His Christmas Fantasy

And now, mind aside, he was seated next to her on her pilgrimage to get over him once and for all. And the truly wretched part was that if he stood up right now and announced he wasn’t going and walked off the plane, she was fairly certain she’d be more mournful than celebratory. Oh, what a tangled web…

She felt him look at her, but she steadfastly pretended to read her magazine, turning a page for good measure. She felt too raw, too vulnerable to risk glancing at him.

To Sam’s right, the blonde all but leaned into his lap, or maybe she was just carried by the momentum of her oversized boobs.

“Hi, I’m Felicity,” she said, introducing herself to Sam. “Are you two together?” Felicity’s voice grated, painfully perky after Giselle’s near-sleepless night.

Giselle kept her eyes trained on the magazine page in front of her, but she felt Sam’s quick glance in her direction. “We’re coworkers. This is a business trip.”

“What kind of business are you in?”

Giselle retrieved her iPod from where she’d stored it in the seat back ahead of her.

“I’m a photographer and Giselle’s a journalist. We’re working on a magazine article.”

“Ohh,” Felicity squealed. “A photographer. How fascinating.”

Giselle shoved in her earphones and turned the unit on. She’d flown often enough to zone out the flight attendants upcoming safety spiel. She’d rather be nibbled to death by vampire ducks than listen to Felicity flirt with Sam the entire trip. Thanks, however, to her foresight in charging her iPod, vampire ducks were totally unnecessary.

The opening chords of Ravel’s “Bolero” swelled in her ears, muting Sam’s low rumble and Felicity’s enthusiastic response. She closed her eyes, giving herself over to the music’s passion and sensuality.

She still sensed his body heat, the proximity of his leg, arm and shoulder. There was no escaping the subtle combination of soap and maleness that was Sam, but at least without seeing him and hearing him she hoped to maintain a little distance…and sanity.

Sam McKendrick was a sickness…and she desperately needed a cure.

SAM EMBRACED the silence filling the car as they left the remnants of suburban Phoenix behind and headed north on Route 17 to Sedona.

Giselle drove the rental SUV. It was her story, her project, and she wasn’t a woman who would put him behind the wheel of the car simply because he was a man. That was fine with him. He studied her profile as she navigated a lane change.

His ex-wife and her mother boasted classically beautiful features of high, sculpted cheekbones, flawless complexions, straight noses, thick curling lashes surrounding slightly exotic eyes, and lush full mouths. Giselle, however, had inherited the Randolph features. Her small, slightly snub nose bore a liberal sprinkling of freckles; her cheeks were more round than angular; wispy lashes framed her hazel eyes; and although wellshaped, her mouth lacked the pouting fullness of her mother’s and sister’s. However, Giselle exuded an innate sensuality.

It was as if Helene was so used to her looks commanding attention that she’d never bothered to develop any other attributes, whereas Giselle immersed herself in the world around her and it filtered back through her, lending her a depth and earthy sexiness his ex-wife didn’t possess.

“What?” She slanted him a brief look and then trained her eyes once again on the road. “Don’t stare at me.”

“I wasn’t staring, I was looking.” He couldn’t seem to get enough of looking at her.

“Well, don’t. Don’t look at me.” Her rigid shoulders and faint frown screamed Off Limits.

“Why not?” He ignored her off-limits order. “I like looking at you.”

She in turn pretended she hadn’t heard his declaration. If he hadn’t been watching so closely, he would’ve missed her almost imperceptible gasp. “It makes me nervous and you should never make the driver nervous.”

“Is it me in particular or people in general looking at you that rattles you? Most women like being looked at,” he said. Helene had seemed to crave it, in fact.

“I’m not most women,” she said on a husky note, “so you can stop.”

No. She definitely wasn’t most women. She was smart, sexy and slightly bohemian. She defied categorizing, which was why he hadn’t been able to forget her. What would she say if he told her he wanted to do so much more than simply look at her? He wanted to kiss her until she forgot that he’d once been married to her sister and that her entire family despised him. He wanted to hear her gasp with pleasure.

“I’m a slave to your happiness. Your wish is my command.” His rejoinder hung between them, bound them, thickening the air with a raw sexual awareness. An image clicked into his head like a film frame. Giselle naked in his bed, her sweet nipple in his mouth, his cock buried deep inside her, his hand between them, stroking her clit as he dedicated himself to bringing her to orgasm.

Color stained her face, as if she knew what he was thinking. “Then you should’ve stayed home, Sam.”

