Be Mine at Christmas(28)
Author: Brenda Novak

But the same vigilant conscience that wouldn’t allow him to remove her bra wouldn’t allow him to do anything else, either. Not when he suspected she wasn’t thinking clearly.

When she wedged one slim leg between his thighs, he knew he wasn’t thinking clearly, either. This was Adelaide Fairfax, his nemesis. She’d been stealing his endorsements and financial backers right and left, and hammering away at his Achilles’ heel—his voting record on taxation issues—since September. Yet the feel of her against him provoked a sudden recklessness that made him want to roll her beneath him and make love to her more desperately and feverishly than he’d ever made love to a woman. The anger and resentment he’d felt toward her for the past four months only made that desire more potent. His grudging admiration of her beauty and equally grudging respect for her poise created a powerful drive to possess—and it happened more quickly than a match dropped in gasoline could burst into flame.

THEY WERE DEFINITELY making use of their clothing but they weren’t actually wearing much of it. While Maxim’s water-resistant coat protected them from the snow beneath, his suit jacket and Adelaide’s wool coat covered them like blankets. She had on only her bra, panties and nylons; he was still wearing his boxers. But Adelaide wouldn’t have cared if they were completely naked. It didn’t matter that he was her enemy. He was warm. And he even smelled good.

She pressed her frozen nose into his neck and breathed in the scent of soap. Maxim Donahue was built like a Giorgio Armani model—long, lean and spare. He dressed like one, too, in expensive tailor-made suits he wore as easily and comfortably as other men wore sweat suits.

His pulse beat against her lips, rhythmic and steady. She’d just count the pounding of his heart until help arrived. Then she’d be whisked away and would never have to be alone with him again.

But a rescue team wouldn’t get anywhere close to them until after the storm. And she had no idea how long that would be.

Her feet were still so numb she couldn’t feel them.

“Adelaide?”

She didn’t move. “What?”

“You’re not falling asleep, are you?”

“Of course not.” But she didn’t see how she could avoid it. She didn’t have the strength to lift her eyelids.

CHAPTER FOUR

“HEY.” MAXIM SPOKE into Adelaide’s hair, next to her ear, but she didn’t move. “You still with me?” he said, more loudly.

When her head lolled on his arm, he grew alarmed enough to shake her. “What are you doing? Wake up!”

No answer.

With a curse, he leaned on his elbow. A moment before, he’d caught his own mind wandering, blanking out as if preparing for sleep. It’d happened so fast he almost wondered if he was the one who’d slipped away and was now hallucinating. “Listen, we’re not…giving up, okay?”

She mumbled a few words. They weren’t coherent, but at least they proved she was alive.

Thank God!

Closing his eyes, he let go of the breath he’d been holding. “If they find us…like this…they might…take a picture and…and put it on the front page of The Bee. Can you…imagine the caption?”

He hoped his comment would cause a reaction, and it did. “They’d better not!”

“They could. We have to remain conscious, make sure they don’t.”

“We’ll…be…conscious.”

Not if they didn’t do something to stay awake. Less than sixty seconds later, he felt the tension seep out of her body.

“Adelaide, come on.” Come on what? Where was he going with this thought? It took a moment, but at last he remembered. “We have to…to keep dalking.”

“Keep…what?”

He was having trouble enunciating. He had to capture each word, chase it around in his head, then drag it to his mouth.

“T-talking.” There, he’d said it. But the effort was wasted. His warning brought no response.

“Adelaide, fight…please.” The sexual desire he’d felt earlier was completely gone. Now he wished for that spike of testosterone, for the flare of physical strength it had given him. In its place sat a hard knot of dread, but it was muted like everything else seemed to be. It certainly wasn’t enough to overcome the sluggishness bogging him down. And with the storm still raging, they had a long wait ahead.

“Shall…we sing…some Christmas carol?”

No answer.

“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way—” He stopped. That was all he could remember, which was ridiculous. He wasn’t any kind of Scrooge. He liked Christmas. But apparently he hadn’t paid much attention to the lyrics of even the more popular songs in quite some time. Probably because he didn’t usually sing, didn’t have what he would consider a voice. So he settled for something more repetitive and less vocally demanding. “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer, take one down, pass it around, ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall.”

His words ran together as if he was drunk. He tried to sing more clearly, hoping Adelaide would join in, but she didn’t. Only the flutter of her heartbeat, which he could feel when he pressed his lips to her throat, gave him hope—until that heartbeat became erratic, weak.

Feeling her heart wind down finally triggered the release of some much-needed adrenaline. Suddenly, he could think. Almost as important, he had the energy to move.

“Adelaide?” He kissed her throat, her jawline, her cold lips. “Hey, you’re naked…with…the enemy.”

Forgetting the scruples that had kept him circumspect and discreet, he unfastened her bra and slid his hand up to cup her breast. He didn’t care about right and wrong anymore. He cared only about saving her life. To do that, he needed to rouse her to some level of awareness. “Can you feel me touching you?”

She moved, which encouraged him.

“Do you like it?” Parting her lips with his tongue, he kissed her while his fingers sought the more sensitive parts of her body. He wasn’t having fun. He was too frightened. But he was putting everything he had into trying to interest her—or at least anger her. As far as he was concerned, either reaction would work. He simply needed to evoke an emotional response. Even a small rush of adrenaline could keep her lucid.

“Mark?”

He went still. She was out of it, all right. She thought he was her late husband.