THE NIGHTS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

by Vicky Lewis Thompson

  He'd bet she did. And now he had a mental image of her doing that. Oh, baby.

  She gave him a quick smile. "I'm just not in very good shape. It'll get better, or at least Terri says it will."

  "A massage might help." This conversation wasn't a good idea. Now he imagined Suzanne stretched out on a massage table naked, while someone, preferably him, oiled her up. He'd sent away for a tantric-massage video months ago because he'd always been curious about the discipline. He'd discovered that the video showed him exactly how to massage a woman to orgasm. He'd never tried it.

  "Massage might be a good idea." Her color was high, almost as if she'd been able to peek into his fevered brain. "I'm sure the gym has some people on staff who could handle that."

  "I'm sure." He didn't want her to be massaged by some people on staff. He wanted to take care of it, and he wanted to do it now.

  She picked up the mugs and glanced at him. "Ready?"

  * * *

  Soup. She'd invited him to have a bowl of from-a-can soup. How domestic and totally idiotic. When she'd come up with the plan, it had seemed like a great idea for a cold winter night and something she could prepare in a hurry. But Greg was a big guy, and the skimpy meal she'd offered him wouldn't be more than an appetizer for him. An appetizer for what?

  "Should I move the poinsettia?" he asked.

  "Um, sure. And the magazines, if you don't mind. That stuff can go on the end table."

  She waited while he cleared the table and set down the cheese and crackers. He used care with her things, she noticed. Jared would have scooped up everything and dumped it in a pile, knocking leaves off the poinsettia in the process.

  Concentrating on the task, she managed to place the mugs on the glass coffee table without spilling a single drop. That was a real feat, because she was still quivering inside from the way he'd looked at her back in the kitchen. She couldn't remember ever having a man look at her like that, with such total appreciation. With carnal appreciation, to be precise.

  She'd always assumed that kind of heated look would make her feel devalued, like a convenient sex object. But that single look, as if he'd enjoy licking every square inch of her, had done more for her self-esteem in two seconds than she could imagine getting in two years at the blasted gym. No, Greg was not like the gym.

  But that didn't mean she planned to go to bed with him. Scorching looks were a long way from scorching touches. But you couldn't blame her for wanting to keep Greg around a little bit longer. Maybe she didn't need the full treatment. A few more of those melting looks and she'd be good to go, ready to hit the dating scene, her ego repaired.

  It felt great to be sexually desired. Fabulous. She surveyed the coffee table to see what they were missing. "We need napkins. I'll be right back."

  She hurried to the kitchen and started to grab a couple of paper napkins from the holder on the counter. Then she changed her mind, opened a drawer and took out the bright red cloth napkins she'd bought because they matched the pillow on her sofa. She'd never found the right time to use them.

  When she returned, she found him leafing through one of the magazines he'd moved to the end table. "Looks like you're interested in decorating."

  She sat down, keeping a full cushion's distance between them, and handed him a napkin. "I like to fool around."

  His glance was warm and knowing as he laid the napkin over his knee. "I can see that."

  Her words echoed in her head and she blushed. "With decorating, I mean."

  "I knew what you meant." He picked up the mug of soup in those capable hands of his. "And it shows."

  She feared that what was showing was her sexual interest in him. She had to be careful that he didn't get the wrong idea and act on some silent signal she was giving off. She grabbed the slicer and carved off a piece of cheese. "It's hard to do much decoration in such a small apartment." She put the cheese on a cracker so that she'd look as if she actually cared about eating.

  Cradling the mug, he gazed at her. "Does that mean you want a big house someday?"

  A big house, with a big bed, and a man who looked like Greg lying naked in it. "I suppose I do." She'd always expected to have a home, and a husband, and a couple of kids. It was the American way.

  In between imagining Greg lying naked on a king-size bed, she found herself wondering about his future plans. Maybe he'd asked the question because he was saving money to get a place of his own. "Do you want a big house eventually?" she asked. Then she took a bite of the cracker and cheese she didn't want but had to pretend to enjoy.

