Christmas in His Bed: Talking in Your Sleep... / Unwrapped / Kiss & Tell
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“I was wondering what was going on, I have to be honest. I thought maybe you didn’t trust me or something.”
“How could you think that?” Pam was shocked. “I trust you completely. This was … Well, I don’t know. I didn’t know what to say. Ted and I swore we wouldn’t tell anyone until we were both ready.”
“So how come it took you so long to go out on a real date? I mean, I can understand why you’d want to keep things under wraps, but you could have gone out long before this, couldn’t you?”
“Oh, we do, we go out all the time, but just the two of us. But those were small, private dates, nothing fancy. Nothing with other people. You know, where people would know us.”
“So that’s what you’re nervous about?”
“I don’t know.” Pam looked in the small mirror she had hanging over her desk, grabbing a tissue to fix her slightly smudged makeup. “I guess I’m worried what people will say.”
“Like your parents? Do they know?”
Pam rolled her eyes. “No. Haven’t hit that hurdle yet, but they’re bound to have a coronary. After I rejected all the ‘eligible’ bachelors they wanted me to marry for all those years, I think they finally assumed I was probably gay, and were happy not to know if that was the case or not.”
“I never understood why they don’t support this cause—their picture is in the paper often enough in connection to other charity events.”
“It’s hard to explain. That’s when they can donate large checks, not get their hands dirty. They wouldn’t mind if I supported causes, they don’t approve of my level of … involvement.”
“I’d think they’d be proud of you.”
“Well, we’ve maintained a truce about it over the years, since they could see I wasn’t about to stop my work. My relationship with Ted will be the real test. I can’t allow anything to threaten this place—we’re already struggling enough. A harsh blow like someone saying I act inappropriately could be a disaster.”
“I guess I can see that, though this is personal—it never interfered with the work you do, so it’s really no one’s business.”
“Well, we’ll see. Tonight is our first public event together. Ted wanted to wait until he was out on his own, and he’s almost completely moved into the new place. We’re going to move in together after the New Year.”
“How wonderful!” Joy crossed the room and gave her a congratulatory hug, and Pam smiled, her happiness at the prospect shining through her concerns.
“Yeah, and he’s been really instrumental in coming up with some good business strategies for Second Chance. He’s as devoted to it as I am, you know, and I guess, I don’t know …”
Pam was relieved when Joy seemed to read her mind.
“You don’t know if you want that? This place is yours, and now you find you’re sharing your whole life, including the shelter?”
“It’s mostly that, yes, but I also want him to have his own thing.”
“I can see what you mean, though. You’ve built this place. It is yours, but I can also see why he’d want to be involved, and use his talents to help you out.”
“I want to make sure that he follows his own goals. He’s worked hard to be where he is, and maybe he should go after his MBA or start his own business or do something … I can’t quite figure out if this is really what he wants, or if he’s only being … grateful.”
“Even if he is, is there something wrong with that? I think it’s sweet that he wants to be part of your life, and to help out. Ted hardly seems like the type not to go after what he wants—after all, he got you,” Joy teased.
“There’s a good point.” Pam smiled, shaking her head. “I don’t know—meeting here muddied the waters, I guess. We knew who we were when he was here, but now, well, some of the rules have changed. We’re into a new stage of our relationship. I don’t know how to separate it all out.”
“You love him.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then you’ll work it out.”
“You’re right, we will. Thanks. So how about you?”
“What about me?”
“Any news about the hottie next door?”
“Oh. I can’t believe I forgot this—or I suppose I should thank you for helping me forget it, at least for a little while,” Joy groused.
Pam listened to Joy’s story about the tape, so engrossed that she forgot her own troubles.
“Oh, honey—that’s terrible. Sounds like he made up for it, though.”
“Yeah, he did, but I’m so foggy from not getting any sleep I can’t seem to tell left from right anymore.”
“Well,” Pam said slyly, “I think we discussed that the solution to your sleep problem might be right next door.”
“He said the same thing,” Joy said, sighing.
“Okay, I have to go, so make this fast—what happened? Don’t edit,” she warned.
