Macy knew it was the wrong thing to do, kissing Deacon.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
But she did it anyway because sometimes wrong was actually right. She didn’t know how to explain this truth, but when it came, there was no denying it. It was real. It was complete. It was massive, like a thunderstorm that moved over the prairie, and when it came, it occupied your body and soul and you thought you’d be afraid of it, but you weren’t. You knew all along you were meant to be in it, and then you realized you actually created it.
You ruled the storm.
And she had to be honest. She didn’t just give in to Deacon. She signaled him with her body language, with her eyes, with every cell in her body screaming for him to touch her, to kiss her, to do more … way more.
She invited him in, past her big coat with the wispy feather collar, and the tightly zippered gown, and her beautiful French bra and panties set from Bits of Lace on King Street.
And once they got started, there was no stopping them.…
Here was the tacky part, although she wouldn’t apologize: she rummaged through Louisa’s bathroom counter drawers for condoms. She didn’t want to ask Deacon if he had one. Because then that might mean he was intending to use it with Louisa.
“I have one already,” he said when she brought in the shiny foil packet.
She was crushed. “You do?”
He laughed. “Not for Louisa,” he said. “Every decent single guy carries them.”
She laughed too. Of course he was right.
They stayed in Louisa’s bedroom, on top of their coats on the floor. They were bad houseguests—they weren’t even houseguests!—and they didn’t care. They made love in different, crazy positions that just happened, like they were channeling the Kama Sutra.
More than once.
All in half an hour.
She had already decided Deacon was the best lover she’d ever had when she caught sight of a tricycle and the clock on Louisa’s bedside table.
“We need to go,” she said on her back, still panting and so pleasured she didn’t want to move.
Deacon was busy running his hand up and down her side, from her bare shoulder down to her hip. She felt curvy and attractive. “You’re right,” he said.
And then he pushed her palms back on the coats, positioned himself over her, and kissed her, just kissed her, until she felt like that adored queen on the barge on the Nile that she’d wanted to feel like ever since she first saw him.
Finally, he pulled back. “This was a long time coming.”
“I barely remember getting undressed.” She sat up, her breasts exposed, no sense of modesty. “We’ve only known each other—” She snapped her fingers to signify how short the time had been.
“And every second that’s gone by has been torture. Because this was meant to happen. You know it as well as I do. We’ve been dancing around it.”
“Even at Fast and French you felt tortured?”
“Don’t remind me. Yes.”
“How about when I was sitting on my desk eating a pear?”
“God, yes. You drove me crazy.”
She laughed. “That’s very kind of you.”
“Kind? I’m not kind,” he scoffed, but it didn’t come out harshly. Somehow, it was sexy. Friendly. Even intimate. He stood up and held out his hand.
She took it and was taken straight back to that feeling of him grabbing her naked rear end with his greedy man fingers while he kissed her senseless.
“Okay, you’re not kind,” she said. “Neither am I, actually.” She allowed him to pull her up.
And then he tricked her. He sank to his knees on the coats, leaned over and kissed the round of her right butt cheek.
Wow. Standing above him, she knew where he was headed, but she didn’t feel an ounce of awkwardness. He was right. This was really meant to happen.
What he did was very, very good. She was tempted to scream, “Yo-Yo Ma,” but that would have been too funny and distracting at just the wrong time.
How could she reconcile all this intimacy—that clearly went beyond the physical—with the fact that Deacon didn’t believe in love? Her colleagues at Two Love Lane were all about her getting together with him, but wouldn’t they also be a little disappointed in her for putting her personal life ahead of the business’s priorities?
But she was that missing piece in Deacon’s jigsaw puzzle. The cherry on top of his sundae. The reason for him to stop running.
She knew it, but she didn’t know if he would ever know it himself. She was sure he thought she was hotter than hell and a fabulous (temporary) sex partner. But he might never figure out that she was home for him.
So she had to do her best to forget that he was home for her.
Hot little tears sprang to her eyes, but she held them at bay.
