THE NIGHTS BEFORE CHRISTMAS Read online

  While he cleaned up his supper dishes, Matilda paced the tiny apartment waiting for him to finish. He took a moment to add water to the metal stand holding his Christmas tree, a slightly larger one than Suzanne's. His wasn't decorated yet for the simple reason that he had no decorations. He'd bought the tree on a whim because he loved the smell of evergreen. One of these days he'd pick up some ornaments and lights, but for now he had a nice foresty scent in his little basement apartment.

  Come to think of it, he was in the mood for some Christmas music. He picked out three holiday CDs from his collection and loaded them into his stereo before falling into his overstuffed reading chair. With a little prrt of pleasure, Matilda jumped to his lap and curled up, purring happily.

  He scratched under her chin, using the exact motion she loved. With his free hand, he picked up the book he'd left on the table beside the chair. For the past couple of weeks he'd been on a Dickens kick.

  Reading was very nearly his favorite occupation, but because he was a healthy thirty-one-year-old male, making love to a special woman still ranked first. Tonight, no matter how much he tried to concentrate on the trials of Oliver Twist, he kept thinking of how great it would be to snuggle with Suzanne.

  Finally he gave up, put down the book and leaned back, closing his eyes and stroking Matilda while he thought about Suzanne. The top of her head came to his chin, which made her about five-seven, a height he happened to favor. With his eyes shut he could imagine standing close enough to catch the scent of her rose-scented shampoo. How he'd love to bury his nose in those wild curls of hers before eventually hooking a finger under her chin and tilting her face to his for a kiss—an under-the-mistletoe kiss.

  She had a wide, generous mouth, and he liked that in a woman. Or maybe he just liked Suzanne's mouth, especially when she smiled. In his fantasy she would be smiling, waiting eagerly for that first meeting of lips. Her eyes, which could crackle with blue fire, would be soft and dreamy in anticipation of the pleasure to come.

  Taking his time, he'd lower his head, watching how her lips parted as he drew near. Because this was his fantasy, he imagined her wanting this kiss more than any she'd ever had. Her heart would be beating as fast as his, and her hand would steal around his neck, her fingers warm, her touch reminding him that this kiss was only the beginning…

  When his doorbell buzzed, Matilda jumped from his lap and loped into the bedroom. He didn't have many visitors, and she wasn't crazy about socializing with those he did have. He wasn't wild about the interruption, himself. His fantasy of kissing Suzanne had come to the good part.

  He wondered what emergency had brought a tenant to his door. Nearly everybody used the telephone to summon him upstairs for whatever repair was needed, an arrangement that was fine with him. This basement apartment was his refuge, and besides, he wasn't supposed to have a pet. The fewer people who knew about Matilda, the better.

  Whatever had happened upstairs, he hoped it could wait until morning. Having a handyman on the premises meant that, technically, people could call him twenty-four hours a day, but he still considered the hours between eight at night and six in the morning as his, unless someone had a major flood or wires shooting sparks across the room.

  He left his cozy chair with a grunt of impatience and crossed to the door. His impatience vanished when he opened it.

  "Uh, hi, Greg." Suzanne looked very beautiful and very, very nervous. She'd let down her curly hair, literally, and it shimmered around her shoulders. Instead of her black business suit, she wore a one-piece, long-sleeved jumpsuit, also in black. An oversize zipper ran from her neck to her navel, and he couldn't help imagining what an easy undressing job that would be—instant access.

  Maybe the thought had been triggered by the thrust of her nipples against the smooth material. He'd bet his volume of Shakespeare's sonnets that she wasn't wearing a bra under that jumpsuit.

  "Is the pipe dripping again?" he asked. Somehow he didn't think it was. Oh, God, what had he started by overreacting upstairs? And why hadn't she simply called, instead of coming down here?

  "No, no, the pipe's fine," she said.

  He'd thought so. His heart pounded as he waited for her to say what had brought her to his door. Her appearance down in the basement was a first. None of the other women he'd befriended had ventured down to his place.

