Christmas at Two Love Lane

by Kieran Kramer

  “I barely remember getting undressed.” She sat up, her breasts exposed, no sense of modesty. “We’ve only known each other—” She snapped her fingers to signify how short the time had been.

  “And every second that’s gone by has been torture. Because this was meant to happen. You know it as well as I do. We’ve been dancing around it.”

  “Even at Fast and French you felt tortured?”

  “Don’t remind me. Yes.”

  “How about when I was sitting on my desk eating a pear?”

  “God, yes. You drove me crazy.”

  She laughed. “That’s very kind of you.”

  “Kind? I’m not kind,” he scoffed, but it didn’t come out harshly. Somehow, it was sexy. Friendly. Even intimate. He stood up and held out his hand.

  She took it and was taken straight back to that feeling of him grabbing her naked rear end with his greedy man fingers while he kissed her senseless.

  “Okay, you’re not kind,” she said. “Neither am I, actually.” She allowed him to pull her up.

  And then he tricked her. He sank to his knees on the coats, leaned over and kissed the round of her right butt cheek.

  Wow. Standing above him, she knew where he was headed, but she didn’t feel an ounce of awkwardness. He was right. This was really meant to happen.

  What he did was very, very good. She was tempted to scream, “Yo-Yo Ma,” but that would have been too funny and distracting at just the wrong time.

  How could she reconcile all this intimacy—that clearly went beyond the physical—with the fact that Deacon didn’t believe in love? Her colleagues at Two Love Lane were all about her getting together with him, but wouldn’t they also be a little disappointed in her for putting her personal life ahead of the business’s priorities?

  But she was that missing piece in Deacon’s jigsaw puzzle. The cherry on top of his sundae. The reason for him to stop running.

  She knew it, but she didn’t know if he would ever know it himself. She was sure he thought she was hotter than hell and a fabulous (temporary) sex partner. But he might never figure out that she was home for him.

  So she had to do her best to forget that he was home for her.

  Hot little tears sprang to her eyes, but she held them at bay.

  He’d finally gotten to his feet. Her limbs, understandably, felt weak and floppy, plus she had trouble remembering how to put her clothes on.

  “Raise your arms,” he said. He’d managed to yank on his tuxedo trousers and now put her gown over her head and pulled it down for her. When he zipped her up, he kissed the back of her neck. “That’s my special spot,” he said.

  “All yours,” she murmured, still lost in a sexual haze.

  “We overstayed our welcome.” He helped her on with her coat.

  “Welcome, shmelcome,” she said, which wasn’t clever at all but she didn’t care because it said everything about living in the moment, where nothing stuck and you were free.

  She adjusted Deacon’s bowtie, then fished her handbag from a woven straw basket filled with clean laundry Louisa had yet to fold. She had a vague recollection of throwing her purse there to get it out of the way. It had come open, and her round compact hairbrush had fallen out, the Dollar Store kind that flips open with plastic brush bristles that pop out. She stuffed the disc back in her clutch and hoped her cool up-do wasn’t totally destroyed.

  For some reason they were both somber at the curb at the end of the cobblestone street when they waited on the Uber car. But then Deacon turned her toward him. “I’m sorry,” he said, and pushed her hair back from her face. “I didn’t mean to seduce you. When I joined you upstairs, I was—”

  “I know.” She looked up at him. His palm felt good on the side of her face. And he was so gentle. “It’s okay.”

  And what she meant was that it was worth it. She was horrified at herself for believing that, but she would not regret what they had done.

  He’d set a new standard for her.

  Maybe he got that—because his mouth tipped up, and then he kissed her. Very gently. He held her like she was a piece of her grandmother’s fine bone china. His lips were toasty warm, keeping the cold night at bay. She was ready to go home with him and crawl into his bed and not get out for several days.

  She knew very well that she was in something way over her head.

  “Is that our Uber car?” She forced herself to retreat from being the lover back to fellow pedestrian.

