Coming Home for Christmas Read online

  “Listen, I don’t really have anywhere to be—just some last minute presents waiting to be wrapped, but nothing that can’t wait,” she told him. “I can stay here for a while, keep you company.”

  Keith frowned slightly. He still didn’t want any pity from her no matter how good she’d been about everything. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “And I don’t recall offering to be one,” she told him matter-of-factly. “I do, however, remember offering to spend a little time with my friend.” The television monitor, tucked within an entertainment unit over in the corner, caught her eye. “Maybe watch an old movie over some popcorn.”

  “What old movie?” he asked.

  Her shoulders rose and fell gamely. She was secretly congratulating herself on getting him to open to the proposition. “You pick.”

  It didn’t matter to him—with one exception. “I don’t want to watch some sentimental tear-jerker.”

  “That’s good, because neither do I.” She didn’t want him watching something weepy. He needed an upbeat movie, preferably a good comedy. “We can stream a movie—or simpler still, just channel surf.”

  She had a feeling it really wasn’t about what was on the screen for him. As long as there was something flickering across it, making sufficient background noise, that just might be enough. She was hoping they’d wind up talking through it. He needed to talk.

  “Why are you doing all this?” he asked out of the blue as she turned on the monitor. “Why are you handling everything for me, going these extra miles, being my buffer, my go-between?”

  “That’s simple enough to answer,” she deadpanned. “I have this Girl Scout merit badge that I’m trying to earn.” Kenzie struggled to keep a hint of a smile from curving the corners of her mouth.

  “Seriously,” Keith insisted.

  She raised her eyebrows in feigned surprise. “You mean I’m not earning a Girl Scout merit badge for this? Bummer.”

  “Kenzie, why are you doing this?” he repeated, enunciated each word slowly and firmly.

  She stopped teasing. “Because you’re my friend. Because you’re hurting. Because as a kid, I used to bring home stray puppies and feed them.” She shrugged, as if she had no real say in the direction her behavior took. “It’s a tough habit to break.”

  “So is making up stories and spitting out wisecracks,” he observed wryly.

  “No argument,” Kenzie acknowledged. “But I don’t know anyone like that.” Sitting down on the sofa, she looked around the immediate area. “Where’s your remote hiding?”

  Keith nodded toward the other side of the coffee table. They both reached for it at the same time. And wound up grabbing opposite ends of the remote simultaneously.

  Keith automatically pulled the remote—and because of that, her—to him before Kenzie could think to let it go. Unprepared for the sudden move, Kenzie lost her balance and wound up bumping up against his chest.

  It was hard to say which of them was more startled by the very abrupt, sudden contact.

  Surprise gave way to something far more basic.

  Before he could stop himself, Keith cupped her face with his hands. The next moment, he brought his mouth down to hers.

  Moved, emotional against his will, Keith kissed her to express his gratitude, to in effect say things that he couldn’t find the right words to articulate.

  He kissed her because it was the fastest and the simplest way to express himself and to make her realize that he was very aware just how much she had put herself out for him.

  He meant to kiss her and just leave it at that.

  But the kiss didn’t wind up ending anything. Instead, it began something. By its very nature, it wound up opening up a whole volume of feelings he hadn’t even been vaguely aware were there.

  One kiss grew into another.

  And another.

  Each kiss was feeding upon the last and gaining in depth and breadth until they threatened to engulf not just him, but Kenzie, as well.

  This was, a voice in his head whispered, the point of no return. This was where he stopped, took a breath and stepped back.

  Move!

  But none of that was happening.

  The kiss was multiplying, mushrooming, demanding more and more from him. It was creating hopes and expectations that he was so very tempted to grasp hold of—and hold on to for dear life.

  In her conscious mind, Kenzie knew this wasn’t really Keith. It wasn’t the man she had come to know or even the teenager she’d had such a huge crush on all those years ago.

  Grief was making Keith act in a way he wouldn’t if his soul hadn’t fallen into some deep, dark abyss of hopelessness from which there was no return.

  But there was always a way to return, Kenzie’s mind argued. She had to let him know that so he wouldn’t somehow wind up doing something he was going to regret deeply the moment he was thinking clearly again.

  Any second now, she was going to pull her head back and make the wrong comment. The last thing she wanted was something to leave him feeling worse than before.

  But how could this wondrous thing she was feeling be bad? something inside her argued.

  Right now, it felt as if she was on fire. And the fire was good.

  Better than good.

  This was exactly what she’d always felt it would be like, kissing Keith.

  Heaven in bright, neon lights.

  Chapter Fourteen

  There was liquid heat going through her veins. The word more echoed over and over in her head, obliterating any lingering thoughts of resistance.

  Kenzie gave up even the slightest ghost of a protest, letting it disintegrate into nothingness. Melting as quickly as she was in the flame of his kiss.

  Finally!

  Her heart hammered wildly, joyfully embracing the feeling. After all this time, she was finally going to discover what it was like to make love with the man she’d once been so completely convinced was her soul mate.

