Don't Open Till Christmas Page 11

  “You and Randy?” Noelle said, eyes wide. “My God, I figured him for a virgin until your wedding night.”

  Sue smirked. “Ha. How on earth did you think he ever got me to go out with him in the first place? We hooked up at a party in senior year and he was just, so…mm…good…”

  Noelle’s hand flew up, palm out. “I don’t want to hear about it.”

  “You started it. I’m just saying, sex for its own sake can be lots of fun, but it isn’t always as easy as it seems at first.”

  Running a weary hand over her brow, Noelle murmured, “I’ve already figured that out. I thought it would be easy, but I’m already wondering how I’m going to go back to Chicago tonight, knowing I’ll never see him again.”

  It was Sue’s turn to gape. “You mean it was bad? You’re not going back for seconds?”

  “No, I’m not going back for seconds.” She hadn’t answered the first part of the question, but Sue kept quiet, because Noelle wasn’t finished. “This was just a fling, a present to myself. Sex with someone who’s practically a stranger. No chance of a broken heart that way.”

  Sue nibbled her bottom lip, hating to hear that resigned tone in Noelle’s voice. It reminded her of the way her cousin had been last year, when Jeremy had broken their engagement a few days before Christmas last year. Sorry, Noelle, I knocked up some slut from another town, so the wedding’s off. Sure has been fun dating you for the past three years. Oh, and have a Merry Christmas and a fun reception—hope the cake’s good!

  The pig.

  Funny, on that day, rather than appearing enraged, Noelle had looked…worn out. Fatalistic. As if somehow she’d been expecting the betrayal, and was already steeling herself against ever letting it happen again.

  Frankly, it had reminded Sue a lot of the way Noelle had looked when her father had walked out on his family so many years ago. Her cousin had reacted in a similar fashion both times…curling up inside herself as if she was never going to let anyone close enough to hurt her again. Jeremy the penis-head had apparently finished the job of crushing whatever was left of Noelle’s hopeful nature.

  But maybe Mr. Studly with the chest as broad as the continental divide could help her get it back.

  “I’d better go,” Noelle said. “I have to get the house immaculate before your mom shows up.”

  “But you haven’t given me any details,” Sue said with a frown. “I want to talk about the sex.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  “Oh, come on,” Sue said, punching down one of her pillows, “sex is a great distraction and I need something to distract me.”

  “Sorry,” her cousin said with a smirk, “I’m only interested in sex if I’m actively participating in it.”

  “As you actively participated last night?” Sue asked airily.

  Noelle grinned and admitted, “Yes, you nosy nudge.”

  Finally her cousin looked secretly satisfied like a woman should look after she’d had a night being done by a center-fold-quality hunk. “Well, I can’t actively participate and I am bored out of my mind, so give me some details. Is he thick in other places besides that big chest?”

  Noelle primly curled her fingers together in her lap. “Look, I know you haven’t had sex in a long time, but I don’t particularly like to kiss and tell.”

  “A long time? Hell, we were doing it up until last week. My midwife told me ejaculate could help soften up the cervix for labor.” She patted her tummy. “Had to get pretty creative in terms of positions, but it was lots of fun.”

  Noelle’s hands flew to her ears. “I don’t want to know this!”

  Once her hands were down, Sue continued. “Poor Randy, he felt awful, thinking our sex life might have caused the problems I’m having.”

  Her disgruntled frown fading, Noelle leaned forward on her chair, her elbows on her knees. “You feeling okay? A little…better about things?”

  Sue knew what she was asking. Noelle was the only one to whom Sue had really broken down about her misery regarding the baby’s delivery. “I suppose,” she said, not really meaning it. “It seems so selfish to be upset about it, doesn’t it? Most women would probably think I’m crazy to be sad that I’m going to miss the whole agony of labor and the pushing thing.”

  “Most women didn’t see you train for the Chicago mini-marathon by running in the snow for two winters straight,” Noelle replied, her voice soft and understanding.

