“No. No, you don’t. You’re just like all men. You think you need to say…o-o-oh!”
To stifle her protests, he’d pulled out, then stroked back in. Once, twice, three excruciating times.
“I love you, Jessie. Believe that.” This time when he filled her, he twisted his hips, side to side.
She began to keen with the beginning of another climax, but he wanted to slow her down. “Look at us,” he urged her. Her half-lidded eyes moved in the direction he pointed, and widened with the same wonder he felt. Highlighted by the winter sunshine streaking through the single window in the pantry, fine red curls blended with his dark, crisp pubic hairs where they were joined, creating an erotic picture, like silken threads in a tapestry.
A tear slipped down her cheek. “We’re beautiful together,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he agreed thickly, and allowed himself to succumb to the overpowering need he had for her. This time when he withdrew and plunged into her, she rippled around him. And each time he stroked, and stroked, and stroked, he repeated, “I love you.”
She no longer protested his love words. Maybe she believed him now. Then again, maybe she was as swept away as he was by the most explosive orgasm of his life. With blood roaring in his ears, and bells ringing, he reared his head back and cried out his release, pummeling into her one last time.
Jessie shuddered from head to toe and hung onto him fiercely, crying out, “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh…”
Even when the racking shudders no longer shook them both, Luke still heard bells ringing. He had to give himself a mental pat on the back. When he’d planned wild sex, he’d never imagined that it would happen so soon or that it would be as spectacular as what he’d just experienced…bell-ringing and all that. He must be even better than he’d always thought.
“Oh, my God! It’s Aunt Clara,” Jessie said with horror.
“What about Aunt Clara?” he said, bemused, giving her luscious lips a quick kiss as he eased himself out of her body.
His first clue that he was in big trouble came when she punched him in the stomach, just before she slid to the floor and jerked on her panties and jeans.
“Ooomph!” he said in delayed reaction to her punch, although it didn’t really hurt. “Why’d you do that?” He decided to pull up his own pants, as well. Odds were against a repeat performance anytime soon.
“Because you seduced me, you creep. Because you made love to me in Aunt Clara’s pantry, for heaven’s sake. Because Aunt Clara’s bell has been ringing forever, and I’ve been down here engaging in a world-class wall-banger.”
Well, at least she has the good taste to recognize world class when it hits her like a ton of testosterone. Then, so that’s what the bell ringing was? But he didn’t voice his thoughts. Instead, he remarked, “I wasn’t the one who dragged you into the pantry by the hair looking for wild sex. You seduced me, babe, not the other way around. Not that I wasn’t willing.”
He reached for her and she slapped his hands away.
“Wild sex! That’s what you mentioned when we came in here. Yes, you did, you said something about wild sex just before you kissed me. I heard you. Don’t deny it. You deliberately seduced me.”
“Whatever.” He was in too good a mood to argue. “When can we get married? I mean, will you marry me?” Oh, boy, I’m getting this love stuff all out of order. Probably because I’m horny again. Just looking at all that wild red hair makes me hot. I wonder what she’d think if suggested…oh, boy. Slow down. “Jessie, honey,” he started over, “I love you. Will you marry me? Tomorrow. Or the day after that?” And can we go have wild sex again? Now? Maybe in that antique bathtub on the third floor.
“Love? Love?” she sputtered. “You are driving with two bricks short of a full load. And stop leering at me. You’re not touching me again.”
Wanna bet? “Leering? I don’t leer, babe. That look you see in my eye is a promise.” He jiggled his eyebrows at her and reached around to unlock the door. Aunt Clara’s bell was jingling to beat the band.
No sooner did he open the door than he saw Willie, openly eavesdropping. Willie took in the appearance of both of them, then did a little victory dance, karate style, around the kitchen.
“Oh, Lord!” Jessie said and scooted away, down the hall and toward Aunt Clara’s incessant bell-ringing.
He looked at the freckle-faced twit and knew that Jessie had deliberately abandoned him to the adolescent Bruce Lee. Probably her idea of just punishment.
“So, did you boink Aunt Jessie in the pantry?” the kid asked unabashedly.
