One Perfect Night (3 page)

She frowned, fiddling with a few locks of her golden glory. “I think I’m lost.”

He chuckled at her blunt admission, then reasoned it would be best to fill her in on the situation and what he hoped to achieve by bringing a date. “My family is love-crazy. My aunt and uncle have just celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary and you’d be forgiven for mistaking them as newlyweds. My cousins, all paired off like doves, are procreating like rabbits.”

Her eyes twinkled. “Let me guess…they’re trying to marry you off too?”

“Very astute.”

“And would that be so bad?” Penelope asked, exchanging the water bottle for her glass and leaning back in the seat again. She tugged at the bottom of her skirt, seemingly trying to cover a bit more flesh. He wished she wouldn’t bother.

“Marriage, I mean.”

At her clarifier, he whipped his eyes from where they’d lingered too long on her thighs and answered decisively, “Yes, that would be terrible.” He didn’t tell her he’d been there, done that, got the welts across his heart to prove it. “Besides I’m old enough to make my own choice and, year after year, I have to sit there and smile politely, make passable chit-chat over dinner with women
they
deem suitable.
Boring
women.”

“Poor Cameron,” she crooned, tilting her head to one side and offering what was clearly fake sympathy.

She wasn’t sympathetic, she was bloody amused. And her wicked, almost seductive grin leaped right off her face, threatening to knock his restraint right into the next century. He sat on one hand and grasped his glass more firmly with the other.

“Too right poor me,” he answered, returning her smile. “You should see some of the shockers they’ve thrown at me. So, if I’m forced to spend one more Christmas Eve with a strange woman, it might as well be one I find entertaining.”

“Strange?” The mock outrage in her voice echoed in the confined cabin of the limo.

He nodded, making a point of scrutinizing her outfit.

“You do recall this is a costume,” she said, but squirmed a little anyway and crimson blossomed in her cheeks. “If you’d let me go home and get changed, I could have been quite presentable. Believe it or not, I scrub up quite well.”

“I believe it.” Truthfully he didn’t find her strange at all. Sexy-as-all-hell, endearing, witty…so much so in fact that he was seriously questioning his decision to take her to Rose’s for Christmas. There he’d have to share. And right now sharing was the last thing on his mind. Instead he fantasized about wining and dining and then taking her home to his place and losing the fairy attire in a slow and tantalizing manner. It was all he could do to summon the self-control not to tap on the glass and demand the driver turn around and head back to the city. Straight to his Point Piper apartment.

“Trust me, my nieces will love your outfit and there wasn’t time to change. I’m already late because of Molly’s party.”

“Ahh.” She offered him one nod of her head. “In that case, shouldn’t we get to know each other better?”

He swallowed at her words as the first interpretation of her suggestion rushed to the forefront of his mind, which in turn sent a short, sharp message to his groin. He swallowed the urge to wrap his hand around the back of her neck, draw her fine lips up against his own and kiss her senseless. If they started, he couldn’t guarantee they’d stop and he wouldn’t disappoint Auntie Rose. He cleared his throat. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

“You want them to think we’re dating, right? So they don’t try and set you up with anyone in the foreseeable future.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, if we were dating, there’d be certain things I’d know about you and things I’d expect you to know about me.”

“Such as?” He rubbed his jaw line, trying not to tense at her suggestion. When it came to women, he no longer did the getting-to-know-you bit. He didn’t like to know whether a woman preferred cats over dogs, chocolate over ice cream, winter over summer. Nothing Personal was his motto. He only cared whether she preferred bikinis over G-strings and even then he wasn’t fussy as long as, when the underwear was discarded, they matched each other sexually.

“Such as how many sugars you take in your coffee?”

“Trust me, my family like to party. There’ll be no coffee drinking tonight.”

She refused to be deterred. “That’s beside the point. If we were together, I’d know the little things.”

“Black, no sugar,” he conceded. After all, it wasn’t like this was real. “What about you?”

“I don’t drink much but when I do it’s with milk and one sugar. What side of the bed do you sleep on?”

“Sweetheart, if we were sleeping together, there’d be no sides. It’d be a case of who’s on top and who’s on the bottom.”

“Are you trying to make me spill my drink again?” Only the slight wobble of her fingers and a beautiful blush in her cheeks gave any indication she wasn’t as unaffected as she wanted to pretend.

