“My stuff,” he said, latching his seat belt and backing out of the lot. His jaw squared mulishly.
“Stuff? What kind of stuff?”
“Snack stuff. Food I can eat while all the rest of you are scarfing down fruitcake.”
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “You aren’t going to be at ‘Clara’s House’ long enough to see anyone eat fruitcake. You’re turning right around after you drop me off, and going home.”
He slanted her one of those “wanna bet?” looks, but said nothing.
“Luke?” she persisted.
He sucked in a deep breath and glowered at her as he drove along the deserted highway. It must be three A.M. by now. “Jessie, you can’t possibly think I’m going to return tonight. I’m exhausted. We’re in the middle of a blizzard. Do you want me to have an accident?”
“No, but…” Little alarm bells were ringing all through her body. She wasn’t sure how much exposure she could take to this guy, how long she could resist the attraction.
“Surely your Aunt Clara has a sofa or something where I can crash for the night.” He fluttered those feather-duster lashes at her. It was a ploy he’d probably perfected over the years to suck in susceptible women…like her.
She immediately felt guilty for her lack of charity, especially since Luke had gone out of his way to help her. And it wasn’t as if “Clara’s House” didn’t have plenty of room. The old gingerbread Victorian had three stories and about eight bedrooms. “Oh, all right. But just for one night.”
She could have sworn he murmured under his breath, “That’s all I need.” But when she scrutinized him closer, he stared straight ahead. Innocent as a cobra. Or a blood-sucking vampire.
The next morning, Luke awakened in a third-floor bedroom of “Clara’s House” to a wet tongue tracing his lips. His morning hard-on shot up like a rocket.
Wow! What a wake-up call! He hadn’t expected his plan to work this fast. He must have more charm than he’d realized. It appeared as if the wild sex was going to come sooner than he’d expected.
With a growl, he reached up to pull Jessie into bed with him.
And she growled back.
Rather, it growled. A huge yellow dog was standing next to the bed with its long tongue hanging out. Fred, he concluded immediately. Jessie’s randy mutt.
Yech! was his next thought as he realized the dog’s tongue had been lapping his mouth. He’d probably get ringworm or something.
He stood and stretched with a loud yawn. The house seemed awfully quiet. Checking his watch, he saw that it was already nine o’clock.
No one had been awake when they’d arrived the night before at four A.M. So Jessie had worried in vain that Aunt Clara would be frantic about her safety. They’d brought the grocery bags and boxes in from the car without awakening anyone and gone immediately to bed.
Jessie had made a point of putting him on the third floor with the boys. Her bedroom was a floor below. No problem. She didn’t stand a chance now that he had time on his side. Wild sex, here I come.
First things first. He wasn’t sure which screaming body organ needed the most attention, his empty stomach or his full bladder. He opted for the bathroom first, with Fred padding after him like a shadow. “So, Fred, knocked up any poodles lately?”
“Woof, woof.”
“You old dog, you!”
After leaving the bathroom, whose antiquated plumbing clunked and sputtered in protest, he headed downstairs where he heard chattering voices coming from what he assumed was the kitchen. He was about to push open the closed door when he paused.
“Where did you get those Frosted Flakes?” he heard Jessie’s voice ask shrilly.
“They were in the grocery bags,” a small-boy voice answered.
“Well, don’t eat them. They belong to our guest, Luke Carter. And he’s leaving.”
“But I already put milk on them,” the kid whined. “And there’s three other kinds of cereal, too. How’s he gonna eat all this stuff himself? Is he fat?”
There was a long silence, for which Luke planned to punish Jessie later, before she answered simply, “No.”
But the kid didn’t give up. “Besides, how’s this Luke dude gonna leave now? There’s three feet of snow covering his car. And I’m not shoveling that driveway again. It’s a mile long.”
Three feet of snow? He smiled. God, or someone, was on his side.
Jessie groaned. Apparently she didn’t consider the snow a heavenly blessing. Yet.
“Do you think he knows anything about karate?” the kid went on to the accompaniment of slurping noises.
It must be Willie, the eleven-year-old Bruce Lee clone Jessie had described.