Pam was intrigued. She’d wished for Joy to meet someone wonderful for so long, and now it sounded as if she’d met someone truly different from the boring corporate types she usually dated. Maybe it was true that people in love wanted all their friends in relationships, too, but Pam truly wanted to see Joy happy. She worked hard and was a devoted friend. Over the years though, Pam had come to see that Joy held something back in her life. There was something deep inside she kept locked up, and Pam had always hoped the right man might come along with a key.
“After dinner, things got a little … heated. He kissed me, he said he wanted more, maybe.”
“So what’s the problem? He’s cute, and you’re available—go for it.”
“Go for it? Of course I can’t go for it—he’s just some guy who’s in town for a few weeks looking for some action.”
Pam tilted her head to the side. “Yes? Exactly what do you see wrong with that scenario? A fling is ideal—you have some fun, don’t take it all so seriously. You don’t have to worry if this guy meets anyone’s standards but your own—he’s temporary. It’s not like you’d be bringing him home to meet your parents.”
Joy frowned, perplexed. “I guess I figure when I get involved with someone, it’s for the long term, and I do tend to measure men by what my dad would think of them. I think that’s natural. He raised me.”
“You measure everything that way, Joy, and while your father is a good guy, maybe you need to start measuring things with your own stick. Including yourself. What do you want? What makes you happy?”
Joy frowned. “I—I’m not sure. I thought I was happy. I guess I haven’t thought about it much.”
“Well, think about it. Some rules are meant to be broken. Believe me, I know.” Pam smiled.
“Speaking of which, when’s Ted getting here?” Joy asked, not so subtly changing the subject.
“He’s not—no one here knows about us yet, and I don’t think they should until he’s no longer living here, so we’re meeting at the party.”
“It must be hard, keeping it secret.”
“It has been, especially from you—but I care about your opinion, and I was so afraid you would disapprove.”
“Why would I? I love you and Ted.”
“I know. I wish I’d told you sooner, but we thought it was better this way.”
“That’s fine. It probably added that whole forbidden-lust factor, huh?” Joy teased, laughing as Pam’s cheeks stained red again.
“You’re bad. Anyway, thanks for standing watch tonight.”
“No problem.”
As they walked out to the main room, Pam took a few bows and curtsies as she received compliments on her dress. Both women were surprised when Rashid, the night-shift staff, came in the front door.
“Rashid! I thought you weren’t able to be here tonight?” Pam asked.
“I had my schedule wrong—I’m due at the warehouse tomorrow night, so I’m good for tonight. Sorry if it messed you up,” Rashid said.
“I don’t know how you do it all, Ras,” Pam commented and Joy echoed the sentiment. Rashid ran the teen shelter across town and also worked a third shift in a home-improvement supply warehouse, on top of finishing his grad degree in social work. He’d spent his childhood on the streets, and Pam respected how he’d changed his life through sheer determination to do so. Growing up in the privileged environment that she had, where everything came so easily, she found it inspiring to know the people she did.
“If you still want the night off, Rashid, I’ll stay. I was prepared to, anyway,” Joy offered.
Rashid shook his head. “Thanks, but I’m good. I want to talk with some of the guys tonight.”
Pam looked at Joy, grinning. “I guess that means you get to go home early. Maybe check in on your neighbor, see what he’s cooking tonight.”
Joy glared, and Pam laughed, her friend’s excuse to avoid her neighbor flying right out the window.
7
RAFE HUNG UP THE PHONE, deflated and lonely. First he’d called his parents, who were missing him, and his mother had done a primo job trying to get him back home for Christmas. It was hard for them to understand why he wanted to be so far away, that he needed to be far away from the job. If he was back in the city, all he’d be able to think about was work, and that wouldn’t help him.
Of course, then he’d returned a call from Steve, the guy he’d been riding the ambulance with for the last three years. Steve’s wife had just given birth to their second child, and Steve had called to share the good news. Rafe was happy for his bud, but the conversation inevitably had turned to work.