  "A house, maybe. Not a really big one, though. I like intimate, cozy spaces."

  She choked on a piece of cracker.

  "Are you okay?"

  Nodding frantically, she coughed and took a gulp of her soup. Intimate, cozy spaces. The man had a way with words.

  He gazed at her with concern. "You're sure you're okay?"

  She cleared her throat and blinked the moisture from her eyes. "I'm sure. Just took a breath when I shouldn't have. So you're hoping to buy a little bungalow, then?"

  "Yeah. More like a cottage. I'll probably always work in the city, but I wouldn't mind having a vacation place in Wisconsin. On a lake would be terrific. And it has to have a fireplace."

  "Sounds like a nice dream." Nobody would have to talk Greg into snuggling on the sofa on a rainy afternoon or during a weekend trip to a cottage in Wisconsin. Longing shivered through her. She wanted to be cuddled on a sofa. She wanted to beheld, stroked, petted. According to Terri, this man knew how to do the job right.

  But he was still a virtual stranger, and she didn't go to bed with strangers. "You said that toolbox belonged to your dad," she said. "Was he a handyman, too?"

  He looked surprised by the question. "Yeah, he was."

  "So you decided to follow in his footsteps?"

  "Not at first. Not until after…" He paused and stared down into his soup. Then he glanced up. "Not at first," he said again with a smile. "You know how it is. Kids never want to do exactly what the parents do."

  She was positive he'd just made a decision not to tell her something important. Apparently he could talk about his vacation-home plans, but not about his father. He might be willing to take her to bed, but he wasn't willing to tell her his innermost secrets.

  Maybe that's how a Casanova had to operate. Confiding secrets bonded people together, and Greg wasn't about that. He was about restoring a woman's sexual confidence and moving on.

  Suzanne knew she ought to just accept the rules of the game. Instead she began to wonder why Greg had chosen this loner lifestyle, and if he protected himself because someone in his past had hurt him. "Do you like the work?" she asked.

  "Yes. Yes, I do. The pay's not great, but I get a place to stay and I'm pretty much my own boss. I also happen to like these older apartment buildings. I take a lot of satisfaction in keeping the place maintained in top condition."

  "I'm sure." And in his spare time, he did the same for the female tenants, both taking and giving satisfaction. Broken light switch, call Greg. Broken heart, call Greg. But who was this man who rode in on a white horse, saved the day and rode away again? She wanted to know what made Greg Stone tick.

  "How about you?" Greg said. "Do you like your job?"

  He'd smoothly switched the topic of conversation away from him, and she decided to let him get away with it for now. "Yes, I like it." He had nicely shaped ears, she thought. Some men enjoyed having a woman run her tongue around the curve of their ear. Others didn't. She wondered which type Greg was.

  "What exactly do you do?" he asked.

  His green eyes were mesmerizing. A woman could forget everything if she allowed herself to be caught in that gaze. "I'm a financial analyst with Apollo Mutual Funds," she said.

  He nodded. "I thought you did something like that."

  "Do I look so much like an economics major, then?" she asked with a tight smile. Jared used to taunt her about that. You may love playing with stock-market quotes all day,
but you don't have to look like you do. She'd finally figured out he wanted someone who looked as if she modeled lingerie for a living.

  "You do look like an economics major," Greg said with an answering smile. "And I think—"

  "I know. Don't say it. You think I need to loosen up, dress less conservatively, wear my hair down, stop looking so financial all the time." She'd tolerated that speech from Jared, but she didn't have to hear it from the handyman, especially when the handyman kept himself shrouded in mystery.

  He took another sip of tomato soup. "I was going to say that I think that looking like a financial analyst is kind of sexy."

  "Sexy?" She glanced down at her cream-colored silk blouse. "Hardly. But then it isn't my goal to make a sexual statement when I go into the office."

  "It may not be. That doesn't mean you don't."