He’d finally gotten to his feet. Her limbs, understandably, felt weak and floppy, plus she had trouble remembering how to put her clothes on.
“Raise your arms,” he said. He’d managed to yank on his tuxedo trousers and now put her gown over her head and pulled it down for her. When he zipped her up, he kissed the back of her neck. “That’s my special spot,” he said.
“All yours,” she murmured, still lost in a sexual haze.
“We overstayed our welcome.” He helped her on with her coat.
“Welcome, shmelcome,” she said, which wasn’t clever at all but she didn’t care because it said everything about living in the moment, where nothing stuck and you were free.
She adjusted Deacon’s bowtie, then fished her handbag from a woven straw basket filled with clean laundry Louisa had yet to fold. She had a vague recollection of throwing her purse there to get it out of the way. It had come open, and her round compact hairbrush had fallen out, the Dollar Store kind that flips open with plastic brush bristles that pop out. She stuffed the disc back in her clutch and hoped her cool up-do wasn’t totally destroyed.
For some reason they were both somber at the curb at the end of the cobblestone street when they waited on the Uber car. But then Deacon turned her toward him. “I’m sorry,” he said, and pushed her hair back from her face. “I didn’t mean to seduce you. When I joined you upstairs, I was—”
“I know.” She looked up at him. His palm felt good on the side of her face. And he was so gentle. “It’s okay.”
And what she meant was that it was worth it. She was horrified at herself for believing that, but she would not regret what they had done.
He’d set a new standard for her.
Maybe he got that—because his mouth tipped up, and then he kissed her. Very gently. He held her like she was a piece of her grandmother’s fine bone china. His lips were toasty warm, keeping the cold night at bay. She was ready to go home with him and crawl into his bed and not get out for several days.
She knew very well that she was in something way over her head.
“Is that our Uber car?” She forced herself to retreat from being the lover back to fellow pedestrian.
Deacon threw his arm around her shoulder and squeezed. “Wouldn’t you know it?” He looked down the street like a little kid waiting on a Christmas parade. “We got the same guy who’d picked us up from my aunt’s house.”
“You liked him,” she said.
“I did.”
The car pulled up. “Yo,” the driver said.
Yo-Yo Ma, Macy thought. It was the theme of the night.
He looked slightly bewildered. “You didn’t go to the concert?”
“We did,” Macy said briskly, “and we’re on our way back.” She looked at Deacon in a whole new way now. She’d always thought he was sexy, but she’d lifted the hood and seen the engine. How was she supposed to not remember his mad skills every time she saw his mouth or his eyes or his hair, which she’d played with while he’d buried himself in her?
“We had pressing business,” he said.
“Yes. Totally pressing,” she added.
They were being silly. But it was fun.
When they got out at the Gaillard, Deacon reached into the car before he shut the rear passenger door and handed the driver a hundred-dollar bill. “Merry Christmas, a little early.”
A brisk wind lifted Macy’s coat and swirled beneath her gown and up her legs, making her shiver, especially when she remembered the hot hands that had caressed her naked thighs so recently.
The guy paused, then shoved the bill in his pocket. “Thanks, man,” he said. “I’ll give this to my mom. She finally paid off the mortgage on her decrepit little house—the one I grew up in—but she pays heating bills like she has a twenty-room mansion.”
“Why?” Macy couldn’t help asking.
“She’s got no insulation, I guess. And she can’t afford to get it fixed up. Almost all her pension goes to medications.”
Deacon took out his wallet. “Here.” He gave the driver another couple of hundred-dollar bills.
Macy had to admit she was slightly dizzy at the sight of all that cash. She was business-rich and cash-poor herself.
The driver shook his head. “No, man. But thanks.”
“I want to help your mom,” Deacon insisted.
“You tourists need to take care of yourselves,” the guy said. “Not be too generous. There are some very bad people, even in a nice place like this, just waiting to take advantage of you.”
“I know that,” Deacon said. “But sometimes you take a chance. And I’m not worried. I know where this is going.”
The driver scratched his ear. “I don’t know.”