  She was right. Sue had always worked hard and trained hard to accomplish any goal she set for herself, the tougher the better. Which made this complete helplessness that much more infuriating. “I don’t want to think about it right now. But I really do want to hear some juicy sex details.”

  Noelle rose and shook her head. “So read a hot Harlequin romance novel.”

  Sticking her lip out in a pout, Sue said, “Come on, I’m dying of boredom here. Throw me a bone.”

  “Get Randy to rent you a naughty movie.”

  Sue smirked. “Rent? Puh-lease.”

  Noelle raised a curious brow.

  “Go check out the top shelf of my closet.”

  Her cousin obviously understood and quickly shook her head. “No, thank you.”

  “Oh, come on, if you’re only having stranger sex, and this weekend was it for you and the hunky hottie, you’re going to need a lot more than porn to get through the next few weeks. You’re going to need to go right to that sex toy shop on Michigan Avenue and invest in a dildo. A big one.”

  Noelle was groaning, rolling her eyes and laughing all at the same time as she walked out the room. But Sue wasn’t laughing. Her cousin had grabbed a wonderful experience and enjoyed the heck out of it right here, in Christmas. But she knew Noelle. Come tomorrow, at home in Chicago, her cousin would retreat back to her sweater-wearing, man-distrusting, social working self. Which was a damn shame.

  So without thinking too much about it, Sue quickly came up with a few ideas to help Noelle out, just as any good cousin-and-best-friend should do. She’d need Randy’s assistance, but her husband was so eager to please these days that she didn’t think he’d mind the loss of one or two of their “special” movies. She could do some Internet ordering for the other goodies she had in mind.

  As for the method of delivery? Well, that was easy. She had a built-in Chicago delivery man right here…Mark Santori. He would, she felt sure, be happy to bring a few “thank-you” gifts to Noelle.

  And one day, hopefully, Noelle would be saying some thank-yous of her own.

  7

  DURING THE DRIVE BACK to Chicago Monday afternoon, Mark had a lot of time to think about the incredible twenty-four hours he’d just shared with Noelle Bradenton. They had been incredible. Amazing. The most intensely pleasurable sexual experiences he’d ever enjoyed.

  After their wild, fast and furious session yesterday morning, he and Noelle had parted for a few hours so she could get some work done at the inn. She’d promised to come back that night. With time on his hands, Mark had walked around the town a little more, his mind still on the holiday thieves. But he’d found no smoking gun, or even a hint of suspicion during his travels. His cop luck was running on empty in this case.

  His luck had returned in another way, though, because Noelle had been as good as her word. She’d slipped into his room at ten o’clock the previous night and the two of them had started all over again. This time, Mark’s way.

  He didn’t think he was ever going to have enough of kissing that woman. Or of stroking her soft, smooth skin. Or burying himself inside her tight, heavenly body.

  Or, as it turned out, of just holding her hand and talking to her. This morning, after breakfast, he’d gotten her to show him around Christmas, despite the cold. She’d grumbled about it, and had kept up a running monologue of hilarious stories about the antics of the town’s residents. Mark had been more fascinated by the way the brilliant sunlight shining down from an icy-clear blue sky made her dark hair come alive.

  He’d also been fascinated with the li
ttle details she’d revealed about her life. From what he could gather, Noelle and her cousin felt closer to each other’s mothers than to their own. Noelle’s father apparently lived on the other side of the country and hadn’t seen his daughter for years, but that was about as much as he could get her to share about him.

  All in all, she was every bit as charming, vivacious and irresistible in the daylight hours as she’d been during the long sexy night.

  Which made it damned frustrating to think she was going to stick to her plan to keep their fling strictly a one-weekend, out-of-town event. When he’d left the inn shortly after lunch, he’d asked her to have dinner with him later in the week and she’d turned him down flat. Even a deep, wet kiss goodbye hadn’t changed her mind.

  Okay, her voice had shaken, and her nipples had been hard under her sweater when she’d rejected him the second time. And she’d looked as if she was going to fling herself on him when he whispered that he hadn’t done nearly as much with her as he wanted to. But she hadn’t relented.