“Oh, you are such a toad,” a girl’s voice said. “Karate, karate, karate…that’s all you think about.”
“Yeah, at least I’m improving my body. You give yours away like lollipops, Darlene. You are a slut. S-L-U-T.”
“I’m gonna kill you, you little twerp.”
“Put down your knife, Darlene,” Jessie cautioned.
Well, enough eavesdropping for now. Luke pushed open the kitchen door and saw four stunned kids gaping at him, and one not-so-pleased adult woman.
“Oh, my Gawd!” a young girl wearing enough makeup to plaster a wall exclaimed. Darlene. “It’s Brad Pitt. Aunt Jessie brought home a movie star.”
On the other side of the table, a fat black girl with buck teeth was inhaling Pop Tarts as if they might disappear. Kajeeta. She scrutinized him from head to toe, found him not so interesting, and went on eating.
Another boy, wearing wire-rimmed spectacles and a condescending expression, was reading the back of the Frosted Flakes package, reciting the ingredients. He wore a catalog picture of a computer taped to his forehead probably as a Christmas hint. Henry, aka Bill Gates. He swept Luke with an appraising look, taking in his well-worn jeans and ratty black T-shirt, before asking, “How many credit cards do you have?”
Luke stifled a laugh.
Then a skinny little kid with orange hair, about two zillion freckles, and ears that could propel an airplane—Willie—piped in, “Wanna see my numchucks?” He waved a hand in the air, holding a pair of foot-long black sticks connected by a small chain—nunchakus.
Jessie glanced with horror at each of the kids, then him, before laying her head down on the table in resignation.
He plopped down in the chair next to Jessie, patted her shoulders, then beamed at the kids. “Hi, I’m Luke. You can call me Uncle Luke. Your Aunt Jessie and I are gonna get married soon. You’re all invited to the wedding.”
Chapter Four
A half hour later, Luke was outside helping Willie and Henry and Kajeeta shovel the driveway, which indeed seemed about a mile long and three feet deep in snow. And the flakes continued to come down steadily. Thank you, God! I’m trapped. Darlene was inside, probably painting her toenails or something equally important. Fred was rolling in the snow like an orgasmic lunatic. He probably smelled female dog scent in the buried grass.
After Luke had made his amazing wedding declaration in the kitchen—it had amazed even him—Jessie had sputtered at him unintelligibly for several moments before hissing, “We have to talk…in private. You dolt!”
He was pretty sure she didn’t have wild sex in mind. So he took his cue and hightailed it outside to shovel his butt off. With any luck, Jessie would cool off before he went back inside.
“Do you have a computer?” Henry asked him, jolting him back to the present as he pushed his foggy glasses up on the bridge of his nose for the umpteenth time. The colors from the computer on his forehead were bleeding down his nose and onto his cheeks from the wet snow. He looked ridiculous.
There were teenagers in the world today buying guns and drugs, Luke thought. All this boy wanted was a lousy computer.
Luke felt like crying.
Or hugging the kid.
Or driving to the nearest Computer World and buying him whatever equipment he wanted. Which was impossible wit
h the roads blocked by the storm. Not that Jessie, with her raging pride, would ever allow him such an extravagant charity.
“Yeah, I have a computer,” Luke finally answered. “Nothing fancy. Just an IBM home system.”
That was all it took. Henry spat out one question after another about megabytes and rams and high-tech software programs, none of which Luke was able to answer. He scarcely knew what a cursor was.
“Hie-yah!” Willie yelled as he attempted a flying side kick, landing with a thud on his well-padded bottom. The Karate Kid he was not. Slack-jawed, Luke watched as the youngster dusted himself off, then waddled over, wearing so many layers of clothing he looked like a roly-poly bear, with only his eyes and mouth visible under a wool cap and scarf. “I’ll show you my moves if you show me yours,” Willie said right off.
Luke choked.
“Give me a break!” Henry said, and tramped away to the other end of the driveway to shovel, muttering, “Not that again!”
“I beg your pardon,” Luke squeaked out to Willie, who was staring up at him, avidly awaiting his answer.
