Leslie Kelly – Wicked Christmas Nights: It Happened One Christmas (страница 18)

“Oh, my God,” Ross said, staring into the mound of tissue paper inside the box. “That is…is…”

“It’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” Lucy said. She lifted her hand to her mouth, giggling. Jude’s petty destruction hadn’t done much to make this thing less appealing, because it had already been pretty damned hideous. “Isn’t it perfect?”

His jaw dropped open and he stared at her. “Seriously?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said with a nod. Then she lifted the broken snow globe, now missing glass, water and snow, and eyed the pièce de résistance that had once been the center of it. Sitting on a throne was the ugliest Santa Claus in existence. His eyes were wide and spacey, his face misshapen, his coloring off. His supposedly red suit was more 1970’s disco-era orange, and was trimmed with tiny peace signs. Beside him stood two terrifyingly emaciated, grayish children who looked like they’d risen from their graves and were about to zombiefy old St. Nick.

Hideous. Awful.

She loved it.

“Oh, this is so much better than what I got him—a dumb outhouse Santa complete with gassy sound effects.”

“Do you always give each other terrible presents?”

“Just for Christmas. He gives me snow globes, I give him some obnoxious Santa, often one that makes obscene noises.”

He chuckled. “My sisters would kill me if I did that.”

“It started as a joke—a distraction so we wouldn’t have to think too much about the way it used to be. And it stuck.”

She couldn’t be more pleased with her gift—unless, of course, it weren’t broken. But she wouldn’t let Sam know about that part. The center scene was the key.

Smiling, Lucy tucked the base of the globe back in the box, trying to avoid any bits of glass. But when she felt a sharp stab on her index finger, she knew she hadn’t been successful. “Ow,” she muttered, popping her fingertip into her mouth.

“Let me see,” he ordered.

She let him take her hand, seeing a bright drop of red blood oozing on her skin.

“We should go get something to clean this.”

“It’s okay, we’re not too far from my place…as long as you’re ready to leave?”

He rose, reaching for the now-open box, and extending his other hand to her. She gave him her noninjured one, and once she was standing beside him, he dropped an arm across her shoulders. Ross took one last look at the famous tree. Then, without a word, he turned to face her.

“I know this is cheesy and right out of a holiday movie,” he said, “but I’m going to do it anyway.”

She wasn’t sure what the it was, but suddenly understood when he bent to kiss her. People continued to walk all around them, street musicians played in the background, skaters called from the icy rink below. But all that seemed to disappear as Lucy opened her mouth to him, tasting his tongue in slow, lazy thrusts that soon deepened. It got hotter, hungrier. Both of them seemed to have lost any hint of the restraint that had kept them from getting this intense during their previous kiss.

Ross dropped his arm until his hand brushed her hip, his fingertips resting right above her rear, and Lucy quivered, wanting more. A whole lot more.

“Get a room!” someone yelled.

The jeer and accompanying laughter intruded on the moment. Sighing against each other’s lips, they slowly drew apart.

“Thank you,” he said after a long moment, during which he kept his hand on her hip. “I can check that off my bucket list.”

“Kissing in front of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree?”

“No. Kissing you in front of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.”

She couldn’t keep the smile off her face as they began walking the several blocks to her apartment building. Ross carried not only the bag with his robotic dinosaur, but also her snow globe. He had insisted on wrapping a crumpled napkin around her fingertip, but she didn’t even feel the sting of the cut anymore. Because the closer they got to home, the more she wondered what was going to happen when they arrived. That kiss had been so good, but also frustrating since she wanted more.

Much more.

Unfortunately once they reached her building, and she looked up and saw what looked like every light in her apartment blazing, she realized she wasn’t going to get it. Damn. “I guess Kate didn’t leave, after all,” she said, wondering why her friend had stuck around. It was nearly 10:00 p.m.; Kate and Teddy were supposed to get on the road hours ago.

“Your roommate’s still here?”

“Sure looks like it. No way would she leave all the lights on—she’s a total nag about our electric bill.”

