Hot Christmas Nights: Tuscan Nights / Christmas Tango / Tied Up in Tinsel

What was she thinking?

Nyla jumped up from the bed. Avoiding Aiden’s eyes, she said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll go first in the bathroom.” She grabbed her toiletry bag from where she’d tossed it on the dresser.

“Nyla?” Aiden called. She looked back at him. “Ignoring this won’t make it go away,” he said.

She tried to tear her eyes away from the truth staring back at her, but she couldn’t, because it was true. This feeling wasn’t going away. It hadn’t lessened one bit in the three long years they had been apart. She wasn’t foolish enough to think that it would do so now that she was right here with him again.

But she only had to ignore it for two days. And she would ignore it. The high price she’d paid for disregarding her common sense and giving in to her feelings for Aiden had burned her once. She would not get burned again.

Without another word, she slipped into the bathroom.

* * *

Aiden stuffed the empty food cartons in the trash bin at the end of the narrow hallway and headed back to their room.

Their room.

His steps slowed as he came upon the door. He captured the handle, then released it, his hands falling to his sides, his limbs suddenly so heavy it felt as if the entire weight of the world was pulling him down.

He took a couple of steps back, until he reached the wall opposite the door. He stared across the hallway to the room he would share with Nyla, and thumped the back of his head against the wall.

How was he supposed to get through tonight? His eyes fell shut as a pain-filled groan climbed from his throat. His skin felt tight, his stomach a jumble of knots. Every fiber in his body hummed with electricity just at the thought of being in that room all night with Nyla.

Why did she have to be every single thing he could ever want in a woman? Everything.

And it had nothing to do with the fact that she was beyond gorgeous—which she most definitely was. He’d dated attractive women in the past. Even though he suspected that some of them had only shown interest in him because of his connection to Cameron, Aiden was pretty confident that a couple of them had been genuine. Yet not one of them had ever elicited the feelings within him that Nyla had.

Nyla’s beauty radiated from the inside out. It was in that reassuring smile that came so readily, in her uncanny ability to sense when he needed to get something off his chest, or when he needed someone to silently be there, just so he knew he wasn’t alone.

What he’d told her earlier was the truth. She got him.

When others in his family brushed off the rejection he’d received on a paper he’d submitted to an academic journal, Nyla provided a shoulder to lean on. Even though she’d only known him for a few months at the time, she somehow understood what was important to him better than people who had known him his entire life. That’s just the kind of person she was: unique and special and giving.

And she was on the other side of that door.

“Just tell her how you feel,” Aiden whispered.

But he didn’t have to tell her. That was the thing that was driving him crazy. He would bet his last dime that Nyla knew exactly how he felt about her. She just wasn’t ready to face it, just as she hadn’t been able to face it three years ago.

She’d allowed others to shame her into thinking that she had taken advantage of him. Cameron, his parents, her parents, many of her friends; they had all put the blame at Nyla’s feet. She had even convinced herself that she had somehow led him on, as if he wasn’t mature enough to recognize that the attraction that had exploded that last night between them hadn’t been building for months.

He never should have let her get away without owning up to the fact that she had been just as attracted to him as he had been to her. She’d wanted that kiss. She’d wanted even more than just that damn kiss.

Aiden started for the door, but once again stopped before opening it.

If he went in there demanding she acknowledge feelings she wasn’t ready to admit to having, it could ruin these few short days he had with her.

“Dammit.”

He couldn’t bring it up again. Not yet.

But he would. Eventually, they were going to talk this through.

Shaking his head, he finally opened the door. Upon entering the room, he was met with the sound of the shower. His mind instantly conjured the image of Nyla standing naked underneath the spray of rushing water, her body glistening with rivulets of steamy moisture running down her skin. He nearly lost all feeling in his legs. Aiden fell back on the bed, covering his eyes with his forearm.

He would give up every single comic book in his Marvel collection—including the 1941 mint-condition Green Lantern—to be able to step inside that shower and have her wrap her arms around his neck. He wanted to feel her lovely, soft breasts pressed against his naked chest. He would give anything to wedge himself between her slick, soapy thighs and finally, finally discover what it felt like to make her his.