Rafe missed it the way he would miss one of his limbs. He’d started college thinking he wanted to be a doctor. In his junior year he’d volunteered as an EMT and was hooked. He’d worked his way up to being a registered paramedic, and he loved it. The rush, the speed, the immediacy of helping people when they most needed it—it all made his blood run and his heart beat.
Until he’d started having nightmares and losing sleep. Gradually, he’d found he was getting frazzled, not handling the stress as well, not processing the emotions that came with the job. Classic burnout, his colleagues had told him—it got everyone eventually, and he’d lasted longer than many.
He’d thought he could handle it, thought it would pass on its own, but when he’d realized his pride could have cost Steve’s kids a father the night he’d nearly crashed the ambulance, Rafe knew he couldn’t keep going. He couldn’t do the job he loved, and he would never be able to do it again if he couldn’t solve this problem.
The sleeping pills had side effects that could be as bad as not sleeping, so drugs were not really an option. So here he was, two thousand miles away from everything he knew, staring out Warren’s window into a December evening that looked more like the Fourth of July.
Needing some air, he broke away from where he was sitting on the side of the bed and went out the front door, no destination in mind, just needing to get out. Standing out on Warren’s front walk, he relaxed his breathing, chasing the stress from his mind as he started working through a series of stretches. The sun dipped and the lights on the houses around him clicked on.
As he leaned over, his eye landed on the single unlit spot on the street. Joy’s house. The windows were dark, the car gone, not a creature was stirring in that lonely little house. He’d heard her car leave that morning—before the sun had come up, even though they’d been awake most of the night before. Where could she be now? Working late? Out with friends? Volunteering at the shelter she obviously loved so much? Avoiding him?
Why did he like Joy Clarke so much, exactly? He barely knew her.
Didn’t matter; he couldn’t keep his mind off her.
Straightening, he looked at the dark facade of her home again and contemplated her dislike of Christmas. She’d said she didn’t like it—that the lights annoyed her—but maybe she needed someone to share it all with? He’d asked her to hook up with him, essentially, and she’d shied away. Maybe there was another way to reach her.
Jumping in his car, he made a quick trip to the local home-improvement warehouse. Since he’d been working on Warren’s house, the staff recognized him. Several eager young female clerks helped him pick out decorations, and encouraged him when he told them his plan. As he drove home, the more he thought about it, the more determined he became.
Back at Warren’s, he grabbed his ladder, brought it over to Joy’s yard and got started. He’d have to work fast, as she could be home any second. The more he had done, the harder it would be for her to tell him to undo it. He smiled devilishly to himself.
An hour later, when he was up on the roof and nearly finished, he heard a car’s motor and looked down, watching Joy pull into her driveway, stop, then drive forward the rest of the way.
He swung down over the edge back to the ladder and heard her car door slam.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He was prepared for her temper and turned around calmly, greeting her politely.
“Evening, Joy. Putting up some lights—you’re the only house on the block without a single light on,” he answered, nonplussed. “It’s not a lot—a bit around the edge of the roof and corners—you won’t even be able to see them from inside.”
She glowered. “I don’t want to see them at all—you have no right to have your way with my house!”
He couldn’t help but grin at her phrasing—her house wasn’t the only thing he wanted to have his way with.
“Stop smiling at me like that! I’m serious!” she said between clenched teeth.
“I know you are. I’ll make you a deal. You help me finish putting up these lights, and we’ll turn them on, and if you still don’t like it, I’ll take them down. Though I’ve been working on them for quite a while, so it may have to wait until tomorrow,” he said with a sigh.
“It’s been a long day, Rafe….”
“All the more reason for you to do something fun at the end of it. With me,” he said, bending to hand her a coil of wire and lights. “Hold these and feed them up to me as I clip them, okay? This is the last bunch.”
She sputtered for a moment, but he hopped back up the ladder, not giving her a chance to object. Sure enough, she walked to the edge and fed him the lights as he neatly clipped them into place.
“Did you end up working late?” he inquired casually, filling the silence between them.
“No. I went by the shelter.”
“Hmm,” was all he said, earning another curious look.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I thought maybe you were trying to wait me out and come home late, so I might get the hint that you’re not interested.”