“Not at all. Next question?”

They continued tossing almost inane questions back and forth like tennis stars knocking a ball across the court. Only, unlike opposing players, they inched closer and closer, so that when they arrived at his aunt and uncle’s house, their thighs were practically touching and the heat between them could have ignited a bushfire.

For once, on arrival at this house, the tension in Cameron’s body wasn’t caused by bitter memories and mental discomfort—it was purely physical. And he knew there’d be only one fail-proof way to decimate it. Almost blinded by the flashing Santa perched up on his aunt and uncle’s roof, he picked up his gym bag, resolving to hold it in front of his groin while they walked toward the house and he imagined it was raining ice-cold hail.

“Cameron!”

The door swung open before they’d even stepped onto the porch. Christmas carols blared from the stereo inside and he could already smell the delicious festive fare. Chelsea, his youngest cousin, held her arms open wide. He grabbed Penelope’s hand, his fingers squeezing a secret message of allegiance at the same time as Chelsea’s mouth dropped wide open.

“Well, hello there,” she said, her eyebrows stretching. The action caused the silly reindeer ears upon her head to jiggle. “Cameron, you sly dog, you didn’t tell us you were bringing someone special.”

As was the way with this lot, she turned before he had a chance to reply and hollered into the house. “Hey, everyone, Cameron’s brought a…a guest.”

Even the nieces looked up from where they were playing with the train set that chugged around the tree every Christmas. Auntie Rose bustled in from the kitchen, a faded apron with the logo of an Aussie Rules football team hanging around her waist. She rubbed her hands against the garment and then stepped forward to wrap him in one of her famous hugs.

“It’s good to see you, sweet stuff.”

Cameron dropped the gym bag to the floor but held firm on to Penelope’s hand as he tried not to flinch.

When Rose finally let go, he tugged Penelope into his side and refused to ponder how nicely she fitted. “Everyone, I’d like you to meet Penelope.”

Peppa’s insides warmed in a way she knew they shouldn’t. Although Cameron didn’t say
girlfriend, lover
or even
friend,
the inflection in his voice and the way his eyes never faltered from her face as he drew her close made her feel special. It was a facade. Yet, his family obviously jumped to the right conclusion—that she was his significant other—and the smiles stretching across each and every face told her this fact pleased them immensely.

“So lovely to meet you and what a fabulous outfit,” said the woman Peppa guessed to be his auntie as she swept her into her arms. Peppa hugged her back, surprised but loving the discovery that his family was so warm and touchy-feely. Just her kind of people. “I’m Rose, but please, call me Auntie Rose.”

She meant to explain her costume, but Auntie Rose stole Peppa’s hand from Cameron before she had the chance and swept around the room introducing Cameron’s five cousins, their spouses and his nine nieces with a personalized introduction for each of them. Peppa pondered how much this woman reminded her of her own mother. Or rather how Marcy Grant would have been if Mother Nature had blessed her with a body that let her live up to her dream. Fussing around lots of children and grandchildren, loving every minute of it.

Instead, tomorrow’s Christmas at her parents’ would be intimate and quiet. The love would be there, the warmth, the absolute joy that comes with spending time with those nearest and dearest to you, but three people could never achieve the atmosphere that buzzed in this house.

When the introductions were over, Chelsea ushered Peppa into a comfy armchair adorned in a bright, multicolored crochet blanket. The small room was packed to the cornices with people but everyone wore giant grins and silly Christmas T-shirts. Everyone except Cameron that is.

“Now Uncle Cam’s here, can we open the presents?” asked a sing-songy voice from the floor near the Christmas tree.

“Please, go ahead.” Cameron stepped forward and upended his gym bag in front of his bouncing nieces. “Why don’t you start with mine?”

As the girls scrambled to the impressively wrapped pile, Peppa watched, fascinated and curious to find out what Cameron had purchased. Out came top-of-the-range dolls, a new hot-pink stereo for the eldest niece, magazine subscriptions, cool clothes, movie tickets, a pretty pink-and-purple tea set. He’d successfully catered to every little girl fetish. Peppa found it difficult to connect this man with the boss she’d never before met but had heard plenty of tales about at the office.

