Once Upon a Christmas (48 page)

“It’s non-alcoholic, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“I…okay.” His voice told her he hadn’t been
wondering if the apple juice was forty proof. “I’ll put this in the
fridge. Dinner’s almost ready.”

He stepped back to let her in, holding aside the lush
foliage of a potted palm—one of his growth-accelerated beauties, Chloe
guessed—so she could pass. She shimmied between the plant and Nick’s chest,
wishing his hands would touch her as gently as they did those shiny
leaves…but then, the plant was part of his dream. She wasn’t.

Chloe ducked beneath an enormous spider plant in a hanging
planter, gazing around her at the well-tended greenery that filled his living
room.
I hate plants
.

The screen door slammed behind her. The aromas of tomato
sauce, garlic, and roasted peppers wafted from his kitchen.

“Smells good.”

“Thanks. If my research came together half as easily as
my pasta puttanesca, I’d have had the growth accelerator finished a month ago.”
He hefted the tapered bottle of apple juice. “I’d better go put this in
the fridge.”

Chloe eyed the wine-shaped bottle. It practically screamed
her hopes that this was going to be A Real Date. A new
romantic
beginning between them.

Idiot!
she told herself as Nick disappeared around
the corner. The refrigerator opened and shut. Next came the sound of something
scraping in a pan to the accompaniment of Nick’s humming.

This was definitely a Non-Date. His confused glance at the
bottle had told her that much. She really had to start clamping down on that
wishful-thinking routine of hers.

Chloe collapsed on Nick’s sturdy tweed couch beside a pile
of clean laundry and buried her face in a jumble of towels and jeans.
See?
He hadn’t even bothered to tidy up for her visit
, she thought morosely,
hugging the pile closer. All she wanted was to disappear. Maybe Nick wouldn’t
notice if she slunk out the front door and went home?

His jovial, humming entrance into the living room wrecked
her getaway plans. Moaning, she stuffed her face deeper in the pile and inhaled
big lungfuls of fabric-softener-scented air, trying to get a grip on herself.
The last thing she wanted was for Nick to guess how much she wanted to move
things between them to a non-platonic level. How much she wanted him to do the
moving…and the kissing, the touching, the lovemaking that they’d….

His hand on her bare thigh sent her bolt upright.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. Aren’t you hungry?”

If he only knew
. Chloe tilted sideways to straighten
herself and wound up at eye-level with his groin. She eyed the fit of Nick’s
shorts, remembered what lay beneath, and had to fight an urge to lick her lips.
The night they’d spent together had only been the appetizer, just enough to
make her hungry for more.

“Appetizer?” Nick asked.

She whipped her head upward and almost brained herself on
the tray of bruschetta in his hand. Her heart quit racing just as she
recognized the toasted bread topped with tomatoes and herbs. She cleared her
throat and selected one, hoping he hadn’t caught her leering at him.

Sheesh. Hormones.

Who was she kidding?
Love
.

Grinning, Nick plucked something from her hair, making
static electricity crackle above her head. Something white flashed past her
field of vision. She recognized it as a pair of white briefs—
oh, God, she’d
been wearing his underwear on her head
!—and wanted to crawl under the sofa.

“Cute.” He dropped the tighty whities back in the
laundry pile. “But I like your outfit better without the headgear.”

His gaze skimmed over her clothes—electric blue shorts and a
neon green loosely buttoned shirt—as though committing their smooth, washed silk
textures to memory. His scrutiny did disturbing things to her ability to think
or react—or even chew, apparently. A dollop of tomato slipped from her
bruschetta and plunked down her chest.

He watched it slide beneath her vibrant green silk shirt
with a starving man’s look. It gave her an unreasonable amount of hope for
their potential couplehood—far too much to pin on a half-inch piece of cold
tomato. Then Nick shook his head and blinked, fingers on the temples of his
eyeglasses.

“And preferably without tomato sauce, too,” he
added on a grin, grabbing a fluffy blue towel from the laundry pile. “Here,
let me help you.”

Chloe sat still, dying to suck in a gulp of air to bolster
herself for his touch, but too filled with anticipation to move. Frowning, Nick
scrubbed at the neckline of her shirt, lifted the corner of the towel to assess
his efforts, then scrubbed some more.