  Deacon threw his arm around her shoulder and squeezed. “Wouldn’t you know it?” He looked down the street like a little kid waiting on a Christmas parade. “We got the same guy who’d picked us up from my aunt’s house.”

  “You liked him,” she said.

  “I did.”

  The car pulled up. “Yo,” the driver said.

  Yo-Yo Ma, Macy thought. It was the theme of the night.

  He looked slightly bewildered. “You didn’t go to the concert?”

  “We did,” Macy said briskly, “and we’re on our way back.” She looked at Deacon in a whole new way now. She’d always thought he was sexy, but she’d lifted the hood and seen the engine. How was she supposed to not remember his mad skills every time she saw his mouth or his eyes or his hair, which she’d played with while he’d buried himself in her?

  “We had pressing business,” he said.

  “Yes. Totally pressing,” she added.

  They were being silly. But it was fun.

  When they got out at the Gaillard, Deacon reached into the car before he shut the rear passenger door and handed the driver a hundred-dollar bill. “Merry Christmas, a little early.”

  A brisk wind lifted Macy’s coat and swirled beneath her gown and up her legs, making her shiver, especially when she remembered the hot hands that had caressed her naked thighs so recently.

  The guy paused, then shoved the bill in his pocket. “Thanks, man,” he said. “I’ll give this to my mom. She finally paid off the mortgage on her decrepit little house—the one I grew up in—but she pays heating bills like she has a twenty-room mansion.”

  “Why?” Macy couldn’t help asking.

  “She’s got no insulation, I guess. And she can’t afford to get it fixed up. Almost all her pension goes to medications.”

  Deacon took out his wallet. “Here.” He gave the driver another couple of hundred-dollar bills.

  Macy had to admit she was slightly dizzy at the sight of all that cash. She was business-rich and cash-poor herself.

  The driver shook his head. “No, man. But thanks.”

  “I want to help your mom,” Deacon insisted.

  “You tourists need to take care of yourselves,” the guy said. “Not be too generous. There are some very bad people, even in a nice place like this, just waiting to take advantage of you.”

  “I know that,” Deacon said. “But sometimes you take a chance. And I’m not worried. I know where this is going.”

  The driver scratched his ear. “I don’t know.”

  Deacon shoved the bills forward another couple inches. “Come on. It’s not charity. This is friend to friend.”

  The guy finally took the money. “I can’t thank you enough,” he said soberly.

  Macy smiled. “We’re all just paying it forward, you know?”

  “I’ll pay it forward too.” The driver allowed himself a small grin. “I promise.”

  Deacon crouched lower to make better eye contact. “You’re already doing it. Helping your mom is important.”

  That touched Macy’s heart. Deacon had lost his mother at such a young age. And he had done really well taking care of the one he’d been blessed with in her place.

  “This is a good night,” the guy said. “Mom will love hearing this story. She’ll make me tell it to her at least three times.”

  Deacon looked at Macy, and she looked at him, and all felt right in Macy’s world. It was an awesome feeling.

  “Merry Christmas, you two.” Their friendly driver waved.

  T
hey waved back.

  How different the walk was this time when they made their way to the Gaillard Center’s main entrance!

  Deacon had a contented half-smile on his face.

  “That was nice of you,” Macy said.

  He shrugged. “I did it to impress a certain good-cheer enthusiast I know.”

  A car whizzed by, the sounds of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” floating out the window in that out-of-tune way that happens when sound waves meet speed.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “You would have done it without me there. Admit it.”

  “I will, but only if you tell me what you were thinking after he said his mom would want to hear the story three times.”

  She stopped walking. “You really want to know?”

  “I do.”

  “I was thinking that there is no better feeling in the world than giving. Seriously. Making someone else happy is addictive, and I wish I could feel like that all the time. Not just at Christmas.”

  They started walking again.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” he said.

  “At the same time.” She wished she could hold his hand. She wanted to.

  “Hate to ruin the Hallmark moment”—he shot her a wicked grin—“but I also feel that way about great sex. Like the kind we had today. Maybe I’ll get coal in my stocking for saying so.”

