Christie Ridgway (22 page)

Bailey swallowed, still not buying it completely. “How is your grandmother?”

His hand dropped. “On the road to recovery.” He pivoted away from her and stalked toward the door.

“So do you want to get it on or not?”

“Gee, there you go with the hearts and flowers again.”

He stomped back. His face was furious now, but she held her ground. He grabbed her right hand and pressed it against his breastbone. “I’ve got your heart.” His slammed against her palm with an angry beat.

Her left hand he forced to cup the hard rise of flesh between his legs. “And I’ve got your flowers right here.”

And with those two rough gestures he had Bailey all over again. Not because she appreciated rough—

but because that wasn’t the kind of man he was. He’d always, always been so careful with her, and this attitude told her that something besides sex was driving Finn, something dark and tangled and that maybe he wasn’t even aware of.

He might as well have been whispering, “I can’t do it, Bailey. I don’t think I can do it alone.”

Just like that, finding his way once more into her damaged heart.

“Maybe we can cut a deal,” she said, sliding her left hand from under his and away from his erection.

More sex shouldn’t be on the table—
that
wouldn’t be a high-IQ move on her part—but maybe there was a win-win option available.

“Yeah?” He caught her escaping fingers in his, held them.

Her heart stuttered a little. “Yeah. I have a business to run, customers waiting, and you fill out the Santa suit better than I do.”

His eye narrowed. “So I ho-ho-ho for you and then you’ll h—”

“Tell me you’re not about to mention me and ‘ho’ in the same breath.”

He grinned, and she felt some of the tension leach out of him.

Some tension left her too.
Congratulations, Bailey.
He’d taken the bait. By the time he was done with Kris Kringle duty, perhaps he’d be too tired or at least too diverted to think that sex was the answer to whatever was driving his mood.

Almost three hours later, she still hoped she was right. At the end of the film, once the sentimental moviegoers had sighed over the sight of ol’ Kris’s cane left beside the fireplace of the new Santa believers, Bailey had trotted out her Kringle-for-the-night and called upon Trin to help pass around refreshments. Then the customers had proceeded to do what all good customers should…they’d lined up at the cash registers, many of them purchasing their own copy of the
Miracle on 34th Street
DVD as well as the ornaments, cards, and other memorabilia commemorating the movie that she’d hastily stocked.

Then she’d sent Trin home to her baby and husband and let Finn help her stack the chairs she’d rented and put the displays back to their original position. It was almost midnight when they stood by the door and she flipped off the lights.

“Thanks for everything,” she said to Finn. He had to be as ready to call it a day as she was. Sex, please God, was the last thing on his mind.

He put one hand on the doorknob. The other he curled around the back of her neck, underneath her hair.

“I have an idea. Let’s stay here.”

Earlobes could goose bump, she realized. And maybe sex
wasn’t
the last thing on Finn’s mind.

“Let’s stay here and eat…” He let the sentence trail off, then added the one word guaranteed to seduce her. “Donuts.”

No fair!
Her stomach growled and she could already taste them on her tongue. Finn knew she was a goner for greasy, sugary stuff. Bailey slid a glance toward him, his expression telling her nothing more than it had when he’d marched into her back room demanding to once more ring her chimes.

It was such a bad idea. But he wasn’t suggesting sex again, exactly, was he?

Leaning closer, he whispered in her ear. “Bailey.” A hypnotist, and she was halfway to being mesmerized. “
Donuts
.”

Oh hell. Some things were just worth the risk.

Bailey Sullivan’s Vintage Christmas

Facts & Fun Calendar

December 16

The Christmas flower known in the English-speaking world as the poinsettia is named after Dr. Joel R.

Poinsett, a U.S. diplomat who served as minister to Mexico in the 1820s. The shrub, native to Mexico, blooms in midwinter with star-shaped crimson blossoms. Mr. Poinsett returned home to Charleston, South Carolina, with enough cuttings to begin growing the plants in more northern climates.

When Finn returned to The Perfect Christmas bearing a pink box and the best four bucks could buy from Dee Dee’s 24/7 Donuts around the corner, he found the front door unlocked but no sign of Bailey in the dimly lit store. “GND?” he called softly, locking the door behind him.

