He hated the pain in her voice, the way she got quiet and still when she talked about how she’d grown up. Jameson had been beaten bloody more times than he could count, but it paled in comparison to the psychological torment of how her parents treated her. No wonder she disliked holidays and didn’t want to hear her name. There was no telling how often she’d been punished with that name.
At least the alcohol blurred everything around the edges, so she didn’t get too tense or anxious. It would have driven his bear side crazy with the need to protect and comfort her, and Jameson already had enough trouble keeping that part of himself under control. Being in a smaller room with her, surrounded by reminders of cubs and family, and with the intoxicating smell of her skin... Even the hint of hormones in her scent that revealed she was a nursing mother got the bear revved up.
She was so close. Right there in reach. He could touch her, and when she sucked down some rum and choked, he patted her back and then couldn’t pull away. The bear wanted more, to be a hell of a lot closer. Preferably naked.
Particularly when she eyed him and asked softly what he meant about replacing bad memories with good. He swallowed a groan. He knew exactly the kind of good memories he wanted to give her, and most of them involved her coming so hard she passed out.
Merry Christmas to him, and they’d all have a good night.
But he wasn’t going to be that asshole. He didn’t want to deal with an angry Kara or Owen, or having Kaiser give him shit for complicating the girl’s life. Still. He wanted her. Maybe she could want him, too, even if they were more like oil and water than rum and Coke.
“Well,” he said, struggling to think through all the mental pictures he had of her in the throes of passion. “This Christmas seems like a good place to start. You’re with a new family that cares about you a lot, they want to stuff you full of food at every possible moment, no one wants to hear bible verses except maybe Malcolm but he’ll be off handling snakes so you won’t have to hear it, and you don’t have to be perfect. No one is perfect. Hell, most of ‘em are still barfing on each other and covered in itchy bumps.”
Her lips twitched in what might have been amusement. “Well, when you put it that way...”
“See?” He grinned, relieved that the bear could relax. If she cried again, he might lose his mind. “We’re down here wrapping a bunch of presents with no idea who gets what, and then we’re going to trudge upstairs to cook broth and rice for all the sick puppies upstairs, and at some point we have to find a freakin’ Christmas tree. How does any of that fit into a normal Christmas?”
“Well...”
Jameson nudged her shoulder with his, shaking his head. “You know you don’t have to disagree with me, right? It’s acceptable to actually say you could change your mind.”
She tried to look grumpy. “I don’t know about that.”
He laughed, reaching for another present. “See? You physically cannot agree with anything I say.”
“That’s not true.”
She flushed when he gave her a sideways look, and he couldn’t contain the chuckle that escaped. “You’re even disagreeing with that.”
“Maybe if you said something normal,” she muttered. But her cheeks flushed and she suppressed a smile.
She seemed to have given up on wrapping, instead watching as Jameson cut more paper and smoothed it down across a massive floor puzzle box. He wanted to tease her, to hear her laugh. To maybe see that flush spread down her throat, to make her giggle and relax and start with a good memory. Jameson held out his hand. “Tape please.”
Noelle fumbled with the dispenser and finally pulled off a small piece to hand over. Her fingers brushed his and sparks jumped between them. She inhaled in a little huff, staring at where they touched, and Jameson held his breath.
But she went back to pulling off pieces of tape so they were ready when he needed them. Her heart beat fast against her ribs, loud enough he could hear. Jameson smiled faintly and focused on the box. “It’s snowing outside. Right?”
Noelle snorted. “There aren’t any windows in here, how can you...”
He laughed loudly enough she jumped. Jameson collapsed on his back on the floor, covering his face. “That was a softball. Something easy for you to not disagree with.”
Her face reddened even more. “Well, it’s not like there’s a window in here.”
She would be the death of him if she argued with every damn thing he said. Jameson couldn’t stop smiling, though. She sounded so flustered at the natural reaction to challenge him, he wondered if she even realized she was disagreeing until after he called her out on it? “Okay, let’s try this again. We have a lot of gifts to wrap.”
“Yes, we do.” Noelle shook her head as she drank more, then made herself another. “Although that’s an understatement.”
Jameson pinched the bridge of his nose. Maybe she was doing it on purpose. “Round three. Everyone upstairs is sick.”
Her gaze slid sideways and he waited for her to argue whether everyone was actually still sick, which they wouldn’t be able to tell unless the two of them went upstairs and examined every single person individually. Noelle’s lips pressed together until they almost disappeared, but her eyes sparkled. She definitely fucked with him. “Okay. We can assume everyone upstairs is sick.”
“Hallelujah,” he said. “And we know that Christmas is five days away, and that all of this nonsense has to be done in four. Right?”
“Yep.” Noelle sighed and stretched her legs out in front of her.
“And we agree that we have to save Christmas for the kids.”
She made a face, but even then, her beauty left him bemused. What an unpredictable, unexpected woman. Noelle peered into her glass and shook it so the ice clinked and chimed. “I suppose. I don’t want them to have the same experience I did.”
“Of course you don’t,” he said. Jameson wanted to shake some sense into her. “You’re a good person and a great mother. They’ll never experience anything like what you did.”
Noelle went still, her eyebrows drawing together, then she flicked a glance at him. “You don’t know that.”
“What, that they won’t know what...”
“That I’m a good person or a good mother.” She swallowed hard and didn’t look at him again. “You’re wrong about that. I’m not either of those things. I try but I just don’t have... I don’t have what they need.”