Luke looked down to make sure he hadn’t left his zipper undone. Everything was in order. He sliced a glare at the curious boy, warning, “Willie, that’s enough.”
He started down the hall, following in Jessie’s tracks, but Willie bird-dogged right after him, throwing in a few side kicks and an occasional grunt of “Uut” along the way.
“I need a bong pole. How big is yours?”
Luke’s step faltered.
“Will you help me make one out of Aunt Clara’s broom? A bong pole’s supposed to equal your height, but I think a broom handle will do for me. Don’t you? Huh? Willya help me? Huh?”
“No.” Luke was already climbing the stairs, and Willie padded after him doggedly. No, that padding sound was Fred. Somehow they’d picked up Fred along the way.
“No?” There was a long silence following his disappointed question, and Luke walked down the second floor hall toward a bedroom where he heard voices. He’d thought he lost the kid until Willie asked, “How old were you the first time you did it to a girl?”
Luke stopped suddenly, and Willie and the dog ran into him with a yelp and a bark.
“Listen, Willie,” he said, hunkering down. “You can’t ask those kinds of questions of complete strangers.”
Willie’s face and big ears flushed bright red and his eyes filled with tears. “I don’t feel like you’re a stranger.”
And Luke felt like a rat. Hell, the kid was asking a normal question for a boy his age. But usually it was addressed to a parent…a dad. Which Willie didn’t have.
“Okay,” he said, taking a deep breath and wondering how he’d gotten himself into this predicament. “I was fourteen the first time.”
“Fourteen! Fourteen!”
Luke stood, laughing, and rumpled the boy’s hair as he continued toward Aunt Clara’s bedroom. He heard Willie mutter as he skipped back down the stairs, “Did you hear that, Fred? Fourteen! Uncle Luke musta been retarded or somethin’. Guess lookin’ like Brad Pitt doesn’t mean everything.”
Aunt Clara took one look at him when he entered the bedroom and exclaimed, “Thank the Lord! He sent me a miracle.”
Luke cast Jessie a knowing smirk that said clearly, “See, I am so a Christmas Miracle.”
Jessie was sitting on a straight-backed chair next to the bed, talking to a sixtyish gray-haired woman with one leg encased in a white cast from toe to thigh.
“Aunt Clara, this is Lucas Carter, the man I told you about who helped me last night when the van got stuck in the snow.”
Luke arched a brow at Jessie as he moved around to the other side of the bed. Lying to a nun now, are you, Jessie? Tsk-tsk! He leaned down and ignored the hand Aunt Clara extended to him, giving her parchment cheek a light kiss.
It was the right thing to do, he could tell immediately. She literally glowed as she took his right hand in both of hers and drew him down to sit on her bed.
“I’m so pleased to meet you, Aunt Clara…I hope you don’t mind my calling you Aunt Clara…I feel as if I know you already.”
“Of course not, my boy.” Still holding his hand, she studied him intently before nodding, as if answering one of her own silent questions. “So, Darlene tells me that you plan on marrying my sweet girl, Jessie.”
Jessie gasped and turned greenish. Probably all that fruitcake she’d consumed.
“Yes. Yes, I do,” he said firmly before Jessie could say different. “Jessie doesn
’t think I’m serious, but I am.”
“I am not going to marry him,” Jessie told Aunt Clara when she finally regained her voice. “We hardly know each other.” With that, she shot Luke a glare, daring him to contradict her. At the same time, her face turned from green to a pretty shade of pink—a nice contrast to all those unruly red ringlets—as she remembered just how well they did know each other.
“Well, I don’t know if the length of time two people know each other is a true indicator of feelings,” Aunt Clara opined.
I love this old bird. “Right,” Luke intervened quickly. “Look how long she knew Burp, and they were a mismatch from the get-go. Why, he even played”—he made an exaggerated shiver of distaste—“golf.”
“His name is Burt,” Jessie stormed.
Aunt Clara snickered behind her fingers.
“And you and I are the mismatch,” Jessica railed. “Geez, Brad Pitt and Little Orphan Annie!”
“Who’s Brad Pitt?” Aunt Clara asked.
Luke and Jessie both gaped at her, wondering what world she’d been living in the past few years.
