Escaping Christmas (Contemporary Romance) (2 page)

Angie stood on her balcony and gazed at the Kuala Lumpur skyline. She could see the Twin Towers from there—it was already well after dusk, so they were fully lit. As she looked out at the view, she reflected on the call she’d just had with her mother-in-law. Since she lost her son a year ago, Elizabeth had become a different person. She had gone from treating Angie like some leprous gold digger to going out of her way to connect with the woman her son had treated so shabbily. It was a relationship Angie was still wary of, so when Elizabeth had started dishing out advice on taking chances and living life more fully, she’d quickly ended the call. It had been too late to stop the words from penetrating Angie’s self-imposed fog, though, and now she couldn’t think of anything else.

She knew her mother-in-law was right, she needed to give herself a chance to find love again. But not just yet. Maybe in a decade or two, when she had full control over every aspect of her life and no man could pull the rug from under her feet the way her husband had. Tired of her own thoughts, she decided to nip outside and buy her dinner.

Standing outside her apartment door an hour later, Angie bit back a sigh as she dug into her backpack for her keys. Since the bag served as a catchall for everything from train tickets to pencil stubs, it was taking her a while to find her key ring. The backpack was precariously balanced on one knee, and she was attempting to hold on to a take-out package of rice and Indian curry with her free hand. She rested her knee against the outer grill to stop herself from falling over.

“Excavating again?”

The takeout wobbled precariously, and she bit back a curse as it tilted a little to the side. Thankfully the box was very well sealed and nothing spilled. She turned to find Alex standing in front of her with a smile on his face. It was the first time she had seen him since their brief encounter at the coffee shop nearly a week before.

She pursed her lips in frustration. “What were you trying to do? Scare a few years off my life?”

He folded his arms across his chest and leaned casually against the wall.

“You were not scared.”

“Yeah… No thanks to you. And I almost lost my dinner,” she said. “Did you go on a trip or something?”

“I take it you missed me, then?”

“Careful there, your modesty is showing.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

She sighed and shoved her meal at him. “Here, make yourself useful and hold this for me.”

She turned away to search once more for her keys. With fresh determination, she jiggled her backpack and finally clasped her hand around them.

“Thank goodness!” she muttered.

She opened her door and turned around to face him, swallowing as she took in his lean form dressed casually in a T-shirt over jeans. Nothing spectacular, yet on him the effect was incredible. She looked up and met his warm brown eyes. All traces of amusement were gone. Instead he was staring at her with deep intensity, almost as though he could see past the front she presented to the world to the real person inside. Feeling uncomfortable, she averted her gaze.

“Ah, thanks for holding my dinner,” she said, taking it back from him.

“My pleasure.”

She waited a beat and then reluctantly turned to go inside.

“Wait.”

She paused and turned back to him. He was smiling sheepishly.

“I got you something for Christmas.”

She shuddered inwardly at the reminder that it was Christmas day. A year ago today her entire world as she had known it had ceased to exist. No one could blame her for detesting the holiday and all the festivities that came with it.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, meaning it.

He shrugged, and a lock of hair fell over his forehead. She wanted to reach up and put it back in place. She didn’t, of course, but it kept nagging at her.

“I know I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. Here.”

She hadn’t even noticed that he was holding a shopping bag until he held it out to her. She hesitated, but finally took the bag.

“Thank you.”

“Right. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you, too. Would you like to come in?” She wasn’t sure what made her ask, but suddenly it felt like the right thing to do.

He gazed at her steadily, as though measuring his reaction. And then he nodded slowly, which further convinced her that she’d made the right decision.

“Follow me. I still have some of that lovely ice cream you sent over. We could share that.” She smiled and led the way into her apartment, which opened into a cozy living area.

Angie’s apartment was decorated in earth tones with red accents and had a clean and sparse feel to it. She had fallen in love with the place the moment she’d walked in a couple of weeks ago. The clean lines and minimalist decor were in such sharp contrast to the chaos she’d left behind that she’d immediately relaxed, breathing for the first time in close to a year, or so it had seemed.

She took off the tiny black shrug she wore on top of her short floral-patterned summer dress and motioned for him to take off his shoes just inside the door, but he was already doing so. It was just one of the cultural differences she’d had to adjust to when she came to Kuala Lumpur; everyone took off their shoes before entering a home. She compromised by taking hers off inside her apartment.