  Fortunately for him, however, he had a couple of really good excuses to see her again. First, he was working on the shelter theft case and would have a legitimate excuse to go see her again. Second, Sue had given him a package and asked him to deliver it to Noelle back in the city, to thank her for her help, saying her cousin would have refused to accept it if Sue had offered it herself.

  And finally, Mark wasn’t going to let her get away. Period. He hadn’t been joking when he’d said there was more he wanted to do with her. Much, much more.

  Not the least of which was having a burger and maybe going for another walk…in his neighborhood, this time.

  As for sexually? Oh, yeah, there were a lot of sensual pleasures he’d like to share with Noelle Bradenton. Just thinking of them—imagining her beautiful body bathed in the glow of a crackling fire on the thick rug in his apartment—aroused him all over again.

  “Okay, enough of that,” he muttered under his breath, shifting in the driver’s seat of his car. He was pulling into the city and the last thing he needed was to crash because he couldn’t get his mind out of his pants. Or Noelle’s. Being near his own precinct, he couldn’t stand the thought of getting creamed by a semi. How humiliating if a bunch of guys he worked with watched while he was pried out of his car with the jaws of life, a massive hard-on blocking his escape.

  The image was enough to get his body back under control.

  Figuring he’d stop in to see the folks before heading home to his apartment, he cruised down Taylor Avenue and parked in the alley behind Santori’s. His brother Tony’s SUV was there, as was Pop’s Caddy. So was Joe’s pickup.

  He smiled, finding comfort in the familiarity that he sometimes took for granted. Funny, this weekend had reinforced to him how very much he did like his own world. His weekend in Christmas had started out like a trip to looney-land, but by the end, he’d been seeing some of its family-oriented charm. Enough to make him want to see his own family, if only for a beer and a little conversation.

  “Markie!” his mother cried as he walked through the front door into the restaurant. He hadn’t gone through the back because if Pop saw him first, he’d have been grilling him for any gory details of his latest cases. Then Mama would find out he was in the building and hadn’t come to give her a kiss hello, and she’d whack him in the head with a spoon or something.

  “Where you’ve been?” she asked, coming out from behind the front counter to greet him. As usual, she was wearing a dress—he’d seen his mother in pants, but never in the restaurant. She’d no more wear anything other than a dress to Santori’s than she’d go to Sunday mass in a bikini.

  She grabbed him for a quick bear hug, then thunked him on the head with hard flick of her index finger. “You disappeared this weekend. You were supposed to be here for the Secret Santa drawing.”

  Mark sighed heavily. Catching Joe’s eye from across the room, he saw his older brother laugh. They’d all gotten their fair share of thunks in their lives. Since Joe had produced the family’s first granddaughter, however, he was currently one of Mama’s favorite people.

  “Sorry, Mama, I had to go out of town on a case.”

  “And you forget to call your family?”

  “Leave him alone, Ma, or he’ll walk back out the door and I need the big lug to help me haul the old stove to the dump.” This came from Tony, his oldest brother, who ran the restaurant for their partly-retired father. Being partly retired meant Pop stayed in the back, drinking Chianti and cooking—with Tony’s help—and Tony dealt with all the day-to-day business crap. The arrangement seemed to suit them both just fine.

  Tony, swaggering, as he usually did, was wearing a white apron, smeared with tomato sauce, which strained over his beefy chest. He took the “oldest child” title and ran with it whenever possible, bossing everyone around. But there was no one in the world Mark would rather have at his back in a brawl than his big brother Tony. Except, maybe, his partner, Harriet. Or, he supposed, his twin, Nick, who’d learned how to kick some serious ass in the Marines, despite being of leaner build, like Joe and their other brother, Lucas.

  Standing by the counter, he looked around the room, breathing everything in. The sights were the same. The smells were the same. The voices were the same, and they all appealed to him like nothing else in the world.

  This was his life, the one he’d always known. His friends, his co-workers, his job, they’d always come second to this place, this world.

