All He Wants For Christmas...

Only a silly, hopeful child would put on a pretty azure sun frock and blow-dry her hair and pin it back with a peacock-feathered comb and make sure she had her father’s favourite Scotch on hand and his favourite food in the fridge, and then sit on the lounge reading her book while she waited for Godot to arrive.

Part of her knew he wouldn’t come.

But another part waited and waited some more.

The day loomed empty ahead of her, with nothing to do except wonder whether Poppy and Lena had liked their gifts and whether Damon liked his.

She’d shopped again on his father’s behalf seeing as he’d taken to wearing the clothes they’d bought the other day. A lightweight travel bag that would be useless to anyone with more than a single change of clothes, and in one compartment she’d added a couple of pairs of the plainest no-name underwear she could find, and in the main compartment she’d placed a Panama hat. Everything the modern happy wanderer would ever need.

It was Lena who phoned through to thank Ruby for her gift-buying efforts, but it was Damon who got hold of the phone after that.

‘Merry Christmas, Ruby.’ Damon’s voice came through smoothly polite. ‘Your touch is everywhere here today—and we wanted to thank you for it.’

‘Have the caterers been in?’

‘In and gone, with a week’s worth of leftovers in the fridge,’ said Damon. ‘Which is no reflection whatsoever on the quality of the food. The food was fantastic.’

‘And your sisters liked the clothes?’

‘They did. Now Lena’s heading to her room for a nap, my father’s heading to the study to disguise his nap as a work effort, Poppy’s just started watching It’s A Wonderful Life and I’m about to head out for a while.’

‘Where?’

‘Anywhere. Why? You looking for something to do?’

‘What, and miss out on It’s A Wonderful Life?’

‘How many times have you seen it before?

Trust me, you know how it goes. Downtrodden man reflects on his life, realises how many people depend on him and decides not to top himself. The End. And then you cry.’

‘Still not sure we’re living in the same universe, my friend,’ said the woman who’d just started a fiercely competitive chess game with a half-grown cat. ‘What sort of counter offer do you have in mind?’

‘A walk. Just to get some air. Doesn’t necessarily have to be fresh.’

‘Good thing too, this being the city,’ she murmured. ‘Chater Garden’s not that far from you. There’s greenery, topiary, a water feature or two … Ignore the concrete.’

‘Sounds like I need a guide.’

‘You really don’t,’ she said, smiling.

‘But what if I want a guide?’

‘Tell you what,’ she said, feeling generous. ‘What say I meet you at Chater Garden in half an hour? I’ll be the one wearing the peacock feather in her hair.’

‘One of these days I’ll ask you why,’ he murmured. ‘I’ll be the one in the Panama hat.’

Damon didn’t know what had possessed him to seek out Ruby Maguire again today. Last night had been enough, more than enough to let him know that he should leave this one alone. Not for him a woman who could strip him bare. Never for him a woman who could access the secrets he kept in his soul.

Restlessness plagued him as he made his way to the park.

Tension rode him as he tried to figure out exactly what he would say to the woman who’d gifted him with something special last night. Maybe the words whatever you gave to me, take it back would be enough.

Just a walk in the park with a pretty woman on his arm and a burning desire to let her know that last night had been nothing more than a pleasant Christmas Eve diversion. That it didn’t grant him any hold on her, or her on him. He wasn’t sure he’d spelled that out last night.

He had a feeling he’d lost track of that particular notion around about the time he and Ruby had found themselves alone in the limo.

No regrets—he knew they’d covered that one.

But no promises? What exactly had he promised her last night that he shouldn’t have? What had he given away?

Information? Of a certainty he’d revealed more than enough about his work, and he knew it, but he’d stopped, hadn’t he? She knew his limits in that regard. She’d accepted them.

Had he revealed his total inexperience when it came to letting someone see him, really see him, for what he was? He probably had. Didn’t mean he planned on doing it again in a hurry.

What else had he revealed in the back of that limo? A propensity for getting lost in passion? Well, if he had, Ruby had of a surety revealed the same. No crime there.

So why—as he watched her walk along the garden path towards him, in her pretty blue sundress with her tumbling curls pinned back with a peacock-feathered comb—did he feel so exposed?