“Do you want something to drink?” she asked as she turned on the air-conditioning. It might have been December, but Malaysia was as hot as Texas in July. When he nodded she moved toward the kitchen area. “Hot or cold?”

“Do you have any alcohol?”

“Um, there’s Scotch, vermouth, and some wine, white and red.” She catalogued the small bar she’d found when she’d moved in.

“I could do with a Scotch, thanks.”

“Make yourself comfortable,” she said from the kitchen, pausing to put down the takeout before reaching for a glass. She turned and found him sitting at the bar that separated the kitchen from the dining area. She raised an eyebrow but remained silent.

“So what made you change your mind?”

Angie frowned in confusion. “Change my mind about what?”

“About me.”

She glanced at the bottle in her hand before looking at him. When their eyes met, her pulse began to race and she felt that strange breathlessness again. “Who said I had?”

“You would not have invited me in if you had not.”

“But I invited you in the other day.”

“And heaved a huge sigh of relief when I didn’t take you up on it.” His eyes were twinkling with amusement.

She turned and pulled open the fridge, surprised that he was so astute.

“Ice?”

When he shook his head, she shut the fridge door and turned back to him. As she poured golden liquid into the glass, she searched for what to say. She knew what he was talking about; for the past year she’d ignored any form of male attention. But with her sexy next-door neighbor, she’d had to fight hard to remain aloof. Tonight was different, though. She had a deep need to forget and an inexplicable feeling that her gorgeous neighbor was just the person to help her do that.

“I only invited you in for some ice cream.”

“And here I am.” He raised the glass in a mock salute before emptying its contents down his throat. “You’re not planning anything weird, are you?”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Is the ice cream poisoned?”

Angie started to chuckle but quickly stopped herself and rolled her eyes instead, then perched on the only other high stool right beside him. She crossed her legs, the hem of her dress only coming to midthigh, and pushed back a few strands of wheat-blond hair that had escaped the clasp she’d used to subdue it earlier that day.

“Why would you think I’d want to poison you?”

“Any number of reasons.”

“You have a lot of women trying to poison you?”

He smiled wryly. “You’d be surprised at how many.”

“Well, relax, then. I have no wish to poison you. And I don’t plan to tie you up and turn you into my sex slave, either.”

Angie slipped the cover off the ice cream container. She sighed in appreciation as she picked up a pink spoon and eyed the three different flavors. She had a tough decision to make—start with the eye-catching tiramisu or go with her favorite, the chocolate chip? She decided on the unknown quantity, the Slam Dunk. It was vanilla with orange pretzels in it, and lived up to her expectations. Eyes closed, she had to hold back a moan of pleasure. God, but there was something sinful about Baskin-Robbins ice cream.

Alex inhaled sharply, and Angie’s eyes flew open at the sound. She turned to look at him and froze when she saw his expression.

Eyes narrowed, Alex gazed at her mouth with such hunger it took her breath away. “You can tie me up anytime you want,” he murmured.

Angie swallowed as her mind went wild with images of Alex tied to her bedposts and the many delicious things she could do with him at her mercy like that. Suddenly her chest felt tight, like there was not enough air in the room.

Alex felt desire slam into him as he watched Angie lick the ice-cream spoon. He had been attracted to her since the very first moment they’d met, and their meeting at the coffee shop had turned that spark into a flame. Yet nothing had prepared him for the intense heat that was now coursing through his body. He shifted on the stool, suddenly uncomfortable, and forced his gaze upward to find that he’d been caught staring. He could tell from the way her pupils were slightly dilated that she liked being watched. Looking into those eyes the color of midnight, he knew she was as affected as he was. He turned away and glanced around the room. As lovely as the apartment was, there was an obvious lack of Christmas decorations. “How come you have no Christmas stuff in here?”

Angie shrugged and pushed another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth, stalling for time. She was still trying to catch her breath after the moment they had just shared. As she looked around she realized that it was already dark outside. She’d drawn the lovely bamboo blinds that morning before she went out and hadn’t closed them yet. She turned to look at his face in profile and remembered his question. What could she say? That she’d crossed several continents just to get away from Christmas? She shrugged again.

“Don’t you get enough of Christmas stuff in all the malls?”

He smiled. “It’s crazy, isn’t it?”