  There had been an unwritten rule that conversations would take place on their turf, which made the whole exchange seem less deliberate and needy on their part. It was almost as if they hadn't wanted to remind themselves that a man who was essentially a janitor was responsible for making them feel better about themselves.

  Suzanne wasn't playing by the rules. He wasn't sure what was up with the provocative outfit, either. If only she'd unburdened herself when he'd given her the chance in the relative safety of her own surroundings, this relationship could have proceeded like all the others. But she hadn't chosen to do that.

  Her gaze was filled with apprehension as she took a deep breath and spoke with obvious effort. "I, uh, wondered if I could talk with you about something."

  "Okay." Maybe they'd have this conversation with him standing in the doorway of his apartment. That would be different but acceptable. Safe enough.

  "Would it be … could I come in?"

  Not safe. Not safe at all, to have her standing in the same room where he'd recently been fantasizing a passionate kiss. Yet, to turn her away would be rude, unless he could come up with a reasonable excuse.

  He was fresh out of reasonable excuses. "Sure. Come in." He stood back and allowed her to walk past him. She smelled terrific. He had the crazy urge to leave the door cracked open the way his mother used to insist on when he was a teenager and had invited a girl over to study algebra, but he closed the door instead.

  Suzanne gazed with obvious surprise at his floor-to-ceiling shelves of books. "Are these all yours?"

  Instinctively he threw up a roadblock. "They make good insulation."

  She scanned the room, taking in the spot where his book lay turned upside down on the table next to his reading chair. "I like your Christmas music."

  "Thanks." He wanted to forestall any more questions and comments about his surroundings. "Can I get you something to drink?" he asked. "A Coke, maybe, or I could make us some coffee."

  "Do you have any wine?"

  "Uh, no. Sorry." He had beer, but he wasn't about to offer her alcohol of any kind. No telling what the building's owners would make of him plying one of the female tenants with beer.

  She twisted her fingers together. "I should have brought a bottle. I didn't think of it until just this minute. Listen, Greg, I'll get right to the point."

  "Let me guess. You want to talk about Jared."

  "Jared?" She stared at him. "Why would I want to do that?"

  None of this was going according to the usual script. It looked as if he'd have to prompt her. "Because it's cathartic, and I'm a good listener." He gestured toward his reading chair because it was the best seating his little apartment had to offer. He'd pull up a kitchen chair. "Please sit down. I'll brew some coffee, and we can—"

  "Maybe that's how you've handled the other women," she said, "but I think that's a waste of time." She clenched her hands so tightly in front of her that her knuckles were white.

  "It seemed to help them a lot."

  "Possibly, but I don't think that simply talking about Jared will help me." Her voice trembled, but she forged on. "So I'd like to skip all the chitchat and get to the main event."

  His vocal cords tightened. "I'm a little confused, here. What main event do you mean?"

  She swallowed. "I want you to make love to me."

  While a choir sang "Silver Bells," he felt as if a pile driver was operating in his chest. "Suzanne, I can't do that." So this was where his idiotic comments had led them. She wanted a demonstration of what he'd been talking about over soup and crackers.

  She looked as if he'd slapped her. "What do you mean, you, uh, can't?"


  He'd begun to shake as he tried to keep his cool. Inside he was going crazy thinking about the possibility, but the way she'd approached it was all wrong, as if she expected him to leap into a physical relationship with her like a stud for hire.

  That was his doing, no doubt. "No," he said as calmly as he could manage. "I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong impression when we were talking before, but I really can't."

  "W-what you mean is, you won't."

  "All right, then. I won't." He might be an idiot for turning down the chance for a fling with the woman he'd been fantasizing about for months. But the way she'd asked him made it clear that they'd have nothing more than a superficial relationship, and when he'd fantasized about Suzanne, there had been nothing superficial about it.

  "I see." As she gazed at him, her lower lip began to tremble.

