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  He still needed to be absolutely clear. “What did you say?” He still used the bluff, hearty tone, even in a whisper, in case he’d been wrong.

  It was very dark in the ancient pine box that had probably been built decades ago and still got trotted out every holiday season. He could smell the shampoo she used in her hair, he could practically taste her skin, and he realized her arms were around his waist in the tight little box. His stomach padding was so thick he hadn’t really felt it—in fact, he could feel nothing about her, not her small, perfect breasts that he’d barely managed to glimpse, not her long legs, not the feel of her heart and her breath against him, and he wanted to—he wanted to be skin to skin with her, all of her.

  But if he couldn’t feel her, then she definitely couldn’t feel him—no matter how damned hard he was, the stomach wadding pushed out farther, and the red velvet jacket hung down low. “What did you say?” he repeated, when she didn’t answer.

  He heard them then, and bit off his curse. He’d been so intent on his dick that he hadn’t even realized Benny Morelli had returned along with his band of bullies. He kept out of Benny’s way, Benny kept out of his—a hate-rich standstill that had worked marginally well for the last year or so. There was nothing Benny wanted more than to beat him down as he did so many other people, but Benny liked to have an advantage, and Johnny was almost a foot taller than he was, with a much longer reach. He was also just as mean a son-of-a-bitch in his own way, and they eyed each other like wary dogs if they happened to cross paths.

  Mollie was trembling in his arms, now, and his hold tightened protectively. Intentions be damned, as well as sense. He heard her sudden, panicked intake of breath and did what any right-thinking man would do. He kissed her.

  It was a strange sensation, being kissed by a man with a fake beard, but it was still Johnny, and when he kissed her, common sense went out the window. Actually, it went the moment he’d grabbed her and shoved her into this box. She was still trying to come to terms with the fact that bad-tempered, misanthropic Johnny Larsen had been moonlighting as Santa, and if she could judge by the people who’d just left, been doing a remarkable job at it. But once his hand had caught hers, once she felt his arm around her back, pulling her up against the puffy costume, she didn’t think at all, she just wanted. Sex was a physical release, something she did better when she was alone, but the thought of Johnny’s elegant, clever hands, his beautiful mouth, the taste of him, the burning in the pit of her stomach that came so close to lust that she almost didn’t recognize it—all those things conspired to overwhelm her, so that instead of triumphant, she felt shy.

  It was nothing compared to being kissed by the beard. The silky hair framed his mouth, her mouth, sealing them together, and his tongue was a wicked partner, slipping inside her mouth to test her, taste her, deepening until her knees felt weak and her hands were trembling. She should run. This was a greater danger than anything else she had run into in this Twilight Zone, and if she remembered correctly all those half-hour, black-and-white episodes ended with a creepy twist. With her luck, she’d wake up and discover she was a mannequin in the store, watching as Johnny and the others tried to go about their business.

  But right then, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was pressing against him, opening her mouth for him, letting him kiss her with a thoroughness that made her bones melt. God, the man knew how to kiss! She usually called a halt to the kissing part of foreplay when she’d endured enough, and she’d kissed enough men to know she didn’t like it very much. So why did Johnny’s mouth have the power to move her?

  She needed to take charge, she told herself. She needed to stop this before it went any further. It was her own damned fault—she’d told him what....who she wanted for Christmas, when she should have known better. She couldn’t afford a fling with him, because it would be anything but a fling, given the unexpected depth of her longing for him. She wanted his strong, capable hands on her bare body, arousing her, seducing her, but that was the last complication she needed in her life.

  It would be simple to take control—she’d done it dozens of times, except right then she couldn’t remember how to do it, what to say, how to push him away with a laugh and a dismissal, when she really didn’t want him to go anywhere at all.

  His tongue swept across her lower lip, followed by the pressure of his teeth, and a strange sensation rippled through her belly. Why hadn’t some other man kissed her like this, she thought dismally. But they had. It just hadn’t felt like this.

