Читать книгу Cold Feet at Christmas - Debbie Johnson, Debbie Johnson - Страница 8

An hour later she gave up. Each time she shovelled a path clear enough to walk along, more caved in from the sides, covering it in new piles of snow. She was freezing. And wet. And tired. And wondering if Doug had bothered sending out a search party by now. Or whether the guests had eaten the wedding cake and guzzled the bubbly and danced to the mock Motown act without her.

When she first ran out on the wedding party, she’d planned to call him when she got back to the flat. Let him and her friends know she was safe. Family, luckily she supposed, wasn’t an issue. She’d hoped to grab the few clothes and belongings she needed and then do a dramatic disappearing act, exit stage left from her old life, and into her vaguely formed new one.

Huh, she thought, that had worked out well. Not. She looked around at the endless, eye-searingly white snow. A woman could go blind out here. And not for any fun reasons.

All things considered, it was depressing. She couldn’t even run away properly.

She trudged back into the cottage, kicking off green wellies that were six shoe sizes too big and came up over her knee caps. She could practically feel her nose glowing, and her hair was damp from snow and wasted manual labour. Face it, Leah, she thought – you’re just a useless urban gnome trapped in the wilds of the North Pole. Apparently determined to lose your fingers to frostbite one way or another.

Still, she told herself, pausing to look at Rob sprawled over the sofa in front of the fire. It could have been worse. At least she was a useless urban gnome trapped in the North Pole with God. What her situation lacked in snow ploughs it did make up for in eye candy. Better to focus on the positives than wallow in self-pity, after all. He was reading a book, one arm propping his head up, body stretched so long the T-shirt had crept up over his belly. A few inches of taut, olive-toned skin peeked out. Leah felt her cold nose twitch, like Sabrina the witch, and wondered if she could cast some kind of X-ray-vision spell so she could see the rest of it.

Rob glanced up, gave her a nod of acknowledgement, barely managing to hide the smirk playing around his lips. The bastard. He’d given her the shovel. Told her to knock herself out; that if she managed to dig her way back to civilisation it’d be the greatest escape since Colditz.

Obviously, she’d failed. Maybe she could try faking her papers and digging a tunnel next. She’d probably need to grow a moustache and start wearing an RAF jacket first though.

“Drink?” Rob asked, gesturing to the end of the sofa, where a tumbler of warm whiskey was waiting on a side table. It was practically glowing with deliciousness, and he’d timed it perfectly – just warm enough, as though he’d known exactly when she’d throw in the towel. He was one of those people, she realised – the ones who were good at sport and clever and witty and always in charge of the room. Not to mention sexually irresistible to any creature with a pulse. Leah had no doubt that if he’d tried to dig a bloody path, it would be so good it would win the Scottish Path of the Year award.

Rob remained silent, watching as she chewed on her full lower lip, knowing she was weighing up the pleasures of the drink vs telling him to go screw himself. Her hair was scooped into a messy pony tail with an elastic band she’d found in the kitchen. She was wearing his coat, the sleeves rolled over so many times her arms were as big as Popeye’s. Peaches and cream skin gone all rosy from the cold, jacket hanging down over her knees, eyes glimmering with chill-sprung tears. Frosty and snowy and perfect; if he could find a way to shrink her, he could hang her from the vast pine tree in the corner of the room as a bauble.

“Okay,” she said, hanging up the coat and walking over to the fire. “Move up then. I don’t want to have to sit on you.”

That, she admitted to herself as he shuffled his legs over slightly, was a big fat lie. She was trying to ignore how big he was, but it was impossible. He was so long, filling the sofa, filling the room. Filling her vision. His hair was messy. The paperback was open, splayed on his broad chest. The truth was she’d very much like to sit on him. Or lie on him. Or curl up in his arms and go to sleep…Those would be mighty fine arms for a woman to curl up in. The fire crackling in the background; the enormous Christmas tree was filling the room with the scent of pine, and there he was. Lying like Adonis on the sofa, asking for trouble. How would he react if she curled up around him like a snoozy kitten?

She raised her glass, and said: “Happy Christmas!”, before sipping the whisky.

“Mmmm. This is good,” she said. “Glenfiddich?”

“Yeah,” he replied, surprised. “How’d you know?”

“I – we – me and Doug. You know, hide-the-sausage Doug. We have a bistro, in London. One of our specialities is fine liquor, as you Yanks might call it. And this is a favourite of mine.”