  Oh God, she was going to cry. He knew how shy she was. She'd probably worked herself up to this request, and he'd flung it back in her face. He should have used a little more tact, considering the communication foul-up was all his fault. "Suzanne, listen, what I mean is that I—"

  "No, no, I understand." Blinking rapidly, she lifted her chin and backed away from him. Then she cleared her throat. "Obviously I made a mistake coming down here, and now I've embarrassed us both. If you don't mind, I'd like us to pretend this never happened."

  Considering that this felt like some sort of wacky dream, that shouldn't be hard for him. Even now, with her standing here, he couldn't believe that she'd just asked him to make love to her. He scrambled for a way to make this turn out okay.

  Before he could think of the right thing to say, Matilda strolled out of the bedroom, tail in the air, and pranced right in front of Suzanne before going over to wind herself through his legs.

  Suzanne stared at her, wide-eyed. "You have a cat?"

  "Um, sort of. She—"

  "I love cats." Suzanne crouched down, wincing slightly, and held out her hand. "Hello, you pretty thing. What's your name?"

  "Matilda," Greg said. He'd noticed the wince and remembered that Suzanne needed a massage. "I try to keep her out of sight."

  Suzanne dropped to one knee and continued to hold out her hand. "I know. No pets allowed." Her voice changed to a soft croon. "Come here, Matilda. I used to have a tortoiseshell who looked a lot like you. Come here and let me give you a little scratch."

  "She probably won't," Greg said. "She's shy around strangers."

  "That's okay," Suzanne said softly. "So am I." She continued to hold her hand out toward the cat.

  Greg felt lower than a whale's belly. He'd led Suzanne to the conclusion that all she had to do was say the word and he'd become her lover, a sort of in-house rebound man. She'd worked up her courage to say the word, only to discover he hadn't meant that at all.

  At this point he couldn't very well explain that he'd said those things because he'd had some idea that maybe, just maybe, they had a chance at a real relationship, one that might have a future. She didn't want that. She wanted a guy to restore her confidence in every way, including sexually, before she headed back into the dating scene.

  He could only imagine what asking him had cost her. And now, after being rejected by him, she would be rejected by his cat. "Matilda was a stray," he said. "So the thing is, she doesn't trust anyone except—"

  "Come here, kitty," Suzanne said, ignoring him as she trained all her attention on Matilda. "That's it. You are so beautiful, so very, very beautiful. Come here, sweetheart."

  He watched in amazement as Matilda began to advance toward Suzanne like a tightrope walker, testing each step with a front paw before putting her weight down. Nose outstretched, she crept forward until finally she made contact with Suzanne's outstretched fingers.

  Suzanne stayed perfectly still and murmured words that Greg couldn't hear, although he strained to catch them. Yet he knew without being able to make them out that they were endearments, tender phrases born of her obvious affection for animals.

  Her soft voice, so sweet and musical, pushed gently and persistently, easing through his defenses as surely as a root tendril could find its way through solid rock. She might use that tone with a lover, he thought, his heart twisting with remorse. He could have been that lover, if he were a stronger man, one who could take what she offered and expect nothing more.

  A tremor passed over him as he listened to her commune with his cat. He had to assume that her voice had aroused Matilda's curiosity, and that her voice held the cat captive now, as it did him.

  He wondered if Matilda had once belonged to a woman, perhaps a woman with a voice like Suzanne's. In the time he'd had the cat, he hadn't invited a woman to his apartment. Because Matilda had run from any guy that had stopped by, he'd assumed she didn't relate well to anybody but him.

  But she related to Suzanne, rubbing the edge of her jaw against Suzanne's outstretched hand. Gradually Suzanne began to scratch under the cat's chin, and Matilda lifted her head to allow the caress. Greg stared at Suzanne's graceful fingers moving sensuously over his cat's fur. He'd turned down the chance to know that caress.

  "She's purring." There was triumph in Suzanne's announcement. She glanced up at him, her blue eyes soft and eager, much as he'd imagined they would be as he prepared to kiss her for the first time.