  Maybe it was because he was Santa. Maybe she’d always been in love with the mythical figure who brought her toys and dolls and candy canes, maybe she had a kinky sexual obsession for him. Because she was definitely feeling something as his gloved hands slid down her back, over her butt, and he pulled her closer, into the padding.

  Except that she’d felt this before, this nascent stirring of sensation that was between her legs, between her breasts, in her heart, and he hadn’t been wearing a Santa suit at the time. She let out a little moan of pleasure, so soft that only he could hear her, and his muffled response, through the fake hair, into her mouth, was pure hunger, as a sharp pang of need ran through her.

  She needed to get this taken care of, here and now. Let him take her, get it over and done with, wham bam thank you ma’am, and move on. His hands held her shoulders, keeping her in place, but his fingers kneaded the flesh as his tongue moved against hers, and she could imagine the long, deft fingers on her body, touching her, knowing how to do it.

  His mouth on hers had been a hungry demand, but his kiss had turned leisurely, almost lazy, exploring her mouth, taking his time, all the while the tight spot between her legs grew tighter, and her argumentative mind started drifting away as all she could think about was the mesmerizing effect he was having on her, tucked away in the North Pole. She no longer even thought of escape—she just wanted to stay like this, lazy, sensuous, mouth to mouth, losing herself to it.

  He bit her tongue, lightly, and she jolted, not understanding her own reaction. She was being crazy—she’d been crazy—for far too long. She was ready to hand everything over to him; her body, her control, her feelings that she’d been suppressing so damned hard. She wanted to dissolve into him, drift on a tide of pleasure, and she wanted...she wanted...

  He pulled away, and a disoriented panic swept through her. Why did he stop, why did he pull away? Had he been playing with her?

  She backed away as far as she could, which was a matter of inches in the cramped space, and looked up at him in the murky light, then spat out a few long white strands from the fake beard. “I need to get back upstairs.” She still didn’t dare speak out loud—she didn’t want to trust anything to Benny’s tender mercies.

  Johnny said nothing. It was dark in the tiny space, too dark to read his expression, assuming there was anything recognizable beneath the disguise. His hands were still on her shoulders, still kneading lightly, sinuously, and that familiar/unfamiliar ache was moving up, through her breasts, filling her. She moved her hand, reaching to push at the door, when he caught her wrist, and in the distance she heard another crash. The Grinch was still looking for her.

  She didn’t even realize what she was doing when she sank back against him in defeat. She hadn’t been sleeping well on that rumpled old couch—it was comfortable enough, almost wide enough for two, and a couple of pillows and a blanket had miraculously appeared in the last few days. But she kept waiting for Johnny to show up, and he never had.

  He was here now, pressed against her, but so covered up and padded that it felt like she was trapped with a giant Paddington Bear. She just had to be patient, she reminded herself, and Benny and the Jets would tire of the chase, she’d go back upstairs, and Johnny would disappear once more. She’d never been particularly good at waiting, and in that coffin-like space she felt surrounded, engulfed in everything that was Johnny Larsen. But it didn’t feel like a coffin, it felt like a bed, albeit even smaller than the old couch on the eighth f
loor.

  His hands moved up her arms, and she realized he’d stripped off the thick velvet gloves, and the contrast was unsettling, almost as if there was nothing between his hard, clever hands and her skin. He was using those hands, sliding them up her arms, to her shoulders, and then cradling her neck beneath her heavy hair. He brought her face up to his and kissed her again, like someone who’d sworn to give up a dangerous drug and yet kept coming back for more. But she wasn’t the dangerous drug—he was. All planes and angles and warm skin and everything wrong.

  In that cramped space, there was nothing and no one but the heat between them, and instead she slid her arms back around his waist and let herself breathe a sigh of temporary surrender, ready to just dissolve into him. It wasn’t as if he’d actually want to do anything once the light of day, or the incandescent light of the mid-twentieth century, hit them. He hated her, he wanted her gone. So why was he kissing her, and why, in God’s name, was she kissing him back?

