Wreck the Halls

Oh yeah, she’d definitely felt it.

Another car passed with a series of staccato beeps and they simultaneously started speed walking to the building entrance. Reeves stepped out onto the sidewalk and doffed his hat, using it to ward off the approaching group. “Now, see here, you fine folks. Building management must sign off on any filming or things of that nature—” Beat handed Reeves the candy bar. “Oh, a Baby Ruth! Why, I haven’t sunk my teeth into one of these in an age. Now let’s see if I remember the ingredients. Peanuts, caramel . . . nougat.” The doorman broke off when he realized the whole crew had stepped into the elevator at the rear of the lobby. “Pardon me, Mr. Dawkins—”

“Could you guys stay with Reeves and bring him up to speed?” Danielle called to the security team where they lingered behind in the lobby.

“Yes, ma’am,” one of them shouted back.

“Mr. Dawkins,” Reeves tried again.

Briefly, Beat leaned out of the elevator and winked. “You never saw us, Reeves.”

The doorman sighed, regarding the candy bar in his hand. “You’ve tricked me again with chocolate. You’ve had my number since you came for visits as a teenager.”

Before the elevator door could close, Joseph reached into his camera bag without a break in filming. He extricated a yellow package and lobbed it through the opening where Reeves caught it midair. “Oh, a Butterfinger! I haven’t had one of these in—”

The steel doors of the elevator snicked shut.

Everyone exhaled at once.

“What did he mean you’ve had his number since you were a teenager?” Melody asked.

“This used to be my parents’ place. One of them, since they liked to split time between LA and New York. Whenever I was in town, I used to bribe him with chocolate not to squeal on me when I broke curfew.”

Melody’s lips twitched. “He won’t get in trouble?”

“Not a chance. He’s been manning the door so long, a bunch of the residents chipped in a few years back and bought him a partial stake in the building. Unless he fires himself, he’s not going anywhere.”

Melody’s shoulders relaxed. “Good.” Her fingers shifted in his grip and he couldn’t even remember when he’d started holding her hand. “So . . . when does the filming stop for the day?”

“We’ll get a final shot of you entering the apartment, then we’ll call it a night,” Danielle said briskly, handing Melody a leather bag, presumably packed by the network stylist. “We’ll be back at nine a.m. to pick you up for the flight.” She held up six fingers to them, mouthing the word six a.m. off camera, obviously to mislead the viewers. “Sound good?”

Beat wanted to argue about the final shot of them going into the apartment together. It was a move that would be purposely suggestive. Viewers had linked them romantically since the first second of filming and this would only increase speculation. But if he took issue with the final shot, he might give Melody another reason to find a hotel for the night. And he wanted her going back out into the cold to combat overzealous fans about as much as he wanted his wisdom teeth pulled without Novocain. Bearing that in mind, he kept the argument in check and a few moments later, he closed his apartment door behind Melody.

And they were alone.

Well and truly alone for the first time in their lives.

“The quiet has never been more noticeable,” she said, closing her eyes.

Her voice sounded incredible inside his walls. “Long day.”

“The longest.”

Make it better for her. After all, he was the one who’d dragged her into Wreck the Halls in the first place. With a lurch in his midsection, he took the overnight bag out of her hands. “Come on, I’ll show you the guest room. Do you want coffee, tea, or alcohol?”

“Tea. Actually, alcohol. Definitely alcohol.”

Beat tipped his chin at the hallway leading to side-by-side bedrooms. She toed off her high heels and followed him, their footfalls soft on the living room carpet. Without turning, he could sense her looking around at his furniture, his artwork, the view of the East River. Was his place what she’d expected? Better? Worse? He’d had a lot of friends here over the years, but never a lone woman. Something about Melody being the first felt alarmingly right.

He reached the guest bedroom and flipped on the light, smoothing down the dimmer to lessen the brightness, and set her bag just inside the door. The skin of his left shoulder prickled when she stepped up beside him, his obliques contracting. “It’s perfect,” she said, sliding past him, obviously being careful not to let them touch. “Thank you.”

A hum was all he could manage until his muscles loosened. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen for that drink.”

“Okay.”

He closed the door behind him, staring at it for a moment. The sound of her dress zipper coming down was like a stroke of fingertips across his lap. His mounting attraction to Melody had already been difficult to manage, but now that the camera was gone, there was a sense of freedom he hadn’t been expecting.

Ignore it.

Jesus, he had to ignore it.

They had a long way to go before Christmas Eve and he was already stumbling.

With an irritated headshake, Beat strode to the kitchen while removing his bow tie and tuxedo jacket. He unbuttoned the cuffs of his dress shirt and rolled the sleeves up to his elbows, pulling down two glasses from the cupboard and setting a bottle of triple malt scotch beside them. He’d just about gotten his shit together when Melody walked out of her bedroom in a long, oversized T-shirt that really, truly shouldn’t have been so fucking sexy. But when she stopped in front of his floor-to-ceiling window, her silhouette against the glowing city lights made one thing painfully obvious.

She’d taken off her bra.

Beat poured himself a double.

“Is this how your parents decorated the apartment, or did you change it?”

“I changed it,” he said into his glass, before taking a long sip. “My mother’s style is . . .”

“Palace chic? Lots of whites and creams and golds? Swan-headed fixtures.”

The scotch burned his throat when he laughed. “You nailed it.”

Melody stooped forward slightly to peruse a collection of framed photographs on a table in the living room, causing the rear hem of the T-shirt to ride up, exposing her to midthigh. Beat swallowed thickly, begging the scotch to kick in and numb his reaction to her. Unfortunately, the sting of the alcohol only seemed to make it sharper.

“You know, I didn’t expect to be starstruck by Octavia tonight, but I was. She really lived up to her legend status. Stars are two-dimensional beings and some of them, in my experience, remain that way when you meet them in real life. But not your mother; she was brighter and more captivating than I expected. I can only say that about two other celebrities.”

Beat’s drink paused on its way to his mouth. “Who?”

She gave him a twinkling smile over her shoulder. “Springsteen and Tina Turner.”