“I’d like to get married real soon,” Luke went on, ignoring Jessie’s hiss of warning. “How soon do you think it will be before you’re out of that cast, Aunt Clara?”
“Well, the doctor said I could have a soft cast next week,” she said tentatively.
“Golly,” he said contemplatively, tapping his chin. “I don’t know if I can wait that long.” He turned to an outraged Jessie. “What do you think, honey? Can you wait for a whole week?”
“Lucas, I just knew when I saw you walk through that door that you were the answer to my prayers,” Aunt Clara said, smiling at him.
He’d like to be the answer to someone’s prayers, although not a nun’s. But Jessie didn’t look much like she was in the mood for praying. In fact, her eyes were crossed. Someone ought to tell her about faces freezing and stuff. Perhaps he should call Willie.
“You are the worst Christmas Curse I’ve ever had,” Jessie gritted out at him.
Aunt Clara gasped at her harsh words, and Luke felt a little twinge of hurt, as well.
“Jessica Jones, what an awful thing to say! I brought you up better than that.” Then Aunt Clara’s frown melted away as she confided in a softer voice, “I was praying this morning for a Christmas Miracle. Who are we to question the answer God gives us? A miracle is a miracle.”
Aunt Clara and Jessie looked at him then—him, the miracle.
Aunt Clara beamed.
Jessie’s honey eyes threw sparks of disbelief.
Luke wondered how soon till he could have wild sex again.
Chapter Five
Later that afternoon, they were all in the living room, decorating a huge blue spruce tree that Luke and the kids had dragged in from the woods behind the house. Christmas carols played on the radio in the background, interrupted repeatedly by storm warnings.
Aunt Clara was reclining on the sofa in front of the fireplace where Luke had carried her two hours ago. She gave them gentle instructions as to which ornament went where while her knitting needles clicked away at one of her perpetual afghans.
“Are you still mad at me, honey?” Luke said close to Jessica’s ear, causing her to jump about two feet.
“Criminey, do you have to sneak up on me all the time?” she snapped.
She’d been avoiding the rascal all day, along with his knowing looks, his disarming smiles, and “accidental” touches. Luke had laughed, and stalked her just the same.
She couldn’t believe she’d actually made love with a man she’d met the night before. She hadn’t been thinking. It had happened too soon. It shouldn’t have happened at all.
She had to get rid of the tempting hunk soon or lose her sanity. Or something worse. Her heart.
“What do you call a nun with one leg?” he asked with a glimmer of humor in his flashing eyes, slanting a glance at Aunt Clara to make sure she didn’t overhear.
A joke? She tried to look at him disapprovingly.
“Hopalong Chastity.”
She giggled reluctantly, and Luke used that opportunity to put an arm around her shoulder and squeeze her close.
Despite the thrill of excitement engendered by that slight embrace, she ducked and escaped, putting several feet between them.
He chuckled.
“Maybe you can still leave tonight…if the roads get cleared,” she suggested.
Why did her heart constrict at the possibility? He’d have to leave sometime. If not tonight, then tomorrow. Everyone she’d ever loved left eventually. He would, too.
Not that I love him.
And there he went again, looking at her with such hurt, and longing, in his beautiful eyes. He did it every time she rebuffed him.
It’s not as if he really loves me.
But what if he did?
“No way!” Willie protested. “Uncle Luke can’t leave tonight. He’s makin’ Philadelphia cheese steaks for dinner.”
That was another thing that made Jessie mad. No one would eat her peanut butter sandwiches. They were scarfing down all the junk food Luke had bought, including minute steaks and rolls for a Christmas Eve dinner. He must have spent a hundred dollars in that Uni-Mart.
And Aunt Clara wasn’t even protesting that they would miss Vilia, the traditional Slovak Christmas Eve dinner she always prepared, where everyone must taste at least twelve of the many dishes assembled, presumably in honor of the twelve apostles. The merry meal always included, at the least, the core items of oplatky, the Christmas communion wafers dipped in honey; bobalky, braided homemade bread; red wine; pierogies, the little cheese-stuffed pies; several kinds of fish; mushroom soup; poppyseed rolls; sauerkraut; nuts; and fresh fruit.
