Christmas and Cannolis

by Peggy Jaeger

Our lips were a heartbeat from pressing together. My toes started to tingle and go numb, and my insides turned the consistency of fresh caramel-infused panna cotta as he pulled me closer still. Just when I would finally know if he tasted as good as I’d imagined, the silence around us was split apart.

  “Madre di Dio. It’s comin’ down like crazy, bellissima figlia.”

  I jumped back. Connor pulled his hand from my wrist, and we both turned as my father barreled through the workroom door, his coat covered in snow. He stomped his feet while he slammed the door shut with enough force to make my teeth rattle.

  “Pop. What are you doing here?” I moved away from Connor and helped my father shed his coat while he removed his hat and shook the snow from it. He stomped a few more times and then lifted his head to look at me. The smile died on his face when he spotted Connor over my shoulder. Thick eyebrows that had never met a tweezer knitted together into a bushy woolyworm as his eyes narrowed at my customer, then turned to me.

  “Regina Maria, what’s going on? The shop is closed today. I thought you’d be alone.”

  At thirty-two years old, divorced, the owner of my own successful business and financially sound, you’d think I’d be a brave and confident woman. Most days I am. But when either of my parents look at me with suspicion clouding their eyes and concern grinding through their tones, I become the naïve, overprotected little bambina I’d once been and revert to type so fast I’m powerless to prevent it.

  “It is. Closed, I mean. I was just doing a private tasting for a custom cake I’m making.” I swiped my palms down my apron, my father’s intense scrutiny making me sweat like a puttana at high Mass.

  Pop’s eyes flicked backed to Connor, who—Dio lo benedica, God bless him—was still sitting in his chair. He put the dish he held down on the worktable, rose, and came toward my father with his hand stuck out in greeting.

  “Connor Gilhooly, sir. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Irish,” Pop said.

  Connor’s smile could have charmed the nastiest and meanest of vecchie streghe, but, with a lifetime of friends with prison addresses and who carried guns and knives in their pockets like most people carried loose change, my father wasn’t easily swayed by charm.

  Connor just continued to smile, said, “American,” and kept his hand out.

  Pop tossed me a quick glance. With his lips pursed together in a tight clump, he took Connor’s offered hand.

  The corners of Connor’s eyes tightened a bit when my father shook his hand and experience told me why. Pop was giving him his trademark presa d’acciaio, the grip of steel. Meant to intimidate and let the person know who was in charge, Pop used it routinely on people he wasn’t sure about and wasn’t certain he could trust. Half the time the person locked in the presa d’acciaio would either wince, or when they pulled their hand from Pop’s, shake some life back into it.

  I gave Connor bonus points when he did neither. I think Pop did, too, because a tiny grin he usually reserved for my mother and his grandkids, skimmed across his lips.

  “I know a guy named Gilhooly,” Pop said, folding his hands behind his back as he regarded Connor. “Keegan Gilhooly. Part of the Beantown Bunch. Doing a twelve-to-twenty stretch for a bank job that went to crap.”

  I could feel all the color in my face drain down to my toes. Before I could admonish my father, Connor shook his head and squinched his brows together. “Sorry, doesn’t ring a bell. My family is from Staten Island. I’m pretty sure we don’t have any relatives in Boston.”

  My father nodded, his gaze continuing to assess Connor’s face.

  “Pop, why are you here?” I repeated, turning his attention to me and away from casting aspersions on Connor’s relations. He usually dropped by daily when the bakery was open, but it was more to check on Ma than to visit with me.

  He sighed. “Your mama’s in Jersey with the girls, and everyone else is either working, out shopping, or decorating.” He shrugged, and it was then I realized the reason for the unexpected visit: he was lonely.

  “I knew you’d be here all alone, catching up on work, so I figured I’d stop by, see if you wanted to grab a slice at Mangianno’s for lunch.”

  I slid my hand in the crook of his arm. “Thanks, but I’ve got a ton of work to do.”

  “You gotta eat.”

  “I’ve gotta get stuff done, too. Christmas is coming.”