The ends of the thick terrycloth towel flopped in her lap,
tickling her bare thighs. It was nothing compared with the friction he’d set into
motion with his clean-up efforts. Her shirt rubbed against her breasts,
sensitizing them even through her layers of silken shirt and silkier bra.

Watching Nick’s strong, capable hands at work, Chloe briefly
considered dumping the rest of the bruschetta tray in her lap. Reluctantly, she
abandoned the idea. She had all she could handle already.

“Wait.” She caught hold of his wrist. “I
think it’s clean. Much more of that, and you’ll rub me naked.”

Which sounded pretty great, actually, no matter how much she
wanted to groan at having blurted it out. But there was no way she could stand
being touched like this for much longer and not reciprocate. Not with Nick and
definitely not in the supersensitive state she was in. Biting her lip, she
fished her other hand in her shirt to retrieve the tomato herself.

No dice. The little bugger must have slipped past her bra.
Letting go of Nick’s wrist, she lifted her shirt hem just enough to glimpse a
plump bit of red just above her navel.

Before she could move, Nick ducked. His mouth fastened on
the tomato, sucking gently against her skin as he nibbled it up. Too shocked to
move, Chloe stared down at the incredible sight of his familiar, golden-haired
head against her. His lips puckered on her tender flesh, igniting flickers of
yearning, remembered passion in places lower than the rounded belly he kissed.

If she hadn’t been sitting already, her knees would have
surely buckled. Wowsers! Shivering, Chloe delved her hand in his hair, wanting
to pull Nick closer, to draw him upward where she could properly kiss him back.
His hair buzzed beneath her roving hands, spiky soft shafts that tickled her
palms even more than the towel had tickled her thighs earlier. She thought of
feeling those close-clipped shafts where the towel had been and was squirming
in her seat even as Nick’s mouth popped away from her belly.

“Got it.” He winked at her, leaned over to gather
up the pile of laundry, and straightened. “You’re good as new.”

Chloe boggled as he juggled the armful of clothes against his
chest, smoothed her shirt in place again, and casually said, “I’d better
get these out of the way before I find you wearing a pair of sweat socks or
something.”

Sweat socks? He could talk about sweat socks, after what had
just happened? Shivering, she settled deeper in the couch’s nubbly tweed and
watched him disappear down the hallway with the clothes.

Nuzzling her bare belly was
not
the act of a platonic
best male friend, no matter how Nick tried to pretend it was. Never mind that
as friends they’d been swimming at the lake dressed in less than she had on
now. Never mind that they’d nursed each other through colds, income taxes, and
broken hearts. That wasn’t TLC Nick had administered just now. At the least, it
qualified as a pass. So what was she supposed to do about it?

Before she could decide, he returned, looking vaguely warm,
rumpled, and so much like everything she’d ever wanted in a man that Chloe felt
like sobbing with the unfairness of it all. He was as perfect for her as she
was for him—except for his lack of interest in having children as soon as five
months from now.

I’m lucky as hell not to have kids yet, Chloe,
he’d
said.
I swear I’d never get anything done.

If there was one think Nick wanted, it was to get things
done. To accomplish his dream of becoming a great inventor. How could she stand
in the way of that?

She couldn’t.

She couldn’t forget her vow to give her baby a loving home
with two loving parents, either.
Buck up
, she told herself.
He’s just
a man. You can resist him
.

Suddenly, Chloe found new sympathy for Nick’s what’shernames.

He reached out and tousled her hair. “Hungry? How ‘bout
some grub, Blondie?”

“Sure.” She felt her spirits plummet even further
as his hair-tousle turned into a brotherly shoulder punch. “Lead the way,
Galloping Gourmet.”

Poor Bruno
, Nick thought later.
Poor, doomed,
besotted Bruno
. How had he faced temptation like this and survived?

Maybe fortitude like that was what made a man a Marine.

He and Chloe had finished the pasta puttanesca, polished off
the better half of the bruschetta, and moved the party onto his back patio. Out
here beneath the clear dark skies and bright stars of summer, Nick could almost
believe it was a night like any other they’d spent together. The pink
bougainvillea bloomed along the backyard fence the same as they ever had. The
cicadas chirped just as constantly beyond that fence, and the citronella
candles burned just as lemony-sharp on the wrought iron table between them.

