12 Gifts for Christmas. Джулия Кеннер

so easy, that she could listen to him say such ugly things about her and then let him kiss her as if he had every right.

      But it had been so long. And oh, how she ached for him. For this. All the long, lonely days and nights seemed to disappear like smoke. All the agony, the pain and the terrible truth of what had happened to her seemed less bright, less vicious, when he kissed her like this.

      As if he felt the same wild fire, the same mad connection.

      As if he were as helpless to control it as she was.

      As if he’d missed her, missed this, too.

      It was that last thought that finally penetrated the fog and forced Lucy to take a step back. One hand flew to her mouth and she could only stare at him while her body objected to the space she’d put between them. Her breasts felt too heavy, too full. Her heart shuddered against her ribs. And low in her belly, she ached. Burned.

      But he hadn’t missed her, had he. He had believed whatever poisonous things Safir had told him. He would have been content to stay away on his endless business trips forever—would have done so, in fact, had she not claimed she needed him here, that it was an emergency. He’d had no intention of ending these months of punishment. He’d had no intention of coming back at all.

      “Do you think you can just kiss me and it will be as if none of this ever happened?” she asked. She wanted to sound tough, strong, but her voice was barely a whisper.

      “There is no pretending it didn’t happen,” he said darkly. His gaze was trained on her mouth and she could not help the surge of heat within her. “But why not celebrate the one thing we ever did well? Surely we should take our compensations where we can. We have so little else.”

      “We have nothing,” she said, surprised at her own voice. How clear it was. How little it shook. “You will leave tomorrow morning and who knows when you’ll be back. In six months? A year?” She tossed her head. “You can’t abandon me with so little regard for me and then expect me to fall into your bed at a moment’s notice!”

      “Expect? No.” His fingers brushed her cheek, traced the shape of her mouth. “But why deny this passion when we are both in the same room?”

      “Because it is the biggest lie of all!” Lucy cried. She jerked her head from his clever fingers and moved away from him, toward the door. “And it doesn’t matter, anyway. This time, I’m the one leaving, and I won’t be back at all. You can count on it.”

      “Lucy …” He said her name but she didn’t know if it was to plead with her or to curse her.

      Not that it made a difference, she told herself fiercely. She needed only to survive the night. In the morning Rafi would be gone, she would be on a one-way flight back to reality and she would finally be able to breathe again.

      She just had to make it through the night.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      WHEN Lucy woke the next morning, tucked away in one of the lesser bedrooms—behind a locked door to be safe as much from herself as from him—the world outside her window was pure white.

      Snow fell inexorably from above, just as it must have been falling throughout the night because the usually breathtaking view was entirely obscured. She could not see six feet from her window, much less into the great valley below.

      There was a terrible sinking sensation in her belly and a quick check of her messages confirmed her fears. Her car could not make it through the snow and all the flights had been canceled.

      She wasn’t going anywhere. And neither was Rafi.

      She dressed quickly and then made her way through the house. Even today, she was unable to walk through the grand halls without marveling at the Qaderis’ power, their grace and consequence. It was evident in the richly appointed rooms, the banquet halls, even the smallest vase upon an incidental table—everything was clearly precious. Ancient. Part of the great sweep of Alakkul’s history.

      Except for her. She was nothing but the cocktail waitress whom Rafi believed had trapped him into marriage.

      It was no wonder her stomach twisted when she walked into the breakfast room and found him sitting there, lounging back in one of the elegant chairs with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and his brooding gaze directed out the windows.

      The fire crackling away in the nearby fireplace was nothing next to the heat of his gray eyes when he turned them on her. Lucy froze.

      “You’re still here,” she said stupidly even though she’d known he would be. Was she distraught? Or relieved?

      He only gestured toward the window and the snow that continued to fall, silent and impassable. The roads in these mountains were treacherous at the best of times; it would be days before they’d be cleared, and then only once the snow stopped falling.

      But her mind reeled away from what that must mean. For both of them.

      It was almost funny, she thought from some kind of distance, her gaze trapped in his far darker one. She’d gone to so much trouble to get him here and now that he’d be stuck here for some time—now that they were both stuck here—she wanted no part of it.

      “It looks as if your wish has come true,” he said with an edge in his voice, as if he blamed her for the snowfall on top of everything else. “I will be here for Christmas after all. You must be thrilled.”

      Thrilled, Lucy thought as her heart fluttered wildly and her throat clenched tightly, was not at all how she would describe her feelings. She swallowed and told herself to pull it together. He lounged there at the end of the table, looking impossibly big and dangerous, but she assured herself it was just nerves and nothing else that swelled and contracted within her, sharp and rhythmic, making it hard to breathe.

      “Christmas is in three days,” she said. She forced a bland smile. “Anything can happen.”

      It was the longest day of his life.

      Rafi found himself in the old library later that afternoon, swirling his drink in a crystal tumbler as he scowled into the fireplace. He felt restless. Hunted. As if she were right there with him, crowding him. An itch he could not reach, that would not leave him be.

      She had avoided him for hours, yet he was as wild as if she’d had him naked in their bed, begging for her touch. He, who had never begged. He, who was more and more convinced that she possessed some supernatural power that enslaved him to her whenever he was near her. Even if she was only under the same roof.

      With a growl of impatience, he tossed back the remainder of his drink and slapped the tumbler down on the mantelpiece. He raked his fingers through his hair. This enforced seclusion was clearly making him insane. He was supposed to be back in Germany by now, talking contracts and profit margins. Not … trapped here. With her.

      He had hardly slept the night before. Being near Lucy made him edgy. As if he were suddenly made entirely of angles. He’d tossed in his magnificent four-poster bed, unable to sleep, images of Lucy haunting him. Taunting him and teasing him.

      He remembered that first, delicious night. As he’d watched her work, he had been blindsided by the maelstrom of lust and need she had stirred within him. He had hardly known what he’d been doing, but he’d waited for her at the club until her shift was over and then taken her back to his hotel. She’d gone with him eagerly, seemingly as dazed by their connection as he was. The instant the doors of the hotel’s lift had closed behind them, he’d had his hands on her rich curves and his mouth on hers. He’d urged her legs around his waist and pressed her to the wall within moments of entering his hotel suite. He remembered the fierce, incomparable joy of that first slick entry, right there against the wall. He remembered her soft cries, the look of wonder on her face.

      And that had only been the beginning.

      Now, as the snow fell outside, he tortured himself with images of that first long night and the holiday he’d coaxed her into taking with him afterward.

      I’ll