At his first step, a reindeer standing on an eye-level shelf swiveled its head his way. Finn started, nearly dropping the box. The movement triggered more action on a display table to his right.

Jack-in-the-box-style, a Santa popped out of a chimney. Shaking his head, he took another step and saw the lights strung along the banister to the second floor spring into action. Red and green alternated, racing upward at a dizzying speed.

Getting the hint, he made for the staircase, then almost swallowed his tongue when something touched his leg. He looked down and left—a knee-high angel was waving her arms about, gesturing him onward with a lighted plastic candle. As he reached the landing, a stuffed moose hanging on the wall broke into song, its mouth moving, its ears twitching, the wreath around its neck blazing with light. “I wish you a Merry Christmas too,” he muttered, then kept moving, senses alert for Bailey’s next surprise.

A train steamed down its track laid along the hallway as he reached the top of the stairs. Taking the indicated left turn, he continued forward. Three snow globes sitting on a narrow table lit up and started spinning in their bases, snow whirling in tiny blizzards as he passed by. Finally, a moving Santa and Mrs.

Claus gestured him into the smallest second-floor room, half dark like the rest of the store.

In one shadowy corner stood a real Christmas tree, decorated more simply than those downstairs. White lights twinkled through its bows and it was wrapped in strings of cranberries and slices of dried orange.

“Another popular myth busted.” The amused voice of the woman he wanted sounded in the room.

“Apparently men
can
follow directions.”

His head shifted left. He looked up. Perched on a short stepladder, Bailey gazed down at him with a half smile curving the usual pout of her full mouth. She had a glitter-covered ornament in her hand and he saw a streak of glitter across her cheek.

It was like that night in Gram’s driveway when he’d thought she’d been dipped in stars. He’d ached for her then. He ached for her now.

For some reason she wanted to fight going into his arms again, but he would overcome her resistance.

Rushing her wasn’t going to work, he’d tried that in the back room at the store. So he’d settled on seduction. By sweet treats, by sweet words, by whatever damn thing necessary, he was going to get her naked and him inside her again.

Bare to bare.

Battling his Bailey-lust the past couple of days had only been making things worse for him and everyone who came in contact with him. The tension he’d vowed to uncoil this Christmas had instead only been wrapping tighter. He’d nearly clocked the receptionist at Gram’s oncologist’s that morning.

Don’t tell him the holiday season was a bad time to be terminally ill.

Bailey stretched high, taking his mind off everything but her, as she reached to place the ornament in her hand near the top of the tree. Finn remembered the balance beam her stepfather had built for her in her backyard. He’d watch from his side of the hedge as she practiced, fascinated by the grace in her flips and turns. Fascinated by the slender line of her strong legs and the way the sun caught in her blond hair.

Bailey then.

Bailey now. A woman.

As if sensing his thoughts, she looked down at him. Their gazes met, and deep inside him, at his center, there was a shift, like something fallen over finally rerighting itself.

“What?” Bailey asked, and when he didn’t answer, a puzzled smile took over her face. “
What?
”

It was the attraction, Finn told himself, pulling the bakery box closer to his chest. That’s all. His need for sex moving from his groin outward.

“Finn?”

“Get down from there,” he ordered softly.

Her body twitched, swaying a little on the ladder.

He reached her in one stride, steadying her with his hand on her thigh. The top of his head reached her hips. “Be careful.”

She stared at his hand on her leg. “Don’t you get it? I’m trying, I’m trying.”

“Then come on down, sweetheart.” He squeezed her denim-covered flesh.

Her gaze didn’t leave his hand. “I, uh, think we should talk.”

“Talk?” Yeah, he’d sworn to do whatever necessary to get into her pants again, but, hell, she was hot against his palm and he just wanted to get her naked. “Talk about what?”

She cleared her throat, looked up, down, back at his hand. “I don’t know. Tell me about…about Tanner.”

“Tanner?”
Tanner?
“Why the hell would you want to talk about him?”

She shrugged. “He’s an old friend. And I—”

“How well did you know him?” Finn had never considered it before, but Tanner Hart and Bailey Sullivan were two golden peas in the beachside pod of Coronado. Heat shot up his spine to pool at the base of his skull. “Damn it, did you date him when I wasn’t here?”