  His heart thudded as he looked into those eyes. He ached for her with a fierceness that cried out for relief. But on the heels of that relief would come incredible pain when she left him, bound for someone more appropriate than a handyman.

  Yet as he sank into a blue warmth as welcoming as a tropical sea, he wondered if the pain might be worth it. Once he hadn't thought so, but now … now he wasn't so sure.

  Then her gaze faltered, as if she'd suddenly remembered the awkwardness between them before Matilda had arrived. "I should go." She stood.

  He had no control over a reply that came from deep within his soul. "Stay."

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  «^»

  Suzanne was totally mortified that Greg would suggest such a thing. His cat had provided a welcome distraction, allowing her to get control over her emotions. She'd hoped that maybe she'd be able to leave his apartment on a positive note. But all the while she'd been petting Matilda and remembering how much she'd loved her own little Whiskers, apparently she'd become the object of Greg's pity.

  She must appear pathetic to him, some forlorn creature who had come to his door begging for love, someone so desperate for comfort that when he'd turned her down, she'd forced her friendship on his cat as a consolation prize.

  Straightening her spine, she looked into his amazing green eyes. "I would rather clean the basement floor with my tongue than stay in this apartment a minute more. I'm sorry to have disturbed your evening." She started for the door.

  "Suzanne, wait."

  "Sorry, but I have urgent business upstairs." Her first thought was to call Terri and give that girl a piece of her mind, but that would be admitting that Terri was appealing to Greg, while she was not.

  "Please, Suzanne. Let me—"

  "Forget it!" At the door she whirled, hurt transforming at last into a satisfying ball of fiery anger in her chest. "I don't care how sorry you feel for me, I'll be damned if I'll be your charity case!"

  His jaw dropped. "Charity case?"

  "Exactly. You're probably feeling guilty because you turned away a needy soul during this season of giving, but here's a news bulletin, Santa Claus. I'll never be that needy."

  "This isn't about guilt! It so happens that I—"

  "Feel especially generous tonight? Then maybe you should go drop some money in a Salvation Army bucket." She grabbed the doorknob.

  "I can't let you leave like this."

  "You have no choice."

  "Suzanne." His fingers closed over her wrist as she opened the door.

  She gasped and turned, her momentum short-circuited by his firm grasp. How dare he touch her. And yet … how magical the connection was.

  Her gaze dropped to w
here he held her in that competent grip that had made short work of the repairs in her apartment. The fantasies she'd spun while he was lying under her sink wrestling with the leaking pipe blended with the fantasies she'd been creating about this man for months.

  He held her deliberately, but not tightly. One twist and she'd be free. Yet she couldn't seem to move. Then she looked into his eyes and found them blazing with an energy that took her breath away. "Let me go," she whispered.

  "I don't want to let you go." His voice was husky and intimate as he rubbed his thumb slowly over her galloping pulse.

  The desire in his eyes had a hypnotic effect on her senses. If he really didn't want her, he was a master at faking passion. "Because you feel sorry for me?"

  His bark of laughter sounded genuinely disbelieving. "Hardly."

  "But you said—"

  "I know what I said." Holding her gaze, he eased her hand away from the doorknob and nudged the door closed. "I was a fool and I want to take it back."

  Her heartbeat drummed so loudly in her ears that she could barely hear "Deck the Halls" pouring from the speakers in his bookshelf. "Because I was nice to your cat?"

  He shook his head, smiling gently as he wove his fingers through hers and drew her back into the room.

  "Then why?" The dovetailing of their fingers seemed incredibly perfect, but she shouldn't cave in like this. She should leave. "Why change your mind?"

  "Because I would be insane to pass up the chance of making love to a woman like you." He guided her slowly past the cat, who was now munching noisily from a bowl of dry food, past his easy chair, past the fragrant, untrimmed evergreen. Beyond was an open door into a darkened room.

  She glanced through the door. The interior was shadowed, but light from the living room revealed the bottom of an ivory comforter tucked into the narrow iron rails of an old-fashioned bedstead. She didn't have to see any more to know what lay beyond that door—the point of no return.