Once More With Feeling (26 page)

Alec let out another short laugh. He started toward the stairs, but stopped when he was right in front of me. For a moment, we only stared at each other. I told myself my heart wasn’t even beating too hard any more. I’d shifted from my own feverish dreams to a gorgeous half-naked man in the bathroom too fast. Anyone would have jumped all over that. Him. It didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t even relevant.

He reached out and grabbed a handful of my shirt and then hauled me toward him, up on my toes, making me laugh slightly in some hectic mix of surprise and that sudden jackknife of desire that would have knocked me over if he hadn’t had his hands on me.

‘I’m not confused,’ he whispered, and then he proved it with a carnal, masterful kiss that made tears come to my eyes and my knees weaken beneath me when he finally let go. I staggered backward and had to grab the wall to keep myself upright.

Alec, meanwhile, looked smug. He practically glowed with hot male satisfaction, and I was too busy fighting
my own response to him to take as much issue with that as I should have done.

‘I wanted to make you come, but I guess I’ll have to make you breakfast instead,’ he said in a growl. ‘How does that sound?’

‘Jesus Christ,’ was all I could manage to get out.

‘He’s the reason for the season, Sarah,’ he said, mocking me.

Which made him laugh, and then keep on laughing, all the way down the stairs.

‘You remember my friend Sarah,’ Alec said in what no one would ever call a particularly polite tone of voice when I walked into the kitchen on still-rubbery legs a little while later, having helped myself to the basket of guest supplies I assumed his mother, not he, kept stocked in the bathroom. He was standing in the corner of the kitchen, his back to the sink, looking even grumpier than usual, though he had managed to button that shirt. Sadly. He bared his teeth at the woman sitting on one of the kitchen stools. ‘Sarah, my sister Jennifer. You have no reason to remember her.’

‘Of course I do,’ I said, smiling at her. ‘It’s great to see you again.’

‘And you,’ she said warmly, not even trying to hide the speculation in her gaze as she looked from Alec to me and then back again. ‘It’s been how long?’

‘Years,’ Alec said shortly. ‘Lifetimes. Thanks for bringing that up, Jen.’

If his rude tone of voice bothered her, his sister didn’t show it at all. If anything, her smile widened.

‘I came over to remind Alec to swing by for our little Christmas Eve get-together tonight,’ Jennifer told me. She was what Alec would look like if he were a normal person, I thought then, a little too enchanted by the notion. She had thick, mostly dirty-blonde hair and the same dark eyes, only nothing about her was either grim or bad-tempered. ‘He likes to pretend he doesn’t know what day it is if I don’t come and personally remind him, and we see him so little that we can’t let him sulk around in this house the whole time he’s home—’

‘I can’t think of a single reason I would crave solitude,’ Alec muttered, rolling his eyes. He raked impatient hands through his wild hair, which only made him look more unruly. Not a bad look on a dangerous man, it had to be said.

‘Anyway,’ Jennifer said, ignoring him. Pointedly. ‘You should come too, Sarah. You’re more than welcome. It’s an open house, so the more the merrier. Everyone in town swings by if they can, and I’m sure they’d all love to say hello to a friend of Alec’s—’

‘Appealing, but I think Sarah would rather die.’ Alec interjected again, grumpily. ‘I know I would.’

‘To prove that he actually has a friend?’ I asked his sister sweetly, unable to help myself. ‘I can see how that might be a subject for debate.’

Jennifer snorted with laughter. Alec only eyed me from
his position near the far counter, where he was lounging and looking as disreputable and misanthropic as possible. What was wrong with me that I found him so appealing?

‘Exactly,’ Jennifer said, all but winking at me. I got the sense she would have hugged me if it was later in the day and she’d loosened up with some spiked eggnog. Or maybe if I had. ‘It would be like our very own Christmas miracle! Alec in the company of another human being who isn’t one of his patients!’

I had a vague memory of liking this woman well enough all those years ago. This morning, however, I loved her. Which immediately made me sad, of course. Because it didn’t matter how nice she was, or how funny she was, or how tempting it was to erect whole, complicated fantasies around the things she said and the rich imaginary life I could make out of them. Alec didn’t do anything that stuck, that held. He was temporary. His inability to really commit to a relationship was the one thing that would always be true about him.