A groan tore out of his throat.

He could forget reenacting his favorite scenes from Gladiator at the Colosseum tomorrow. Pent-up lust would have him dead by morning.

“Hey, you okay?”

Aiden sprang upright. He hadn’t even heard when she turned the shower off. She was dressed in calf-length pajama pants and a black-and-pink tank top with a glittery martini glass on it. She looked ridiculously good with her soft brown skin freshly washed. She smelled delicious, like peaches, as if she’d rubbed a bit of Georgia on her skin.

“Aiden?”

He shook his head. He had to snap out of this.

“I’m good.” He grabbed his bag and headed to the bathroom, taking the quickest shower known to mankind. He wasn’t wasting any of this short time he had with Nyla.

When he reentered the room she was already in her bed, under the covers. She had the bedside lamp on and was flipping through the magazine that was on the table.

“You read Italian, too?” Aiden asked, gesturing to the magazine.

“Enough to get by.”

“You speak it like someone who’s lived here your entire life.”

“Working in Leoncini’s, I had no choice. It’s not as hard to pick up as you may think.” She pointed to the window. “It looks as if the snow is letting up. That should make it easier to get around tomorrow.”

Frowning, Aiden walked over to the window. “I was kind of hoping it would stick around for another couple of days. It would be my first white Christmas.”

“I didn’t think about that. Coming from Atlanta, you rarely get to see snow. I guess I’ve taken that for granted. It doesn’t snow often in San Gimignano, but the winter I lived in Paris was just awful.”

Aiden crossed his arms over his chest and leaned his shoulder against the cold windowpane. “What’s your ideal Christmas?”

“Hmm, that’s easy,” Nyla said, setting the magazine aside. She scooted up in the bed and brought her knees to her chest. “Back when I was eight or nine, my family started spending the holidays in the Smoky Mountains. My dad would rent a cabin and we would drive out there as soon as Christmas break started.

“We would sit around the fireplace and have eggnog and rice crispy treats. My mom would read ‘’Twas the Night Before Christmas’ and we would decorate the tree with garlands made out of popcorn. It was the corniest, most Leave It to Beaver thing you’ve ever seen, but I truly did love it.”

The light in her eyes dimmed. “I talked to my younger sister, Rae, just before you showed up at the bakery earlier today. They were heading out for the cabin. I’ve gotten used to not being around for birthdays or the big Fourth of July family picnic, but there’s something about not being at the cabin with everyone at Christmas that just slays me.”

“You miss them, don’t you?” Aiden asked.

She nodded. “I do. My younger brother and his wife have had two girls in the last sixteen months, and my other sister-in-law is going to have a baby any day now.”

Hearing the sadness in her voice triggered a deep ache in his chest. The thought that he had in some way contributed to the sorrow she was feeling caused him physical pain.

“Why haven’t you gone back, Nyla? Is it really because of what happened between us? You’ve allowed that to keep you away all this time?”

“You say it as if it was just this thing that happened, Aiden. As if it was no big deal.” She looked up at him, her deep brown eyes teeming with regret. “Everyone was there. My family, my coworkers, lifelong friends. Everyone I know witnessed that attorney coming to the church and telling me that Cameron didn’t want to marry me because I was sleeping with his baby brother.”

“But you weren’t sleeping with me. It’s Cameron’s fault that he didn’t give you a chance to explain. And are you seriously still giving him a pass, even after you found out that he was stepping out on you at the same time?”

She flinched. “One has nothing to do with the other.”

“How can you say that? He cheated on you the entire time you were together, Nyla. He’s cheated on every woman he’s ever dated.” The hurt that flashed across her face triggered a pang in his chest, but this was something that had bothered Aiden from the very beginning. “I still can’t figure out why you were ever with him in the first place. It’s common knowledge that Cameron has been a womanizer since birth.”

