All He Wants For Christmas.... Kelly Hunter

long for comfort, with his safety margin well and truly shot.

      Pack up, get out. Take the long way home. With the adrenalin blowing through his skull and every sense he owned on hyper-alert.

      Minutes later, as he stepped onto the first underground train that came along, Damon West, IT engineer and specialist systems hacker ever since he’d found his way into his high school’s assessment database at the tender age of twelve, grinned.

CHAPTER THREE

      DECEMBER twenty-third came hot and humid. By midafternoon there’d be a deluge, Ruby predicted. A blast from the sky to wash away the stench of the day. A deluge to avoid if at all possible, she decided as she set about ensuring that she’d stocked Russell’s apartment with everything the West family could possibly want or need over the Christmas break, including provisions for unexpected guests, should any drop in.

      The rainclouds were still a long way off when Ruby phoned through to Russell’s apartment at midday to say she was on her way up but no one picked up, and Ruby breathed a mingled sigh of disappointment and relief.

      No Damon, no temptation. This was a good thing.

      Dry-cleaning over one arm, shopping bag full of sushi dangling from her fingertips and a gingerbread house balanced precariously on top of the dry-cleaning, Ruby elbowed her way through the doorway to the apartment and slipped off her shoes. No time to put her flats on because if she didn’t get rid of the gingerbread house soon she’d drop it and that really wouldn’t do.

      ‘Are you ever not carting things from one place to the next?’ asked a voice from behind her and Ruby jumped and the gingerbread house started to slide.

      Damon caught it well before it hit the floor and Ruby’s thanks came thin and grudging, seeing as he was the one who’d startled her into dropping it in the first place. She turned to look at him, taking in his choice of clothing for the day—a white linen shirt that she hadn’t seen before, and well-fitting jeans that looked decidedly familiar. The clothes looked crisp and fresh. The body beneath them seemed a little rumpled. ‘I thought you were out.’

      ‘That was you on the phone five minutes ago?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Sorry. I was asleep. By the time I’d found the phone and picked up, you’d put down.’

      ‘Jet lag?’ ‘Possibly.’

      ‘There are tonics for that.’ ‘It’s Hong Kong. There are tonics for everything.’

      ‘Just a suggestion,’ she murmured and started towards Russell’s rooms where his suits lived. When she returned and slid the sushi into the fridge, she found the gingerbread house on the kitchen bench and a tousle-haired Damon cracking open a fizzy drink that hadn’t entered the apartment by way of Ruby.

      ‘You’ve been shopping,’ she accused.

      ‘Guilty.’

      ‘If you want anything like that, let me know. That’s my department.’

      ‘Ruby, I’m quite capable of stepping out for half a dozen cans of cola. Consider it exercise and a change of scenery on my part.’

      ‘That’s really not how it works.’

      ‘No, that’s usually exactly how it works,’ he murmured with a crooked smile. ‘Want one?’

      ‘Just water, please. It’s slick out. Hopefully the icing hasn’t slid off the roof of the house.’ Ruby gave the confectionary a careful once-over but all looked well with Santa’s gingerbread cottage. ‘Are we flirting yet?’

      ‘Just working my way up to it,’ he said with a smiling glance in her direction. ‘It’s all in the timing.’ He looked back at the cellophane wrapped gingerbread house. ‘Anyone ever tell you that you shop too much?’

      ‘You’re the first. Speaking of shopping, are those the jeans we bought for you yesterday?’

      Damon nodded. ‘Useful, aren’t they?’

      ‘There goes the Christmas present,’ she murmured. ‘Perhaps I forgot to mention the part where I wrap them up and put them under the tree?’

      ‘That can still be arranged,’ he said dryly.

      ‘It’s not the same. You’re meant to wait. Take possession on Christmas Day.’

      ‘It’s just another day, Ruby.’

      ‘Well, it is now. Take them off.’

      Grinning, Damon set his drink down and reached for his fly. Ruby raised a delicate eyebrow but made no move to stop him. Eventually he stopped of his own accord.

      ‘You’re supposed to say “not here”,’ he said. ‘And then you blush.’

      ‘Not sure we’re living in the same universe, my friend.’

      ‘I’ll say. Good thing I’m adaptable.’ The trousers came off. He handed them to Ruby, who stripped his belt from the trousers and handed it back to him with considerable expertise.

      ‘And the rest of the clothes from yesterday,’ she said airily. ‘When you’re ready.’

      ‘Good thing we didn’t buy underwear,’ he murmured and set off up the hall, not an ounce of self-consciousness anywhere in sight. Just strong, athletic legs, broad, shirt-covered shoulders, and a hint of mighty fine buttock. Put today’s picture together with yesterday’s man-and-his-towel image, and a woman could be excused for losing her breath.

      ‘I know you’re looking,’ he said from halfway down the hall.

      ‘No, I’m not.’ But she said it with a smile, and she leaned over the counter the better to catch the show.

      Only once he’d reached his room did Ruby drag her attention away from Damon West’s very fine form to study his can of cola and note the label. She’d add it to the drinks order and make sure a case of it arrived later this evening with the last of the Christmas Day fare.

      When Damon returned he had the rest of the clothes they’d purchased yesterday in hand and a pair of vivid Hawaiian board shorts on person.

      ‘A leftover from your last stint as a pool boy?’ she queried delicately.

      ‘What? You don’t like them? They’re my favourite.’

      ‘Oh, Damon. That’s just …’ Words failed her. ‘Sad.’ She handed the new trousers back to him with a sigh. ‘Put them back on before your father sees you. He has a reputation to maintain.’

      ‘Ruby, you confuse me,’ he murmured, but he took hold of the trousers deftly enough and the edges of his lips signalled his satisfaction.

      ‘Player,’ she accused.

      ‘Despot.’

      ‘Yes, but I’m a benevolent one. How many of these clothes we bought you yesterday are you going to need to wear tomorrow?’

      ‘Only the shirt. And the jeans again. Maybe the jacket.’

      Ruby sighed, temporarily defeated. Maybe she could shop with him in mind on the way home. Something with a V-neck and tiny little sleeves. Flared pants with spangles.

      ‘Would it have killed you to get two sets of clothes when we were shopping earlier?’

      ‘I wasn’t sure that shop was me.’

      ‘There were other shops.’

      ‘Yes, I know,’ he said with a shudder. ‘They were everywhere. But two clothes shops a year is my limit and we did them both yesterday.’

      ‘We need to build your stamina.’

      ‘I have stamina,’ he murmured.