Ruby Maguire’s eyes were knowing as they met his. ‘I figured as much,’ she said wryly as she stopped before him. ‘You’re here to tell me that last night was a mistake. That I shouldn’t expect a great deal from you. The word nothing comes to mind.’

‘That about covers it,’ he said gruffly.

‘Well,’ she said lightly, a vision of poise and loveliness and behind the pretty picture a brain that ran razor-sharp when it came to reading people. ‘Seems to me you wasted your time in getting me here if that was the agenda, for it’s nothing I don’t already know. You overplayed the light-hearted, carefree Damon on the phone, by the way, if you want to know what really tipped me off. It just wasn’t you. Still …’ she looked skywards and smiled ‘… it’s a nice day for a stroll and I wanted to get out of the apartment. You don’t mind if I use you as a distraction, do you?’

Was yes even a possible answer after such a gracious and glossy dismissal of his concerns regarding her developing some kind of unwanted attachment to him? ‘No.’

He tipped his hat and held out his arm, and he even managed a self-mocking smile as she slipped her hand in the crook of his arm, and without a word they began to stroll.

‘You excel at making things easy for others, don’t you, Ruby?’ he offered at last. ‘And somewhere in the process you get exactly what you want. It’s very impressive.’

‘It’s a gift,’ she said dulcetly.

‘Or a weapon,’ he countered dryly. ‘Where’d you hone that razor-sharp mind of yours, Ruby?’

‘Harvard.’

It figured. ‘Where did you study?’ she asked.

Damon hesitated, and Ruby sighed.

‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘I forgot who I was talking to. Although may I point out that sticking entirely to the immediate present when conversing with anyone is a lot like talking to a brick. Nonetheless, I shall endeavour to oblige and make it easier for you to keep your secrets to yourself. See that building to the West, overlooking the park?’ She waved a slender hand in its direction. ‘That’s Hong Kong’s legislative council building. It’s one of the reasons there are so many political demonstrations and marches here in the park. As for the park’s history, did you know that these grounds once housed the most hallowed of colonial institutions, the Hong Kong Cricket Club?’

‘MIT,’ said Damon tightly, and stopped Ruby’s fact-spouting dead. ‘I studied mathematics and computer programming at MIT.’

The hand resting in the crook of his arm tightened, and Ruby came to a standstill. Damon turned to find her regarding him with a mixture of frustration and puzzlement.

‘What?’ he said. ‘You asked, I answered. I was just …’

‘Filtering,’ she said wryly. Which he had been. ‘Trust me, Damon. I know this game. My father never talked much beyond the moment either. You’d have liked him, by the way. He could have certainly shown you a trick or two about sliding graciously past a question you’re not inclined to answer.’

‘How would he have slid past that one?’

‘Oh, I dare say he’d have started spouting rhetoric about the measurement of man,’ said Ruby with a smile. ‘From there you might have swung through a deeply philosophical discussion of the education system or if he gauged you differently perhaps he’d have offered you a champagne and piled on the flattery as he guessed which of the top twenty learning institutes in the world you graduated from.’

‘Have you heard from him today?’

‘Why do you ask?’

Damon shrugged and realised he didn’t have any good answer other than Ruby drew him in, even when he didn’t want to be drawn, and got to him when he didn’t want to be got. ‘Maybe it’s because I know what it’s like to wait for word that never comes.’

‘He hasn’t been in touch.’

And then she leaned into him, butting up against his arm with her body as if she craved connection, and he knew that feeling and that shoulder shove because he’d used it on Poppy as a child. Remember me, it had been shorthand for. The one who cost us our mother by dint of being born. The one who never quite managed to shake his feeling of isolation, even within the arms of family.

So he did what Poppy used to do, and put his arm around Ruby’s shoulder and hugged her to his side and kept her there. He could do that much for her. He did it without thinking.

‘I really hoped he’d call, you know?’ she said finally, with her arm around his waist and their footsteps in sync as they followed the path before them. ‘So that I’d know he was okay. That he was alive. That’s the worst part of all of this mess. The not knowing anything.’

He should have realised that a woman of Ruby’s ilk would have thought past the most obvious reason for her father’s absence from her life. That she would have considered all sorts of explanations for her father’s disappearance, few of them palatable. ‘You think there’s been foul play?’