It was also, she knew, bloody expensive. If he was an artist, he was doing well. Definitely not the starving type. Or maybe he’d married money. As soon as the thought pinged into her brain, it came out of her mouth.

“Where’s your wife? Why aren’t you together for Christmas?” she asked, feeling bolder as the warmth of the whiskey spread in her throat like liquid heat. There were gifts under the tree, and glittery Christmas cards propped up on the bookshelves, which might be from a wife. But there were no photos. No lists of DIY jobs for him to do. No actual woman either – unless he’d killed her, buried her in the woodshed. Nothing but that wide gold band glinting on his finger.

The Dutch courage had helped Leah to ask, and it was a valid question. She’d been feeling some fairly intense heat since she’d fallen into his arms last night, and not all of it came from the fire. She wasn’t arrogant, but she knew he’d been feeling it too. He could be as terse as he liked, but she had eyes. She could see what had been going on in those Levis. So far neither of them had acted on it, and it would be better by far if they never did. He was married, and she was heartbroken. Allegedly.

She hoped that talking about the absent missus might defuse the situation, at least for her. This was another woman’s man, after all, and she shouldn’t be pondering the fineness of his arms, or any other part of him.

“I’m not married,” he said quickly, his tone unexpectedly sharp. The mood had been mellow; relaxed. Christmassy, with the fire and the tree and the snow and the whiskey. Now, it was tense. Leah turned her face to his, saw the brooding darkness of his eyes. The gleam of the wedding ring on one long finger. And knew this was not an issue to press. He might as well have pulled out a ‘no entry’ road sign and stuck it on his frown-creased forehead. She saw the line of his jaw go rigid with anxiety, his body language screaming ‘none of your business’. A mystery. And not hers to solve.

“Okay,” she said, after a beat. She kept her gaze on the blaze of his eyes, smiled, aimed for a light-hearted tone that might bring him back down from red alert. “Well, me neither, as you know. Lucky us. And you were right, of course. I failed abysmally in my attempts to dig us out. Is it all right if I stay? Is there maybe room in a stable somewhere? I know I arrived in an Audi, not on a donkey, but I don’t mind roughing it if you need your space.”

“You can stay,” he answered, quietly. He was so glad she hadn’t asked any more about Meredith. He came here to escape talking about Meredith. His family seemed to think talking about her was the way to ‘cure’ him; and his sister-in-law Melissa never failed to try and reach out at this time of year, get him to open up. Idiots. Lovable, but idiots all the same. He’d resorted to flying to the other side of the world to avoid them all. The last thing he needed was Leah quizzing him as well. He could feel the attraction between them fizzing so loud he could almost hear it pop, like soda bubbles. That, he could cope with. He might end up with blue balls, but he could cope with it. Deep and meaningful conversations about his past, though? No way.

He shook it off. She’d lightened the tone, and he knew it was for his benefit, that she’d picked up on his signals. She’d mocked herself, pulled such a disgusted face at her path-digging failure that he’d had to smile. She’d backed off. In that one exchange she showed she was more in tune with his feelings than the entire Cavelli clan back home in the Windy City. She already understood and respected the boundaries that they relentlessly tried to demolish every year. They could do this: avoid the deep and meaningful. Hopefully avoid sex. Avoid everything with screw-up potential until he could safely get her out of there.

“You can stay, Leah,” he repeated, “but don’t get any ideas. I sleep with a rape alarm by my bed, and I’m trained in seven different types of martial art.”

She giggled and drained her whiskey. He was betting she’d be ready for a top up, and he knew he was. All of this suppressed lust was thirsty work.

“Damn,” she said. “And here was me planning to get you drunk and seduce you. The temperature’s dropping you know – we might be forced to strip off and share body heat to survive!”

She was joking. He knew she was joking. But there was something bubbling between them, something so powerful the rest of the room seemed to fade into the background. The radio was on in the kitchen, and choirboys were singing about little drummer boys. The reception was poor, and the sound was crackling. The logs in the fire were crackling. And they were crackling, with raw sexual energy.

Leah looked at him, noticing the quizzical upward twist of his lips, the sideways quirk his mouth took when he was amused or intrigued. It was strange, she thought, how after only a few hours in his company she could already spot his familiar expressions. His eyes, though, they looked completely new. There was a glimmer of golden flecks she’d never noticed before. Like the flames of the fire were somehow leaping around in the chocolate brown of his pupils.

“Only kidding,” she added, suddenly feeling a flush of heat rush through her – heat that had nothing to do with the blaze in the fireplace, or the excellent whiskey, and everything to do with the big man lying next to her.

