Chapter 11 #2
Caroline started ferrying the food out on big trays—cheeses, wholewheat bread, corn bread, focaccia, leftover roast beef, slices of baked ham, butter, lavender honey, homemade chutney, a sliced tomato salad with a drizzle of olive oil, lettuce and arugula salad, carrot and celery sticks with a sour cream dip, a bowl of Greek olives and two slices of chocolate cake—one big and one small.
In the time it took her to bring several trays of food out, Jack had neatly stacked enough wood in the bin to keep the fireplace going for days.
It was a job she hated, and she rarely lit the fire because of it, except of course when the boiler died.
It was dirty, backbreaking work and he’d done it in the blink of an eye.
It was hard to keep her eyes on what she was doing.
Jack had knelt in front of the fireplace, building a fire, massive thigh muscles straining his jeans, broad back outlined in red from the burgeoning flames, exactly like last night.
With any luck, it was a sight she’d be seeing all winter—Jack stoking the flames, the firelight dancing across his strong features.
He moved easily, with grace. He knew what he was doing, too. In no time, a perfect fire was blazing.
No doubt he’d learned to do that as a soldier. Repairs, fires. He had quite a repertory.
Caroline stepped back and looked, pleased, at the spread on the big coffee table. She lit four red candles and placed them on the four corners, and thought it looked like a very festive Christmas meal.
The fire had already begun blazing merrily, the warmth seeping into her bones. Jack stood, brushing his hands, looked at the spread and turned to her. “Looks nice.”
“It does, doesn’t it? So I guess we’re all set—oh! Wine. We finished the bottle last night, I’ll go down to the cellar and get another one.”
“I’ll go. You relax on the couch. Any special bottle?”
Her father had always opened a Burgundy at Christmas. “Get a red, a Burgundy. You’ll find a selection on the far wall. The cellar is—”
He had already disappeared, before she had a chance to tell him that the door to the cellar was next to the kitchen door.
It was completely dark outside. Christmas day had passed and it was already Christmas night. A day she’d dreaded since Toby’s death was almost over.
There were no sounds at all outside. Usually, she could hear the sound of the odd car driving by, or a dog barking. Now, they could have been the last human beings on the face of the planet, it was so quiet.
Who knew what was happening out there?
She was feeling so good, maybe world peace had broken out. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Only one way to find out. Caroline clicked the remote control on to the local news channel and found snow. MSNBC, CNN, FOX … snow.
She began clicking through all the channels when suddenly the remote disappeared from her hand and the TV screen went black.
“I’m not ready for the outside world yet,” Jack said, putting the remote down with one hand and wagging a bottle from side to side with the other. “I think we should be doing our celebrating without any interference from all the yahoos and creeps out there.”
“Okay.” He was perfectly right. “TV wasn’t working anyway. We’ll need a cork—”
Somehow, by some magic, he had the corkscrew already in his hand, and Caroline laughed. The cork came out with the cool little pop of a well-aged bottle and Jack poured them half a glass each while Caroline filled their plates.
Both of them ate with enormous gusto. Sooner than she’d have thought possible, they’d polished everything off, including the cake crumbs.
The bottle was almost finished. Caroline had forgotten to put water out, but who needed water when there was excellent wine?
The Burgundy was liquid joy. It was exactly the bottle she would have chosen.
He had a sophisticated wine sense, her soldier.
Caroline settled back with a happy sigh into Jack’s arm, bare feet curled over the edge of the coffee table. The fire crackled and hissed merrily.
She had no idea what time it was and she didn’t care. All she knew was that soon Christmas would be over and a day she had been dreading with all her heart had been wonderful in many different ways.
She tipped her head back over Jack’s arm and looked up at him, at the man responsible for her wonderful day. “Where were you last Christmas? What were you doing? How did you celebrate?”
Jack finished his wine and put the glass down carefully on a side table.
He ran the back of his forefinger along her neck, gently, up and down.
“Last Christmas I was on duty all day in Pakistan, where Christmas doesn’t exist. And if it did, it sure wouldn’t herald a day of peace.
The terrorists would have been delighted to nail Habib on a Christian holiday.
So that was my Christmas and it was more or less par for the course, the same as the other 220 days before it.