‘I don’t know,’ she murmured. ‘My father had many faults, don’t get me wrong. Branding him a hero’s just … dumb. But I always thought he cared for me, and the way he left—without even the slightest goodbye or heads up … it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t feel right.’

‘Maybe he was protecting you. You know the terminology, Ruby. Accomplice. Accessory after the fact.’

‘He was smart enough to avoid all that and still say goodbye.’

If he’d wanted to. But Damon didn’t say that and Ruby didn’t go there either.

‘So what do you think did happen?’ he asked quietly. ‘You think he could have been trying to stop the theft?’

‘If I thought that, I’d have to prepare for the possibility that he’s dead. I don’t want to prepare for that possibility, Damon.’

‘It seems to me you already have.’

‘No.’ Ruby looked to the sky and the skyscrapers that crowded into it. ‘I haven’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Not as long as there’s hope.’

Not a fine Christmas Day for Ruby Maguire at all. In behind the peacock feathers and the smiles, Ruby Maguire was hurting.

‘You know what you need this afternoon?’ he said, and pressed his lips to her hair for good measure. ‘A strictly temporary, don’t read anything into this, distraction. Lucky for you, I’m a past Master at distracting people. As every last one of my school reports will attest.’

‘Why, Damon West.’ She sounded less morose already. ‘Was that freely volunteered information?’

‘I think it was. But don’t distract me while I’m busy trying to distract you. I hear there’s a hell of a roller-coaster ride around here somewhere.’

‘Yes, but in order to get on it one has to plan ahead.’

‘Or we could go and play on the midlevel elevators, that’s always fun.’

‘Well, if you’re a two-year-old …’

‘Golf!’ he said, inspired.

‘Spare me.’

‘Shopping?’

Ruby Maguire rewarded him with a smile. ‘I’m vastly impressed by your sacrifice, but no. Nothing much is open.’

‘Swimming?’

‘Maybe later.’

‘Mah-jong?’

‘But we’d need a third player.’

‘Poppy’ll play if we ask her. She might even know how.’

‘Meaning you’ve never played?’ asked Ruby delicately.

‘No, but how hard could it be?’

‘I like your optimism.’ Her smile had widened. Her eyes held a hint of mischief. ‘I suppose I could teach you the basics and then if Poppy wanted to join us she’d be most welcome. Were you to, say, enhance the speed of your learning experience by putting your money where your optimism is I would indeed be most delightfully distracted.’

‘You have all the essentials?’

The peacock feather bobbed up and down vigorously as she nodded. ‘Everything but your blank cheque.’

Ruby’s apartment held its own when it came to luxury and location. Size wise, it only had two bedrooms, one of which she used as an office, but the lounge and dining area was plenty large enough for a crowd, and more than large enough for a fleecing.

‘There’s a kitten around here somewhere,’ she said as she put her handbag on the side table and picked up the remote and switched the music on and drew the curtains back. Not Christmas tunes, heaven forbid, but rather a brother and sister duo whose music played light and ethereal and wormed its way into the soul one wisp at a time.

‘You mean this kitten?’ Ruby turned and there was the kitten, creeping out from behind the couch and venturing closer to Damon than he’d ever ventured to her without serious coaxing.

‘That’s him, and you’re doing well. He’s the wary type. I like to think he’ll turn out to be a sweet and loving companion once we move past the outright mistrust stage but that’s just pure and hopeful speculation.’

‘Have you considered getting a dog?’ asked Damon dryly as the little cat took cover behind the leg of the coffee table.

But Ruby wasn’t quite mad enough to bring a dog to this city of sky rises and crowded concrete living. ‘Not for here,’ she said as she foraged in the fridge for the Christmas nibbles she’d stocked up on just in case, say, an army decided to drop in unexpectedly. ‘Maybe if I lived on a ranch, or a tropical island. Australia.’

‘Ever been to Australia? …’

‘Well, no. But I’m sure a dog could be very happy there. Its owner too.’

‘Let me know if you ever want to try it some time,’ he murmured. ‘I have a beach house on the East Coast that I never use. You could stay there. No resident dog though.’

‘Damon West, I stand corrected. You’re not a homeless person after all.’