Malaysians went all out when it came to Christmas. They didn’t even let a lack of snow stop them; they created their own snow in the malls and had sexy little elves passing out fliers advertising the many events that took place.

Handing him a spoon, she gestured to the ice cream. “It’s melting.”

Angie watched Alex as he took a spoonful of the ice cream. She saw his reaction and couldn’t help but chuckle.

“It’s divine, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “I can’t believe you’re sharing this.”

“Well, you sent it. Seemed rather churlish not to share with you.”

“I’m glad I got it, then.”

Angie caught her breath at the undertone in his voice but decided to ignore it. She was suddenly finding it hard to enjoy her ice cream, and not for the first time, she wanted to regret inviting Alex to share it with her. It was taking her completely out of her comfort zone, but she had to admit that she was enjoying the banter.

There was something really intimate about sharing ice cream with a stranger, and the air around them was slowly filling up with tension.

“So tell me something about you that I don’t know.”

She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Are you asking for my life story now?”

“It would be a good place to start.”

“Okay, I’ll play. But let’s do it this way. I’ll tell you something about me, then you tell me something about you.”

Angie wondered what the hell she was thinking. Oh, who was she kidding? She was thinking that it had been a year since she’d had sex, a year since any man had caught her interest. And going by the way she could feel heat pooling in her center, she knew Alex had done just that. The look on his face as he watched her lick that ice-cream spoon had convinced her the feeling was mutual. But it went beyond that. He made her feel good about herself, which was a feeling she’d forgotten. He looked at her like he saw the real Angie Scot, and he had no idea how sexy that was to her.

“You mean like truth or dare?”

His question brought her out of her reverie, and she caught her lower lip between her teeth. Dare she? But she already knew her answer. “Sure, why not?” She shrugged, trying to appear casual.

Alex studied her for a few seconds, then his mouth turned up at the edges. Standing up, he took her hands and gently pulled till she was standing. He turned toward the living area.

“What are you doing?” she squeaked, but followed.

He sat on the couch and pulled her down beside him, almost touching but not quite. “If we’re going to do this, we might as well be comfortable,” he said with a grin.

What the hell, Angie thought, and decided to heed his advice. She folded her limbs beneath her in the lotus position. She looked at him expectantly. “Okay, you first.”

Alex glanced at her, then rested his head on the sofa, hiding a smile. He had not planned on this. All he’d wanted was to see her. He’d missed her so much that he’d rushed back from a business trip to Australia just so he could spend part of Christmas with her. It was the strangest thing. How could he miss someone he’d only really spoken to a couple of times? But she was like a fire in his blood.

“Do you want me to go first?” she asked.

“I have the perfect question,” he replied. “Why are you in Kuala Lumpur?”

“Hmm, that’s easy. I needed a break, so my mother-in-law offered me her retreat.”

Alex froze, processing what she’d just said. He felt a surge of disappointment and, surprisingly, anger. “Did you say your mother-in-law?” He asked the question carefully, silently wondering if she was one of those married women out for a pleasure ride.

“Yup.”

“You’re married?”

“Widowed.”

He looked at her then and saw she was laughing at him. But he didn’t smile back.

“How recently?” He asked and watched the light drain out of her eyes.

“Exactly one year ago. Today.”

Alex didn’t know how to react. He had seen the sorrow in her eyes and known something tragic had happened to her, but to lose a husband at such a young age… He couldn’t imagine how devastating that must have been. It suddenly occurred to him that she probably wasn’t over her late husband. That would explain the reticence he’d felt from her right from the beginning.

“I’m sorry.”

She smiled sadly. “It’s been a long time, and I’d really rather not discuss it.”

He nodded slowly. A year was not exactly a long time, but he understood why she didn’t want to talk about it. True, there were many questions he wanted to ask. What had her relationship with her husband been like? How she was coping without the person she’d loved enough to marry? But he held back and decided to respect her wishes.

“All right, it’s your turn to ask me a question,” he said, and when he saw the gratitude in her eyes, he knew he’d done the right thing.

“I can’t think of one. You do the asking for now.”

“Okay, then. Are you ticklish?”

Before she had time to respond, Alex reached out and started to tickle her. Laughing hysterically, she tried to fend him off and somehow, in the midst of all that clowning around, she ended up sitting on his lap.