Deacon shoved the bills forward another couple inches. “Come on. It’s not charity. This is friend to friend.”
The guy finally took the money. “I can’t thank you enough,” he said soberly.
Macy smiled. “We’re all just paying it forward, you know?”
“I’ll pay it forward too.” The driver allowed himself a small grin. “I promise.”
Deacon crouched lower to make better eye contact. “You’re already doing it. Helping your mom is important.”
That touched Macy’s heart. Deacon had lost his mother at such a young age. And he had done really well taking care of the one he’d been blessed with in her place.
“This is a good night,” the guy said. “Mom will love hearing this story. She’ll make me tell it to her at least three times.”
Deacon looked at Macy, and she looked at him, and all felt right in Macy’s world. It was an awesome feeling.
“Merry Christmas, you two.” Their friendly driver waved.
They waved back.
How different the walk was this time when they made their way to the Gaillard Center’s main entrance!
Deacon had a contented half-smile on his face.
“That was nice of you,” Macy said.
He shrugged. “I did it to impress a certain good-cheer enthusiast I know.”
A car whizzed by, the sounds of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” floating out the window in that out-of-tune way that happens when sound waves meet speed.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “You would have done it without me there. Admit it.”
“I will, but only if you tell me what you were thinking after he said his mom would want to hear the story three times.”
She stopped walking. “You really want to know?”
“I do.”
“I was thinking that there is no better feeling in the world than giving. Seriously. Making someone else happy is addictive, and I wish I could feel like that all the time. Not just at Christmas.”
They started walking again.
“I was thinking the same thing,” he said.
“At the same time.” She wished she could hold his hand. She wanted to.
“Hate to ruin the Hallmark moment”—he shot her a wicked grin—“but I also feel that way about great sex. Like the kind we had today. Maybe I’ll get coal in my stocking for saying so.”
“Um, no. You could never get coal for what you did at Louisa’s house.”
“Oh yeah?”
They stared at each other for a few drawn-out seconds. Inside, she shivered, remembering how locked into each other they’d been.
“I propose we get naked together every day,” he murmured low. “Morning and night. You live right next door. I can slip in and out of your house, easy. And our Christmas will be merry and bright.”
“Deacon.”
“I know what you’re going to say.” He held open the door for her to the lobby. A rush of warm air swept past her into the night. “You think I’m only about having a fling. You regret our little interlude at Louisa’s. And you think we need to put back up those walls.”
“Because we’re neighbors.” She made a beeline for the coat-check room. “And you’re my client—my challenging client who doesn’t believe in love.”
He checked his coat too.
They didn’t speak to each other again until they were all alone walking up the stairs. “I can’t regret what we did today,” he said. “And I wasn’t thinking only about myself. I was thinking about you.”
“Which I find very … sweet.” He’d been a thoughtful lover. She couldn’t deny that.
“So we’ll forget we made mad, passionate love several times on the floor of a stranger’s house?”
Tingles shot up her spine. “Yes,” she said awkwardly. “As we both know, healthy adults can have sexual lives that don’t necessarily lead to intimacy. It’s a drive, like hunger, and thirst—”
“Macy.” Deacon laughed softly. “I’m the last person you have to explain that to. I get it.”
“Of course.” She couldn’t help feeling stupid.
“Don’t feel guilty about having sex with me and leaving it at that. I’m a big boy.”
“I know.” She felt how red her cheeks must look.
He opened the door to the box. She went in first, and he followed. Aunt Fran and Celia sat together in the front row. Macy and Deacon took their seats behind them. She didn’t look at Deacon, nor he at her, as far as she knew. They were well-behaved. Clapped appropriately. Made sure their knees didn’t touch.
I am a professional, she told herself over and over, even as the juncture between her thighs was pleasantly sore from the vigorous sexcapade she’d participated in not an hour before with her client, the hottest man in the world.
Her client.
Who was an amazing lover.
Her client.
Who wanted to sleep with her every day he was here during the holidays.
I am a professional, she reminded herself once more when the lights came up at the end of the performance.
And then Celia turned around, and Macy made a decision.