He smiled at that. ‘Does it make you think better of me?’

‘No, but your offer does. It’s very generous. Also somewhat surprising. What if I were to discover some of those well-kept secrets of yours while I was there?’

‘Well, you could try,’ he said with supreme confidence as she set a jug of water and frosty glasses on the breakfast bar beside the food. ‘We could have a little wager on it.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ she said encouragingly and offered him a candied ginger. ‘May I get you a drink? Inhibition-loosening beverage of your choice?’

‘And if you miss out on a suitable job in Geneva you can always try the casinos in Monte Carlo,’ he offered dryly. ‘They’d have you in a heartbeat.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ she murmured, and he smiled his lazy smile and popped a candy in his mouth.

He reached for the hat on his head and set it on the breakfast stool next to him, making himself at home in her space, working his charm because she’d asked him to. Because she’d done enough soul-searching for today, and they could hammer out the details of their relationship another time, or just let it flow, considering that they both appeared to be on the same page when it came to knowing nothing permanent would come of it.

Didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate and enjoy the gifts that he brought to her table today. The simple gift of being there. The rogue’s gifts of distraction and entertainment. His hug for her earlier, the gift of human touch. His understanding of her predicament when it came to her father. He had family he hadn’t heard from recently too.

‘Have you heard from your brother?’ One last serious question before she allowed herself to be seriously distracted.

‘No.’

‘Are you worried about him?’

‘Lena is. I’m a little more inclined to give him some leeway. Jared’s big on guilt at the moment because Lena nearly died under his command. Lena wants him home so she can tell him to get over it. My guess is that Jared’s gone after the people who hurt her and that he’ll be back when he can deliver up their heads on a plate and not before.’

‘Oh.’ What to say to that? ‘It sounds … plausible.’ If one discounted the fact that, out head-hunting or not, surely brother Jared would have found an opportunity to call home by now.

‘I know how it sounds, Ruby. But we’re used to not hearing from Jared for long stretches at a time. I’m not that worried about him. Yet.’

‘Good,’ she said sincerely. ‘Here’s to your brother getting his revenge and finding his way home.’

‘You’re not going to say he should leave it to the legal system?’

‘Justice takes many forms, my friend. The legal system delivers but one of them.’

‘They teach you that in law school?’

‘No, that one comes with age and experience.’

‘Imagine how cynical you’ll be by the time you’re sixty.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Frightening. I have a feeling you’re going to like mah-jong. It’s a game of great subtlety. The wind blows and the probabilities turn. Dragons roar and the path ahead changes. Flexibility is the key. I’ll show you the play, which you’ll pick up fast, and I’ll let you figure out the mathematical probabilities for yourself. Wouldn’t want that fancy maths degree of yours to go to waste.’ ‘You’re too kind.’

‘I know.’ She opened the case and watched Damon’s gaze sharpen upon the tiles as most everyone’s did when they first viewed the set. Pewter-backed jade, each piece exquisitely carved and painted and then polished to high gloss—each tile so perfectly matched to the next that there could be no telling them apart once they were face down.

‘It’s said this set once belonged to the emperor’s favourite concubine and that she won many a concession from her lover when the tiles were played. I hope you don’t mind if we play on a velvet cloth,’ she murmured dulcetly. ‘It’s a very sensual experience. And of course it protects the pieces.’

Damon made no reply, just started in on his shirt buttons and then peeled it off and handed it to her. ‘This being the shirt off my back,’ he said. ‘Take it. It’ll save time.’

‘It’s also rumoured that a lot of games between the emperor and his concubine remained unfinished.’ Ruby took the shirt from him and steeled herself not to ogle his very fine form. ‘Now I know why.’

‘Happy to do as much illuminating as you want on that score, Ruby. He was probably trying to distract her.’

‘Well, I’m sure she appreciated his efforts,’ she murmured. ‘What a giver.’

Damon smiled, slow and lazy, and Ruby shivered, and not with apprehension. Something about this man called to her and it wasn’t just his beautiful body and it certainly wasn’t his zealously guarded mind. Maybe it was the yearning she sensed in his soul.

