Midnight Man (Midnight #1)(52)

She’d taken her time at the store, filling five shopping bags full of the things she wanted. He’d looked curiously at the bags, then reached for his wallet.

“Oh no,” Suzanne had protested. This was stuff she wanted to buy, after all. “Let me—“

He’d shot her a look so appalled at the idea that she should pay, she’d burst out with laughter in the supermarket, a bored checkout clerk looking on.

So they’d done their shopping, had a late afternoon sandwich and coffee at the diner—with John sitting with his back to the wall, coldly observing everyone who came into the place—and driven back without incident as light drained from the sky.

Now her bags were waiting in the small kitchen and she needed him to go out for a while. She also needed a tree.

John stopped his movements and looked at her. “You want a what?”

“Tree, John. It’s Christmas Eve. We need a tree.”

He looked so dumbfounded, it was as if he’d never heard the words Christmas and tree together.

She sighed. “Look, it’s Christmas Eve. We’re tired and stressed and need a little lightness and joy in our lives. I’ve never spent a Christmas Eve in my life without a tree, and I have no intention of starting now. Whatever is going on, I’ve been deprived of my home and my job, and so have you. But I won’t be deprived of Christmas. Or a Christmas tree. I really need one. Don’t you celebrate Christmas?”

He just stared at her as if he couldn’t understand the words. And maybe he couldn’t. Sad as it sounded, maybe there hadn’t been that many Christmas trees in his life.

It was a remarkable insight into his character. He seemed so strong and self-sufficient, so beyond the ordinary human being’s fears and desires. So tough, so controlled. Suzanne suspected there hadn’t been much softness in his life. “Where were you last Christmas?” she asked, gently.

He shrugged indifferently. “OUTCONUS. That’s Outside the Continental US. In Afghanistan, actually. It’s a remarkably treeless country. Christmas is just another day in the military.”

Something tugged at her heart, hard. John was a man who hadn’t allowed himself much in life. He’d had a hard life of duty and sacrifice. He needed a Christmas celebration perhaps more than she did.

“Well, this place certainly isn’t treeless,” Suzanne said, with a nod outside the cabin window, where stands of trees stood thick and green in the waning light. “So I’d like you to please dig one up for me—not chop it down. Dig around the roots and put them in a burlap bag if you have one.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” he growled.

She laid a hand on his powerful forearm. It was like touching pure coiled energy. The feel of him beneath her hand excited her so much she almost forgot what she was saying. She looked up into his eyes. “I’ll stay right here,” she said. “And you could get me one of those trees growing right near to the house. You can keep an eye on the cabin all the time.”

She could not only see him struggle with the idea of leaving her alone, she could feel it in his muscles. His forearm felt like tensed steel under her hand. Maybe it was the intense sex, maybe it was the intense situation, which had thrown them together under pressure, but she felt she knew him so well she could almost read his mind. He didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to leave her alone for a minute—it suddenly occurred to her that he hadn’t left her, not even for a second, since the night of the intruder—but also realized it was a perfectly reasonable request.

His jaw, bristly now at the end of the day, worked as he struggled with the desire to please her, which required leaving her alone and defenseless. Two mutually incompatible concepts.

She shouldn’t be putting him through this strain, but she needed the relief of a Christmas celebration and perhaps so did he.

“Please,” she whispered.

She needed so desperately to create a little oasis of peace and pleasure, to feel like something other than hunted prey. Even if only for a few hours. It was Christmas, her favorite time of year. She’d celebrated Christmas all her life. It was a big event in the Barron family. If she couldn’t celebrate Christmas, her unknown and unseen enemy had already won. He’d stripped her of her humanity and turned her into a cowering animal. She gently squeezed his arm.

“Please,” she said again, watching him. There was nothing else to say. She didn’t wheedle or try to explain why it was so important to her. Either he understood or didn’t. She knew instinctively that John couldn’t be forced to do something he didn’t want to. Giving in to her entirely reasonable request was something he had to want to do all on his own.

His muscles bunched and quivered. His jaw clenched hard. She could feel his reluctance in his muscles, see it on his face. She smiled up at him, and then stretched to kiss the corner of his mouth. It was like kissing a wooden statue. She kissed him again. “Come on. You know you don’t have to be out of sight of the cabin. I’ll be perfectly safe. You told me I was safe here, right?”

“Yeah.” It was as if the word had been wrenched out of his chest with huge red-hot pincers.

“Well, then. You see? What can happen?”

His mouth opened to argue and she decided to whip out the big guns. Pulling his head down, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him. Open-mouthed, her tongue deep in his mouth, full body frontal. He wasn’t wooden any more, he was male heat and sinew, darkness and power and desire. She ate at his mouth, moving hotly against him as he swelled erect.