The difference was, this dark night felt intimate in a way
it never had before. He’d never before been forced to watch Chloe savor a dish
of vanilla ice cream with strawberries, bite by slow shivery bite, the way he’d
been doing for the past ten minutes. It was enough to make a guy yearn to be a
soup spoon.

“This is
so
good, Nick,” she said for what
had to be the fifth time, turning over the spoon to lick a strawberry remnant
from the tip. “Yum, yum, yum.”

Yeah…yum.

The piece of strawberry disappeared between her lips.
Reminded of the tomato he’d nibbled up earlier, Nick shifted in his chair and
tried not to think of what an insane move he’d made with
that
. “Glad
you like it.”

Curled up in a patio chair beside him, Chloe spooned up the
last of the ice cream from the big plastic bowl on her lap. Licking her lips,
she let her spoon clatter back in place.

“Every bit as delicious as the first bite,” she
announced, swabbing her finger leisurely around the bowl. When she popped her
finger in her mouth and sucked off the creamy vanilla, Nick knew he couldn’t
take any more.

“Wanna watch a movie?” he blurted, taking the
empty bowl from her lap as he stood. “I rented
Norgon’s Revenge
.”

“Another monster flick?” Grinning, Chloe shook her
head. “I swear, Nick, you’re a little boy trapped in a man’s body.”

Just as she got up from her chair, Nick passed in front of
her with his arm outstretched, headed for the patio door. They wound up nose to
nose. Or, more accurately—since Chloe was a few inches shorter than he
was—forehead to chin.

“Oh! Whoops.” She teetered. He put out his hand to
steady her, then sidestepped out of the way. So did she—in the same direction.

“Sorry.” Chloe laughed when they found themselves
pressed even closer together than before. “I’m a little wobbly these days.”

Her hand went to his upper arm, holding onto him as she
explained something about hormones, pregnant ligaments, and other medical
trivia items he didn’t quite catch. Her fingers stroked up and down his arm,
making it impossible to concentrate on anything except the feel of Chloe
touching him. Nick had the stupid, nonsensical urge to flex his biceps, to
sweep her off her feet…to show her he could be every bit as manly as the
Bruno she was so enraptured with.

He ought to go inside, get away, leave things as they were
between them. Chloe had Bruno now. To hear her talk of him, he’d been all she’d
ever wanted in a man, even if things were temporarily off—kilter between them.
She didn’t need that mucked up with tomato nibbling and soup spoons and
kissing. Not when she’d found herself a man “too special” to talk
about, even with her best friend.

Friend, schmiend
, the rebellious part of his soul
prodded. Bruno was gone and Nick was here and this was a moment that might
never come again.

“I don’t mind,” he said quietly.

She looked up at him. The amusement simmered out of her
smile, replaced by something a little bit…wilder.

It was all the encouragement he needed.

Somehow, his hand went to the nape of her neck instead of
the patio door. She tilted her head back, closing her eyes in the flickering
candlelight, and although he meant to kiss her, all he could do was stare in
wonder at how beautiful she seemed.

Her hair glowed like gold, bright as the candles. Moonlight
and shadows chased across her face, highlighting the curve of her cheekbone,
the delicate line of her nose, the lush fullness of her lips. He ached to taste
her. Would she taste of strawberries, or the sweetness of vanilla?

In the darkness behind them, a warm breeze swirled dried
bougainvillea leaves through the yard like whispers. On the same breath of air,
Chloe’s tropical perfume wafted toward him, making him groan at the
impossibility of resisting her. Kissing her felt inevitable. It felt right.
Nick leaned closer…and her eyes opened.

“Whew!” She fanned herself with her hand. “Thanks
to you, I’m as good as new. No more wobblies.” She grinned broadly and
stepped back. He actually thought he saw her wink at him as she released his
arm and gave him a brotherly shoulder punch instead. “Thanks for helping
me out, Nick. So, how ‘bout that movie?”

Chapter Seven

Her guerrilla platonic-ness tactic backfired.