“I’m plannin’ on getting my black belt in karate, but I’m havin’ trouble with some of the moves,” Willie explained, meanwhile poking out his tongue to catch snowflakes in little-boy fashion.
Oh! The boy is talking about karate moves. Whew! I shoulda known. Luke caught himself poking out his own tongue to catch snowflakes.
“So, are you into karate? Do you have a black belt? Huh?” Willie persisted. “Betcha you do, lookin’ like Brad Pitt and all. Betcha you learned all the moves early on, to impress the chicks and all. Like Chuck Norris.”
Oh, my God! More like the Ninja turtles.
“How come your eyes are crossed? You look really weird when you do that. Aunt Clara says your face might freeze forever and ever if you make faces. You’re not gonna teach me any karate moves, are you? Grownups never have the time for kids,” he grumbled. Throwing down his shovel, he stalked toward the house.
Kajeeta huffed up the slight incline from the bottom of the driveway, and Luke braced himself. What was this? Trial by kid?
When the girl drew near, Luke got his licks in first. “I’ve got to make a telephone call. Can you finish this small section?”
“Phone’s disconnected,” Kajeeta panted out. If Willie had looked like a roly-poly bear, Kajeeta resembled a huge, mutant peach in her oversized, pale orange, one-piece snow suit.
“Huh?”
“Willie was makin’ so many 900 calls to one of those karate hotlines, he ran the bill up to two hundred dollars. Aunt Clara refused to pay, and Ma Bell cut us off.”
Oh, great! Good thing I have a cellular phone in the back of my car. I can’t let Jessie know about that, though. Nope. She’d probably call a helicop ter service to air-evac me out.
“I want to be a dancer someday…and a singer,” Kajeeta informed him out of the clear blue sky.
Her comment had no relevance whatsoever to anything, not that Willie or Henry’s questions did, either. Hell, were these kids so lonely for company that they’d spill their guts to any stranger?
Yes.
“Do you think I have a chance?”
“Everybody has a chance,” he assured her, and he meant it.
She beamed at him as if he’d handed her a million bucks.
These kids of Clara’s, who clearly had emotional problems, tugged at Luke’s heartstrings. “If you don’t dream big, it’s not worth dreaming at all,” he continued with a catch in his voice. “And there isn’t anything in the world a person can’t have if they want it badly enough.”
He kept his fingers crossed behind his back as he spoke because he sure as hell wanted Jessie. And he didn’t want to believe there was any chance he couldn’t get her.
But how did he convince her?
Wild sex, he decided with sudden, pure male insight. Yep, that made sense. He was great in the sack, if he did say so himself. All he had to do was seduce Jessie into his bed. Then he’d convince her that he was her Christmas Miracle, not her Christmas Curse.
He handed his shovel to Kajeeta, who was still rambling on about her dreams and Weight Watchers and dance lessons and menstrual cramps and God only knew what else. He started toward the house, a determined glint in his eye.
A little niggling voice in his brain suggested that perhaps he ought to try convincing Jessie of his love first, but another part of his body, down a lot lower, moved. It actually moved. And he could swear it said, wild sex, wild sex, wild sex.
Who was Luke to argue?
No sooner did Luke hang up his coat on a wooden peg in the kitchen than Jessica grabbed the infuriating man by his ponytail and dragged him into the small, closet-like pantry, locking the door behind her.
“Ouch!” he complained.
She released him and planted a hand on each of her hips, clad in a pair of skintight jeans. Her suitcase was in the car Julio had stolen, so she’d had no choice but to wear a pair of Darlene’s jeans and a T-shirt that read “Born To Be Wild.” It was all part of the Christmas Curse, of course.
Luke was grinning at her.
She shoved him hard with a palm against his chest. “I could kill you for telling those kids such an outrageous lie about our marrying.”
He didn’t budge an inch. “Now, Jessie—”
“And stop looking at my hips. I know they’re too big. You don’t have to…oomph!”
He hauled her flush against his body and leaned back against the counter top. “Your hips are perfect,” he rasped out. Then, before she could react, he spread his long legs and pulled her even tighter into the cradle of his thighs.
