Chapter 22
The fact that Marisa could even turn her doorknob was a miracle in and of itself. God, her fingers were numb, and her swelling knuckles were even worse, gnarled to the point where dunking them in ice wouldn’t help so much as likely freeze them in place.
If it were possible to have one’s ass kicked by a molten-sugar-coated candy thermometer and what surely amounted to miles of pulled ribbons, she’d succeeded. And then there was the monster gut punch of having to scrap her gingerbread concept.
Without it, all she had to offer Monica’s guests was what amounted to a smattering of hard candy found in every grandmother’s foyer candy dish at Christmastime.
True, they’d be the best hard candies anyone ever put in their mouths, the kind people would cheerfully snap a tooth on and say worth it, but regardless, it had been hours, and she still hadn’t come up with a gingerbread replacement, let alone a showstopping one.
For some reason, defeat tasted even more bitter when coated in sugar.
After toeing off her shoes and dropping her bag and keys somewhere in the vicinity of her kitchen table, she was met with a soft glow coming from her living room.
Alec.
He was there, lying on her couch, waiting for her, just as he said he would be. And he looked appropriately rumpled.
Once he caught sight of her, he smiled, and memories of her earlier gingerbread trauma faded. God, he looked good on her couch. More than good. Extra good.
And Marisa stared down at herself and winced. She looked like she’d been pulled through a sugar paste extruder.
Alec kicked off his sock-clad feet from her couch cushions, paused whatever he had been watching on her TV, and rose to greet her, not even bothering to smooth down his shirt or pull the hem free from where it had gotten snagged on a belt loop.
The overhead lights were off and the curtains closed.
The only lights left on to offer any sort of illumination were the dimmed ones from the kitchen and—she gasped—the glowing Hanukkah candles in her shabby menorah, which must have just been lit, judging by how little they had burned down.
“Why are my . . .?” She was about to ask why he’d bothered lighting them at all, let alone close to eleven thirty at night, but her words were swallowed up by the Korean couple frozen with lips centimeters from each other on the screen. “Wait. Were you watching my K-drama?”
Alec’s cheeks reddened, and Marisa got the distinct impression that, had he been wearing a hat, he would have yanked it off his head and mangled the brim nervously in his hands. “It was on your watchlist, and it looked interesting.” Then he cleared his throat. “Um, so, how’d everything go?”
Oh, she’d have to unpack that reaction later. Preferably with Eden present and a few bottles of soju under their belts.
“Good. I made decent headway on all the sugar work. The ribbon candy is all shaped and cut. I just did two flavors. The first is a blackberry cream, and then, to keep it easy, I just repurposed my homemade Red Hots syrup into the second batch but toned down the heat slightly. Eden’s stopping by tomorrow to help me bag those up while I work on the mini chocolate peppermint candy canes. ”
“I can help too if you need it.”
Marisa nodded distractedly, her thoughts roadblocked by the lit candles and the glow they cast across Alec’s stubbled face. “That would be great.” And then she asked, “Uh, why did you light the candles?”
Alec shrugged and walked over to the mantle, where a second box of candles sat next to her sad seen-better-days box that still held at least half the candles from last year that she’d meant to light and hadn’t. “It’s Hanukkah. Still the fifth night, right?”
“Yeees,” she said skeptically. “But it’s well past sundown.”
“So you missed the sunset.” He shrugged. “It’s not your fault you forgot. Just because you were busy doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
“But it won’t count.” Right? Hadn’t that always been the fear holding her lackluster holiday practices in place? That doing the small bits could manage here and there would be seen as wasted effort, so why bother?
He scratched the back of his neck and seemed to reflect on how she’d forgotten yet again to celebrate her own damn holiday.
Had she been thinking ahead, she could have brought her menorah over to the warehouse.
Could have spared all of the ten seconds it would have taken to light the candles so she could at least feel a small connection to her tradition, instead of constantly feeling adrift in a sea of other people’s festivities.
“You know, when I used the spare key you gave me and first got here, I didn’t like the look of what you had going on.”
Marisa bristled but bit back anything she might say that would inadvertently make her shame flare hotter. The thing was already on a roll and didn’t need the encouragement.
“I went to three different grocery stores, until I found one that still had some Hanukkah candles left. An older woman helped pick a box out for me. Apparently, these were the last good candles, whatever that meant. I wanted to light them when you got home because I remember how bonny you looked staring into the flames at your parents’ house on your birthday, during the first night of the holiday.