“I knew your brother had flaws when I started dating him, Aiden. Maybe I was naive to think he would give up his old habits once we got engaged, but all of that is beside the point. It doesn’t matter what Cameron was doing.” She pointed to her chest. “This is about what I did. Was I eventually grateful that I didn’t marry him after learning that he was still seeing other women? Of course I was. But that doesn’t erase the fact that I was unfaithful to him, as well.”

Aiden pitched his head back and groaned up at the ceiling. “You weren’t unfaithful. It was one kiss, Nyla.”

“It was more than just a kiss,” she whispered. “We both know that. If I hadn’t stopped us...”

An instant ache settled in his groin at the mention of that night. The memory of how close they had come to finally sleeping together was one he’d had to endure much too often these past three years.

It hadn’t been just about sex. He wasn’t the renowned ladies’ man his brother had been, but getting sex had never been a problem. It had been all about Nyla, about being with her in the most elemental way. They had been connected on an emotional level for months leading up to that night. He’d needed that physical connection.

“Does this mean we’re finally tackling the eight-hundred-pound gorilla?” Aiden asked.

She blew out a deep breath and dropped her forehead to her knees. “Please, Aiden. This is awkward enough as it is. Bringing that up will only complicate things.”

“Maybe it would do the exact opposite. You ever consider that? We’ve been tiptoeing around this ever since I found you on Facebook, Nyla. Think of how much simpler things would be if we just got everything out in the open.”

His skin tingled with expectancy as he waited for her response.

“You should try to get some sleep,” she said. “You’ve had a long day and we have a lot to see tomorrow.” She clicked off the bedside lamp and huddled back under the covers. She turned on her side, facing the opposite wall.

Aiden ran both hands down his face. He stared at her stiff form, highlighted by the moonlight streaming through the window.

Everything within him was clamoring for him to press her about this. The only reason he hadn’t brought it up in the past few months was that she could have simply stopped responding to him on Facebook. But she was here now. They could finally hash everything out, face-to-face.

But he couldn’t do it. Not yet. She would only clam up and go back to blaming herself.

Shaking his head, Aiden trudged over to his bed and slipped under the covers.

“Good night, Nyla,” he whispered into the stillness.

After several weighty moments, she answered, “Good night, Aiden.”

He turned onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, knowing sleep wasn’t about to come his way, not with Nyla lying just a few feet away from him. After several minutes passed he heard a slight snore coming from her side of the room, and couldn’t help the smile the sound brought to his lips.

What he wouldn’t give to crawl into that bed with her. To wrap his arms around her, pull her against him, feel the rhythm of her breaths as she slept soundly. He wanted to wake her up in the middle of the night and make love to her, the way he’d dreamed of doing for years. He wanted to keep her in this hotel room for the next two days and show her just how much they belonged together.

Instead Aiden turned onto his side and stared at the few snowflakes still falling softly outside the window. It wasn’t his ideal scenario, but at least he had this time with her right now. He would take what he could get.

Chapter 4

Aiden tried his best to maintain a stoic expression as he placed his knuckle underneath his chin and stared off into the distance.

“Would you stop it already?”

He looked over at Nyla, who’d plopped the hand that wasn’t holding the camera onto her hip.

“What? You don’t like my ‘thoughtful’ pose?” He gestured to the stone columns of the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina in the Roman Forum. “I’m channeling all the great minds that used to walk around this place. Can’t you see me and my man Julius Caesar shooting the breeze over a couple of beers?”

Nyla just stared at him, her face the picture of weary impatience, though her grin ruined it. It was the first smile he’d managed to extract from her today.

After the chilly atmosphere that had encompassed their hotel room this morning, even that small glimpse of a smile was enough to excite him. They’d tiptoed around each other, speaking in hushed monosyllables, the relaxed camaraderie from the night before nowhere to be found.

Aiden had been on the verge of apologizing for driving the uncomfortable wedge between them when Nyla spoke up, suggesting a moratorium on talk of anything that was too heavy. She wanted the day’s focus to be on the magic of Rome at Christmastime.

If he’d had the choice, he would rather they spend the day hashing out everything that was standing in the way of them being together. But Aiden knew better than to push her. If he pushed her, she would run.