  “Um, no. You could never get coal for what you did at Louisa’s house.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  They stared at each other for a few drawn-out seconds. Inside, she shivered, remembering how locked into each other they’d been.

  “I propose we get naked together every day,” he murmured low. “Morning and night. You live right next door. I can slip in and out of your house, easy. And our Christmas will be merry and bright.”

  “Deacon.”

  “I know what you’re going to say.” He held open the door for her to the lobby. A rush of warm air swept past her into the night. “You think I’m only about having a fling. You regret our little interlude at Louisa’s. And you think we need to put back up those walls.”

  “Because we’re neighbors.” She made a beeline for the coat-check room. “And you’re my client—my challenging client who doesn’t believe in love.”

  He checked his coat too.

  They didn’t speak to each other again until they were all alone walking up the stairs. “I can’t regret what we did today,” he said. “And I wasn’t thinking only about myself. I was thinking about you.”

  “Which I find very … sweet.” He’d been a thoughtful lover. She couldn’t deny that.

  “So we’ll forget we made mad, passionate love several times on the floor of a stranger’s house?”

  Tingles shot up her spine. “Yes,” she said awkwardly. “As we both know, healthy adults can have sexual lives that don’t necessarily lead to intimacy. It’s a drive, like hunger, and thirst—”

  “Macy.” Deacon laughed softly. “I’m the last person you have to explain that to. I get it.”

  “Of course.” She couldn’t help feeling stupid.

  “Don’t feel guilty about having sex with me and leaving it at that. I’m a big boy.”

  “I know.” She felt how red her cheeks must look.

  He opened the door to the box. She went in first, and he followed. Aunt Fran and Celia sat together in the front row. Macy and Deacon took their seats behind them. She didn’t look at Deacon, nor he at her, as far as she knew. They were well-behaved. Clapped appropriately. Made sure their knees didn’t touch.

  I am a professional, she told herself over and over, even as the juncture between her thighs was pleasantly sore from the vigorous sexcapade she’d participated in not an hour before with her client, the hottest man in the world.

  Her client.

  Who was an amazing lover.

  Her client.

  Who wanted to sleep with her every day he was here during the holidays.

  I am a professional, she reminded herself once more when the lights came up at the end of the performance.

  And then Celia turned around, and Macy made a decision.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Deacon wished the lights hadn’t come up. He was still thinking about what a fierce, enchanting lover Macy had been at Louisa’s house. And here she was, sitting next to him—lush and beautiful—and Celia and his aunt were staring at him, and he was trapped. Trapped by good intentions. Trapped by his own folly in that he should never, ever have put pleasing his aunt above being authentic with her. He owed her that. But he hadn’t bothered to really show up in his personal life in a long time. He’d been too busy with work. He’d become a mere cliché of the dutiful nephew, and look where the guilt had got him.

  Celia cooed, “Deacon, you owe me a drink. You missed almost the entire second half.” She didn’t even look at Macy. “Shall we go to the Grand Bohemian?”

  “That’s a fabulous idea, Ceels,” Macy said, sounding perky. Sickeningly perky.

  And “Ceels”? What was that about? Deacon played it cool, but it wasn’t hard to guess that Macy was trying to make Celia crazy.

  “I’m up for a mojito,” Aunt Fran volunteered. “Any word from Louisa?”

  But his aunt wasn’t even listening. Her eyes were on someone behind Deacon’s head.

  It was Colonel Block entering the box. “I saw you from across the way during intermission,” he called down the stairs. “But you had too many admirers. I’ve come to say hello.”

  “Aren’t you the courteous gent?” Aunt Fran yelled up to him.

  He seemed to notice her for the first time. “Oh, hello, Fran. You have your share of admirers too, of course. I’d say for sheer numbers they wouldn’t even fit into this auditorium. But I was speaking to my friend, Mrs. Turnwell. Have you two met?”

  Deacon turned and saw a lovely woman about his aunt’s age on the other side of the box’s aisle.