“Hope this isn’t too boring for you.”

Peppa jerked, her spine tingling as if someone had run a delicate feather down her back. Instead it was Cameron’s warm whisper in her ear as he perched on the arm of her chair. She hadn’t noticed him leave the room but now he proffered her another glass of something cold and bubbly. She took the glass, this time playing dangerously and making certain her fingers
did
brush against his.

“Not at all,” she whispered, looking up into his eyes, his face so close she could see end-of-the-day stubble sprouting. Where most reports said he was always clean-shaven and immaculately dressed, she liked this version better—the skin on his jaw line rough and his tie slightly askew. “I get a kick out of watching people open presents.” She nodded toward the girls on the floor. “And, it looks like you’re a very insightful giver.”

He shrugged her compliment off. “It’s not like they’re hard to please. Rose, now she’s a different matter.”

Peppa took another sip of wine, following Cameron’s gaze through a doorway to where Rose was prepping food in the kitchen. It looked as if Rose had everything she needed right here. “Is she your mum or dad’s sister?”

Cameron visibly flinched. She saw his grip tighten on his beer glass and the muscles in his neck constrict. Why hadn’t she thought to ask these kinds of basics in the car? Instead she’d been polishing her flirting skills asking innocuous but suggestive questions. Still, as his pretend “whatever,” these were things she really should know and she tilted her chin upward and met his gaze full-on, telling him she would wait for the answer.

He sighed, yanked his tie and pulled it right off his collar. Fisting it in a ball, he shoved the dusty red garment in his pocket and spoke. “She was my mum’s sister. The poor woman already had three children of her own when she was landed with me.”

So he’d lost his mum and his aunt had raised him. What could Peppa say to that? The obvious affection in Rose’s eyes when she’d pulled Cameron into her embrace told Peppa his aunt didn’t think him a burden at all, but she got the feeling Cameron wouldn’t appreciate this observation from a stranger. And, as at home as she felt in this room, as wonderful as she felt in
his
presence, that was all she was—a practical stranger doing a favor to repay a debt. She’d do well to remember that.

Once the presents were all opened and Cameron’s family had chastised him for not telling them Peppa was coming so they could buy her presents too, they all moved into the dining room and crowded round the table.

Cameron sat beside her and she tried to resist the urge to look sideways at him. Every time her eyes caught on his devil’s grin, her stomach flip-flopped and she lost her train of thought. Sometimes midconversation. She was certain his family thought her a silly airhead and were probably wondering what he saw in her.

“Are you two spending Christmas with your family?” asked Lisa, one of the other cousins.

Peppa opened her mouth to speak and, as she did so, she felt slight pressure of what felt like warm flesh against her stocking-covered calf. She looked up to catch a glint in Cameron’s eyes. So the collision hadn’t been an accident. “Um, yeah.” She hated lying, especially to his family when they’d been so welcoming and lovely. “I love Christmas and spend every one at my parents’ house in the Blue Mountains.”

“Oooh, I love the Blue Mountains,” said Cameron’s Uncle Norm.

Thankfully, discussion wandered to everyone’s tales of daytrips and school excursions to the popular tourist destination and, bar the odd well-placed smile and murmur of agreement, Peppa didn’t have to make much contribution to the conversation. It soon became apparent that Cameron’s fingers against her skin were definitely not accidental.

As the meal and conversation progressed, so did the boldness of his hand. Her mind ordered her to resist the sensations that flooded her body at his touch. Her body didn’t listen. It was all she could do not to visibly swoon as his fingers trekked slowly up her leg trailing a hot path and shooting a delicious heat right to her core.

“Can you pass the potatoes?” asked Cameron, his fist nudging between her knees.

She really should squeeze them together tightly, but two could play at this game and she wondered how far he’d go. Smiling sweetly and lifting the serving dish of crisp roasted potatoes, she opened her legs a fraction.

“Thanks.” He gave a dangerous grin as one hand took the bowl and the other slid up the inside of her thigh.

She gulped, her heart threatening cardiac arrest and sweat pooling under her bra-line. If his fingers trespassed any higher, he’d feel her desire through her stockings and know how hot she was for him. Her cheeks at fever-pitch, she pushed back from the table. “Excuse me, Rose, can you tell me where the bathroom is?”