The Christmas Collection, page 17
I don’t have to worry, because he doesn’t. His hands are as greedy as his mouth. He sets the whiskey glass down on the counter so he can use both hands, tangling one in my hair, grabbing at my waist with the other while he devours me.
I’ve never been kissed like this before, with such unrestrained hunger. My heart flutters as his tongue overpowers mine, as he walks me back and pins me against the wall, cradling me close like I’m something so precious to him while simultaneously trapping me like he’ll never let me go.
Oh, my god.
I feel like I can’t keep up, but I try. I’m so glad my clothes are still on. With every stroke of his tongue, my arousal ratchets up higher and higher. If he touched my naked body right now, I’m not sure I could resist.
When he finally breaks away, I’m gasping for breath. I feel utterly ravished, my lips likely swollen from the force of his kisses.
I want him inside me. I want to know what he feels like, if he’s as greedy when he’s driving into my body as he is conquering my mouth.
It’s all I can think about, but it can’t happen, so I tear my gaze away from him and try to get a hold of myself.
The whiskey in my mouth is gone. I don’t know which of us consumed more of that sip. I felt the burn of the alcohol on its way down my throat, but it was overpowered by him—his mouth and his tongue and his lips, his hands and his hunger…
He was all I could focus on.
My skin is burning hot after that kiss. My heart still beats erratically and my chest feels all funny. I can’t look at him, so I walk to the tub and start running my bath.
I feel his hot gaze on me, though.
He doesn’t say a word as he watches me get the bath ready.
I don’t say a word, either, but I can’t stop replaying that scorching kiss over and over again in my head.
I wasn’t planning to kiss him. Not like that.
I wouldn’t have thought anything of something more casual, maybe a peck in front of his family, but that kiss…
I try to shove the enticing memory away before it gets me into even more trouble.
The tub is filling up and I need to get in. Unless I want to do that with all my clothes on, it’s time to take them off.
I wish I felt braver than I do. After that kiss, I think I should pile more clothes on when I’m around this man, not strip off the ones I’m wearing.
I’ve already agreed to it, though. To change my mind now would only convey how much the kiss affected me, and I have a feeling I shouldn’t arm him with more ammunition than he already possesses.
I can’t decide where to begin. I reach for the hem of my soft pink sweater, then I stop and start to go for the button of my jeans.
I hesitate.
Finally, I decide to start with my socks.
Jasper chuckles warmly, drawing my attention back to him. He’s sitting on the window seat now, mirth glinting in his eyes as he watches me struggle.
I narrow my eyes somewhat playfully, relieved that him laughing at me brings back a bit of spunk.
“What’s so funny?”
He doesn’t bother answering, just smiles and takes another sip of his whiskey.
I shoot him a look like I don’t appreciate him mocking me, but I’m only playing. Really, I’m thankful for his laughter. It was the break in intensity I needed. It makes what I’m about to do much easier.
Jasper’s voice penetrates the silence in the room as I bend to peel off my other sock. “Have you ever stripped for a man before?”
“No,” I murmur, blood rushing to my cheeks.
“Never?”
I shake my head.
He seems mildly surprised, but he doesn’t prod any further.
Once I’m barefoot, there are no more easy items to remove.
I decide to peel off my sweater first. My skin is flushed, and I feel even more vulnerable because he definitely knows why. I can’t look at him as I drop the soft fabric on the ground, the air hitting more of my skin now.
My jeans are next. I steal a glimpse in his direction as my fingers push the buttons through the holes. His body is relaxed, his appreciative gaze roaming over my body, taking in every new inch of bare skin as I push down my jeans and start to wiggle out of them.
Now that I’m down to just the black bra and panties he bought me yesterday, my shyness begins to melt away. The worst is over, and it wasn’t so bad. It was actually kind of nice. I like the way he looks at me as I’m taking my clothes off.
I get the idea to tease him just a little, so I slide my hand up, dragging my fingers lightly over the soft swell of one breast, then cupping it in my hand and giving it a light squeeze.
Jasper’s gaze darts to mine, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “Careful, snowflake. I might start to think you want company.”
I shake my head, my cheeks heating at my own boldness. “No touching. You can only look.”
The heat in his gaze intensifies. I can feel an unspoken warning—he doesn’t like me telling him what he’s not allowed to do—so I distract him, turning my back to him and bending at the waist before hooking my fingers into the thin black lace and pushing down my panties.
I hear him suck in a breath. My heart slams against its cage as I bend over, knowing as I do, I’m showing him my ass and pussy.
This is a dangerous game I’m playing. I don’t even know what possessed me. Before I can get into any real trouble, I hastily remove my bra and toss it, then climb into the sanctuary of the bathtub.
My hearts skitters as I sink into the hot, bubbly water.
The tub feels like base in a twisted game of tag. Imagining I’m safe inside it, I risk looking over at my handsome captor.
He’s taking a sip of whiskey, mean mugging me over the rim of the glass.
I can’t help smiling. “Hey, this was your idea,” I remind him.
“My idea was to watch your pretty little ass get naked, not for you to tease me.”
