AT JASON’S WORDS, ZOE’S heart caught in her throat. “Jason, God. I…I had no idea they were gone. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s been a long time.” He lifted his head to meet her eyes. “They died in a car accident when a drunk driver hit them head-on.”
Zoe’s breath left her in a whoosh at the shock. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how he and Mike had suffered. “How old were you?”
“Twenty. Mike was fifteen.” He shrugged as if his young age had been of no consequence. Devastation was devastation. “Ever since then, I’ve done my best to be gone or too busy to bother with Christmas. Mike does the opposite. He goes overboard. Crazy overboard.”
Zoe winced and eyed the decorations. “Like putting up all sorts of festive stuff?”
“Last year he rented a snow machine and blasted the entire front yard of our house. Six inches. We had every kid for miles out there having snowball fights.”
Her gut squeezed. “And you hated it?”
“No.” He shook his head, his eyes back on the view out the window, as if he was seeing another time, another place. “I just missed having my parents there. It’s always been easier to just not celebrate.”
There was a lump in her throat that she couldn’t swallow. “You have no other family?”
“No. It’s just me and Mike.” He shrugged. “And actually, living with Mike is like living with an entire frat house, so it’s not as if we’ve been alone.”
“You’re alone this weekend,” she said softly.
“Not anymore.”
“No.” She put her hand over his. It was the first time since last night that she’d touched him. She wasn’t sure how he would take it. He could be difficult to read, especially when he had his game face on. But right now his eyes were warm and open, and he entwined his fingers in hers. His other hand slid to the nape of her neck and drew her closer, then closer still, so that they were sharing air. “So are we going to do this?” he asked. “Cocreate the design?”
She waited for the nerves to hit but they didn’t. The only thing that did hit her was a certainty that she could trust him, and that combining forces was a great idea. “Yes,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
His smile was slow and sexy. Everything he did was slow and sexy, including, she discovered, watching him work.
They did just that for several hours, stopping to eat, then getting back to it, working until their two separate ideas had become one project. One really great project.
“What now?” she asked as the light of the day was waning. “Shovel my car out? Undecorate the rest of the cabin? Scrounge for food?”
“None of the above. There’s something else I’ve been wanting to do all day,” he said, his lips ghosting hers with each word. And then there were no more words because he was pulling her into his lap and kissing her, hot and deep. She would have happily stayed there, snuggled up against him, except her cell phone began buzzing from the depths of her purse.
And from somewhere in the cabin came the sound of another cell phone going off, Jason’s. The sound reminded her that this wasn’t the real world. The real world was her family, who were probably still hoping the storm had abated enough for her to get to them. The real world was a place where she and Jason didn’t like each other all that much.
And that real world was calling.
* * *
VERY AWARE OF ZOE IN the kitchen talking softly on the phone to what sounded like her mother, Jason went hunting for his own cell phone.
He’d gotten a call from Mike, which he returned.
“Merry Christmas,” Mike said. “I got you something that you had no idea you needed but is perfect for you—one tall, gorgeous redhead. You’re welcome.”
“I ought to kill you, not thank you,” Jason said, looking over his shoulder to make sure Zoe couldn’t hear him. “But it’ll have to wait.”
Mike paused then laughed in disbelief. “She’s still there? Man, you’re better than I thought.”
“It’s a snowstorm, you dumbass. Because of you, she’s stuck here with me instead of being with her family.”
“Huh,” Mike said.
“Huh what?”
“You’re emotionally involved.”
“What?” Jason shook his head. “When have I ever been emotionally involved?”
“You just said she was stuck with you instead of being with her family, which means you’ve had at least one conversation, and a fairly deep conversation at that. And you mentioned her family. You’re emotionally involved.”
Shit, Jason thought. He was. He was completely and utterly emotionally involved.
“Before you hang up on me,” Mike said, the good humor gone from his voice. “We got another letter about the house from the bank. Man, we have to let it go, it’s killing you trying to keep it.”
He sighed. “Merry Christmas, Mike.”
Jason hung up, his anger and annoyance at his brother’s meddling, nosy, manipulative ways drained. He no longer was certain of his own motivations for anything. Now that he’d realized he had feelings for Zoe, real feelings, how could he compete with her for the promotion, when she wanted it as badly as he did? Needed it just as much? But if he didn’t get the promotion and the raise, how could he keep up with their debt, stave off the bank’s foreclosure for one more month?
Tired of himself, he powered the phone off and tossed it aside, turning to face Zoe as she came back into the living room.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Other than my brother owes you big-time?” He smiled, feeling surprisingly okay. “Yeah. Everything’s good. You?”
“My mother’s upset with me for missing the driving window to get up there. She says that without me, my older sisters are turning on each other instead of ganging up on me.” She smiled. “And my dad has already locked himself in the den with the remote. Estrogen overload.”
“I’m sorry you’re missing it.”
She shook her head. “It’s okay.” She paused. “I also checked my messages. I just got an offer from an L.A. architectural firm. Same position as where I’m at now with Steele, but there’re better opportunities for me there.”
He went still. “You’re moving?”
“Maybe. If I don’t get the promotion.”
He tried to imagine what it would be like at Steele without her, but couldn’t. He tried to imagine his life without her, but couldn’t.
“Jason—”
He wasn’t sure who moved first, but suddenly they met in the middle of the room and were kissing hard, bodies smashed up against each other.
“I still don’t know what this is,” she said when they broke apart to breathe.
Jason knew what this was. Lust, pure and simple.
Zoe’s hands fisted in his shirt, holding him close, as if she wanted to make sure he couldn’t escape. “Yesterday I said I didn’t like you,” she said. “I didn’t mean it. I was mad and out of my comfort zone. And then after we…”
When she trailed off, he lifted a brow, purposely not helping her out, enjoying the blush that crossed her cheeks.
“After we had sex,” she finished unsteadily, “I planned to just forget the whole thing.”
He let out a low laugh, and she seemed to relax a little, smiling ruefully. “Yeah, I might as well have tried to forget my own name.” She shook her head. “Being with you was…”
“Pretty damn amazing.”
“Yes.” She sighed with remembered pleasure, her eyes glazing over a little. “You made me feel pretty. Sexy. Wanted. And it’d been a long time since I’d felt that way with a guy.”
It was the same for him, he realized. He’d nearly forgotten what it was like to have his heart skip a beat when a woman, the right woman, smiled at him. Or how his stomach could tighten at just the sight of her. And how the way she looked at him never failed to send lust and hunger and need surging and colliding through him. “You make me feel things, too, Zoe. More than I’d counted on.”
She laughed and backed away, turning from him. “Let me guess—annoyed and frustrated, right?”
His eyes were on her sweet ass as she bent to shut the laptop. “Actually, my feelings are more base than that.”
When she straightened, her cheeks went even redder, but her eyes never left his. “Something else we have in common.”
“Is that right?”
She nodded. “I know that I made you promise not to discuss what happened here, but I want you to understand that I’m not ashamed of what we did. Not with our design, or…or in there.” She pointed to the bedroom. “I just—” She broke off, looking as if she could use some help out of the hole she’d just jumped into.
Jason stepped closer to her and brought her mouth back to his. “We don’t have to do this, Zoe. We don’t have to put words to what happened here.”
She looked at him for a moment. “Like a Christmas pass, or something?”
“It can be anything you want,” he said. “So what do you want?”