels next. “You’re going to be so sorry you made me wait all this time,” she assured him. “Because right now, after all this buildup, I’m feeling pretty insatiable.”

  “Me too,” Casey rumbled. “Bring it on.”

  “Oh, I’m going to.” Panting, Kristen wrestled off his suit coat. She frowned at his vest and shirt and pants. “By the time I get all this off you, I’ll have earned a reward of some kind.”

  “I have just the thing in mind,” Casey promised.

  He could not get her naked quickly enough. Not quickly enough to stanch all those caring feelings of his. But that didn’t mean he skimped on the effort. After a few more kisses, Kristen’s soft cardigan joined his overcoat on the armchair.

  Both items looked weirdly right together, Casey thought fancifully. It was almost as if he and Kristen were meant to be a couple, living and laughing and loving in her apartment. It was almost as if even their clothes were comfortable together.

  Then he realized the nonsense he was thinking and pulled himself together. Clearly, being around this much Christmas paraphernalia was doing something damaging to his sense of self. Or his brain. Mostly his brain. Because . . . What the hell?

  The rest was psychobabble. And Casey Jackson didn’t do psychobabble. He got in, got things done, and then got out, leaving everyone in his wake feeling satisfied that he’d been there. That was his raison d’être. It was him in a nutshell.

  To prove it, Casey steered Kristen toward the bed. In a giddy backward tango, they made it there, kissing all the while. Together, they tipped headlong into the glow of the sparkly lights. They landed on the mattress, but somehow Kristen wound up on top of him. She looked right at home there, too.

  “Now I’ve got you where I want you,” she announced, straddling him with a suggestiveness that made Casey’s head spin. Her thighs flexed against his hips. Her boots rubbed against his pants, their myriad buckles clanging out a triumphant rhythm. Her red sweater dress rode up, making Casey yearn to pull it off her completely. Kristen gave him a look. “And you thought you were in charge of this between us.”

  Chapter 18

  Kismet, Michigan

  T-minus . . . sometime . . . until Christmas

  “I am,” Casey said, then he tilted his hips sideways.

  Kristen tottered, then fell with a squeal, surprised by his sudden move. Casey was there to catch her, though, rolling them both against the mattress until those damn holiday lights blurred in his vision. All that remained was him, and her, and the anticipation of getting them both fully naked.

  “And don’t you forget it,” he warned, then he kissed her to make sure she didn’t. But Casey’s fierceness was all for show, he realized, because when he raised his head a
t last, Kristen was gazing intently at him with the reflections of those tiny holiday lights in her eyes, making her look all dreamy and full of longing. He felt a tug of protectiveness toward her then—as though he wanted to make sure he didn’t hurt her feelings or break her heart or something else in between—and Casey knew he had to extinguish that burgeoning sentimentality of his before it got out of hand. Because Kristen probably didn’t know the difference between wanting and needing and not having—not in the way that Casey did—and there was only one way to handle this.

  By ignoring it. Because he didn’t want it. He wanted her.

  Confidently, Casey kissed Kristen again. Urgently, he roamed his hands over her body, feeling all the curves that she seemed passionately insistent on pressing against him. And he was pretty sure he was hearing things, because he thought that, as he stroked Kristen over her sweater dress, she spoke to him and said something that was pretty much unimaginable.

  “I want you, Casey,” she whispered, kissing his jaw, his neck, his cheekbone, his mouth. She stroked him all over, to mind-bending effect, making him shake in her arms. “I do. I want you so much. And not just because you’re hot and sexy and outrageously good at kissing, but also because—”

  “Hey, give a guy a chance to earn all those accolades,” he interrupted before she could go too far and break his heart by changing her mind later. He knew people sometimes changed their minds about him—and not necessarily for the better. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have switched foster homes so much as a kid. “We’ve only just gotten started.”

  “Yeah, but I can tell it’s going to be good already.”

  Casey could, too. But still . . . “You’re not even halfway naked,” he pointed out. It felt like a condemnation of his own damn failure to stay on track and quit thinking about her in all those syrupy, overemotional ways. “I thought by now I’d have your boots off, at least. Although, as a California native, I’m inexperienced with heavy winter boots like those, so—”