  The man she realized she’d always been in love with.

  Keith had gone on to college, then left Bedford and Southern California altogether in the year after Amy had died, and she’d made her peace with that. Life for her had continued. She’d even tried her hand at a couple of semiserious relationships, but nothing ever took. There had never been anyone to fill her thoughts and dreams the way that Keith once had, never anyone whom she’d even come close to regarding as her soul mate.

  No one she really wanted to spend the rest of her life with. That was because the position had always remained filled. Keith was the only man who qualified for that title—soul mate—then and now.

  The very first time his lips had touched hers, she knew with certainty there was no point in really fighting her reaction to him, in pretending it was wrong, or happening for the wrong reasons.

  No matter what tomorrow brought—and she was a big girl now—she didn’t expect Keith to have some sort of a life-changing epiphany when dawn came. Didn’t expect him to sweep her off her feet, declare he’d been blind up to this moment and he wanted to uproot his life, move back here and spend the rest of his days loving her just the way he was tonight.

  Granted, it would have been wonderful...

  But she was well aware that this wasn’t some splashy 1940s big studio movie. This was life and infinitely more real than any so-called reality show. She knew not to expect anything more than what was happening at this very moment.

  And what was happening this very moment was beyond words.

  Beyond wonderful.

  Everywhere Keith kissed her, everywhere he touched her, she felt the area quickening and coming vibrantly alive. She felt absolutely radiant with such a spectrum of feelings, of reactions, that it would have exhausted her to try to describe exactly what it was that she was experie
ncing, even to herself.

  So she didn’t even try.

  She instead savored the overwhelming sensations. She gave herself permission to squeeze every last drop out of what was happening, to soar beyond the highest pinnacle as sensation built on sensation within her body.

  The second her skin ignited in response to Keith’s hands, Kenzie eagerly tore away the physical barriers that existed between them. Starting with Keith’s shirt, she worked her way down to the very last shred of clothing he had on.

  It occurred to her only belatedly that she was pulling his clothing away from his body at the very same time that he was undressing hers.

  And then there were no barriers, physical or otherwise.

  Their bodies came together as if their very souls were magnetized, compelled to pull each other in.

  She was his for the taking.

  * * *

  Keith had no idea what came over him. This had never happened to him before, not anywhere to this degree. Even when he was an adolescent doing his best to navigate through a sea of raging hormones, he had never felt like this, never experienced this all-encompassing need to make love the way he did right at this moment with Kenzie.

  He told himself it was the grief fogging up his thinking, throwing him off balance. But he knew it was more than that. He wasn’t just stumbling about, blindly feeling his way around. He wasn’t blind. He could see with complete clarity.

  And what he saw was Kenzie.

  Nothing else but Kenzie.

  She was his focus, his beacon, his guiding light—and she was drawing him in. Bringing him in to what could very well be his destiny.

  It was completely irrational, but he felt as if he couldn’t continue existing in any manner, shape or form if he couldn’t have Kenzie, if he couldn’t make love with her tonight.

  Now.

  Struggling not to behave like some sort of deranged madman or rutting animal, Keith struggled to exercise supreme control over himself and move with patient restraint, not devour but savor the taste of her mouth, the feel of her body as his hands glided over her silken skin.

  He had no idea what tomorrow would bring, and he was torn between the plans he’d set in stone—leaving here and never looking back—and the very new, formless, undefined feelings he was experiencing right at this moment.

  Feelings, he realized, that had begun to take root from the very moment she had walked into his life again.

  There was no denying, even as he continued making love to every inch of her body, that he was the very epitome of confusion and indecision. He, who had always tread so confidently, so clear-eyed through every step of his life, found himself stumbling now.

  He couldn’t think beyond the moment, certainly not about anything that lay on the horizon. All he could think about was now—that he had to have her now—because there could very well be no later.

  Like a man who sensed he was dying at dawn, he made love with Kenzie as if he’d never get another opportunity to do so. Perhaps never even see her again after tonight.

  Desperation created a passion of unimaginable proportions.

  He made love with her as if he was on fire, made love to each and every part of her before he finally succumbed and, unable to hold himself back for even another tenth of a second—made love to all of her.

  * * *

  Her heart was pounding so hard, she was having trouble catching her breath. He was making her absolutely, deliciously crazy.

  She arched her body toward each wonderful, cascading sensation as it first exploded within her, then fanned out into a countless myriad of lights.

  She had no idea it was possible or how he managed to do it, but Keith was creating climax after climax within her. He brought her up and over so many times that she was convinced, as she finally lay there all but panting from sheer, thrilling exhaustion, that she had died and hadn’t become completely aware of it.

  The ecstasy she was experiencing launched her into a semiconscious, euphoric state.

  Kenzie clung to it as if it were her life preserver.

  While she didn’t want to relinquish her hold on what was tantalizingly echoing through her body, she didn’t think she could take more pleasure.