“It didn’t work, apparently.”
He looked down, catching her eye unabashedly. “That’s because I know it’s not true. Just like I know you’re not going to hate these lights, even though you’re going to want to.”
“You’re pretty cocky for a guy I just met.” The comment was dry, but not angry, so he figured he was making progress.
“I have a good sense of people. I had to in my line of work.”
“You’re wrong about the lights—you’re going to end up taking them all down again.”
He gave himself a mental high five as he realized she hadn’t denied her interest in him.
“Could be. Maybe you need to look at having these lights up here from a different perspective,” he offered, hanging the final string and making his way back to the ground.
“How so?”
“Plug that in over there, and we’ll see.”
She shook her head but did go to the corner of the house to plug in the cord. Immediately, her house was outlined in soft white and red lights.
“I liked the red and white—like peppermint,” he said, standing back to admire his work.
“I guess. What did you mean, a different perspective?” she asked finally.
“Well, I wanted to do this for you. However, even if you don’t enjoy Christmas decorations so much, there’s a neighborhood of people here who will. The kids, especially. I used to walk the streets back home and look at all the lights when I was a kid.” He was quiet for a moment, letting his words sink in. Joy obviously had a sense of social purpose or she wouldn’t volunteer at the shelter. He figured all he had to do was appeal to that part of her.
“Now, when they walk by your house, it will lift their spirits. It makes you part of the neighborhood, part of the community. When Bessie looks out her front window, she’ll see your lights the same way you see hers. It’ll make her smile, and you know, she needs that. The holidays are difficult for people who’ve lost loved ones.”
He could tell from her quiet contemplation of the lights that he’d made her reconsider. Joy obviously cared about others—maybe more than she cared about herself.
“If you think I can’t see how you’re being so clever with manipulating me, think again,” she said tartly. “I guess they’re pretty. It’s not too much.”
“So they can stay up?”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
Cheerful about his victory, he grabbed her and kissed her, not allowing her time to put up her defenses. Instead, much to his surprise, she put her hands around the back of his neck, tentatively at first, and then with more commitment as she opened her lips and let him explore further.
Delighted to comply, he tasted her thoroughly, rubbing his tongue along the contours of hers, teasing every satin inch of her mouth. He eased his arms around her, taking in the graceful sway of her lower back, the curves below, and kept himself busy memorizing every nuance of her mouth.
She sighed against his lips, kissed him back gently, but mostly allowed him to find his way around her, and he didn’t mind that one bit. Though when he drew back and gazed at her face, taking in flushed cheeks and her lowered eyelids, he couldn’t help but wonder what had changed.
“I guess you really liked the lights more than you thought you would,” he said teasingly and saw a hint of a smile at the edge of her well-kissed lips.
“I think I like you a little more than I thought I would,” she confessed, surprising him.
Not wanting to let the fires die out, he dipped down, nuzzling the warm skin of her neck. She shivered even though it was far from cold outside.
“I’m glad about that. Want to go inside?”
She hesitated, as if weighing her response, and then nodded. Without a word, she took her keys from her pocket and he could see her hands tremble. Desire or something else?
He followed her in. As the door closed, her keys fell to the carpet along with her bag, and he didn’t waste a moment.
“I love how you taste,” he shared before devouring her mouth again, urging her to respond, to take him as much as he wanted to take her. He licked the thundering pulse in her throat, knew that she liked it by the soft sigh she couldn’t hold back. “Touch me back, Joy. Kiss me back,” he said against her mouth.
She did, and when he slid his hands up under her shirt, she moaned into his mouth as his palms closed over her breasts, kneading through the fabric of her bra, teasing her nipples to fine points that he enjoyed playing with.
Rafe pressed his erection against her hip, rubbing gently. He was close, ready to explode. It had been a long while and he was starving for release.
She seemed to notice, intuiting his need to be touched, and slipped her hand down inside his jeans. He caught his breath audibly when her fingers closed around his length and he pressed into her harder. They dove into each other’s kisses enthusiastically and within seconds he gave in, groaning as he came, unable to hold back. It was one of the most erotic things he’d ever experienced, so much so that he remained hard, barely finished but ready to go again.