Jessie saw stars as the most incredible sensations shot like wildfire through her instantly attuned nerve endings. She forgot why she was so mad at Luke, why she’d shanghaied him into the pantry, why she wanted him out of her life. Heck, she forgot her own name.
He gripped her head in both hands. “How do you feel about wild sex?” he growled just before his mouth swooped down and captured her lips, silencing any protest she might have made.
Wild sex? She would have said, “I hate it” or “How dare you!” or “Huh? What’s that?” or “Yesyesyes,” but she was incapable of coherent speech. She couldn’t talk at all. She was reduced to a whimpering vegetable as Luke devoured her mouth, alternately hard, then soft, pressing and sucking.
She barely recognized the mewling, guttural words of encouragement emitting from her. And when he forced her mouth open with his thrusting tongue, he filled her with such exquisite longing that she drew deeply on him.
He made a raw sound deep in his throat, and she exulted.
The smell of spices surrounded them—cinnamon and basil and cloves. From outside, she could hear the muted, distant laughter of the children. Upstairs in Darlene’s bedroom, a Madonna tape blasted out suggestive lyrics in a thrumming rhythm. But all Jessica could think of was the delicious feel of her body pressed up against Luke. Of his lips nuzzling her neck, whispering sweet, sinful things.
Like magic, his fingers slid up under the back of her T-shirt and deftly, with a mere flick, released the catch on her bra. She pulled back to protest, or was she arching her back in invitation? It must have been the latter, because it felt so right when his big hands moved around to the front and cupped her breasts high, from underneath, so that his mouth could take first one aching nipple, then the other through the thin fabric, and suckle deeply.
Her legs trembled all the way down to her wobbly ankles, but he held her firmly in place with his powerful thighs. His hands framed her hips, then moved in a wide caress to palm her bare buttocks.
My bare buttocks!
When had the brute unbuttoned her jeans and pulled down the zipper? When had he slipped his devious hands inside the back of her panties?
Had she lost her mind completely, letting herself be seduced by a too smooth Brad Pitt clone? Had the Christmas Curse totally blindsided her this year?
She tore her lips from his.
&nbs
p; Chest heaving, Luke looked down at the precious woman in his arms, who was stiffening with resistance by the minute. His foggy brain fought through the blistering arousal that consumed and disoriented him.
“No,” Jessie said in a small voice, but her fingers still dug into his shoulders. Luke also noticed the sexual glaze that misted her honey eyes and the deep pants that came from her parted, kiss-swollen lips.
He hadn’t lost her yet.
Wrapping his arms tightly around her waist, he walked her to the opposite counter, sitting her rump on the edge. Before she could blink, or even think of saying “no,” he swept her jeans and panties down her parted legs and pulled them off her sneakered feet, which dangled a foot from the floor.
She looked down at herself, naked from navel to calves, with obvious incredulity. Before she could bolt, Luke tilted her chin upward and held her eyes in a coaxing caress. He fished a foil packet from the back pocket of his jeans just before dropping them and his boxers to the floor.
“Please,” he whispered and guided her hand to him.
She didn’t resist. Instead, in a daze, she ran her fingertips over him lightly, in awe, before taking him in both hands.
He closed his eyes as an explosion of bright lights went off in his head. When his pulse slowed down to breakneck speed, he gently grasped her hands and placed them on his shoulders.
“We shouldn’t,” she said softly, even as she pulled him closer and spread her legs wider in welcome.
“We should,” he insisted, nipping her neck and looping his hands under her knees, dragging her tush even farther out on the edge of the counter.
“I’ll be sorry later…you’ll be sorry,” she moaned, and wrapped her legs around his waist.
“No…never,” he grunted as he eased himself into her tightness. She clenched him spasmodically, and he feared he’d come, way too soon. For long, long moments, forehead to forehead, imbedded fully, he waited out her first orgasm.
When she sighed, finally, he smiled and pulled away to examine her blushing face.
“Oh, Jessie, I love you.”
Her face paled with shock.
He hadn’t meant to say the words yet. They just came out.