The Nights Before Christmas

“Sexy?” She glanced down at her cream-colored silk blouse. “Hardly. But then it isn’t my goal to make a sexual statement when I go into the office.”

“It may not be. That doesn’t mean you don’t.”

She met his gaze and suddenly didn’t want to play anymore. “Maybe that sort of flattery works with other women, but I’m not taken in,” she said quietly. “I’m well aware of the type of outfit and behavior that men find sexy, and that’s not where I shine.”

He leaned toward her, his quiet tone matching hers. “Pardon me, Ms. Talbot, but obviously you don’t know your Wall Street Journal from the National Enquirer if you’re going to make a statement like that.”

Her cheeks grew warm. She’d expected him to retreat, not counterattack. And she was gradually becoming aware that his vocabulary didn’t quite fit her image of an uneducated blue-collar worker. “I have some experience in this matter,” she said.

“Not enough, apparently.”

“And you do?” They’d danced around enough, and now she wanted to rip away the curtain he was hiding behind. “Why don’t you tell me what makes you such an authority on the subject of sexual attraction?”

He put down his mug. “Why and how men and women are sexually drawn to each other is one of my favorite topics. I’ve studied it endlessly.”

“Really? In what way?”

His eyes blazed. “I’m going to choose not to answer that, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that when a woman with a great body wears a conservative little suit, many men find it sexy as hell. They’re convinced that a temptress is hiding underneath that businesslike exterior, and they consider it a personal challenge to see if they can strew that uptight outfit all around the room, because nine times out of ten they’re right.”

She drew back, her heart pounding. “But not necessarily. Sometimes they’re wrong.”

“Sometimes,” he said softly.

“They would be wrong about me!”

He studied her for several long seconds. “Would they?”

4

SUZANNE GULPED. This encounter was quickly spinning out of control. One voice, probably Terri’s, told her to let that happen for once in her life. But another voice, probably her own scared-rabbit persona, told her to run for cover.

Greg took the decision away from her by breaking eye contact and clearing his throat. “You know what, I really need to be getting back.” He stood. “Thanks for the soup and conversation.”

“Anyti—I mean, you’re welcome.” She shouldn’t confuse the issue by suggesting that they might get together again. He was too high-octane for her, and once again, she’d play it safe and stay away from a potentially explosive situation.

“I’ll get my tools.” He walked toward the kitchen.

She gazed after him and knew she was making the right decision. She didn’t belong in bed with a man whose jeans fit like that, a man who walked with such fluid grace, a man who probably made love like an angel. A man who wanted intimacy of one kind but shunned any personal revelations of his own.

Besides, he would be disappointed in her, because she wasn’t the temptress he hoped to find under her uptight outfit. He might be too polite to let her know, but she would know, and that was a blow she couldn’t endure right now.

He returned carrying his toolbox. “If that pipe gives you any more trouble, give me a call.”

“I will. Thank you.”

“No problem.” He glanced around the room. “You really have done a great job with the apartment.” Then he left.

Gone. Opportunity had knocked, come inside, fixed her sink, sat beside her on the sofa, fired up her libido and then left. A girl couldn’t expect opportunity to hang around forever.

She was glad he was gone, she decided as she picked up the soup mugs and started into the kitchen. Glad, glad, glad. Now she could spend the evening brewing some green tea and balancing her checkbook, listening to some classical music and touching up her manicure.

Boring.

She stood in the middle of the kitchen, a soup mug in each hand, and was struck by the emptiness of the apartment now that Greg was gone. It was a different kind of quiet from the one that had settled in after Jared had left. Jared’s departure had meant the absence of his loud voice, a reprieve from rock music at full volume and his need to turn the TV on at the same time, creating a chaos of noise that had driven her to distraction.

If she’d expected to feel that same relief when Greg walked out the door, she’d been wrong. Greg had brought a turbulence with him, no doubt about that, and she hadn’t been totally comfortable with him in the apartment. But maybe comfort was overrated. Greg brought the kind of excitement she craved without even knowing it.

She’d thrown away her chance to build on that excitement, to find out a few things about herself. She wouldn’t find out much about Greg—he’d made that obvious—and she’d allowed his need for privacy to bother her. Maybe she was using his reticence as an excuse to avoid taking a sexual risk herself.

Greg had suggested she didn’t have enough experience to know what did and didn’t turn men on. He was right. And there was no better place to get that experience than with him.

The thought made her stomach tumble with anxiety, but unless she allowed Greg to come to her rescue and teach her a few things about herself and her relationship with men, she could very well be facing a future in a penthouse with twenty-nine cats. My God, the man even came highly recommended. If he were a stock he’d be rated triple A.