You just seemed happier, with the fire glowing in your eyes and bits of gold dancing in your hair.
And your candles looked like they’d had a rough go of it, so I thought I’d help and give your set a refresh, aye?
Because if this is what makes you smile, then it all counts. ”
Marisa joined him and wished she didn’t feel so goddamn fragile all of a sudden.
“Sometimes there’s a lot of pressure, you know?
” She sniffed back the emotional strain, but not before Alec curled his arms around her and pulled her close.
“At times, I’d miss a day lighting them because I had a catering gig or I had too many orders to fulfill, and the guilt of missing it would ramp up all over again.
That if I couldn’t even manage to do the barest fucking minimum of lighting a few candles for what’s considered a minor Jewish holiday, then it felt like too much to bother with the rest. What was the point? ”
“The point,” he said firmly, with all the confidence she didn’t feel, “is that it’s pretty and festive and a part of you, and it doesn’t need to be anything more than that.
One of the best things about joy is that it’s generally very forgiving.
Otherwise, why on earth would those blueberry candy canes be so popular?
It’s not the taste, that’s for damn sure.
By the way, do you know you have half a dozen boxes of those things in your cabinets?
Are you worried there’ll be a shortage and that all the holidays will be canceled next year or something?
I hate to break it to you, but they’re the sorts of things that come round regularly. ”
He looked down at her with tempered amusement. Then a harsh laugh squeezed through her lungs and chased away the tremors from the emotional vise grip her throat had been stuck in.
“Hey.” He chuckled, pulling her away from him slightly and lifting his fingers from her shoulders to try and aid his argument. “I don’t make the rules.”
Whatever remained of her exhaustion winked out of her body as she started to see things in a different light. Whatever magic was in those good candles was clearly working miracles that, before Alec entered her life, she’d had no access to.
They stood there, socked feet mere intimate inches from touching each other while her heart hammered out the very insistent reminder of why she’d given him the key to her apartment.
Why she wanted him to be waiting for her and why a full-blown Mardi Gras parade was taking place in her stomach as his powerful chest seemed to reach for her each time he breathed.
Oh, who was she kidding? Fake girlfriend or not, she would happily be caught in whatever spell he wove, especially since the more exhausted she was, the more likely it was that her shame and inhibitions delighted in expressing their competing interests.
Marisa’s toes betrayed her, lifting her higher to Alec’s mouth, but whatever sweetness she had been expecting him to deliver as he kissed her was quickly thrown aside once he wrapped his arms around her waist and savored what they’d never had the time or opportunity to explore.
All sorts of deliciously spirited grunts rumbled through Alec’s chest, each one thrilling Marisa until her toes curled.
His fingers dug into her waist with deliciously possessive hooks that had her opening her mouth to him wider, her tongue seeking out more of whatever it was about this man that her heart had latched on to.
Instead, what she got was a mouthful of subtly sweet and unapologetically artificial blueberry.
“You wicked, judgmental thief,” she said against his lips. “And after you just spent how many precious sentences berating me over my candy cane choices?”
His sensual lips slid over her jawline until they were bestowing apologetic kisses into the hollow behind her ear. “I had to know what all the fuss was about. Besides, I’m thinking blueberry might be my new favorite candy cane flavor.”
“And why would you say that?” Just when she expected him to do something far more wicked with his mouth, he surprised her yet again by doing the wicked thing with his words instead.
“Because you’re fond of it, and I’m fond of you.”
There had been precious few experiences in Marisa’s life where she’d been rendered speechless, and Alec Elms accomplished the task while tasting of chemically crafted fruit, wearing no shoes, and lit by the backdrop of Korean lovers who didn’t know they were lovers yet but were on the cusp of finding out. (She’d seen that episode already.)
What she hadn’t seen yet was how her own story would play out.
There were just so many knobs and gears that she’d been juggling to turn right and left lately, hoping each new combination would be the winning one that would allow her to live the life she wanted without having to shave off any more serial numbers that made up who she was.
Yet there she stood, being smothered by every depiction of what her wants looked and felt like: Alec’s heated mouth trailing over her neck, the hardness of his cock pushing against her hip bone, her skin prickling as she pressed her breasts closer against him.
It was enough to make her head spin. And whether it was all real or imagined, she wasn’t ready to get off the ride just yet.
Marisa found Alec’s hand and pulled him behind her into her bedroom, smiling at how he gaped at her.
Never in all her life had she been so thrilled to put an end to a conversation.