  For a moment he looked so disappointed, all I wanted to do was hug him.

  “Look,” I said, acquiescing like I always do when it comes to my parents. “Why don’t you head on over, order us a few slices and some drinks, and I’ll come by when I’m finished with Connor, in say”—I glanced up at the wall clock—“twenty minutes? How’s that?”

  “Buono.” He turned his attention back to Connor. “Staten Island?”

  “New Dorp, officially. My folks still live there in the house my dad was raised in. My grandmother lives with them.”

  “So, family’s important to you.”

  It wasn’t a question, and Connor didn’t take it as one. “More than anything.”

  Pop nodded again. “You married?”

  “Never been.”

  Pop’s eyes narrowed. “Guy respects family so much, I’d think he’d have a wife and kids. I met mine when we was fifteen. Been together every day since.”

  “You’re lucky. I guess I just haven’t found the right lady yet.” He gaze flicked to me so quick, I thought I imagined it. When I saw the subtle tug of his lips lifting, I knew I hadn’t.

  “What are you, forty? Forty-five? Can’t wait too much longer or you’ll be shooting blanks when it comes to making kids.”

  The blood that drained to my toes? It shot straight back up again heating my cheeks like I was standing in one of my baking ovens with the thermostat turned to one thousand degrees Fahrenheit.

  “I’m thirty-six.”

  “Huh. You look older.”

  “It’s the hair. Premature.”

  Pop rocked back on his heels. I needed to stop this line of questioning, but for some wacky reason I didn’t. In the two minutes they’d been talking, I’d learned more about this man than I’d known before we’d almost kissed. Connor didn’t seem to mind the interrogation. He stood casually, his hands tucked in the back pockets of his jeans, a look of quiet acceptance on his face, as if he’d been grilled before by an overprotective and prying padre.

  “I had an aunt went gray at twenty. Dyed it bright red to cover it up. Scared the living crap outta me every time we visited her, ’cause it looked like her head was on fire.”

  Connor’s response to that was to simply smile.

  “You got a job? Something respectable?”

  “Pop.”

  “What?” He raised his hands and tossed me a puzzled glare. “It’s a legit question.”

  “It’s also rude. Enough with the third degree.” I yanked his wet coat from the peg and shoved it—and him—toward the door, plopping his hat back on his head. “Go to Mangianno’s and let me finish up here.”

  “Okay, okay. Basta. I’m going. No need to give me the bum’s rush.” He righted his hat and slipped into the coat.

  “It was nice meeting you, Mr. San Valentino. Have a merry Christmas,” Connor said.

  Pop waved a hand at him, said, “Irish,” as if it were his name, then kissed my cheeks and said, “Twenty minutes. I’ll be waiting.”

  “I’ll be there. Nessun problema.” No worries.

  I shut the door behind him with more force than was necessary. The slam echoed inside the workroom, competing with the sound of my heart hammering.

  Mortification doused through me.

  “I’m sorry about that,” I said, still facing the door.

  “About what?”

  After sucking in a fortifying, steadying breath, I pushed off the door and turned. Connor was leaning against the worktable, a look of utter calm on his face.

  “Being grilled like a steak.”

  His grin spread the width
of his jaw. “Your father is very…” He shrugged.

  “Crazy? Ill-mannered? Nosy?”

  “I was going to say protective.”

  “Same meaning.” I walked back to the table and lifted the cake he’d yet to sample. “But I’m sorry he asked so many personal questions. If it’s any consolation, he does that to everyone, but he tends to get a little more intrusive when it comes to people around me. He tends to forget I’m an adult.”

  Connor took the dish. “I don’t think he forgets that for a minute.”

  “Are you kidding? Of course he does. He treats me like I’m five years old, not thirty-two.”

  Gesu, Regina. Whine, much?

  “What did he call you when he came in? Bellissima figlia? Beautiful daughter, right?”

  I nodded, wondering how he knew that.

  “I think he knows you’re a grown woman, but he still sees you as his little princess. His beautiful little daughter. You’re lucky to have a dad like that.” He forked a sliver of cake into his mouth and then all the expression left his face. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back. Then he groaned. Loudly. The sound sent a shiver of pure lust down my spine.