“Why are we talking about dating?”

He ground his back teeth. Tried convincing himself he shouldn’t yank her off that ladder, yank down her pants, thrust himself inside to make clear whom she belonged to. But he wasn’t that kind of bad ass anymore. And she wasn’t “his” in any long-term kind of way either. He’d never trust in that stupid idea again.

“You wanted to talk,” Finn muttered. “You brought up Tanner.”

“I’m wondering how the two of you connected, that’s all. I wouldn’t have said you had a lot in common.”

He laughed, and it released some of the tension in his neck. “Ah, but you didn’t see me that summer, did you? I’d cut my hair. Passed the GED and even had one semester of community college under my belt—

all A’s.”

“You’re kidding.”

He dropped his hand from her leg and took a moment to send some sympathy to the poor lovesick sap he’d been. “I wanted to surprise someone.” He’d wanted to impress Bailey.

“Finn…”

The note in her voice had the coils tightening again, and he couldn’t have that. “Now don’t go feeling sorry for me, GND. Wanting to be more your style and speed got me out of the gutter, and just that was worth the price of admission, okay?”

“Still, I’m sorry.”

He leaned over to drop the bakery box on a nearby table. He hated the fucking pity in her voice. He had to find a way to get rid of it.

“You want to make it up to me, GND?” His voice was dark and his fingers cupped the inside of her ankle to travel slowly up her inner thigh. “Because I have some suggestions.”

She froze as the blade of his hand found the intersection of seams on her jeans. It was hot there. He pressed closer. Damp. She moaned.

He rubbed his cheek against her hip as one hand unfastened her jeans.

“Finn…”

“Shhh.”

Her body trembled as he slid down the zipper. A triangle of red panties showed in the now-open vee and he bent his head to press his mouth right
there
.

Her fingers slid through his hair. “Oh, Finn,” she said in a throaty voice.

His skin rippled over his muscles as his pulse started to drum in his ears, at his groin, in the tips of the fingers that curled in denim to yank her pants past her knees. The beat sounded so loud in his head that he couldn’t hear if she protested when he sent her panties in the same direction. He stepped closer, then kissed the sweet, soft hair at the juncture of her thighs.

Her nails bit into his scalp.

He groaned against her, greed, need, want flaring.

The constricting clothes at her ankles didn’t afford complete movement, but it was enough. He lifted one leg, separating it from the other, so he could prop her knee on his shoulder. Then he opened her with his thumbs, pushing against the soft, swollen folds to see her secret flesh glistening. For him.

His sixth sense kicked in, trying to sneak a warning through his haze of lust, but Finn knew one sure way to shut up that irritating voice. Leaning forward, he buried his mouth in Bailey’s wet flesh.

She shuddered. Her nails bit again. That voice inside him tried speaking louder.

None of it deterred him. Instead he flattened his tongue and took in all the sweet tastes and slick surfaces that he could reach. His fingers held her open still, not letting her hide behind even her own flesh.

Mine. All mine.

He strung kisses along the crease of her thigh and pelvis. Made matching bites on the high inside of her thighs and then licked the sting away. He latched on to the hard center of her sweet, delicious flower and sucked until she bucked against his mouth.

And he still wanted more.

He pulled her off the stepladder and laid her under the sparkling tree. Then he threw off his clothes, his heart slamming as he watched her struggle out of her own. Bailey, going naked for him.

It turned him on so much he had to taste her again. This time he pushed her thighs wide, his palms just above the new marks he’d made on her flesh, and watched her sex unfurl for him. Then he dove down to accept her erotic invitation. Her body arched upward as he descended and he filled her with his tongue, trying to get to the very center of her. She cried out, the passionate sound piercing him to the gut.

He glanced up and saw that she was wide open to him, her legs splayed, her arms spread wide, her eyes not squeezed tight, but open too, trained on Finn. On Finn pleasing her.

Bailey, vulnerable, open, giving him everything. Trusting.

His heart hammering against his chest, he reached up to squeeze her breasts and thrust his tongue once more toward her heart.