I flush with pleasure, but turn my attention to the bubbles in the tub in hopes he won’t notice. “I could tease you more if I felt like it.”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” he warns.
Because I believe him and I’m not prepared for any repercussions to my teasing, I stop and try to think of something less sexually charged to talk about while he watches me bathe.
“What did you and your sister talk about upstairs when she hauled you away?”
Sighing heavily, he takes another drink from his glass. “What a shitty brother I’ve been lately.”
My gaze darts to him. “Nora said that?”
He shakes his head. “She didn’t have to. She has a kid I didn’t know about, Autumn. My own sister.”
That was surprising. I don’t have any sisters or brothers myself, but I can’t imagine not knowing about something like that if I did have one. Hell, I know when my cousin has new kids and I haven’t seen her since elementary school.
“Don’t you have your sister on social media?” I ask.
“I don’t do social media,” he informs me, his words dripping with disdain.
I crack a smile. “Well, maybe you should. I know it’s not the same as being there, but I definitely see more of my extended family’s life events on social media than I would otherwise. A cousin of mine got married, and I would have never known. I haven’t seen her in… I don’t know, five or six years. Another cousin posted pictures of her new baby so I got to commiserate about her squishy baby cheeks. I know there can be a lot of BS on social media too, but it is what you make it. If you want to keep a low profile and just see what your sister’s up to, you could make a profile and only friend your family. It’s really up to you what you show, it doesn’t have to be a privacy blackhole.”
“In my line of work, an online presence is discouraged. The internet makes it very easy to find information about people. We prefer to keep to the shadows.”
I try—and fail—to bite back a smile as I drag my hand through the bubbly water. “You sound like an old curmudgeon.”
“Bah humbug,” he deadpans.
I look over at him and grin. “How old are you, anyway?”
“I’m 32. What about you?”
“I’m 24. A smidge younger.”
“That’s Nora’s age,” he says. “You must have been young when you moved to Syracuse with the cheater.”
He draws another smile out of me. “Is that what we’re calling him? I could tell you his name.”
“Nah, the cheater is sufficient. Brady’s going to be ‘the asshole’ when we’re looking back at him, in case you were wondering.”
“The cheater and the asshole,” I echo, nodding. “I can accept those. What are you?”
“The thief,” he says, only halfway joking.
I shouldn’t smile at him when it’s so true, but I do anyway. “I like ‘the captor’ better.” I miss a beat, pulling some water and bubbles closer to my body. “Are you a thief? Is that your… job?”
“If that’s what I need to be,” he says, rather evasively.
“What does that mean?”
“My job isn’t just one thing. You could say I’m a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to criminal pursuits. I can lie, cheat, steal, kill—whatever a job requires of me.”
He says that so casually, my heart jumps into my throat. I try not to let it show. I doubt he’ll open up to me if it seems like I’m judging him. “Oh. That’s some arsenal you have,” I remark, looking over to see how he takes my remark.
He doesn’t say anything, but he’s watching me closely and I know one wrong step will shut down any possibility of new information.
I don’t want that. Maybe it’s cat-killing curiosity, but I want to know more about him and the life he leads. I know he’s not right for me and I know nothing can really happen between us, but maybe if he explained why, the thought could stop flitting through my mind.
If I saw a beautiful scorpion treading sand in the desert, I might stop to look at it, but I wouldn’t try to take it home with me.
“Is it hard? Doing that kind of work?”
Jasper shrugs, still watching me. “Is it hard to do your job?”
My job?
“No,” I say, laughing a little. “No, it’s not hard to do my job, but it sounds like my job is a lot easier than yours. How do you even get a job like that? You said you have a boss, so I guess you work for someone.”
“I can’t talk about that,” he says, almost apologetically.
“I wasn’t asking for specific details, I was just curious. What kind of person employs that kind of… jack-of-all-trades?”
“The dangerous kind.”
“I figured that.” I gather a mountain of fragrant bubbles in my hand, focusing on them instead of looking at him. “Is he a bad guy?”
“Everyone’s a bad guy to somebody,” he answers. “I don’t think he’s a bad guy, but there are plenty who would disagree. Personally, I wouldn’t work for him if I thought he was a bad guy. He was just born into a certain lifestyle and it’s not the kind you can really get out of. He embraced it, used the tools at his disposal to keep his family safe. I understand it. If I had the opportunity to straddle both worlds the way he does, I would too.”
“Are you… Were you… Is it a lifestyle you can’t get out of?”
“Not the way it is for him.” He sits forward, still eyeing me. “Just as an example, say I worked for the mafia. Not saying I do, just…”
“An example,” I say quickly, nodding. “I get it.”
“He was born into it. There’s no way out for him. He’s the boss until someone kills him or his son takes over, and he has a very expensive, very skilled army of men around him to ensure no one’s gonna kill him.”
“Like you.”
He nods once. “Like me. But I’m just that—an employee. The king has a life sentence, he reigns whether he wants to or not. But the king’s men… there’s a little more wiggle room there.”
“So you could quit if you wanted to.”
