Christmas Eve Page 4

  It was like last night all over again. Friends to lovers in no time. She was breathing hard into his mouth, standing up on her toes. Running her hands over as much of his body as she could touch, she cataloged all his textures: soft, silky, rough, sharp. He had scars on his forearms from countless run-ins with barbed wire and scared calves, and for some reason she couldn’t leave those scars alone.

  They were so entirely him.

  Groaning, he lifted her by her waist and spun, shoving her against the plate drying rack. She pushed it into the sink. Consumed by his mouth, by his heat, she didn’t even flinch when something broke. He pulled her sweater up and over her head, his lips leaving hers for the barest second before he was back, licking into her mouth, tasting her like he’d tasted her last night. Completely.

  There was no hiding from him like this. He meant to see and taste and touch all of her. And she'd never in her life had sex with someone like him. No restraint, no careful apologies. Just an impossible and delicious instinct.

  She pulled him hard against her, until their teeth knocked together. Until they couldn’t breathe. And she didn’t want to. Because they would do this, one more time, and then she had to tell him. She had to.

  His hands lifted to her breasts, holding them gently in rough palms, and she loved it. For years the moment when she took off her shirt and her bra was always a loaded moment.

  Ha! She always thought. You got suckered by a push-up bra.

  But Dean didn’t even pause. Didn’t seem to even notice. They were breasts and they were in his hands and that was all he needed. All he wanted. She arched against him. Wanting more. Wanting every opposing force inside of him. He growled and kissed her harder, touched her harder.

  “More,” she breathed, and she fumbled with his belt, pushing past leather and denim to hold him in her hand. Hot and hard and soft.

  Big, really.

  That part from last night was not hazy. And between her legs, she throbbed. Empty.

  “Trina,” he breathed, and he pulled back, just a little. He wanted her to look at him, look him in the eyes, and that was something she didn't like. It was an intimacy she never allowed another person. "Look at me."

  “No,” she said. If she couldn’t do it with other men, she certainly couldn’t do it with Dean. Other women had other limits. This was hers. She’d do anything with him, she just wouldn’t look at him while she did it.

  “Hey,” he whispered. “Trina. It’s just me.”

  Oh God, that was a stupid thing to say. Honestly. He wasn’t just anything.

  He stepped back, creating a small slice of cool air between their bodies. His hands fell from her body.

  “Is that blackmail?” she asked.

  “If that’s how you want to think about it, sure,” he said. He was smiling. Teasing her, because he knew this was hard for her.

  “Fine,” she muttered, putting as much screw you in her gaze as she could.

  “Oh girl, if you’re trying to scare me off with that look, you need to come up with something new.” His hands when they swept up over her skin had new urgency. He touched her harder. Rougher.

  A log fell in the fire and the sparks filled the air. Her body.

  She fell right into his blue eyes and touched him, holding him firmly, stroking him, until his hips started to move in counterpoint to her hand.

  The connection between them was nearly painful and she wanted so badly to end it. To look away. And like he knew, he grabbed her chin in his rough-gentle hands and held her still.

  She leaned her head back, her hand still working him, until she was resting back against the cupboard. His fingers touched the seam of her jeans between her legs, and she twitched as if touched by electricity. He did it again, back and forth, his fingers pressing harder against that seam that ran right between her legs. She jerked and twitched, caught her lip between her teeth, but she did not—could not—look away.

  He yanked open the button of her jeans, the zipper half unzipping with the force of his tug. She groaned. Whimpered because she liked that so much.

  "Get a condom," she breathed.

  “No, like this,” he told her, his eyes pinning her to the wall.

  “But—”

  “We got time. Lots of time.”

  She didn’t have the courage to tell him they didn’t. And she didn’t have the will to tell him the truth now. So she let it go. Let everything go. She was nothing but bone and blood and desire in his hands.

  He slipped his hand down over her stomach, between her jeans and her skin, right to the heart of her. The heat and wet. Her legs twitched and her eyes closed.

  “Open your eyes, Trina,” he breathed, and she did what he asked. It did not occur to her not to. Not for a minute. Even though she knew it would hurt in the end. Because these hands that pulled her closer, impossibly closer, they would push her away.

  Bright color filled his cheeks and he was breathing hard through his mouth. His eyes were the bluest things she’d ever seen.

  He was wet now, she was infinitely so.

  He wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her up to him, kissing her. Breathing into her mouth. Holding her there, long after the kiss stopped.

  “I want you to come,” he said against her lips.

  The words made everything worse and better. “Yes…yes.” She sighed, sucking his lip into her mouth. Nipping him with her teeth.

  His finger slipped inside of her and she jerked, pushing herself against him. Hard and hard again. Another finger and she was breaking apart.

  “There we go,” he breathed, and his voice in her ear lit the match on everything, and she exploded against him. He grabbed her wrist, holding her hand. He lifted it and licked her palm and then put her hand back against him, tighter this time. So tight she thought she might hurt him, but then he shuddered and groaned and dropped his head against hers. Faster, harder.

  She felt entirely too far away from him, from this pleasure he was feeling. She slipped off the kitchen counter and fell onto her knees.