Instead he’d agreed to go along with this charade. He would traipse around Rome with her, ignoring the discussion they must have, pretending that his life’s happiness wasn’t hanging in the balance.

“Okay, okay,” Aiden said, holding his hands up. “Maybe not a beer since I’ve never been a fan, but old Julius and I could talk over some iced tea.”

“Would you please behave?” Nyla asked.

Deciding to give her a break, he posed for several more pictures, amused at her seriousness behind the camera.

“Exactly how many shots does that digital camera hold?” Aiden asked.

“About four thousand,” Nyla called. She laughed when he dropped his head and groaned.

“Sorry, I guess I got a little carried away,” she said. “I dabbled in photography for a while. It’s been a long time since I had a human subject to shoot. I’ve mostly taken scenery.”

“Did you take those framed photos on the wall at your apartment?”

She nodded. “Back when I was in Paris. That city is a photographer’s paradise, professional or hobbyist.”

“I can only imagine. It’s on my list of must-sees before I return to the States.”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh, you must visit Paris while you’re here. It would be a shame not to.”

Aiden’s brow arched. “Are you volunteering to join me?”

The thought of venturing through the romantic streets of Paris with Nyla by his side, not as an old friend too afraid to admit her feelings for him, but as his woman, his lover, was the stuff of fantasies. What he wouldn’t give to make that a reality.

He took several steps forward, bringing himself within inches of her. He captured her hand and ran his thumb across her inner wrist. “What do you say, Nyla? Are you willing to show me around the City of Lights?”

Her gaze dropped to his mouth, then quickly returned to his eyes. She let out a deep breath and tugged her hand from his hold. “We should probably go.” She took a step back. “The lines to get into the Colosseum will be long.”

“Not until you answer my question.”

She shifted from one leg to the other, clearly uncomfortable. At the moment, he didn’t care.

“We agreed we wouldn’t do this,” she said in a small voice.

Yes, they had, but for the first time in his life, Aiden was going back on his word. He was tired of her pretending that he was the only one who had been affected by the attraction between them.

“I have a modification to our earlier agreement,” he said. “I’ll agree to put the conversation off while we’re in Rome, but you have to agree that we discuss it before I leave for Zurich, Nyla. I don’t want to go back to being just someone whose status you occasionally like on Facebook. I don’t know what I mean to you anymore, but you mean too much to me to continue on the way we have been.”

Her eyes slid closed. For the briefest second Aiden thought she would turn down his request, but then she said, “Okay.” She looked up at him. “But we wait until after Christmas.”

He nodded. “I’m holding you to that.”

She released a weary laugh. “I wouldn’t expect anything different.”

They made their way to the Colosseum, which was as magnificent as Aiden had imagined. As they stood in the line that wound its way around the massive structure, Nyla pointed out the grass-covered stone ring about twenty yards from the entrance and explained that it was where the gladiators who survived their turn in the arena would wash after their fight.

When they entered the arena, Aiden just stood there for a moment and took it all in.

“This is amazing,” he said. “I can’t imagine this place filled with people cheering on a match to the death.”

“It makes American football seem tame, doesn’t it?”

“Like child’s play,” Aiden agreed.

They trailed behind a tour group with an English-speaking tour guide, who pointed out the many statues that remained intact after nearly two thousand years.

Once they exited the Colosseum, Nyla suggested he take a picture underneath the famed Arch of Constantine, located just steps away from the ancient arena. This time Aiden insisted he be allowed to pose like a warrior coming home from battle.

Her carefree laughter as he struck pose after menacing pose solidified his decision not to bring up the past again today. She was right. This was supposed to be a fun day of sightseeing. Every time he tried to insert the past, Nyla pulled further away. That wasn’t why he’d brought her here. He didn’t want her running away from him. He wanted the exact opposite.

“We’re pretty much crisscrossing the city,” Nyla said. “But I’d rather try to see the Vatican today instead of waiting until tomorrow. We’ll come back to where we’ll have dinner tonight.”

Aiden gestured for her to lead the way. “After you, Madam Tour Guide.”