Rather than any real venom, he thought he detected a desperate note in her rebuttal. Or maybe he was just projecting his own sense of desperation in taking the assignment so he could see her again.

“It’s a little late for me to stay home. Plus I’d miss seeing this part of the country.”

“Then try looking out the window,” she said dryly.

He laughed because that was definitely the Giselle he knew and he was just damn glad to be here, sharing a ride with her. “Fine. You drive and I’ll watch the scenery.”

He unzipped the equipment bag he’d stored on the floorboard and pulled out his camera. Even when he wasn’t looking at her, she seemed to surround him.

In his mind, he slid the straps of that red bra down her shoulders, his fingers dragging along the soft warmth of her skin. Where did her freckles end? What did her breasts look like without her bra? Prominent or small nipples? Rose-hued or darker, duskier? Was she a pubic waxing fanatic or was she more au naturel?

He didn’t need to be thinking about her naked, or it could be damn embarrassing when it was time to get out of the car or if she happened to glance over and down.

He spent a few minutes adjusting the settings, cleaning the lens, and then resolutely looked out the passenger window. On both sides of the divided highway, towering saguaro cactus dotted the arid brown landscape like green giants. “It is spectacular, isn’t it?”

“It must’ve been something to travel through here by stagecoach back in the day,” Giselle said, her voice low and reflective.

“Yeah. Hot in the summer, cold in the winter.”

“Very funny.” Amusement sparkled in her eyes and he knew a moment of intense satisfaction that he’d been responsible for putting it there.

Wind gusted through the canyon and buffeted the SUV. “And windy.”

“Obviously you’re not channeling the pioneering spirit.”

He grinned at her dry wit, one of the things he’d liked so much about her from the beginning. “’Fraid not.”

“So you had some ideas you wanted to bounce around on the article?”

He might’ve railroaded his way into this assignment, but they still needed to be on the same page with the article. When a writer and a photographer “spoke” at cross-purposes it resulted in substandard work. Sam didn’t do substandard.

He’d resolved as a kid that if people wanted to slap a label on him, he’d make damn sure that label was Excellence. He demanded it of himself and expected it from others, as well.

“So, the way I understand it from your outline, there’s an urban legend taking shape that couples who show up at this particular vortex on the third day after the winter solstice fall in love.”

“There’s a little more to it than that, but that’s the gist of it. You don’t actually have to be a couple. Singles apparently show up there,” she shrugged, “and sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

“Sounds like the power of suggestion to me. It’s hard to believe someone falls in love because of winter solstice at a Sedona vortex. That just seems like a lot of hocus-pocus, but I’ll still be glad to take photos.”

“So you don’t believe in magic?”

He leaned into the space between them, narrowing the distance. He caught another whiff of her perfume. If scents were translated to pictures, this one evoked a dark, erotic blend of swirls and curves in shades of ruby red and purple against a blanket of yellow-gold. Complex and evocative beneath the surface. It suited her. “Do you believe in magic?”

“I trust you’re a better photographer than you are interviewer.”

He chuckled. “Am I interviewing you?”

“If you were, you’d be doing a lousy job. You’re obviously biased.”

“And you’re hedging.” She was a crafty one, Giselle was. “Do you believe in magic?”

“I believe in forces of energywecan’t necessarily see.”

Forces of energy. Something stirred inside him, a resonance, an acknowledgement. “I take it that’s a yes. Have you ever experienced magic yourself?”

Her hands tightened on the wheel and he felt her hesitation, as if she might refuse to answer. She was right. He was a lousy interviewer. She tilted her chin up. “Maybe…once…I’m not sure, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

Gooseflesh prickled his skin and the first time he ever saw her came to mind, swiftly followed by that Christmas night two years ago. Forces of energy. That summed it up exactly.

He asked the question that had been bugging him ever since he’d skimmed Darren’s assignment notes. “Are you coming with a personal interest? Are you looking to fall in love?”

“It crossed my mind.” Her smile had an edge to it. “Who couldn’t use some help in their love life?”

That made him want to grind his teeth. “Come on. You’re writing this story, but you don’t really believe this, do you?”

“How are you so sure it’s not real?”

“It’s not an issue for me. I can take the photos all day long but it doesn’t mean I believe this magic nonsense.”

Before she could respond, a massive wind gust barreled through the canyon. One minute they were driving along in their lane and the next a trailer swaying behind a pickup in the lane beside them bounced off the SUV, metal screeching against metal, sending them spinning out of control.

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