Angie shifted a bit but stilled when she felt a huge bulge beneath her. The laughter died then. “Er, look, Alex, I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

“Just relax,” he coaxed. “You’re a beautiful woman and I can’t help my attraction to you. Let’s keep playing.” He saw that she still wasn’t convinced. If she insisted, he would have to let her go, but she felt so damn good he hoped he wouldn’t have to. Carefully placing his arms on the seat so she knew she was free to stand up if she wanted, he focused on their game. “You haven’t asked me anything yet.”

Very few women could resist the lure of a man ready to answer any question, and Angie was no exception. Her eyes brightened, and she shifted a bit. She looked nervous. She must have felt him beneath her because she stilled again and held herself carefully, like she was afraid of triggering something. Alex hid his amusement. Unless she planned to stop breathing, there wasn’t much she could do about his reaction to her. Just the fragrance wafting from her hair was enough to make his blood boil. Suddenly she looked at him, pinning him with her gaze.

“Are you married?”

Alex couldn’t help the tiny smile that played around his mouth. This was definitely a good sign. “Nope. No girlfriend, either.”

She nodded slowly, almost absentmindedly. “Okay, your turn,” she said with a smile. It was the first genuine smile she’d turned his way; her face lit up and her eyes seemed to sparkle with delight. Alex immediately felt himself grow harder. She must have felt it, too, because her eyes widened.

“Ah, maybe this seating arrangement wasn’t such a great idea, after all.”

Much as he loved the feel of her round bottom on him, if they kept it up he was pretty sure he would embarrass them both. So he didn’t protest when she moved back to the sofa. He glanced down at his bulging erection and turned to look at her; her eyes were trained on it, too. She caught him watching her and her face immediately flooded with color.

“Ah…” She cleared her throat. “Look, I think…” Her voice trailed off, and he noticed she was still staring at his southern region in fascination, her mouth slightly parted.

As he watched, her tongue darted out to wet her lips. It was so quick that he would have missed it if he had blinked, but seeing that little glimpse of pink was electrifying. He drew in a harsh breath, and it took him a moment to realize that he’d actually let out a groan. Experimentally, he moved closer to her on the sofa and trailed his knuckles over her face. Her skin felt like satin, smooth and soft. She closed her eyes briefly, and he could see the pulse throbbing in her neck.

“Angie, you are so beautiful, and I want to kiss you now,” he said, his voice hoarse. “But if I start I may not want to stop. Are you okay with that?” He needed her to be okay with the strange sort of desperation he was feeling, but if she wasn’t he would get up and walk the short distance to his apartment next door.

She hesitated for a split second, then her eyes darkened and she nodded. “Kiss me.”

He didn’t wait for a second invitation. He scooped her back into his lap, framed her face with his hands and took her mouth in his.

As his lips met hers, Angie stiffened, then slowly melted into the kiss. Alex played with her lips, and when he gently nipped at them, she felt the effect deep inside her. She had never been turned on so quickly before. Probably a legacy of going an entire year without sex; she supposed she had now joined the league of the sex-starved. She kissed him back and tried to suppress that feeling of starvation, flicking his lips with the tip of her tongue, then retreating in a bid to keep the kiss light. But Alex wasn’t having any of it. He used his tongue to prod her closed lips, and she opened up, letting him in and kissing him with everything she had.

Angie leaned into him, straining to get more. Without breaking the kiss, Alex repositioned her so she was straddling him. She shifted a little and he groaned into her mouth, a sound so sexy she felt the reaction all the way down to her toes. She repeated the movement, and he groaned once more. She was planning to move a third time when Alex decided to take matters into his own hands. He broke their embrace to trail hot kisses down her face and neck. When he gently bit the spot just below her ear, a shudder went through her body, and she moaned.

Alex ran his hands over her body and settled them on her backside, then pulled her closer and bit her neck once more. This time she gasped just before she moaned.

Angie was panting as she ground against his erection. It was nestled between her thighs, and the friction between his cotton shorts and her silk panties was driving her insane. Alex continued to explore her body with his hands, halting just beneath the swell of her breasts. She needed to feel his touch there or she would explode. She took hold of his hands and placed them firmly on her breasts. He brushed her already taut nipples.

“Oh, that is so good,” she said breathlessly. They had found a rhythm of sorts. Angie began to rock against his manhood.

“Yeah? What about this?” He pinched her nipples.