‘C’mere,’ he said, and Ruby went and gave herself over to him willingly, to the taste of him and the responsiveness of her skin beneath his touch. A fleeting kiss and then another as he teased her lips with his and made the ache inside her grow.

‘Distracted yet?’ he murmured.

‘Very.’

She found places for her hands on his chest. A puckered nipple beneath one palm and the ridges of his stomach beneath another. ‘Last night,’ she whispered, ‘was so … so …’

‘Don’t say disappointing.’

‘Unexpected.’ As he slid her hair comb from her hair and set his lips to the skin behind her ear. ‘And unbelievably hot. I’ve been trying to figure out the why of it all morning.’

‘I’m blaming it on the limo,’ he whispered, threading his fingers through her hair and drawing her into an open-mouthed kiss that as far as Ruby was concerned destroyed his limo argument outright. ‘All that forced intimacy.’

‘I’m thinking of blaming it on Santa,’ she offered, and closed her eyes the better to concentrate on the fire in his touch.

‘Not exactly a reasoned argument.’

Ruby countered by sliding her hand down until she found the iron-hard length of him, deeply satisfied when he groaned and surged against her hand and then in one swift movement picked her up and planted her on the table, her legs wide as he stepped in between them and showed her exactly where he wanted that shaft to be. ‘Better than yours, though. Where’s the limo now?’

‘What limo?’ he muttered and his eyes were dark with desire. ‘Where’s your bed?’

‘Down the hall, first door on the right.’

By the time they got there Ruby’s clothes were gone and so were his, two of the hallway pictures were askew and the walls had received a battering.

He gave himself so freely to pleasure, and Ruby did too, until they were both bathed in touch and taste and the heady scent of arousal, and then he rolled until she sat astride him and he positioned her for his entry and made it slow and glorious.

Ruby closed her eyes and wrapped her hands around his forearms while he sat up and worked his clever lips and tongue over her neck and throat. Piling distraction upon distraction and lacing it with an abandon she couldn’t resist.

There were no rules with this man. She wanted him at her breast, and he took it with a groan and paid attention and made her scream. He kissed his way down her body after that, and he turned her on her back and took her hands and wrapped her fingers around the wrought-iron bed bars above her head and told her to keep them there and then proceeded to string kisses across her stomach and her hip, her thigh and finally her core, and he knew what he was doing, heaven help her he did, and she entreated him and cursed him in the same breath as he took her to a land far, far away.

There’d been a magical quality to last night’s love-making that had taken Ruby unawares and turned the night golden, and today was no different.

He made her feel loved, and he made her feel beautiful as he let her ride out her climax and then entered her as if he couldn’t wait a moment longer.

‘Now you can touch me,’ he whispered, and touch him she did, only she could never quite get enough, and her need built again, he made damn sure of that.

Need over reason, for how could reason explain this?

‘Let go, Damon, just let go now. I’ll come with you, I swear I will.’

And it was as if her words released the leash he’d kept on himself and stripped away every barrier. He shuddered hard and clung to her as he spilled himself deep inside her, and Ruby flew with him this time, not even half a heartbeat behind as together they found oblivion.

Just as she’d promised.

‘The things you do to me,’ he murmured as they lay on the bed, both of them on their backs, their bodies spent and separate but the connection between them running stronger than ever. He lifted his arm from his elbow down, made a fist and then stretched his fingers wide, and Ruby raised her hand to his and he threaded his fingers through hers. ‘The concessions you wring from me.’

‘I’d hardly call a thimbleful of honesty between lovers a concession,’ she murmured lazily. ‘Although maybe in your case I should. Maybe you should favour me with another example of your concessions, just so I can identify them in future.’

‘Give me five minutes and I’ll get right onto it.’ He shot her a lazy, satisfied smile. ‘Maybe ten.’

‘Give me a memory from your childhood, something you don’t usually reveal, and I’ll give you anything you want.’

‘Big promises, Empress.’

‘Chances are I’ll never have to deliver, Concession Boy.’

He closed his eyes. He shut her out. ‘My mother died giving birth to me,’ he said quietly. ‘Not something I tell the world.’

Careful where your wishes take you, Ruby, she thought grimly, but it was too late to turn back now. ‘That’s understandable.’

Damon said nothing.

‘Did your family hold it against you?’