  Mrs. Turnwell smiled at his aunt. “No, we haven’t. How do you do?”

  “Very well, thank you,” Aunt Fran said. Deacon could feel her chagrin and embarrassment. “Lovely to meet you.”

  “Likewise.” Mrs. Turnwell looked up at the colonel with bright eyes. “You going to the hunter trials in Aiken next weekend? My granddaughter’s riding.”

  “With bells on.” He chuckled.

  “Good. I’ll see you then,” Mrs. Turnwell said gaily, then turned back to her party.

  The colonel’s chuckle trailed off, and he glared at nothing in particular.

  “Would you like to have a drink with us, Colonel?” Deacon called up to him.

  “Only if you’re not too busy,” Aunt Fran added. She wasn’t being sarcastic, as Deacon expected she’d be after playing second fiddle to the lovely Mrs. Turnwell.

  “I suppose I could do that,” the colonel replied.

  “You stay there,” Aunt Fran said, excitement in her voice. “I’ll come up to you.”

  Uh-oh. Deacon saw the signs. She was getting a crush. Why, though? The colonel wasn’t exactly exciting. Nor was he a doctor, her usual infatuation.

  “Louisa was eaten by an alligator,” Deacon said matter-of-factly to his aunt as she passed him and Macy on the steps.

  “Oh, good,” Aunt Fran said, her eyes still on the colonel.

  Damn. She had a serious crush!

  Macy leaned toward Deacon a mere half-inch. He could see right down her dress. Of course, he looked. No sane man wouldn’t. “When we get to the Grand Bohemian,” she said, “I’ll want to order a Manhattan with two cherries.” She picked up her fancy little purse, took out her lipstick and compact, and ran the lipstick over her mouth.

  Operation Shameless Flirt was fascinating to watch.

  “Celia,” she went on, dropping her lipstick back in her purse, “I hope you’ll tell us about your husband’s latest missionary work. He’s such a hero, going to Haiti all the time. Isn’t that where he is tonight?”

  “No,” Celia said flatly. They began their walk up the box
steps. “He’s at a medical conference.”

  “We should FaceTime him,” Macy said. “From the Grand Bohemian.” They were out in the hall. “Let him see for himself that his wife is out on the town enjoying herself.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Celia, who was beginning to sound perturbed.

  Deacon noted that his aunt was still talking to the colonel, but the old military man had brought over more friends, which was nice to see.

  Macy laid a hand on Celia’s arm. “By the way, thank you so much for the box seats.”

  “You’re welcome.” Celia’s smooth brow never changed, but there was a hint of wariness in her tone.

  “Shall we go, ladies?” Deacon suggested, as well he should. These two were miserable around each other.

  “I’ve decided to head on home.” Celia shot them a brittle smile. “Have fun.” She took off down the stairs.

  “What was that about?” Deacon asked Macy.

  She shrugged. “I realized when she was blatantly ignoring me after the lights went up that I was letting her do it. I always have. I’ve let her treat me poorly.”

  “So you caught her attention by flirting with me, huh? Good thing I don’t mind being objectified.”

  Macy stopped, her mouth falling open. “You weren’t my pawn.”

  “Sure I was.” He arched a playful brow. “Celia’s too.”

  She bit her lip. “I did treat you like a pawn.”

  “It’s especially galling after you told me we needed to stay in the friend zone.” He was secretly amused, of course.

  “I should be appalled at myself.” Macy put her hand over her heart. “But I’m not,” she added, “because it worked. Celia left.”

  “You’re bad,” Deacon murmured an inch from her ear. If they faced each other, they’d have to kiss. That was how close they were. And he liked it.

  “Stop,” she said. “Everyone will guess what happened at Louisa’s.”

  “I hope they do.” He steered her toward his aunt and the colonel, who were alone at the moment. The others in the group had drifted off.

  “All set for Toys for Tots?” the colonel asked Macy.

  Her expression brightened. “I am, Colonel, but I haven’t heard yet how many marines you’re sending me. I only want to know so I can be sure I have the proper number of scarves for them.”