  So why, he wondered, did the loud, bustling restaurant—jammed with red-faced Chicagoans downing pizza, spaghetti and wine—suddenly seem so empty? Why did his eyes instantly scan the place, seeking a familiar head of rich, dark hair, when he knew with absolute certainty that she couldn’t possibly be here?

  “Who is she?” Tony asked as he walked by, carrying a brown bag full of take-out food to Mama, who stood behind the front register. Fortunately, she was ringing up the purchase for a customer and hadn’t overheard.

  Mark shifted and jammed his fists into the pocket of his leather jacket. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Hearing a snicker from behind him, he realized he was outnumbered and surrounded. Joe, the second oldest, said, “You might as well give up, little brother. You’ve got that ‘where the hell am I and who was that woman who blindsided me’ look on your face.”

  “Yep,” Tony said absently as he waved to a group of newcomers to shut the front door against the bitter outside air. “You’re suckered, all right.”

  Suckered. Maybe he was. It seemed too soon; he’d only known Noelle a couple of weeks. But he already felt as if he knew her better than anyone else in her life. She’d never believe it, but he already had a pretty good idea of what made her tick. What made her sad. What hurt her. What excited her. What she cared about.

  And what she most cared about, aside from her very pregnant cousin, were the women and children at the shelter where she worked. Which suddenly gave him an idea. A very good idea.

  Looking around at the customers, many of whom had been patronizing Santori’s for twenty years, he realized there was one more reason he could stay in touch with Noelle. Not to mention do something really nice for some people who truly deserved it. So without giving it much more thought, he looked at Tony and said, “Do you have any of those big empty mayonnaise jars in the storeroom?”

  Tony nodded. “Sure. Why?”

  Smiling, Mark put his hand on his brother’s shoulder and led him toward the back of the restaurant. “Because I need your help filling one up for some kids who really need a little Christmas miracle.”

  THOUGH SHE WAS BUSY catching up on work after having taken a couple of days off, Noelle realized on Thursday that she was lonely. Very lonely.

  She missed her family, that was all. To her great surprise, she’d really enjoyed going home and spending a couple of days with Sue and Randy. Their excitement about the baby had been catching, and she could hardly wait to meet her godchild, who would hopef
ully be named something other than Sugar Ray. Sue had been considering the name, saying the baby was using her internal organs for punching bags.

  Aunt Leila’s arrival had been a special treat. Though she knew her aunt drove Sue nuts, Noelle had always felt very close to the woman. Aunt Leila’s stories about retired life in Arizona had made them all laugh, even Sue, who gave her mother tips on trying to pick up some of the white-haired old guys in her square dancing class.

  All in all, her trip home had been relatively painless. She’d avoided going outside into crazy-town, for the most part, other than her Monday morning outing. And she hadn’t seen any slugs—aka Jeremy. She’d even allowed herself a smile or two when dealing with Mrs. Miller and the rest of the Christmas Carolers, who’d made Sue very happy for a while.

  Yes, the long weekend had been okay. Even fun. That was why she felt lonely, despite being surrounded by people in the shelter, and only that.

  “Bull,” she whispered under her breath.

  She missed him.

  She shouldn’t have. She didn’t want to. But there was nothing she could do about it. After being back in Chicago for only forty-eight hours, she missed Mark Santori desperately.

  Because the weekend hadn’t been simply painless and fun. It had also included the most erotically charged moments of her entire life.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she muttered as she sat behind her desk at the shelter, doing some paperwork late Thursday afternoon. “A fling, it was just supposed to be an anonymous fling.” Never to be regretted. But never to be repeated, either.

  So why was she dying for an encore?

  “I’m heading out,” a voice said from the doorway.

  Looking up, she saw Alice, whose weary expression probably matched the one on Noelle’s face. They’d been beating the pavement or making phone calls all day, trying to drum up emergency donations for the Give A Kid A Christmas program. Lots of people were kind and sympathetic…but most of those same people had already given out their holiday donations and weren’t in the position to offer much more than their heartfelt sympathy and best wishes.