  He broke the kiss abruptly, lifting his head, and she heard the voices, too close. Benny was snarling at one of his minions, and the filthy words he was using to describe her sounded almost demented with rage. Her stomach clenched, but this time it wasn’t with unwanted desire—it was fear.

  “She must have left, Benny,” a whining voice said, one she hadn’t heard before. “I mean, I never saw her in the first place, but if it’s who I think it is, then she works here, and I don’t think there’s anything you can do.” There was a silence, and then the voice continued, sounding definitely nervous. “I mean, of course there is, but if she’s not doing anything wrong...?”

  “If she’s running, then she must be doing something wrong—we just don’t know what,” Benny growled. “I don’t let things happen on my watch, and everyone knows it.”

  “What about that nutso vet who does the windows?” some unwise man piped up. “He’s still roaming the place.”

  Madison could feel the sudden tension in the body next to her, the utter stillness, and then he seemed to tremble, even the slightest movement obvious to her. Nutso? What the hell did they mean by that? The tremor that moved through his body was even more alarming, until she realized he was trying to muffle his laughter. Without stopping to think, she gave him a sharp kick to his shins.

  She was impressed—he didn’t make a sound, though it jarred his body, jarring hers. “Don’t poke the nutso dragon,” he said in her ear, so softly that it was merely a breath of sound. “We breathe fire.”

  She opened her mouth to snap something back at him, but he was way ahead of her, covering it with his hand to still any noise she could make. She had to make do with glaring at him, but it was too dark for him to see her displeasure. Then again, he’d been around her often enough in the past week to know her reaction.

  “He won’t be a problem for much longer,” Benny said in an ominous voice, but Madison was no longer paying attention, because Johnny’s hands had caught her wrists, starting to pull them away from her stranglehold on him, except that he must have changed his mind, because after the first soft tug, he slid his hands up her arms, so that they were holding on to her, the backs of his fingers brushing against her breasts, an accidental caress that was no accident at all, and she wanted to moan, which was ridiculous since her breasts were seldom responsive, no matter what someone was doing to them.

  A sudden wash of pain swept over her, pain and despair and anger at the unfairness of fate. Why did this one man have the power to turn her on, doing more with a look or a brush of his fingers than other men had?

  But maybe that was the answer to this conundrum. Maybe this was one long, heated sex dream brought on by years of frustration, and the moment she got off, she’d be back in her own life.

  “They’re gone,” he whispered in her ear, the silky beard tickling her skin, his hands still innocently stroking her arms. Her breasts. Her nipples felt tight, hard, constricted, and she wanted to rub against him, not against the velvet and the padding but against his hard, naked chest.

  And then she realized what he’d said. “How do you know?”

  “Well, maybe because they left over five minutes ago while you’ve been standing there rubbing against me like a cat, and they get served supper at seven on the dot and they never miss free food.”

  “Rubbing against you?” she echoed in a louder voice, incensed. “You’re the one rubbing against me, you perv, and it’s not like there’s any room in this place, you randy son of a bitch...” She shoved him away from her, a mistake. They were too entwined, the Faux Pole was too flimsy, and they went crashing onto the floor, the wood splintering around them with an ominous crack.

  They were sprawled out in the muted security lights, on the floor with phony packages and fake snow all around them, and she was on top of him, staring down, breathless, furious, every inch of her body aroused and angry.

  “You are such a bastard,” she hissed.

  The hat, wig and beard had gone flying, and he should have looked ridiculous in the red-velvet jacket. He looked delicious.

  “Yeah,” he agreed, yanking her down to him.

  She didn’t bother wondering why she was kissing him back, why she rolled beneath him with the slightest pressure. He’d managed to get rid of his padding, the coat was open, and it was hard, familiar body pressing her down, his erection unmistakable beneath his red pants.