  He opened his eyes. “Oh sweet Jesus, this is amazing.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. Pride, Nonna Angelina used to tell me, was the surest road to l’Inferno. Well, I guess I was heading down to Hell when I died because as a baker, I lived for the expression running across Connor’s face right now, knowing something I’d made put it there.

  He’d closed his eyes again, dipped his head back a little more, lost in the throes of tasting ecstasy I knew the flavors in my cake aroused. His tongue dragged back and forth across his perfect mouth, making it grow moist.

  I did, too.

  Grow moist, I mean.

  He forked another bite in.

  “This is the winner. Hands down,” he mumbled around his full mouth.

  “Okay. Done.” I lifted the two remaining plates. “Want me to wrap these up and you can take them with you? Maybe have a little nosh tonight or over the weekend?”

  He stared at me while he finished off the chocolate cake sample. “You wouldn’t happen to have another one of these would you?” He lifted his now empty plate. “Not that I don’t want those”—he chinned the plates in my hand—“but I think I could go the entire weekend and eat just this cake and nothing else.”

  A huge, pleased laugh pushed from me. “Sorry, I only baked these three this morning.”

  Suddenly, Connor stood tall. Holding me prisoner with his gaze, he placed his empty dish down on the table and then reached his hand out to my face.

  “I’ve been wanting to do this since I got here,” he said, gently swiping a finger across my cheek. He rubbed back and forth, his touch igniting fires all along my nerve endings. With a plate gripped so tight in each hand it was a wonder they didn’t shatter, I stood immobile while his soft, tender touch sent my insides exploding.

  “Flour dust,” he said, showing me his finger. It was coated with a streak of white.

  I swallowed, my gaze never leaving his.

  “Occupational hazard,” I said. Okay, it was really a choked reply because my mouth had gone as dry as over-baked pie dough.

  Connor’s lips quirked. He freed my hands of the remaining dishes, put them on the table next to the one he’d held and took a step closer to me, the entire time keeping his gaze centered on mine.

  All thoughts of blinking, moving, breathing, fled my brain. Connor came close, so close I could make out the chaos of colors in his eyes. Storm-cloud gray circled around the outer rim, his pupils shaded with a pale morning sky. Like me, he didn’t blink. It was as if neither of us wanted to miss a moment of what was about to happen, and I knew something was. Something monumental.

  Circling one of my wrists again and sliding his other hand around my waist, Connor gave a tiny tug until our torsos bumped. A hot little puff of air escaped through his parted lips. Crème de cacao and chocolate mixed together in a sweet and sensual scent that had my desert-dry mouth salivating with…need.

  My knees started to shake, and I was happy Connor was holding me because if he hadn’t, I’d have dropped to the floor.

  “Regina.” Connor’s gaze swept across my face as if seeking permission for what he was about to do.

  Silly man.

  Like I was gonna say no. Like I could.

  I gave my consent by arching my back and pressing into him.

  I drew in one swift breath while his lips parted ever so slightly right before they touched mine in the barest of kisses that rocked me to my core.

  How is it possible for something to be as soft as a butterfly’s wings yet firm and hard and powerful at the same time? With no willpower to prevent it, my arms lifted and wrapped around his neck, my fingers scraping across the prickly stubble of hair at his nape.

  In all my thirty-two years, I’d been kissed by one other man in a romantic way, and I’d wound up married to him. I had no measuring stick for what a kiss should be like between two people except for Johnny and me.

  Connor’s kiss was so diametrically opposite my ex’s in every way, I felt as if I was truly being kissed for the very first time, that I was a kiss virgin, my lips being deflowered right there in my bakery workroom while I was pressed up against my worktable.

  Connor let go of my wrist and cupped my chin, changing the angle of my head. Before I could register why, his tongue slid along the seam of my lips, opening them, requesting permission again.

  Permission granted.

  Mamma mia, was it ever.

  I could taste the remnants of the delicious cake I’d baked on his tongue, but more: I could taste him. His very essence. I swear on Nonna’s rosary beads, his very soul.