  She met his gaze and suddenly didn't want to play anymore. "Maybe that sort of flattery works with other women, but I'm not taken in," she said quietly. "I'm well aware of the type of outfit and behavior that men find sexy, and that's not where I shine."

  He leaned toward her, his quiet tone matching hers. "Pardon me, Ms. Talbot, but obviously you don't know your Wall Street Journal from the National Enquirer if you're going to make a statement like that."

  Her cheeks grew warm. She'd expected him to retreat, not counterattack. And she was gradually becoming aware that his vocabulary didn't quite fit her image of an uneducated blue-collar worker. "I have some experience in this matter," she said.

  "Not enough, apparently."

  "And you do?" They'd danced around enough, and now she wanted to rip away the curtain he was hiding behind. "Why don't you tell me what makes you such an authority on the subject of sexual attraction?"

  He put down his mug. "Why and how men and women are sexually drawn to each other is one of my favorite topics. I've studied it endlessly."

  "Really? In what way?"

  His eyes blazed. "I'm going to choose not to answer that, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that when a woman with a great body wears a conservative little suit, many men find it sexy as hell. They're convinced that a temptress is hiding underneath that businesslike exterior, and they consider it a personal challenge to see if they can strew that uptight outfit all around the room, because nine times out of ten they're right."

  She drew back, her heart pounding. "But not necessarily. Sometimes they're wrong."

  "Sometimes," he said softly.

  "They would be wrong about me!"

  He studied her for several long seconds. "Would they?"

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  «^»

  Suzanne gulped. This encounter was quickly spinning out of control. One voice, probably Terri's, told her to let that happen for once in her life. But another voice, probably her own scared-rabbit persona, told her to run for cover.

  Greg took the decision away from her by breaking eye contact and clearing his throat. "You know what I really need to be getting back." He stood. "Thanks for the soup and conversation."

  "Anyti—I mean, you're welcome." She shouldn't confuse the issue by suggesting that they might get together again. He was too high-octane for her, and once again, she'd play it safe and stay away from a potentially explosive situation.

  "I'll get my tools." He walked toward the kitchen.

  She gazed after him and knew she was making the right decision. She didn't belong in bed with a man whose jeans fit like that, a man who walked with such fluid grace, a man who probably made love like an angel. A man who wanted intimacy of one kind but shunned any personal revelations of his own.

  Besides, he would be disappointed in her, because she wasn't the temptress he hoped to find under her uptight outfit. He might be too polite to let her know, but she would know, and that was a blow she couldn't endure right now.

  He returned carrying his toolbox. "If that pipe gives you any more trouble, give me a call."

  "I will. Thank you."

  "No problem." He glanced around the room. "You really have done a great job with the apartment." Then he left.

  Gone. Opportunity had knocked, come inside, fixed her sink, sat beside her on the sofa, fired up her libido and then left. A girl couldn't expect opportunity to hang around forever.

  She was glad he was gone, she decided as she picked up the soup mugs and started into the kitchen. Glad, glad, glad. Now she could spend the evening brewing some green tea and balancing her checkbook, listening to some classical music and touching up her manicure.

  Boring.

  She stood in the middle of the kitchen, a soup mug in each hand, and was struck by the emptiness of the apartment now that Greg was gone. It was a different kind of quiet from the one that had settled in after Jared had left. Jared's departure had meant the absence of his loud voice, a reprieve from rock music at full volume and his need to turn the TV on at the same time, creating a chaos of noise that had driven her to distraction.

  If she'd expected to feel that same relief when Greg walked out the door, she'd been wrong. Greg had brought a turbulence with him, no doubt about that, and she hadn't been totally comfortable with him in the apartment. But maybe comfort was overrated. Greg brought the kind of excitement she craved without even knowing it.

  She'd thrown away her chance to build on that excitement, to find out a few things about herself. She wouldn't find out much about Greg—he'd made that obvious—and she'd allowed his need for privacy to bother her. Maybe she was using his reticence as an excuse to avoid taking a sexual risk herself.