And I knew that. His mouth on mine didn’t change that; if anything it only made it that much more poignant.

‘I don’t think I’m going to be around tonight,’ I said then, and the regret in my voice was real. ‘But if I was, I’d love to come.’

Jennifer smiled at me again, and then faced her brother.

‘I want you there,’ she told him. ‘No arguments.’

‘I’m coming for Christmas,’ he retorted, in a tone that
suggested this was the latest round of this particular battle. ‘You can’t get blood from a stone, Jen.’

‘But I should be able to get my only sibling to a party during the one tiny window of time he’s home all year,’ she threw back at him. ‘Don’t be such a baby, Alec. It’s a party, not a pit of snakes. I know you like to spend social events with your back pressed to the wall, making snide comments to yourself, and that’s perfectly okay. We expect nothing less from you. Just come and be your delightful self and give the neighbours something to talk about until your next trip home. Please? Can you do that?’

‘I’ll think about it,’ he said, in a voice that said
no, I will not
.

‘Merry Christmas Eve, then,’ she said, beaming as if he’d actually agreed. She turned that smile on me. ‘I hope to see you again tonight, Sarah.’ She waved a hand towards the big kitchen window, looking back at Alec. ‘If you see any arterial blood down there, call. Or perform whatever surgery you think is necessary. I trust you.’ She laughed. ‘Medically, anyway.’

She headed for the door while I turned and looked out of the window. Down on the pond, a group of kids in bright puffy parkas were engaged in what looked like a particularly rowdy game of ice hockey in the sparkling winter sunshine, which explained why Alec had been shovelling the ice clear of snow yesterday. It suggested he was maybe a little bit less surly-to-the-bone than he acted. I didn’t know what to do with that possibility.

‘Nice to see you again, Sarah!’ Jen called over her shoulder, and then the heavy front door slammed behind her.

‘Why would you encourage her?’ Alec asked. I couldn’t decide if he sounded a little bit appalled or if he was about to start laughing again. I decided the latter wasn’t very likely. This was Alec, after all. Mr Grim and Resolute at all times.

‘I was completely unable to help myself,’ I offered freely. I was still staring out of the window, though I quickly admitted that I was really trying to see his reflection in the glass. It seemed safer than turning around.

‘You’ve created expectations,’ he said then, and I realized there really was laughter there, lurking around in his voice. ‘You’ll have to stay and fulfil them.’

I laughed myself, and turned then to find him watching me with that same dark, fulminating look he’d had trained on me in the upstairs hallway. I had much the same reaction now as I had then.

Heat. Fire. Holy shit.

‘Are you talking about your sister or you?’ I asked breathlessly.

‘Does it matter?’ He shrugged. His eyes never left mine. ‘For the first time in at least three decades, Jennifer and I want the same thing. Talk about Christmas miracles. How can you refuse?’

I meant to. I really did. I tried.

But Alec decided to turn the day into the re-enactment
of some kind of Christmas carol, and I was helpless to resist his version of a winter wonderland. We went ice skating – or he did, with his usual careless athletic ease, while I hobbled around stiff-legged and wobbly and did several highly ungraceful headers into the snow banks around the pond. We warmed up afterwards with hot chocolate complete with marshmallows, which he made a big production out of continually feeding into my mug, so that there would never be a marshmallowless sip.

‘You have to consider the precise proportions and, of course, symmetry,’ he told me, his expression completely serious when I laughed, forcing me to nod as if I, too, had given a great deal of thought to the marshmallow situation.

‘Yes,’ I agreed very soberly. ‘Proportions and symmetry. You make a very good point.’

And he rewarded me with that flash of light in his dark gaze, which was even warmer than the hot chocolate.

We made a big lunch of ham sandwiches on thick bread with delightfully spicy wholegrain mustard and then we crashed out by the fireplace, dozing in our chairs like an old, comfortable married couple.

Though I couldn’t think about him like that, I reminded myself when I jerked awake later, dizzy and overheated from another aching sort of dream that I couldn’t allow to sink its hooks into me now that my eyes were open. This had always been the problem with Alec. He felt like forever, but he wasn’t. He didn’t have
forever
anywhere in him. And I knew that my wanting him to suddenly transform into someone he could never be was the very worst kind of wishful thinking. This was the man who could never, would never, so much as consider changing his plans. Not for me, not for anything. Did it matter if he was wonderful to be around if he was only ever around on his terms? That wasn’t a life. That was
his
life.