“Technically, I probably could. It’s not the kind of job where you put in a two week notice and then you’re on your way, but say things changed and I decided I wanted out of the life. The people I work for are reasonable. They would very likely try to find a way to make that happen for me. The problem is, I’m the guy that does the dirty work, not the one who lives in a $40 million mansion with a fortress around my house. I’ve dirtied my hands plenty over the years and made a lot of enemies. For the most part, no one messes with me now, but it’s because I work for who I work for. If I didn’t anymore, all those people I’ve crossed, the ones that are still alive or the ones nursing a grudge over people I’ve killed… well, maybe then they come after me. Protection is a two-way street as long as I’m doing what I’m doing. I protect the boss and his interests, my association to him protects me.”
“So… you could leave, but…” I meet his gaze. “You really can’t.”
“Once your hands are as dirty as mine, it’s hard to ever get them clean again.”
I don’t know why hearing that makes my heart heavy. I already knew I couldn’t keep him.
I shouldn’t have let him kiss me.
I’m not sure I did let him, really, but I need to make sure it stops there. I need to protect myself, and what that means seems to change with every hour this man is in my life.
At first, I was only afraid he’d take my life.
Now I’m worried my brush with him may be less fatal, but still excruciatingly painful.
Those fingers of his, so skilled at theft in its various forms… he needs to keep them off my heart.
CHAPTER 15
JASPER
Between the roaring fire and Autumn’s body snuggled up against my side, I’m already way too hot to even think about touching the hot chocolate Nora brings over.
Not that I’m complaining. Tonight has been a lot nicer than I expected. Considering how behind I am getting to know my new niece, I got down in the floor with her and helped her build towers out of little pink and green blocks. She warmed up to me fast, all it took was a big reaction the first time she knocked the tower over and she was delighted.
After that, she seemed to like me well enough. She hung out with us until it was time for her to go to bed.
It was the craziest thing, seeing my little sister go into Mom mode and get her own baby ready for bed. I can still remember when she was climbing into my bed in the middle of the night because she had a bad dream.
Tom and my mom went to bed an hour after Amira. Autumn seems to be a night owl like I am, and my sister and Tarek only get alone time when Amira is sleeping, so they were in no rush to get to bed, either.
Nora and Autumn hatched a plan to force us to watch Christmas movies with them while eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate.
It’s safe to say, I’ve never done anything like this in my whole life. Not even as a kid.
Autumn sure seems to enjoy it, though.
When the movie ends, it’s nearly midnight. I imagine my sister and Tarek will probably want to head to bed soon, but I’m not ready for that yet. We may have spent the evening with them, but I haven’t been able to do any digging. Nora may be adequately convinced Tarek is a good guy, but I’d like to get to know him a little better and form my own opinion.
He already has a strike against him in my book, so I want to know more about it. Maybe Nora saw him being a single-dad as a draw because she’s family-oriented, but me? I want to know why.
“So, how did you say you guys met?” I ask, before they can decide to announce they’re heading to bed.
Nora glances at Tarek, casually resting her hand on his thigh. “It was… what, three years ago?”
Tarek nods. “Amira’s first Christmas, so it would’ve been three years ago.”
She looks back at me, a relaxed smile on her face. “Okay, three years ago. Tarek and this adorable, absolutely angelic baby were alone on the flight I was working. They were going to visit his family for Christmas. And he just looked terrified. She was so small. I wanted to ease some of his anxiety about traveling with a baby, especially when she inevitably got hungry and started fussing. So, during my free moments, I popped over to check in and talk to him a bit.”
“Aw,” Autumn says, so easily enchanted by the beginning of a love story.
I’m torn between rolling my eyes at her and giving her an affectionate squeeze, but in the end I keep all of my focus trained on Nora and Tarek.
Nora grins and nods enthusiastically. “So, that’s that and I never expect to see him again. But then the following year, he’s on my flight again. He’s taking Amira home to see his family again. And now it’s a little less random. Now it’s starting to feel like fate.”
Autumn elbows me in the side. “Fate. This belief must run in your family.”
I slide Autumn a dry look before frowning at my sister. “I’m a little confused. You worked two Christmases in a row? I thought you usually insisted on time off so you could come home for Christmas.”
“Oh, I do. I was already back to work.” She glances over at Tarek, then back at me, “Tarek’s family is from Egypt, they’re Coptic Christians. So they do celebrate Christmas, but their calendar is different. They celebrate Christmas in early January, not the end of December. It works out perfectly for us. We’ll always be able to visit my family for our Christmas celebration, then go see his family for theirs. There’s no schedule conflict. I love it. My airline doesn’t, I asked for a lot more vacation time and they were not impressed, but…”
“Hopefully you won’t have to work there much longer, anyway,” Tarek remarks, triggering a nod of agreement from my sister.
“Were you planning to get a different job?”
She nods. “When I was single, my job made sense. I enjoyed traveling and I didn’t need to be tied down anywhere. But… well, Tarek and I are planning to move in together in the new year, and I think it would be hard on Amira and her sense of stability to have her mother jetting off to different places all the time. That’s just not what we want, so I’m going to look for something close to home, maybe even something part-time.” She glances at Tarek again, seeming to consider adding something else, but she must decide not to. With an unconvincing smile, she says, “What about you two? How did you meet?”