  She almost giggled then because it was obvious, from the urgent way Keith was kissing her, that she would have to readjust her perceived and preconceived notions about her own limits.

  Her capacity for pleasure was just going to have to increase—and fast.

  Because he was ramping up the parameters.

  With her last ounce of strength, Kenzie raised herself up on her elbows and captured his lips first, beginning a new and final round to the lovemaking that had begun so suddenly a luscious eternity ago.

  Her taking the initiative almost made him crazy, instantly increasing the desire he felt, spiking it in his veins even as it all but brought him to his knees.

  He deepened the kiss between them, then went on to spread kisses along her body as she twisted and turned beneath his mouth. Every single part of her eagerly sought to be touched by his lips, anointed by his tongue. Each contact had her racing heart singing.

  She wanted him.

  Wanted him down to her very core, and she didn’t know how much longer she could hold out. Her body was all but literally crying out for his.

  “Make love with me now,” Kenzie said hoarsely. It was half a command, half a plea.

  There was no way he could resist even a second longer.

  Her entreaty broke the very last band of control he had left.

  Keith threaded his fingers through hers, felt her body arching up to press against his. She urged him on to the final union.

  Even if his very life had depended on it, he couldn’t have held back for a heartbeat longer. His body positioned over hers, Keith drove himself into her with as much power as he had left in his diminished arsenal.

  The moment they were joined, a growing rhythm overtook them, dictating their final moments.

  The tempo increased, urging them on faster and faster until they were all but racing toward the all-encompassing explosion, the culmination of everything that had come before.

  And when they reached the top of the summit, tightly holding on to one another, the explosion shook their bodies, then rained down an exhilarating tranquility on them that was equal parts joy, euphoria and then delicious exhaustion.

  After the ecstasy retreated into a warm feeling of well-being, Keith held her to him in a way he had never held anything before. Gently, tenderly, but with an underlying urgency, because he feared that the second he let go of her, everything—she, the feeling, everything—would just vanish as if it had never really existed.

  So he held her until they both finally drifted off to sleep, each willing dawn to remain a thousand miles away.

  But dawn came, the way it always had, the way it always would. It came and nudged aside the darkness, bringing with it the morning light.

  Keith opened his eyes, more than a little surprised to find himself still here, in the family room of the house he had grown up in.

  His mother’s house.

  The realization drove the last remnants of sleep away from him as if sleep had been a figment of his imagination,

  He almost sat up then. Except that he couldn’t. His mouth curved.

  There was a woman with her head on his chest, and he couldn’t sit up without disturbing her. If he disturbed her, it would probably wake her up.

  So he lay there, his arms now lightly instead of tightly folded around her.

  Feeling her breathe soothed him. He needed soothing right about now. A great deal had happened last night. He had a lot to think about. But he didn’t want to think about anything.

  He wanted the world to go away and this moment to be frozen in time so that nothing
changed and this brand-new, wondrous feeling he was trying so desperately to hang on to would remain forever—or at the very least, last a little while longer.

  That was all he wanted, just a little while longer—since eternity was apparently out of the question and off the table.

  God, he was rambling on even in his own head.

  At least he hadn’t opened his mouth to let any of this out. He sought some sort of rational order he could easily slip everything that had happened into.

  Good luck with that, he mocked himself.

  Kenzie was stirring.

  He froze.

  Her hair was tickling his face. What could he say to her? Should he say anything to her, or just pretend to be asleep?

  He opted for door number two—but it was too late. She’d picked up her head and was looking straight at him, so there was no use in pretending he was asleep.

  Resigned, he murmured, “’Morning.”

  “Yes,” Kenzie agreed, stretching like a cat against him and sending his temperature—not to mention his heart—soaring. “It is that.” Her mouth curved, amused. Kenzie looked into his eyes, her smile growing wider. “You’re still here. Is that a good sign?”

  Evasiveness had become a habit. He sank into it naturally. “You were asleep on my chest. I couldn’t leave.”

  “Ah, so it’s just a sign, not a good one. You’re here because you’re too much of a gentleman to push me aside in order to make your getaway.” She pretended to mull it over, then nodded. “Not as romantic as I would have hoped, but I’ll take it.”

  “Um, Kenzie—” His voice faltered slightly. He had no idea what to say next, or at least how to phrase what he wanted to say next. Making love with her had entirely taken away his edge.

  “Relax,” Kenzie laughed, lovingly touching his cheek. “I’m just kidding. There’s no reason for you to turn so pale.”

  “I didn’t turn pale,” he protested.

  Kenzie rolled her eyes. “Oh, puh-lease. In comparison, you’d make a ghost look like he had a suntan.” She laughed and the sound was oddly comforting. Even though he thought it was at his expense. “It’s okay, Keith. Breathe.” She touched his cheek again, as if that would somehow help calm him down. “We made love and it was beyond wonderful—at least for me. But I’m not expecting to hear our banns being announced at mass, and I’m not about to drag you off to look at wedding rings,” she assured him, her eyes dancing with humor.