“Do you always talk this much?” he asked simply, locking his hands behind his head and gazing up at her. His eyes skimmed her chest on the way to her face, and her nipples tightened in response. She felt her pulse rate soar and knew she was blushing. Again.

“Only when I’m…” Nervous, she thought. Terrified. Aroused. “…awake,” she said.

“Do you remember when you came to, last night? After you fainted so delicately into my arms, smashing whiskey and glass all over the place?”

“Sorry! But, no. Nothing at all. Just getting here, and being so relieved when you opened the door, then waking up this morning. Why? What did I miss?”

“You sat up, praised the Lord, and kissed me.”

“Oh! Sorry again! That was very forward of me!” she said, torn between embarrassment and laughter. In the end, laughter won out – surely it wasn’t such a big deal? She’d been barely conscious at the time. The ultimate let-out clause. Shame she hadn’t had a quick grope of his arse while she was at it, in fact.

“Well, how was it for you, then, this kiss? Obviously not that good for me, given that I don’t even remember it.”

She gave him a look she knew was way too flirtatious. She was still thinking about his bum, and wishing she could remember the way those luscious lips had felt on hers. Where was the harm in a bit of casual flirtation, anyway? After all, as they’d now established, neither of them was married – despite him wearing a ring and her turning up in a wedding dress. Appearances could be deceptive.

He didn’t reply, and she wondered if she’d blown it – he was a moody so-and-so, flirty one minute, closed off the next. Or maybe he was just so arrogant he couldn’t stand even a joking critique of his snogging skills.

He reached up and grabbed her shoulders, suddenly tugging her down onto his chest. She landed with a thud, and lay there for a second, stunned in several different ways. Oh. Yes. It was just as hard as it looked; pure muscle. And he smelled really, really good. Of wood and spice and something that took a direct route from her nostrils to somewhere much lower. Never had the simple act of breathing been such a turn-on. She lay still, inhaling the fresh cotton of his T-shirt, the hint of something gorgeous from the shower, and the underlying scent of him…sexy, virile, male.

She pushed herself up, her face inches from his, taking tiny breaths as she lost her gaze in the pool of those gold-flecked eyes. Deep enough to drown a woman. Even looking at him was divine, and the feel of his hard body crushed under hers was even better.

Rob tangled one hand into her hair, not even knowing himself what he was going to do next. There was something about this woman that confused him, intoxicated him. Took away his ability to think clearly. In the end, without thinking at all, he pulled her mouth down to meet his.

He kissed her softly at first, giving her the chance to pull away – part of him even hoping she would. When it became clear from the way her body moulded to him like running water that she was going nowhere, the contact deepened. Mouths parted, his tongue touched hers, his teeth sweetly nipped her lower lip. One hand held her head firmly to his while the other roamed expertly over the contours of her body – her neck, shoulders, down to the small of her back, caressing and stroking with fingers that clearly knew their way around a woman.

Leah was thinking no more clearly than him. Her body was filling with warmth; a thousand nerve endings tingling as his hands and lips dominated her senses. She could feel his arousal pressing into her, and she slid shamelessly around on top of him, wriggling her body into position until the hard denim-clad bulge hit just the right point to make her gasp. She slipped a hand under his T-shirt, tracing the smooth lines of his pectorals, the silky trail of hair, the peak of his nipples. Jesus. What a body. She wanted to pull that jersey away, to look at him and lick him and kiss him all over.

As fast as it started, it ended. Suddenly, he pulled her face away, using the tangle of her hair to hold her back, ignoring her small pleas and moves to return to his kiss. He looked up at her confused expression with a big, dazzling grin, eyes wicked and teeth gleaming white.

God, she was magnificent, he thought as he gazed at her. Lips swollen from kissing him back so hard. Eyes wild with desire. Her body bucking and rubbing like she was riding a rodeo horse; her fingers already instinctively seeking out the parts of his body that were the most sensitive. Those lush breasts straining to escape. He was so turned on his whole being was thrumming. And still he held her back. He had a point to make, and Rob Cavelli was very good at making his point.

“As the last kiss disappointed you so much, d’you think you’ll remember that one?” he said, smiling as her lust-clouded eyes started to clear. The amber settled from tigress to kitten, and she sighed as she realised she’d been played.

“Yes. ’Til I’m 100 and senile,” she said breathlessly. “Point taken. But why did you stop? You seemed to be enjoying it as well.”