  This. This was what she wanted.

  “Trina—”

  “Let me taste you again,” she said and slipped him into her mouth. She reveled in him, his texture and taste. He was hot and hard, salty and sweet. Earthy. Perfect.

  His fingers tangled in her hair and he groaned, falling back against the counter. And he was at her command. Her mercy.

  She licked and stroked, listening to him, feeling him. Finding out all the things he liked by collecting all the data she could glean. He groaned and whispered, nonsense about how good she felt. How beautiful she was.

  “Yes, please… Trina,” he cried out. He tried to push her away, the gentleman, but she stayed where she was, her hands around his thighs, and he came in her mouth.

  When it was over, he pulled her away and up into his arms, holding her hard between his chest and the cupboards. For long moments the only thing she heard was their breathing and the pounding of her heart. And, distantly, the pounding of his.

  But then he was laughing, soft little breaths against her hair. A rumble under her cheek. “Why in the world haven’t we been doing that all along?” he asked. “Like every minute in high school?”

  “You were sort of busy.”

  “No way. Not too busy for this.”

  “Yeah.” She smiled at him. Replete and happy. “Doing this with other girls.”

  That blush again. Really. It was too much on him. “Well, you were busy saving the world.”

  “Some of us just have higher callings, I guess,” she said with a grin. Slowly, they disengaged from each other. They both shuddered and twitched, rocked by the end of the unexpected storm.

  “Thank you,” he breathed, kissing her hands. Her cheeks.

  “Back at you. I honestly never thought—” She stopped, and he looked down at her.

  “Really?” he asked. “You never thought about us?”

  “No. I thought about us a lot. For at least a year straight, that was a
bout all I thought about. But I never really thought it would happen. There’s just always been so much between us. You know?”

  “Yeah. What happened to Trevor?”

  “Trevor was hardly between us.”

  “He was the night I invited you to my Christmas party.”

  She blinked. “You mean…you wanted…?”

  “Of course I wanted,” he said. “There’s no way I thought you were actually bringing your boyfriend.”

  “But you acted—”

  “Like a total gentleman, because I am. And a nice guy, too.”

  “And modest.”

  “And a sex god, don’t forget that.”

  Their laughter faded and in the silence guilt was like a rat in her stomach.

  “Actually, I was talking about our parents.” The room was getting colder, the truth harder to avoid. “And our friendship and the fact that… we were so different.”

  “Meaning you were a genius would-be lawyer and I was a simple cowboy?”

  “No!” she snapped, furious that he would accuse her of thinking like that.

  He grinned. “Just checking.” The silence between them was not as warm as it had been. The past had been let in and the edges of this room, of their night, were growing cold.

  "You heading out to see your dad?" he asked, watching her through the flop of his hair as he zipped up his pants.

  "Not...yet." She'd need a few days after Dean to put together her defenses. Rebuild her walls. Around her father she'd need to be unbreakable. Because there was nothing that could break her like her father’s drunk indifference. Being the daughter he never saw had ground her down into a fine powder. And she’d spent all these years away from him trying to figure out who she was. "Have you seen him?" she asked, pretending like she didn't care, or that it wasn't important.

  But because this man knew her better than anyone else in her life, he wasn't buying it.

  "I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have even brought it up," he said, wrapping his arms around her. "Let's go get some breakfast. Or I could run down to Deckers and grab some—”

  "Stop.” This was the moment.

  "Okay."

  Trina held him hard for one more second. Memorizing every bit of him. The smell, the feel. The way his breath touched the top of her head and tickled.

  "Trina? You all right?"

  "Fine. I just…I need to tell you something." She pushed away from him, and then took a few more steps, hoping she'd find a bit more courage with some distance.

  "I should...I should tell you something, too."

  That made her look up, stunned. Anger, because she was her father's daughter, primed. That was always her first reaction to surprises. And she worked hard on that every damn day of her life. "What?"

  "You first."

  She imagined him married, but he wouldn't be married and spend the night with her. He wasn't that guy. And, other than that, she wasn't sure if anything he said would be as bad as hers.

  "I’m working for your dad."

  He recoiled, nearly laughing. "What?" he asked.

  "It's not a joke. Or anything. Your father, or rather I guess the company, has hired me as part of the legal team as they fight the pipeline.”

  "You're here because you're working for my dad?"

  "I wouldn't do it if it was just your dad, but we need to fight this pipeline and he's throwing big money behind it.”

  “You’re crazy if you think he’s going to fight that. It’s a trick somehow.”

  “I know you have no reason to believe your father wants to do something noble.”

  “I can’t believe you’ve been sucked in by his lies!”

  “It’s not. It’s real. It’s a real job, an important job, and I couldn’t—”

  “Turn it down. You said.”

  She nodded and braced herself for an explosion. Because Dean did not talk about his father without, at some point, exploding.

  “You know why he’s hired you, don’t you?” he snapped.

  “Because I’m very good at my job, Dean.”

  “Yeah, and there aren’t seven thousand other lawyers who could do the same damn thing, but no, he hired you. The daughter of the man who owns part of that land. The man he hates.”