A tour of duty lasting 12 hours, a meal of stewed goat meat, which is what we ate every day, at the end of it, no wine because it’s a dry country, and reruns of Game of Thrones.
” He leaned over and kissed her on the ear.
“And you? Where were you last Christmas?”
“Here,” Caroline sighed. “With Toby.”
“What did you two do?”
“In the beginning, in the first couple of years after the accident, I tried inviting people over for Christmas. Both of us got depressed on Christmas day and I thought having people over would cheer us up.” She stopped, remembering.
Remembering how awkwardly people reacted to Toby.
How no matter what Christmas feast she cooked up, they would start leaving right after the coffee was served.
It was such a painful contrast to before. To when Christmas at the Lake’s was a lavish celebration lasting days, often with houseguests, full of food and wine and music and laughter.
“And? Did it work?” He was watching her closely, as if her answer mattered to him.
“Sort of. In the beginning, anyway. Toby—Toby had some control over his movements in the first few years. But then as his physical condition deteriorated, our popularity … waned. The last few years, we just celebrated by ourselves. I always put up a tree, and played some carols, and we watched TV and played chess. Toby is—was a wicked chess player. He always beat the pants off me.”
His hand suddenly tightened around her shoulder and Caroline looked at him in surprise. The firelight danced in his dark eyes in tiny pinpricks of light. Of heat.
“I can’t play chess worth a damn, but I’d sure like to learn how to, so I can beat the pants off you,” he whispered in a low, purely male growl that had prickles running up and down her spine.
Just like that, desire surged up, like an electric shock she could feel down to her fingertips and toes.
It was a miracle her hair didn’t stand on end, like those cartoon characters sticking a finger in the electric socket.
She’d thought the wine had created heat in her system, but there wasn’t a Burgundy in the world that could stand up to the heat in Jack’s eyes.
Warmth spread throughout her entire body, pooling in her breasts and sheath, which was already wet. He’d barely touched her, hadn’t even kissed her, and her body was readying itself for him.
And he knew. Of course he knew. Those sharp dark eyes missed nothing.
“But then,” he whispered, his arm curling her towards him, “maybe I don’t need to lose at chess to get your pants off.
” She was brought up against him, and his mouth covered hers.
The kiss was long and languid, his tongue deep in her mouth, stroking hers, in time with the big hand stroking her leg, from her hip down to her ankle, and back again.
On the third pass, his hand slipped under the elastic of her sweat pants to caress her bottom.
Oh god, it was wildly exciting, feeling his big, warm hand on her skin, slowly stroking, reaching further and further down with his hand until he touched her most sensitive skin, entering her slightly with the tip of one finger.
She was slick already, she knew he could feel her arousal.
As she could feel his, huge and hot against her stomach.
His finger pressed more deeply into her, just as his tongue delved more deeply into her mouth.
She could hardly breathe with excitement but it didn’t make any difference. Somehow he was breathing for her.
A long finger entered her, stroking the inside walls of her sheath in slow passes. His thumb passed over her clitoris.
Caroline gasped into his mouth and felt him stiffen. In an instant, her sweat pants and panties were off. She barely felt him strip her, she was so taken with his hands and his mouth. One moment she had on her soft sweat suit pants, the next moment, she felt the heat of the fire on her backside.
Somehow his jeans had come off, too, though she couldn’t figure out how, since he was always touching her.
“Make me go slow,” he whispered into her mouth, as he lifted her over him. In a moment, her legs were straddling him, the lips of her sex open over that long, thick hot column. “Put me in yourself.”
“Okay,” she whispered back.
He was so aroused she found it hard to pull his penis away from his stomach and she had to lift herself up on her knees to position herself against the head. She slid along it, testing herself and felt him exhale heavily into her mouth.
His lifted his mouth from hers and gently bumped his forehead against hers. She held his penis and swirled herself around his head, feeling him swell against her fingers and against the swollen tissues of her sex.
“Oh, God,” he said, his voice shaky. “Do that again.”
He was sweating lightly. A bead of sweat trailed from his temple down over the high cheekbone to the jaw, where it trembled lightly and disappeared into the thick mat of hair covering his chest.