  She was wearing a skirt—of course she was, that’s all women seemed to wear, and she wanted him to pull it up, rip it off her, do anything at all, just get it done, damn it, make all this make sense, damn it.

  He did something, all right. He rolled off her and stood up, breathing heavily, and then reached a hand down for her. She managed to sit up the moment he pulled away, and she stared up at him, at the proffered hand. Probably not the best possible position, since the obvious place to look from her vantage point was the bulge in the red velvet trousers. Avoiding temptation, she looked up into his face. He looked frustrated and angry—of course he did. She sighed.

  “Go away.” She drew her knees up and rested her chin on them. “Go disappear again—Rosa and I get more accomplished when you aren’t around anyway. But this time you might at least leave word with someone in case we need to find you.”

  “You don’t need to find me,” he said flatly, not withdrawing his hand.

  And she wasn’t going to move, goddamn it. “No, I don’t. I don’t need you at all. Now go away and leave me alone.”

  He let out a long-suffering sigh and she looked around for something to stab his booted foot with. “Benny’s going to have to come back and clean up the mess he and his bully boys created, and if I know him, he’s not going to waste any time. And I’ve got to rebuild this box that you destroyed.” He gestured to the shards of the North Pole. “So be a good girl, go back to the eighth floor, and stay out of the way.”

  It was absurd that was the last straw. He’d said far worse things to her, and she’d never had any illusions. She was there only on sufferance, and there was a limit to how much he was willing to put up with. At that moment, if she’d been able to find a window that opened, she would have flung herself out of it. If she was dead on the sidewalk, it wouldn’t matter which damned century she was in.

  “You coming?” he said impatiently.

  Finding a working window on this level of the building was close to impossible. There was absolutely nothing she could do. She was trapped, helpless, and she wanted to scream, to cry, to rage. Enough was enough.

  She scrambled to her feet, and he was smart enough to step back rather than force the assistance he’d offered. She looked up at him, at his hard eyes, at the mouth that had been so good on hers. “Fuck off.” She said it calmly, without venom, and turned away from him, heading toward the freight elevators.

  “Be ready by seven tomorrow.” His words followed after her, and she halted in disbelief when she should have simply ignored him. But she already knew he was a hard man to ignore, at least for her.

  She turned. “W
hat are you talking about?”

  “Our date,” he said in a smart-ass tone of voice. “You don’t want to miss our big night on the town, do you?”

  She really, really wanted to tell him to shove it up his ass, when common sense stopped her. He was planning on escorting her out of this building. There’d be no crowds of shoppers to get lost in, nothing to interfere with her escape but the perennially locked doors. She would have proof.

  The smile she gave him was full of venom. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  Chapter 14

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Rosa said glumly, watching Madison head for the door, and Madison laughed, thinking immediately of Star Wars.

  “What’s so funny?” Rosa continued, giving her that confused look she often had when she was around Madison.

  “That’s a famous line from an old movie,” Madison said.

  “No, it’s not.” Rosa’s voice brooked no disagreement. “I know everything about movies—I read every single movie magazine and I go to matinees every chance I get and I have since I was six years old. If it was famous, I’d know it.”

  Shit, Madison thought. “It was before your time,” she suggested uncertainly.

  “Nope.” Rosa shook her head. “They have a theater near where I live that only shows old movies. I’ve even seen every single Rudolph Valentino film, and I don’t care if he died decades before I was born—the man was a dreamboat.”

  “Where do you live?” Madison said, trying to change the subject.

  “On Perry Street in Greenwich Village.”

  “The Village?” Madison echoed, surprised. She would have given an arm and a leg to live anywhere in the Village, but it was way above the paygrade of anyone but the one percent. She struggled to remember what that area used to be like, but all she could envision were artists and various forms of revolution, none of which were Rosa’s style.

  “My grandparents have a store there, and we live above it. It’s a strange place sometimes, what with all the weird people and artists and stuff, but I really like it there. What movie?”