“Of course I was. But you might regret it later,” he said, his voice gravel. “Your judgement doesn’t exactly seem to be working right now. And because this is how babies are made, and I’m sure neither of wants that for Christmas. And because I’m hungry. For food.”

Even as he said it, he knew he was lying. Making excuses. He was nothing but a coward, pretending to protect her, when in reality it was himself he was worried about. Sex with this woman would blow his mind, he already knew it would. And that would be very unsafe sex…in all kinds of ways. He was buying time. Trying to get his body to cool down so his mind could take control. He hadn’t lived like a monk since Meredith, but no woman had ever come close to making him feel like this. It was crazy, and he’d already been too crazy. He lived there for a long time after he lost Meredith, and he never wanted to return.

He kept his face closed, guarded, making his expression as light as his tone. Leah smiled at him, and knew he was stalling. Decided, he knew, to go along with it. Good girl.

“Food.” she murmured, sitting up so she was straddling him. She tidied her hair back into its pony tail and gazed ahead, deep in thought. From this angle he could see the firm buds of her nipples thrusting proudly forwards, her body still bearing the remnants of her arousal. Even the thought of it made him twitch in the pants department, and he firmed up against her again, so hard there was no hiding it. She wriggled against it, very deliberately, as she pretended to ponder dinner plans.

“Well, if you’re sure it’s food you’re after, I’m your girl. You happen to be in the company of one of the finest chefs in London – or at least on one street in London. I’ll go and see what’s in the kitchen…” she said, and nimbly climbed off him. He felt cold as soon as she’d gone, already missing the soft press of her body.

She looked down, grinning at the sight of his distressed groin.

“You just lie there and think about what you’re missing.” she said, and swayed out of the room, rounded butt sashaying in those impossibly snug leggings.

Oh God, he thought. I may never walk again.

***

“This is good,” he said, dipping freshly baked bread into home-made French onion soup. “Really good. How did you manage it?”

In just a few hours Leah had filled the cottage with the scents of a home; raiding cupboards, plugging in appliances, and even figuring out how to use the Aga range he’d been using as a butt-warmer for several years now. It had been a great butt-warmer, but he’d never used it to cook.

Leah grinned at him. Few things pleased her more than people enjoying her food, and this particular man enjoying it gave her a bad case of the warm and fuzzies. Even watching him eat was sensual, she thought, the way his face reacted to the flavours, the pure pleasure of the taste.

“It was easy. So easy even you could do it. There are all sorts of great things in your kitchen. Don’t you ever use it?”

“Not really,” Rob admitted. “I only come here for these two weeks. Morag, who lives here the rest of the time, always leaves stuff for me – but I have to be honest, I tend to exist on tuna pasta and grilled cheese sandwiches for the whole fortnight.”

“Grilled cheese! That’s so cute!” she said, stifling a laugh as he stared at her. “You mean cheese on toast, Rob. Come on, get it right. You may be an artist, but that’s no excuse for not learning the native tongue.”

“Artist?” he said, blankly. That was quite a gear shift, and he had no idea what she was talking about. “Who said I was an artist?” he asked, confused, wine glass halfway to his lips. Did he have paint on his sweater, he wondered? Smell of turps? Nothing could be farther from the truth – he was the kind of kid who was still drawing stick figures at 12.

“Erm, nobody did, now you mention it,” she said, “that was just my wild brain conjuring things up, I suppose – and once I’d thought it, it became true in my own mind, you know?”

She’d tied her hair back with a piece of tinsel she’d lifted from the pine tree, and it was draping metallic red glitter over her shoulders, merging with the blonde of her messy plait. Very festive, he thought. Morag decorated the tree for him every year, even though he’d told her he didn’t care. It was nice that someone was finally appreciating her efforts.

“I think,” she continued, narrowing her amber eyes as she tried to reconstruct her thought processes, “it was because I couldn’t imagine why else somebody would be holed up here on their own over Christmas, unless they were, I don’t know, seeking inspiration or communing with the spirit world. Maybe an artist, or priest on some kind of retreat. Clearly not in your case – at least I hope not, bearing in mind our adventure on the sofa earlier…so I decided artist. I was wrong, obviously. So what do you do – and why are you here? You don’t have the excuse of it being an accident like I do.”

“I’m a white slaver,” he answered, his teeth shining savagely in the flickering light cast by the fire. For a second she could believe that, with his olive skin and dark eyes. And he’d look amazing in a pirate costume.

“I wait here for passing virgins,” he said, “then I sell them on for unimaginable profit.”