‘Come with me to this party,’ he said some time later, when we’d both woken up and dealt with our inevitable post-nap crankiness to some degree. ‘It will be awkward and embarrassing. You’ll love it.’

The sun outside was inching down toward the hills and I couldn’t stay. Of course I couldn’t stay. There was nothing for me here. But I couldn’t seem to get up from my chair and start for the door, either.

‘Stop waiting on me,’ I snapped at him as he tried to hand me another cup of coffee. ‘It’s making me feel crazy.’

‘The coffee is not what’s making you feel crazy,’ he contradicted me, completely unperturbed.

He put the mug down on the small table next to me and then squatted down in front of the chair, which, of course, brought him way too close to me. I sucked in a breath and tried not to move, afraid my body would simply
explode
into him, regardless of my instinct to be cautious. To hold back.

‘You’re right,’ I said. I eyed him. I did not look at how easily he squatted there, or how gorgeous he looked, all
mussed up from his nap, narrow-eyed and a little bit ornery. Just the way I liked him. I did not look at any of that. ‘It’s probably not the coffee.’

‘What are you going to do if you drive home now?’ He craned his neck around to look at the clock on the wall, then back at me, a faint hint of challenge in his voice. Or maybe not so faint. ‘It’s 4.30. You won’t even get home until almost ten. Probably later if it starts snowing, which it’s supposed to. You really want to spend Christmas Eve on the road?’

‘Alec.’ I tried to sound admonishing. Adult.
Aware
of how foolish it was for both of us to play around with a fire we had no intention of letting burn. Not really.

‘Sarah.’ He mimicked my tone perfectly and then he slid his hands on to my legs. His hands were too warm. Long, elegant fingers, but strong. A doctor’s hands. I tried to act as if I didn’t notice he was touching me. As if it didn’t affect me in the slightest.

‘If you’d wanted to leave you would have,’ he said. ‘You know you want to stay longer. I think you should. Do you want me to beg you?’

That was far too intriguing. ‘Would you?’

‘I might.’ He smiled, slowly. Dangerously. ‘But I don’t think you’d like the way I beg. By which I mean, you’d like it too much and we’d never leave this house.’ His dark gaze burned. His hands didn’t move, but I could still feel them everywhere. All over me. ‘Works for me.’

‘Um, no,’ I said, but my voice was weak. Almost as weak
as my willpower where he was concerned. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

‘Of course you don’t.’

The moment stretched out. Got hot.

It was go to his sister’s holiday party or go to bed with him, right then and there, and I couldn’t do it. I took the safer road. I told myself I had no choice. A party was a party. Sleeping with Alec, on the other hand? That was crazy.
Really
crazy.

‘So,’ I said into the taut silence. ‘Um. Is that what you’re wearing to your sister’s?’

His smile deepened, and his hands tightened against my legs and then let go.

‘Your loss,’ he whispered.

And I couldn’t help but agree.

Alec drove us over through the quiet, snowy streets, brooding the whole way, as if Christmas Eve were a torture designed specifically to hurt him and his sister’s house was his personal Guantanamo Bay.

‘You’re scowling like the Grinch,’ I told him mildly from the passenger seat. ‘Not that I mind necessarily, but you run the risk of scaring small children away. Maybe that’s your goal?’

‘You’re hilarious.’

But his expression lightened.

Jen’s house down in the village was cheerful and bright, and was overflowing with holiday spirit. Holly garlands,
ropes of pine, and two separate Christmas trees. Mistletoe in every doorway. Fat stuffed Santas, mischievous elves, and blinking reindeer arranged just so on the front lawn. Carols poured from the speakers and the tables were laden down with piles of holiday delicacies. Children and dogs charged through the happy rooms, and everyone inside greeted Alec with a warm smile. It was like stepping into a living, breathing Christmas card. I couldn’t decide if I loved it or hated it, or if I had a whole host of far more complicated reactions altogether, so I helped myself to a cup of thick, rich eggnog liberally laced with rum and decided not to ask myself questions that had no right answers.

‘Are you happy?’ Alec muttered at his sister when we found her in the kitchen, her cheeks red and hair curling as she wrestled with something in a giant pot on the stovetop. ‘I’m here.’