Be Mine at Christmas(9)
Author: Brenda Novak

Angela figured firemen liked doing tough stuff. She’d definitely enjoyed seeing him wrestle that tree into submission.

“And what do you want?” he asked doubtfully.

Angela shook her head. It was the first time she’d thought about sex in ages, but now that the idea had crossed her mind, she couldn’t seem to forget it.

“I’m waiting,” he reminded her.

“Um…a purse?”

He scooped up a loosely packed snowball and hit her with it. “Come on, you just made that up.”

She scooped up a snowball of her own. “Are you calling me a liar?”

He grinned as if unconcerned about the threat. “I guess I am.”

She launched her snowball, but he dodged it easily and hit her with another one. “Are you going to tell me what you were saying to Kayla?”

“No.”

“I’m pretty sure I can get you to change your mind,” he warned.

“You couldn’t torture it out of me,” she said and laughed when Kayla managed to hit him while he was distracted.

“That’s it,” he said and then snowballs began to fly from all three of them. Angela could hear Kayla laughing as she held her own in the battle, and quickly created a small arsenal of snowballs behind a fallen tree. Then, when Kayla drew Matt’s fire, Angela took careful aim and bam!

He’d taken off his parka while cutting the tree, so when her snowball smacked him in the back of the head, it showered snow down the neck of his thermal T-shirt.

It was more of a direct hit than she’d intended. As he turned toward her, the look on his face told her she was in trouble.

With a frightened squeal, she began running as fast as she could in the knee-deep snow, but it wasn’t thirty seconds before he tackled her.

“Tell me you’re sorry,” he said.

“She thinks you’re handsome! She said she likes your butt!” Kayla called and seized the opportunity to save herself by scampering into the truck. Angela heard the click of the locks only seconds after Matt brought her to the ground.

“Thanks a lot, Kayla,” she muttered.

He grinned, obviously pleased that Kayla had just handed him total victory, but he didn’t let that distract him from his punishment. “Say ‘Chief Jackson, I’m terribly sorry to have caused you any discomfort.’”

“No way! You started it!”

“Fine. Then I’m going to finish it.” He shoved snow down her jacket, laughing as she bucked and writhed beneath him. But she wasn’t feeling nearly as cold as she should’ve been. And it wasn’t long before she could tell that her movements were arousing him, too.

She stopped struggling, but he didn’t get up. He smoothed the snow and disheveled hair from her face. “You’re beautiful, you know that?” he said passionately.

The fact that she could feel the physical proof of his appreciation didn’t seem to bother him. He kept his body snugly against hers, putting pressure on a very sensitive spot—so sensitive that she wished he’d push a little harder.

Her chest rose and fell while she tried to catch her breath. “You never even looked at me when we were younger.”

But he hadn’t looked at anybody, had he? Except Danielle.

He didn’t mention his old girlfriend. “I didn’t know what I was missing.”

“What do you want for Christmas?” she asked. She was grasping for anything to change the subject, to lessen the tension.

His gaze lowered to her lips, and his voice grew slightly rough. “To catch you under the mistletoe.”

MATT HELD HIS WINEGLASS loosely in his hands as he lay on the rug, staring at the lights on the tree they’d just decorated. Kayla had done most of the work, but now she was in the other room watching a Christmas program on television. Angela sat a few feet away, petting Sampson, Matt’s German shepherd.

As her hand moved over the dog’s fur, Matt was dying to scoot closer to her—if only to thread his fingers through hers. But after their encounter in the snow, she’d been acting spooked. Whenever he sat near, she backed away. And yet she’d been responsive when he tackled her. The flush in her cheeks had come from more than just physical exertion. He could tell by her eyes.

Maybe she needed more time before she’d consider a romantic relationship. She’d be going back to Denver soon, and long-distance relationships weren’t easy, but he couldn’t help wanting to get to know her better in spite of that. He felt a sort of…excitement he hadn’t experienced in years. He hoped she’d stay, hoped they could explore the possibilities. If nothing else, they should make the most of the time she had left.

“What happened to your parents?” he asked.

She’d been sitting with her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, leaning back on her hands to admire the tree. But at his question, she changed position so she could reclaim her wine. “My father died when I was two. My mother died when I was ten.”

“That’s too bad,” he said. “How’d it happen?”

“My parents were older when they had me. They’d been told that my father was infertile. And then, at forty-eight, my mother suddenly conceived.”

“They must’ve been thrilled.”

Sampson sat up and barked, but when she scratched him behind the ears, he laid his head in her lap. Matt had never seen the dog take to anyone so readily.

“I suppose, in some ways, they were,” she said. “But the fact that it was a little late in life probably tempered their happiness, you know? And two years later, my dad died of cancer. Pneumonia took my mom eight years after that.”

“Is it hard to talk about them?” he asked softly.

“No, it’s…okay.”

He didn’t want to bring up any subject that might be painful for her, and yet he wanted to hear the details of her life. “Wasn’t there anyone else in your family who could take care of you?”

“No. My parents’ brothers and sisters were even older than they were and had finished raising their families. One lived in Belgium. Another was a widow. She tried to take me, but then she fell and broke her hip.”

She’d indicated it didn’t bother her to talk about her past, but she’d tensed up. He could see it in the way she held her body.

Despite his determination to give her more time, Matt moved toward her.

She watched him warily. But when she finally met his eyes, he saw that she wasn’t unaffected by the chemistry between them. He couldn’t tell what was holding her back, but he knew it wasn’t a lack of interest.