“Oh dear. Sorry to let you down on the virgin front. You must have thought your luck was in when a woman in a white dress turned up on your doorstep?” she replied, shaking off the image of Rob and his swinging cutlass. Leah had been nipping at the wine all the time she cooked, and accidentally seemed to have polished off most of a bottle of red on her own. Oops, she thought. This was turning out to be an unexpectedly boozy Christmas Day after all.

“Nah, it happens all the time. I’m forever fighting women off,” he said. “Gets quite exhausting after a while.”

That, thought Leah, she could definitely believe. This was not a man who would ever go short of offers. From man, woman or beast. He was impossibly good-looking. Italian family, she’d managed to learn. Lived in Chicago. White slaver. That was the sum total of her knowledge about him. Assuming you didn’t include the way his lips tasted or having a fair estimate of his penis size, that is.

“No. Really. Go on. Tell me something about yourself. I mean, I’ve already poured my heart out to you, and you’ve seen me starkers. It’s only fair.”

He had seen her ‘starkers’, he acknowledged. At least when he hadn’t been squinting to try and avoid it. And now, thanks to that casual comment, he was imagining her starkers again, wearing just the tinsel in her hair.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said, shaking away the image, “but I’m not an artist. Or even a white slaver. I’m just a businessman. Family firm. Corporate suits. Meetings all day. Boring to the max.”

“I bet it’s not boring at all. I can’t imagine you doing something boring,” she said. “I bet you buy and sell something really interesting, like, reindeers. Right?”

“You guessed it,” he said, smiling. “I’m a reindeer wholesaler. And by this time of year, I’ve had enough, so I run away to the wilds of Scotland to escape it all. And do a bit of stock-taking while I’m here.”

Something about the way he said it rang true to Leah. Not the reindeer bit, obviously, she thought, but the escape. The running away. Even the stock-taking. She’d known this man for less than 48 hours and she already realised he was strong; dependable; in charge. Of himself and probably of others. At certain moments already, of her and her newly emerging nymphomaniac. But despite all of that, he also needed to escape. To hide.

What could be bad enough to make a man like this feel the need to hide? Would she ever find out? Too serious, she thought, reaching for yet more wine. Way too serious, and none of her business. They’d been thrown together by a set of freaky circumstances and he’d been kind enough to let her stay, and even to share some saliva with her. She should repay him by keeping her nose – and all of her other body parts – out of his business.

“Well, I understand that,” she replied. “I’m a fugitive myself. I ran away into the wilds of Scotland too, away from my own wedding, shortly after seeing Doug disappear up Becky’s frock. Okay, I was aiming for London and I ended up—”

“Here, with me. Which is no sane person’s idea of an escape,” he said, his tone suddenly quiet and serious, his face cast down in the shimmering firelight. There was a sadness in this man, making guest appearances when Leah least expected it. She felt her own pain well up in response; scrunched up her eyes so she wouldn’t cry. What a pair of losers.

It was Christmas, she told herself. And nobody should be allowed to be sad at Christmas — no matter how good the reasons. It is, after all, the season to be jolly.

“Yep. I ended up here, with you, Mr Cavelli. Where I’ve had to endure sexual harassment, and been forced into becoming your chief cook and bottle washer. Talking of which, are you ready for your next course, sir?”

“Yes. Into the kitchen, woman,” he said, noticing the way she’d picked up on his mood, and tried to deflect it. Moving his mental course…what? His usual default setting of morose solitude? Around this time of year it seemed to be the only mood he was capable of. God, he was becoming a pain in the ass, he decided. He was even sick of himself.

Yet with Leah around, he felt different. The anxiety felt diffused by the easy positivity and flirty charm that seemed to be her default setting. He knew she must be in pain; knew she must be grieving for her lost future, no matter how much she mocked herself and her circumstances. Nobody could walk away from that kind of experience unharmed. And this Doug guy must be a total idiot. Who could have a woman like Leah waiting for him and still want more?

Not love…but chemistry. Burning, sparkling, blazing chemistry that threatened to set them both on fire. She was way too vulnerable for that right now, even if she didn’t think she was. And as for him - he always would be too vulnerable. After Meredith, there was nothing left to give. His body, yes. But more? The sort of more a woman like Leah deserved? No. That part of him just didn’t exist any more. And that’s what his Mom and his brother could never get. He wasn’t choosing to be alone, any more than he’d chosen to have dark hair, or an aptitude for numbers.

It was part of who he was now. Who he was destined to be. There was nothing anyone could do about that – not his mother, not his brother. Not himself. Not even Leah.