  “Stop, Dean. Stop. No one else knows the area like I do. No one else knows the players.”

  “Right. The players being our parents. The land the small acreage they fought over for years. The same stupid piece of rock that drove them apart. And you’re going to tell me this isn’t your chance to come back and screw your dad once and for all? Make sure he notices you the way he never did?”

  “So what if it is?” she asked, shaking. “So what if this is my chance to hurt him like he hurt me? Like he hurt my mom.” Tears burned behind her eyes, so much anger. She’d thought she had this under control. She’d believed that, that she could come back here, do the job, relish slightly any discomfort it might give her father. But this. This was hot. And it hurt.

  “Right,” he said. He pushed his hands through his hair and paced the small room as she tried to get her breath back. Calm down her fury. “I need to tell you, that job I got last spring—it’s for your dad.”

  Trina reeled back and tripped over the edge of the bed. She caught herself before she fell, but she was unbearably unbalanced. “You’re working for my dad?”

  “He’s got the largest working spread in the area. And I know you haven’t kept in touch, but he needs help.”

  “Don’t you for one minute pretend that you’re not taking this job for any reason except you want to fuck with your father.”

  Dean stepped back, his arms spread out wide. “So what if I did?”

  “How’s it working out for you?” she asked.

  “Great!” he cried.

  “Oh my God, this is why you didn’t ask me why I was home last night. Because you didn’t want to tell me why you were home.”

  “Right. Because if I told you, last night would have never happened.”

  “Oh well, thank God we both got laid before the truth came out.”

  “You’ve never been reasonable about your dad.”

  She gasped. “Oh! And you are?”

  “My dad’s a manipulative bastard.”

  “And mine is a drunk who ignored me my entire life. Why are we playing who had it worse? Look.” She took a deep breath. “This isn’t about our dads. It’s business. This is the pipeline.”

  “Right. Sure. Who cares who you screw as long as you get to save the world?”

  “Yeah? And who cares who you screw as long as you get back at your dad?” She gasped, her eyes going wide, the implications of what she’d said hitting a bull’s-eye in her chest.

  Oh God.

  Oh God, she’d never expected this. It hurt. It hurt so bad.

  “No,” he said as if he’d read her mind. “Last night had nothing to do with getting back at my dad.”

  She took a deep breath. Another one. But the pain didn’t go away.

  “It sure is convenient, isn’t it?”

  “Nothing about you has ever been convenient. Ever. I’m not doing this to hurt you.”

  All this time she’d been so worried about betraying him, but a wound had opened in her stomach. Her heart.

  She turned, searching for her coat. Her hat. Purse. Her dignity. Her heart. The last of her self-respect.

  “You can work for whoever you want, screw whoever you want, but it won’t ever get you what you want.” She pulled out the longest, sharpest weapon she had to use against him.

  “Don’t, Trina,” he breathed, but she ignored him.

  “You still won’t be good enough. Not for him. Not ever.” He went white. Even his lips were colorless, because she’d hurt him. She’d hurt him so bad. And the guilt and the remorse was just as bad as her anger. Her own hurt.

  “You think your dad is finally going to realize he loves you when he finds out you’re working for my father?” he asked, wounding her with his own swords, impossibly s
harp with his knowledge of her. Of her relationship with her dad.

  They both looked away, the words like some awful violent act happening right in front of them. They couldn’t go back from it. The night, their friendship, it was all shattered and broken, and if they moved or breathed too deep, they’d bleed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. But it was useless. They’d said too much. Way too much.

  She grabbed all of her things in her arms. One of her boots. Her purse and coat. She wrapped her scarf around her neck, her eyes stinging with tears.

  “Trina, don’t leave like this.”

  “How am I supposed to leave?”

  “We could talk.”

  “I think we’ve said enough, don’t you?”

  His silence pounded, and the air between them vibrated. Her ears ached from the pressure.

  “Wait,” he said from directly over her shoulder. She stopped, but she didn’t turn around. “Do you have someplace to go?”

  He was worried about her. After everything they’d just said to each other, he was still worried about her.

  Don’t be touched. Don’t be moved.

  And in the end, it was easy not to be. It was what she was good at, after all. Keeping herself removed. Alone.

  “I have a house in Durande,” she said. It was a town a few miles away. Forty miles from her father’s house. She’d looked it up on a map, stared at the distance between the dots, wondering if it was far enough away.

  “Are you okay to drive?” he asked.

  “Fine.” It was a lie. She wasn’t fine. But she could drive a damn car. She could drive a car away from him.

  She slipped out the door.

  “Merry Christmas, Trina,” he yelled after her.

  She flipped him her middle finger.

  Right. Just another awful Christmas in a long line of awful Christmases.

  December 24, 2011

  10:22 PM

  Dean fought it as long as he could. And he had a lot of fight. He was used to long, drawn-out battles over many years. He was very comfortable with trench warfare. He could—very easily—pretend last night never happened. And when he ran into Trina at the grocery store or the post office, he could pretend. Pretend to be casual. Pretend not to care.