He swallowed a growl of irritation that she could be so critical of herself. He turned to his side to face her, propping himself up on his elbow, and hoped she might believe him. Not that she’d been inclined to do so at any point since they’d met. “Don’t sell yourself short. Kara likes you, and Owen threatened me with death if I got crosswise of you while they’re quarantined, so that’s two votes that you’re a good person they want to protect.”
“But...”
“And,” he went on, holding up a finger. “It’s obvious you’re a good mother.”
“You saw me with the girls for maybe fifteen minutes,” she said, exasperation making her roll her eyes.
“That’s all it took.” Jameson arched his eyebrows in challenge.
She drew a breath but didn’t speak, her eyes reddening.
Oh damn. The bear strained to break free. They’d made her cry. He’d made her cry! What the fuck was wrong with him? Jameson groaned, about to apologize. How was he so bad at talking to women in a meaningful way? He could talk one into bed without much more than a wink and a smile, but trying to comfort Noelle or express how impressive he found her… All he could do was make her furious or emotional.
Noelle managed a half-hearted smile and drank more. “It’s hard to believe that when I don’t have any money and we’re homeless and my car is a death-trap. But it’s December, so I guess it’s par for the course.”
“That’s something we’ll have to agree to disagree on,” he said. “Like apparently everything else in the world.”
That got a smile, at least. Noelle sighed and looked back at the pile of still-to-be-wrapped toys. “And I guess we agree on there being a shitload of these things to deal with.”
“We have four days.” Jameson relaxed again, glad that the potential for tears had passed. “We can call it a day for this now and get more of them tomorrow.”
Noelle eyed him. “Except we also have to get a tree and find the rest of the decorations and figure out how to make Christmas dinner...”
“One thing at a time,” he said. He’d learned that the hard way, a long time ago. You could only tackle one task at a time, and thinking of them all at once just got you flustered and distracted. He focused on stacking up the already wrapped presents so her hips and ass didn’t distract him as she reached for the bottle of rum. “We’ll start with the tree tomorrow morning. Drive out of the city, if the roads are still passable, and cut one down. If we’re lucky, we might run across a deer or two and then we can have venison for dinner.”
Her face turned a little green. “You want to shoot a deer for Christmas dinner?”
“Well, no. I want to shoot it for several dinners. I take it you don’t like deer.”
“I like deer,” she said. “Which is why I don’t want to eat them. Didn’t you watch Bambi?”
He wanted to laugh and shake her at the same time. “Okay, so we won’t go hunting tomorrow. I’ll wait until you’re not there to kill Bambi, okay? If we get the tree fast enough, we can swing by the grocery store on the way back and get more supplies. Then we check on the plague monkeys upstairs, make some food, and chill. Okay?”
He conveniently left out the parts where he wanted to drag her into bed and fuck until neither of them could move. That might have scared her off faster than hunting.
Noelle didn’t look convinced. “We only have four days. How on earth can we possibly…”
“The world will not end if we don’t get all of this done.” Jameson staggered a little as he got to his feet, rethinking making himself another drink, and hauled her upright when he finally caught his balance. “The kids will love the toys whether they’re wrapped or not, we can eat soup and sandwiches if we have to, and I can probably rig up a Christmas tree with the logs out back by the hot tub. We don’t have to do anything. It’s just a bonus. So don’t sweat any of it.”
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked so much. He’d used up his quota of words for at least six months just in the last day.
Noelle frowned as she looked at his chest. “I guess you’re right.”
“Mark the fucking calendar,” he said under his breath. She gave him a dark look and he grinned. How could a woman, practically a stranger, make him feel like laughing all the time? Like he might actually be happy again? “I never thought you’d admit it.”
“Shut up,” she muttered. She sighed and looked around the storeroom and its mountains of gifts and canned goods. “Don’t let it go to your head, I’m sure it’ll be the last time you’re right about anything.”
He snorted and tweaked the end of her nose before he remembered she would probably bite his fingers off. “We’ll see.”
Before she could fume much more, he shooed her toward the door. “And now it’s late. You go get some sleep. We’ll need to leave early to get that tree. Six sharp.”
“Six?” She scowled and shook her head. “That’s absurd. What, are we trying to surprise the trees before they wake up? Give me a break. We can wait until the kids have woken up and… Oh, stop laughing. Where are you going?”
“Hot tub,” Jameson said. He absolutely could not afford to go upstairs with her, not when he was drunk and she was tipsy and there were so many beds they could fall into. “I’ll be up later.”
“What if I want to sit in the hot tub?” She folded her arms over her chest, dragging his attention to her amazing breasts once more, and frowned. “I haven’t gotten a chance to relax in ages, and —“
“Do you just die if you stop arguing with people?” Jameson eyed her sideways as he led the way to the back of the gym, near the elevator, and the sliding steel doors that were too heavy for her to budge on her own. “Your turn is tomorrow.”
“Bullshit.” She laughed but turned to the stairs. “Screw you, buddy. I’m sitting in that hot tub until my toes go prune-y.”
He meant to tell her to go ahead, that he’d stay in the apartment instead, but she was already bouncing her way up the stairs and her ass jiggled in the most appealing manner and he started to think he’d need to sit in the icy pool instead to have any hope of not making a fool of himself. He swallowed a groan but went to turn on the heater. He could definitely survive her. Maybe.