  He was scrumptious. Way better than anything I could concoct in my ovens, that was for sure. It flittered through my mind that if I could bottle the very flavor of him and use it in my baking, the world would go mad knocking at my door for a taste.

  The front of our bodies met in one clean line from chest to toes. We were so close you couldn’t have slipped a sheet of the thinnest phyllo pastry dough between us.

  Connor’s knee glided between mine, his jeans-clad thigh pressing into my pelvis.

  Gesu.

  I gasped. I think I moaned, too. I can’t be sure because my mind was concentrating on the way he slid his leg back and forth across the front of my sweat pants, tormenting me, and by torment I mean driving me wild with pleasure.

  And then I stopped concentrating altogether as he started suckling on my tongue.

  Lots of things make me happy. The satisfaction of seeing a customer’s face when they take the first bite of anything I’ve made; my parents when they sneak in a quick kiss when they think no one is looking; my nieces and nephews when they open the presents left from Babbo Natale on Christmas day at Nonna and Nonno’s house. But I can tell you truthfully, without the need to go to confession to admit I’d lied—because I hadn’t—the way Connor Gilhooly made me feel when he kissed me was by far the best, most pleasurable, most amazing sensation I’d ever felt in my entire thirty-two years.

  Bar. None.

  He yanked my hair out of its perpetual ponytail and feathered his fingers through my temples to hold my head in place while his tongue continued its wicked, naughty dance with mine, driving me insane.

  And this was insane. Totally pazzo—crazy. Just when that thought invaded and settled in my brain and I admitted I didn’t care one bit, something started to vibrate against my thigh.

  And it wasn’t the giant-sized erection I’d been feeling ever since Connor took me in his arms.

  The quivering tickled, and I pulled away, trying to squelch the laugh bubbling up.

  “Connor, your phone is buzzing.”

  His stormy eyes were filled with a heated, drowsy confusion that was so darn erotic, my thighs pressed together in response, clutching around his knee.

  “It is?”

  We both looked down to where o
ur bodies were molded together. I pulled back a bit, and the sound coming from his left front pocket was more audible.

  Connor dragged his gaze back to me. He still had my head cocooned between his hands and as if realizing it for the first time, his eyes went wide and he gave a startled little shake of his head. “Uh…I need to…”

  “Get that. Yeah.” I pulled back, immediately missing the warmth of his body.

  Connor lifted the phone from his pocket and connected. Just as he began speaking, I heard voices drifting from outside and the storeroom door blew open again. Two of my best bakers, Kari and Marianne, flew into the workroom, propelled by the raging wind outside. Both of their puffy coats were covered in snow, the lower part of their faces hidden behind scarves, making them look like fashionable snowmen.

  “It’s comin’ down like a snow-nado,” Kari said, unwrapping an eight-foot scarf from around her neck.

  “We were blown here from the train station by the wind,” Marianne added. “Thank you, Jesus, it was at our backs.”

  Both of them removed their outerwear, their gazes trained on Connor.

  “He came in for a tasting,” I explained when Kari raised her eyebrows my way.

  “Oh yeah? Of what, exactly?” Marianne wanted to know.

  Before I could reply, Connor ended his call. He glanced at my two bakers who were scrutinizing him like two starving kids in an all-you-can eat dessert buffet line, gave them a nod and a quick smile, then turned his attention to me.

  He had that look I sometimes see on my mother’s face when someone tells a joke she doesn’t quite get: a little puzzled and not sure why she is. His gorgeous eyes lit on me, a tiny line dividing his brows.

  “Problem?” I asked.

  He nodded. “With the new app. I’ve got to get to my office. A couple of my techs are coming in to figure out what’s wrong, but I need to be there.” He took a few steps toward me. Because the two ragazze ficcanaso—nosy girls—were still staring and probably memorizing everything they saw so they could gossip about it later, I interrupted whatever he’d been about to say.

  “So the chocolate cake is the winner,” I said in my professional, bakery owner voice. “I’ll make sure it gets made to your specifications. No worries.”