When she thought about it that way, she realized Greg was a heck of a lot less risky than some man she might meet at the gym or at a party. Maybe she didn’t know him all that well, would never know him all that well, but Terri wouldn’t steer her wrong.

She’d learned to respect Terri’s advice. Terri had helped her through several sticky situations at work, and she’d also recommended this apartment building. The gym would be a good thing, too, once Suzanne’s muscles adjusted. No doubt about it, Terri usually knew what she was talking about.

Suzanne’s hands began to shake as she realized that she was actually contemplating having an affair with the handyman. But asking him to come back to her apartment and using her sink as an excuse was too lame. Been there, done that. No, if she planned to embark on this course, she’d have to be brave for a change. She’d have to initiate the action.

She tried to remember a time she’d done that with a man, and couldn’t think of a single instance. Like Sleeping Beauty, she’d waited passively for a prince to come to her. That strategy had netted her men like Jared. If she wanted to do the choosing for a change, to find someone more suited to her personality, she needed practice in making the first move. She could practice on Greg.

She put the mugs down on the counter when she began quivering so much she was afraid she’d drop them. Then she wrapped her arms around her middle and tried to stop shaking long enough to make a decision. When a woman has a great body, he’d said. The compliment had been tucked into his outrageous statement about ripping off her clothes, but she hadn’t missed it. He wanted her, and that knowledge braced her for taking the big step.

After all, Greg was something that a woman didn’t come across very often—guaranteed to please, and certified not to become a bother later on. He was exactly what she needed for this radical change in her behavior. He was a sure thing.

“YOU’RE SPOILED ROTTEN, Matilda.” Greg gave the tortoise-shell cat another piece of chicken from the sandwich he’d fixed himself after getting back from Suzanne’s apartment. “And we know who’s to blame for that.”

The same guy would have been to blame if things had gotten out of hand in Suzanne’s apartment a little while ago. Her attitude about herself, encouraged no doubt by that idiot Jared, had ticked him off and led him to say more than he should have. A lot more than he should have. He’d never been so aggressive with any woman in this apartment complex.

Thank God she’d jumped the way she had when he’d made his speech about the lure of tidy little business suits, or there was no telling what he might have done to prove his point. He’d been so close to grabbing her and kissing the daylights out of her that the slightest invitation on her part would have set him off.

But she hadn’t issued an invitation. Instead she’d acted frightened, which had brought him to his senses.

He sighed. All the women he’d counseled in this building had suffered from the same basic problem. They’d hooked up with a guy who’d boosted his own ego at the expense of theirs. By the time the jerk got tired of the game and dumped them, they were convinced they had nothing to offer any man. More than once Greg had wanted to hunt the ex-boyfriends down and beat the tar out of them for the wreckage they’d left behind.

Picturing Suzanne glancing down at herself and announcing that nothing about her was sexy, he’d been ready to strangle Jared. Greg had been blessed with the ability to appreciate any woman whether she happened to be thin or plump, plain or attractive. After he’d concentrated a little while on them, they began to take on a glow that made each of them beautiful.

But Suzanne took no effort on his part to shine like a newly minted penny. Her beauty had dazzled him from the beginning, and he couldn’t believe that she didn’t know how gorgeous she was. Her lack of confidence made him impatient to jump in there and do something about it.

Unfortunately, he was likely to jump in a little too deep this time. Much as he might want to help Suzanne, he had to think about himself—both his job, which he might lose if he wasn’t careful, and his heart. The job could be replaced, but if he allowed another woman to stomp all over his heart the way Amelia had, he might not recover.

While he cleaned up his supper dishes, Matilda paced the tiny apartment waiting for him to finish. He took a moment to add water to the metal stand holding his Christmas tree, a slightly larger one than Suzanne’s. His wasn’t decorated yet for the simple reason that he had no decorations. He’d bought the tree on a whim because he loved the smell of evergreen. One of these days he’d pick up some ornaments and lights, but for now he had a nice foresty scent in his little basement apartment.

Come to think of it, he was in the mood for some Christmas music. He picked out three holiday CDs from his collection and loaded them into his stereo before falling into his overstuffed reading chair. With a little prrt of pleasure, Matilda jumped to his lap and curled up, purring happily.

He scratched under her chin, using the exact motion she loved. With his free hand, he picked up the book he’d left on the table beside the chair. For the past couple of weeks he’d been on a Dickens kick.

Reading was very nearly his favorite occupation, but because he was a healthy thirty-one-year-old male, making love to a special woman still ranked first. Tonight, no matter how much he tried to concentrate on the trials of Oliver Twist, he kept thinking of how great it would be to snuggle with Suzanne.