Ross nodded, though he averted his gaze. She wondered if it was so he could disguise his own disappointment.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t had dates up to her place before; Jude had been over numerous times. It was just, she’d wanted to be alone with Ross. Really alone. And there was no privacy to be had in her apartment. She slept in one corner on a Murphy bed, with just a clothesline curtain for a wall, and Kate used the daybed that doubled as a couch the rest of the time.

Being with him in a confined space, under the amused, knowing eyes of her roommate, would be beyond torturous.

He seemed to agree. “What time should I come tomorrow?”

She raised a brow.

“You promised me the holiday weekend, remember?”

“You really meant that?”

He lifted both hands and cupped her face, tilting it up so she met his stare. “I absolutely meant that.”

Then he bent down and kissed her again. He kept this one light, sweet, soft. Still, Lucy moaned with pleasure, turning her head, reaching up to tangle her fingers in his hair. Once again, the damned box was between them, and now, a dinosaur was, too. But maybe that was for the best. Kissing him—feeling the warm stroke of his tongue in her mouth—was too exciting. If his hot, hard body were pressed against her, she’d be tempted to drag him up the stairs and see just how much privacy a clothesline curtain offered.

Ross ended the kiss and stepped back. “Good night, Lucy Fleming. I’m really glad I met you.”

“Ditto,” she whispered.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

Then, knowing she needed to get away now, while she had a brain cell in her head, she edged up the outside steps. She offered him one last smile before jabbing her finger on the keypad to unlock the exterior door, then slipped inside.

Her heart light as she almost skipped up the stairs, she felt like whistling a holiday tune. For the first time in several years, Lucy was actually looking forward to Christmas Eve. Because she had someone so special to share it with.

As she opened the apartment door, she looked around the tiny space for her roommate. “I thought you’d be long gone by now,” she called.

Kate didn’t respond. Lucy walked across the living room to the galley kitchen, peering around the corner, seeing no one. Then she noticed the thin curtain that shielded her bed from the rest of the apartment shimmy. Strange. “Katie?”

The curtain moved again, this time fully drawning back. Lucy’s mouth fell open as she saw not her pretty roommate but someone she’d truly hoped to never see again. “Jude?”

“Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for hours.”

“What do you think you’re doing here? How did you get in?”

“Had a key made a couple of weeks ago.” He smiled thinly, stepping closer, a slight wobble in his steps. Drunk. “It’s my birthday. You never gave me my present. I’ve been waiting for it a long time and expected to get it tonight.”

He stepped again. This time, Lucy saw a gleam in his eye that she didn’t like. Jude suddenly didn’t look like a drunk boy. More like a determined, vengeful man. One who might like her to think he was a little more intoxicated than he truly was.

She edged backward.

“Where you going? C’mon, you’re not really mad, are you? You know I don’t care anything about that skank. I was just frustrated, waiting for you. Guys have needs, you know.” He stepped again, moving slightly sideways, and she suddenly realized he was trying to edge between her and the door.

This was serious. Kate was gone, her next door neighbor was practically deaf and few people were out on the street in this area this late. And Jude knew all of those things.

“I still can’t believe you got some dude to come with you to my apartment,” he said, his eyes narrowing and his mouth twisting. “That was wrong, to bring some stranger into this.”

Ross. Oh, God, did she wish she’d invited him up!

Lucy’s thoughts churned and she went over her options, none of which included intervention by a knight in shining armor, or a carpenter in brown leather. Her brother had drilled college rape statistics into her head before she’d ever left home. He’d also taught her a few defensive moves. But better than trying to physically fight Jude would be to get him to leave.

She began thinking, mentally assessing everything in the apartment, knowing the knives in the kitchen were none too sharp. He now stood between her and the door. Her cell phone was in her purse and they didn’t have a land line—not that anybody she called, including the police, would get here for a good ten or fifteen minutes. In that time, he could do a lot. And, she suspected, that’s exactly what he intended to do.