Nyla hailed a cab, and ten minutes later, they were standing outside the fortresslike walls that surrounded Vatican City.

Aiden started for the line that wrapped around the wall, but stopped when Nyla tugged his wrist.

“Is there a problem?” he asked.

“Before we go inside, there’s something else we have to do.”

They crossed the street and stopped before a large plate-glass window. Behind the glass case inside were mountains—literally, they looked like tiny mountains—of ice cream.

“You’re joking right? It’s thirty-five degrees out here and you want me to eat ice cream?”

“Not ice cream, gelato. And I don’t care how cold it is, you cannot come to Italy and not have gelato.” She took him by the arm again and dragged him into the gelateria.

Aiden was baffled by the number of people waiting in line to buy gelato on such a cold day.

“I’ve had gelato before,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t get why people think it’s so special.”

“Just taste it,” Nyla said, handing him his cone. His eyes grew wide at his first taste of the rich, creamy dessert. She grinned. “Told you.”

“Yeah, so this is a lot better than ice cream,” he conceded. He followed Nyla to the counter that faced the street and sat on a bar stool that afforded them a view of the line of people entering the Vatican.

“And this isn’t even the best gelato I’ve had,” she said. “It’s pretty close, though.”

She ran her tongue along the rim of the cone, lapping up the rivulets from the already melting dessert.

Aiden couldn’t be sure, but it was a safe bet that he had never in his life gotten so hard so fast, at least not since he was twelve years old. He had to swerve the stool to the right just in case his sweater couldn’t fully conceal the erection that had sprung up at the sight of her tongue stroking that gelato.

“Mmm...” Nyla murmured, licking her lips. “There shouldn’t be something so sinfully good this close to the Vatican.” She held the cone out to him. “Want a taste?”

It was an innocent enough gesture, but in his current state of mind Aiden couldn’t help the barrage of erotic thoughts that suddenly crashed through him.

His eyes trained on Nyla, he leaned forward and took a taste of the sweet treat. “Mmm,” he said. “The best thing I’ve tasted in a long time.”

Her gaze dropped to his mouth. Her lips parted, then quickly closed as her eyes shot to his. Aiden held his cone out to her.

Nyla stared at it as if the gelato were forbidden fruit. “I’ve...uh...I’ve tried that flavor already,” she said.

A grin tipped up the corner of Aiden’s lips. “Try it again,” he encouraged in a low voice.

She glanced at the gelato, then at him. Aiden saw her chest lift as she pulled in a steadying breath before she leaned over and licked in the same spot he had.

He swallowed back a moan, though just barely.

The situation in his pants reached nuclear meltdown proportions, a hot ache gripping him as he studied the drop of chocolate cream that clung to the bow of her bottom lip. It took every ounce of restraint in his body not to lean forward and lick it off.

“Is it as good as you remember?” he asked, his voice so husky he could barely hear it.

Nyla’s gaze lowered once again to his lips. “Even better.”

To hell with fighting this.

Aiden leaned forward, preparing to fulfill the fantasy that had been on his mind all day. But before he could connect his mouth to hers, Nyla reared back and twisted her stool toward the window.

She pointed across the street. “We’d better get going before that line gets any longer.”

Aiden shut his eyes against the onslaught of lust that coursed through him. He nearly suggested they skip the tour; it seemed sacrilegious to enter into a holy place with such unholy thoughts flooding his mind.

The wait to get into the Vatican was longer than the one for the Colosseum, which was expected at this time of the year, but seeing the famed painted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel made it worth the wait.

They shuffled their way inside St. Peter’s Basilica, which Nyla explained was the length of two football fields. She pointed toward the massive tomb where St. Peter was buried. “Do you see that dove in the stained glass window past the altar? Its wingspan is seven feet.”

“No way,” Aiden said.

“Yes. And those letters up there,” she said, pointing to the Latin writing that ran the entire length of the basilica. “They are six feet tall.”

Aiden slowly shook his head. “Pictures do not do this justice. I can’t even put it into words.” He turned in a slow circle, completely awestruck. “A day and a half isn’t enough. I’ll have to come back here before I leave for the States.”