Without warning she felt herself spiral out of control, the orgasm hitting her before she was fully aware of what was happening. She tensed, and let out a keening wail as she shuddered against him. Alex held her until her trembles subsided and she collapsed onto him. They were both silent for a moment. “Wow. That was…” She trailed off, speechless.

Alex held her away from him so he could look into her eyes, suddenly serious. “Yeah.” He agreed. “No woman has ever responded to me like that. You are a very sexy woman, Angie.”

Angie was amazed. She could not remember when her response to sex had been so pure and so honest. With her husband, sex had been precursory—she’d always felt as though she’d been waiting for something more, and long after he’d fallen asleep, she would stare into the darkness wondering what was wrong with her. Why had he married her if he hadn’t found her attractive? She had eventually found out the reason, but by then it had been too late.

There was something about Alex that drove her wild. Even at that moment, after a rather good orgasm, she could still feel the fire in her veins and knew that until she had him buried deep inside her, she would not be satisfied. The thought that she still wouldn’t be satisfied even after that crept into her mind, but she shook it off. As much as she hated to admit it, she was going to take Elizabeth’s advice and give Alex a chance to show her a good time.

“Angie?” Startled from her thoughts, Angie lifted her eyes to look into Alex’s. “Are you okay?”

She nodded absentmindedly, suddenly aware that Alex was still hard beneath her. Just like that, she was horny all over again. Some trace of what she was thinking must have shown on her face because his eyes turned dark and his pupils dilated. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips and his eyes moved to her mouth, transfixed. And though she didn’t think it possible, she felt him get harder.

“I’m better than okay,” she said, replying to his earlier question. She felt reckless. She wanted him to take her to a place where the pain of the past year had no power over her. With Alex, she knew that she would have some respite from her tormented thoughts. Her hand trailed to his belt buckle and brushed lightly against his erection. “I’m ready to play.”

Amusement lined his eyes. “Are you now?” he teased, and then turned serious. “Angie, I am going to make love to you. I’m going to bury myself deep inside you so that when you come I will feel every single tremor. I want to hear you scream, and I want to see your face when you come for me.”

Angie felt her chest tighten and she was struggling for air. She opened her mouth to reply but found her voice was not working. She cleared her throat and tried again.

“I’d like that very much,” she answered politely, even though there was nothing polite about the way he was looking at her, or about the thoughts going through her head, for that matter.

“Do you have condoms?”

Condoms?As in more than one? How many times did he intend to do it? She felt a thrill shoot through her.

“I’m not sure, let me check,” she said, as she got up and headed for the bathroom.

She hadn’t bothered to pack condoms because she had not come to Kuala Lumpur to have an affair. She’d actually run as far away from Boston as her legs could carry her, far away from Christmas and the memory of that day. Oh, no, she thought as she shook her head, she was
not
going to go there. This moment was for oblivion, for getting away from hurtful thoughts.

In the bathroom she searched through the medicine cabinet and felt a huge wave of relief when she found a pack of condoms. What was her mother-in-law doing with a pack of condoms in here? On second thought, she didn’t want to know. She peered at herself in the mirror and took stock.

She’d always thought her neck was too long, but considering what she’d gone through she was just grateful she even had a neck, so to speak. She still had nightmares about that night, when she’d lost her husband and was left hovering between life and death for several weeks. As soon as she was lucid enough to realize she wasn’t going to die, she’d wept until there was nothing left. She’d spent last Christmas unconscious at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the months afterward in therapy. The thought of facing another Christmas in Boston had been too much, and her mother-in-law had taken pity on her.

Holding on to the edges of the sink, Angie took a deep, calming breath. She did not want to think about the accident, she did not want to think about her marriage and she most certainly did not want to think about her mother-in-law. She felt alive in a way she hadn’t in a year, maybe longer, and there was a man there with a raging hard-on waiting for her. She smirked. Who used the word
raging
outside of a romance novel, anyway? Shaking her head, she ran her fingers through her pale blond hair then over her body and felt a thrill rush through her when she encountered the taut tips on her chest. She was going to have this one night with the sexy Alex Farhadi. Maybe hot sex with a sweet and sexy stranger was just what she needed to forget the past and move on with her life. She was going to create new memories. With that thought, she smoothed the folds of her dress, picked up the box of condoms and walked out.