  Greg had suggested she didn't have enough experience to know what did and didn't turn men on. He was right. And there was no better place to get that experience than with him.

  The thought made her stomach tumble with anxiety, but unless she allowed Greg to come to her rescue and teach her a few things about herself and her relationship with men, she could very well be facing a future in a penthouse with twenty-rune cats. My God, the man even came highly recommended. If he were a stock he'd be rated triple A.

  When she thought about it that way, she realized Greg was a heck of a lot less risky than some man she might meet at the gym or at a party. Maybe she didn't know him all that well, would never know him all that well, but Terri wouldn't steer her wrong.

  She'd learned to respect Terri's advice. Terri had helped her through several sticky situations at work, and she'd also recommended this apartment building. The gym would be a good thing, too, once Suzanne's muscles adjusted. No doubt about it, Terri usually knew what she was talking about.

  Suzanne's hands began to shake as she realized that she was actually contemplating having an affair with the handyman. But asking him to come back to her apartment and using her sink as an excuse was too lame. Been there, done that. No, if she planned to embark on this course, she'd have to be brave for a change. She'd have to initiate the action.

  She tried to remember a time she'd done that with a man, and couldn't think of a single instance. Like Sleeping Beauty, she'd waited passively for a prince to come to her. That strategy had netted her men like Jared. If she wanted to do the choosing for a change, to find someone more suited to her personality, she needed practice in making the first move. She could practice on Greg.

  She put the mugs down on the counter when she began quivering so much she was afraid she'd drop them. Then she wrapped her arms around her middle and tried to stop shaking long enough to make a decision. When a woman has a great body, he'd said. The compliment had been tucked into his outrageous statement about ripping off her clothes, but she hadn't missed it. He wanted her, and that knowledge braced her for taking the big step.

  After all, Greg was something that a woman didn't come across very often—guaranteed to please, and certified not to become a bother later on. He was exactly what she needed for this radical change in her behavior. He was a sure thing.

  * * *

  "You're spoiled rotten, Matilda." Greg gave the tortoiseshell cat another piece of chicken from
the sandwich he'd fixed himself after getting back from Suzanne's apartment. "And we know who's to blame for that."

  The same guy would have been to blame if things had gotten out of hand in Suzanne's apartment a little while ago. Her attitude about herself, encouraged no doubt by that idiot Jared, had ticked him off and led him to say more than he should have. A lot more than he should have. He'd never been so aggressive with any woman in this apartment complex.

  Thank God she'd jumped the way she had when he'd made his speech about the lure of tidy little business suits, or there was no telling what he might have done to prove his point He'd been so close to grabbing her and kissing the daylights out of her that the slightest invitation on her part would have set him off.

  But she hadn't issued an invitation. Instead she'd acted frightened, which had brought him to his senses.

  He sighed. All the women he'd counseled in this building had suffered from the same basic problem. They'd hooked up with a guy who'd boosted his own ego at the expense of theirs. By the time the jerk got tired of the game and dumped them, they were convinced they had nothing to offer any man. More than once Greg had wanted to hunt the ex-boyfriends down and beat the tar out of them for the wreckage they'd left behind.

  Picturing Suzanne glancing down at herself and announcing that nothing about her was sexy, he'd been ready to strangle Jared. Greg had been blessed with the ability to appreciate any woman whether she happened to be thin or plump, plain or attractive. After he'd concentrated a little while on them, they began to take on a glow that made each of them beautiful.

  But Suzanne took no effort on his part to shine like a newly minted penny. Her beauty had dazzled him from the beginning, and he couldn't believe that she didn't know how gorgeous she was. Her lack of confidence made him impatient to jump in there and do something about it.

  Unfortunately, he was likely to jump in a little too deep this time. Much as he might want to help Suzanne, he had to think about himself—both his job, which he might lose if he wasn't careful, and his heart. The job could be replaced, but if he allowed another woman to stomp all over his heart the way Amelia had, he might not recover.