Well, she had to give Luke credit. In the spirit of improvisation, he was putting together a new-age Vilia supper, complete with Philadelphia cheese steaks, Frosted Flakes, Fruit Loops, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Hawaiian Punch, and fruitcake, of course. And everyone—all the kids and Aunt Clara—acted as if everything was hunky-dory.
Was she the only one worried to death about the Christmas Curse, and the kind of holiday disaster that loomed this year?
“You can’t make Uncle Luke leave. He’s gonna show me how to dance the Philadelphia Stomp later tonight,” Kajeeta said, interrupting Jessica’s dismal thoughts. Kajeeta peered up shyly at Luke for confirmation.
“Yep,” he told Kajeeta, and then caught Jessica’s skeptical frown. “And if you’re real good, sugar, I’ll do the two-step with you.” He winked suggestively and whispered sotto voce, “Re-e-eal slow. After the kids have gone to sleep.”
“In your dreams!” she said haughtily. But already he’d planted some tantalizing pictures in her mind. The Christmas-tree lights flickering in the darkened room, fireplace roaring, soft music…Get a grip, girl.
“And Luke said he would French braid my hair,” Darlene added, having just condescended to join the group.
Everyone gawked at Luke, astounded.
He shrugged with a sheepish grin. “Hey, my sister Ellie made me do her hair when we were kids. She was bigger than me then, and considered me her personal slave.”
Everyone laughed at the image of Luke being forced by his sister to be her slave.
“Aunt Jessie, you oughta hang onto this guy,” Henry added in the end. “He’s a lot better than that Burp fellow you brought here last year.”
She started to tell Henry that his name was not Burp, but all the kids were having such a good time. And besides, the name Burp suited the jerk much better than Burt, anyhow. So she joined in the goodnatured ribbing.
“Tell us about your work,” Aunt Clara asked Luke, her nimble fingers moving the knitting needles in an intricate pattern as she spoke.
Luke was on a ladder putting a star atop the tall tree.
“Yeah, did you ever bodyguard anyone famous?” Henry asked as he helped to brace the shaky ladder.
“Sure. All the time,” Luke answered, tiltin
g his head this way and that until he positioned the star just right. “Even Bill Gates one time,” he told a flabbergasted Henry as he descended the ladder and folded it, preparing to take it out to the kitchen. “He hired me and four other guys to accompany him to Japan. It was a time when there was a lot of anti-American sentiment there.”
Henry was gazing at Luke as if he were God.
“And I just came back yesterday afternoon from working a Janet Jackson concert at the Spectrum in South Philly,” he told a very impressed Kajeeta as he passed en route to the kitchen.
When he reentered the living room, all the kids jumped on him with eager questions.
“Do you really know Janet Jackson?” Kajeeta wanted to know.
“Well, I wouldn’t say we’re friends. But, yes, I’ve met her and worked for her.”
“How about movie stars?” Darlene asked.
“Yep. Lots of movie stars, like Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone, Antonio Banderas, Kim Basinger. And rock stars. Once I guarded Madonna…now, that was a trip,” he recalled with amusement. “Even Michael Jackson, though he usually has his own private security team.”
“Did you ever bodyguard Chuck Norris?” Willie wanted to knowz.
Luke shook his head negatively. “Mostly I work for politicians—those who aren’t high up enough to qualify for CIA protection, and corporate bigwigs traveling in third world countries.”
“Wow!” the kids sighed.
Luke addressed Aunt Clara then, seeming to give her a special silent message. “Once I even guarded Mother Teresa.”
“O-o-oh, Luke,” Aunt Clara breathed. Her simple words said loud and clear that she thought Luke was the answer to her Christmas prayers…sent special delivery by God, via Mother Teresa, no doubt.
Jessie felt the happiness and Christmas spirit swell around her, filling the room, but it was a sham. Because these kids still believed…perhaps not in Santa Claus…but in miracles. And there was going to be no miracle when they came downstairs tomorrow and found no gifts.
“Stop worrying, Jessica,” Aunt Clara said softly with uncanny perception, sensing her distress. “For once in your life, trust. Especially at Christmas time, let yourself believe that good things can just happen.”