Hot Christmas Nights (5 page)

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

A
iden 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.”

“You must,” she said. “There’s no way we’re going to get through all of Rome in one day.” Nyla’s brow arched. “Speaking of returning to Rome...” She reached into the shoulder bag she carried and pulled out a handful of coins. She took his hand and turned it, dropping them in his upturned palm. “You’re going to need these for where we’re going next.”

Aiden joggled the coins. “An arcade?”

Her eyes lit with knowing humor, she took him by the arm and turned for the basilica’s exit. “You’ll see.”

They hopped into another cab and crossed the Tiber River. When Nyla mentioned they were nearing the Mausoleum of Augustus, Aiden demanded they stop. He’d written a book report on the life of the first emperor of Rome back in grade school; he never imagined that he’d ever have the chance to see the burial place of the man who started the Roman Empire in person.

His eyes glued to the crumbling facade of the ancient tomb, Aiden rattled off facts that had stayed with him all this time. “Did you know he and Antony were friends before Cleopatra came into the picture?”

“Women.” Nyla tsked. “Causing men strife for thousands of years.”

“Tell me about it.” Aiden snorted, then laughed when she playfully slapped him on the arm. “Augustus is the reason I’ve never eaten figs. After I read that his wife killed him with poisoned figs, I decided I could go through life never eating them.”

Nyla’s head flew back with her laugh.

They continued on foot, walking south on Via del Corso. Nyla spotted a scarf shop and scuttled ahead of him to see if it was open. He took the time to drink in how good she looked in the snug-fitting sweater dress and calf-high heeled boots. She’d paired it with a cream coat that reached the hem of the dress. She’d always been fashionable, even when she wasn’t trying.

“They’re closed,” she said with a shrug.

“Maybe next time,” Aiden said.

She nodded and smiled. A ridiculous thrill shot through him at how open she seemed to there even being a next time.

They continued on down the heavily traveled street. Even though he couldn’t see where it was coming from, the gurgling rush of water and the chatter of what had to be dozens of people grew louder with every step they took. They turned left at another ancient building with stone columns, and a minute later, Trevi Fountain came into view.

Aiden’s steps halted. “Wow.”

“Amazing, right?”

He could hear the smile in Nyla’s voice, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the massive fountain.

“I’ve seen it in movies, but to see it in person...” Aiden shook his head, amazed.

“This is one of the best sights in all of Rome. I can sit here for hours and people-watch.” She nudged his shoulder. “My favorite reaction is the one you just had. You have no idea how many people are stopped in their tracks when they see it.”

“Can you blame me? This is... It’s incredible.”

They took a seat on one of the steps surrounding the marble structure. The only thing that could drag his attention away from the fountain was the smooth glimpse of thigh that peeked out when Nyla crossed her legs. It wasn’t until she pulled the hem of the sweater dress down over her knees that Aiden was able to pay attention to what she was saying. She filled him in on the history of the aqueduct system that fed the fountain, then started on the litany of movies it had appeared in.