“Uh-oh, we’re one-nothing now—want to go to bed early and even the score?” he asked teasingly, weaving his hands through her hair and nuzzling her warm skin.
He could taste the sheen of perspiration that had formed there, turning him on more. This first time had been fast, taking the pressure off, but when he got her upstairs he’d show her that her dreams paled compared to reality. He wanted to make her scream with pleasure while she was completely awake.
“Oh, no, I don’t think so. That’s all right,” she said quickly, extracting her hand and slipping away from him, hitting the light switch by the door.
He blinked in confusion, watching her bend to pick up her keys and coat, putting her keys in her pocket. She smoothed her shirt and hair, as if, well, as if they were done.
“Excuse me?” He walked over and tugged her up against him, looking down into her eyes, her face only inches from him.
The desire he’d experienced with her in the semidark by the door vanished, however, the only hints of it remaining in the color of her cheeks, her swollen lips and the musky smell of sex between them. He could see the stemmed desire in her eyes, the tautness of her features, as if she were under stress. He’d be happy to relieve it for her, but had no idea what she was doing.
“What game are you playing, Joy?” He was still on edge, his body hot for hers and his emotions scrambling. He didn’t like how she just shut it off, the passion. It made what had happened, well … cheap.
“No games.” She put her hands on his arms, pushed back, getting some physical distance. “I … I don’t know why I did that. It was nice, it’s okay—you don’t have to, ah, even the score. It was a mistake, obviously.”
“Why?” He wrapped his arms around her even though she gasped an objection and tried to push away. But he held her there, moving his hands firmly around her back. Her resistance was nominal, as if she were fighting herself more than him. Finally, she looked up at him.
“You’re only here for a few weeks. This won’t go anywhere. I don’t know you.”
What he’d interpreted as distance he now realized was not that at all, but instead closer to fear or anxiety. He loosened his hold, but stayed close.
“So you’ll spend a couple weeks getting to know me, and we’ll have some fun. Remember fun, Joy? Have you ever really let yourself go and not worried about every little thing?”
“Easy for you to say, you’re on vacation, you don’t have a career that needs your attention, and you—”
“You said you don’t know me—and you’re right,” he reminded her tersely. “You don’t. This isn’t completely a vacation, Joy. It’s a leave of absence because I couldn’t do my job. A job I happen to love, and which has been my whole life. So don’t say I don’t understand that. Now I can’t do it, because I can’t get a damned night’s sleep.”
He stepped back, wiping a hand over his face, lowering his voice when he saw her stunned expression. Great. She’d hit a nerve, and their emotions were running high, but that didn’t give him the right to lash out.
“Listen, maybe you’re right, I’m sorry—”
She took a step forward. “No … You’re right. I don’t know you, so I shouldn’t make assumptions. I didn’t mean to do that, I didn’t know …” She drifted off as if searching for the words, and he waited.
“You’re right. I haven’t had fun in so long…. Maybe that’s why my blood pressure’s up—”
“You have high blood pressure?” he asked, slipping into his EMT role without a second thought.
She smiled. “Slightly. The doctor wasn’t concerned, but she did tell me to find ways to relax more. I guess I didn’t really follow that prescription.”
He took another chance. “Maybe I could help with that?”
His stomach actually did a little flip when her cheeks turned hot as if merely thinking about having fun excited her, and he experienced the corresponding stir in his lower regions again. They could have a little fun together.
“I don’t know, Rafe, I can’t make any promises about … that.” She glanced meaningfully toward the door, and he knew to what she was referring. “I’ve never been very good with, uh, sex. I don’t seem to enjoy it much.”
Saying the word made her cheeks burn even hotter and he watched her flailing, wondering how she could think such a thing about herself.
“Coulda fooled me, honey, but a lot of people are insecure about sex and—”
“No, take my word for it—that’s why I keep dreaming, like I do—that never happens in real life. Ever. It’s never been my … thing.” Her hands flew up, covering her red face as she moaned with embarrassment. He pried her fingers away.