Snowbound in Her Boss's Bed, page 11
“Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate you going to all this trouble,” she added, gesturing to the attic and freshly opened boxes.
Closing the box, he rose to his feet with a shrug. “It’s the least I could do. I’m sorry I’m not better prepared.”
With a dry chuckle, she said, “I’d be worried if you were...”
Turning his neck from one side to the other, stretching out the kinks, he smiled. “I was a wilderness scout, you know... Always prepared.”
Miri rolled her eyes, about to say, “Of course you were,” when a box tipped over behind him with a loud clatter.
Miri winced as it landed. It sounded like whatever was in there was both dense and breakable.
The fall dislodged the tape that had held it closed, leaving one flap slightly higher than the other and through the sliver of open container, Miri could make out the green plastic lid of a storage container, but not much else.
“I could have sworn that was stacked securely,” Benjamin muttered as he crouched to lift and return it to its place, in the process opening the lid fully to take a quick scan of its contents.
Righting it, he let out a dry chuckle, and said, “Irony of ironies.”
Curious, Miri asked, “What’s that?”
“It’s a box of pictures, including, I’m sure, one of me in the station wagon. And my mom’s menorah.”
Miri laughed, even as a shiver went up and down her arms. “What are the chances?” she said, and wondered what they actually were.
The random coincidence of that particular box falling over on this particular day—the second night of Hanukkah when they had only this morning been discussing the station wagon—felt a little less random than it should.
“Indeed,” he said under his breath as he removed the box of photos. With a remote and oddly robotic efficiency, he sorted through a few photos before handing her one, his eyes still in the box.
In the picture stood a young Benjamin Silver.
Tall and lanky, as he’d claimed, he stood proud beside an old Subaru wagon, wearing the bright and crisp Cal Poly hoodie that she currently held in her hands.
He was obviously himself, and yet it was hard to believe that the man she had spent the past twenty-four hours with was the same person.
It wasn’t that he had physically transformed—although as he had said, he had filled out, losing every trace of slenderness in his long body—as much as he had hardened, become more distant and colder.
Especially the eyes.
It was there that he had changed the most.
In the picture, he was a boy, young and clearly eager for the future.
In the present, he was Benjamin Silver, a man with a gaze like an iceberg—chilly, hard and far more intense below the surface.
Had it been losing his parents so young that had done that to him, or was it the ruthlessness required to get as far as he had? Miri wondered.
“There are candles, too. Of course. She was forever worried about running out of candles...” he said, the box containing what she assumed was a menorah in one hand, and unopened box of slender blue and white candles in the other.
Making every move as if he intended to pack it all away, he began to put the candles back into the box, the man he had become was incapable of seeing the magic in the fact that they had stumbled upon a menorah and candles while stranded together on Hanukkah.
But the version of him that stood in the photograph—the same version that was hopeful and bright and went with his dad to get a box of doughnuts for his mom—would have.
He said he wasn’t scarred from his loss, but he had just built up so much hard tissue he couldn’t feel it anymore.
Surprising herself, Miri said, “Don’t put it away. We should take it down with us.”
“What?” he asked, looking from her back down to what he held in his hands, as if only now realizing what it was.
“The candles and the menorah. We should take them down,” she repeated. “It’s Hanukkah.”
She tried to keep it casual, sensing that she trod in sensitive territory despite the fact that there was no outward change in him at her suggestion.
“I don’t think—” he started, only to trail off for the first time in her acquaintance with him. He picked back up with a shake of his head. “No. No. There’s no need for that. This evening is likely your last here and I won’t light them after you’re gone. There’s no need to get wax all over everything and have to clean it up for one night.”
Professionalism and basic respect for privacy urged her to leave it at that, but a rogue impulse in her drove her to continue. “I don’t mind cleaning up afterward. There’s a trick to it I learned during the years that my friends and I were still meeting every night.”
She was laying it on thick, reminding him of the event the snowstorm had forced her to miss.
“You’re a guest. Guests aren’t supposed to clean up.”
Miri snorted. “Since when? Everyone is supposed to clean up after themselves.”
“Not according to my mother.”
“You don’t think your mother would be all about lighting those candles?” Miri asked, lifting a brow as she did.
“She also would have fed you a homemade meal for dinner instead of a box of doughnuts. I don’t see how any of that’s relevant.”
“I think we should do it. They fell out of the box, for goodness’ sake.” She didn’t know where the audacity to continue push like this came from, but as usual when it came to Benjamin, Miri could not seem to stem the flow.
“People were burned as witches based on coincidences like those,” he said flatly.
Still she didn’t give up.
“I don’t think we’re in any danger of starting a new inquisition.”
“It’s a waste of time,” he said.
“Isn’t that what we’re looking for as we wait out the storm?”
“Between the room lighting and the fire, you’ll barely notice the light of the candles.”
“I’d like to, Benjamin,” she said, soft and final.
He shut his mouth, pressing it into a straight line. Closing his eyes, he let out a breath, then opened them again. “I’ll take them down.”
“Fantastic!” She clapped as she said it, warmth blossoming in her chest at the victory, the sensation of it expanding outward like a huge bloom within her, not out of gloating but actual happiness.
It wasn’t the battle of wills—hers against his—that she was glad of the outcome.
It was the battle fought inside him, between the hard Benjamin and the open Benjamin.
Angling his wrist to check the time in the hand that held the box of candles, his voice was gruff but had a hint of humor in it—even if it was a self-deprecating kind. “I told them to have dinner prepared at six tonight,” he said. “If you want to change and have a little time to yourself and light candles before that, we should head back to the west wing. We’ll pass the spa along the way and can grab a robe, in case I’m wrong about the sweats,” he added.
Still emboldened after her menorah win, Miri teased, “Not so certain about being right anymore?”
Glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, he shot her a cocky half grin. “It pays to be careful, even if, like you, I am almost never wrong.”
It didn’t seem like he was talking about the fit of her clothing options anymore, but for the life of her, Miri couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was that he was talking about.
He’d assessed her as he’d spoken, eyeing her like she had once again surprised him, but she had no idea why or how.
Leading her on the somewhat long walk back through his home to the west wing, he made small talk about the rooms they passed, including a private theater, a few bowling lanes, both heated and unheated indoor pools, and indoor skating rink.
Along the way, he stopped outside yet another wooden door and went inside, returning with a brilliantly white, gorgeously plush, bathrobe.
For an instant, Miri considered wearing the robe.
The hoodie suddenly seemed thin and rough by comparison.
But as one expected from a robe, its only fastener was the tie at its waist.
A body like Miri’s needed far more coverage than that.
Benjamin left her at her room door, something strangely sweet and gentlemanly about the action, before parting with plans to meet up again for dinner in the private dining area, adjacent to the couch and seating area from the night before.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ONCE AGAIN, BENJAMIN ARRIVED before Miri.
Waiting for her for the second time in the same day, he wondered how she had spent the hour or so that they had been apart and considered the fact that a part of him had actually been reluctant to say goodbye to her.
What did that mean?
Despite his commitment to showing her a good time, he had needed the solitude after the incident with the menorah.
It was ridiculous, he knew, to have had such a strong reaction to the idea of bringing it down, but it had surged nonetheless. The last time he had placed candles in the menorah and lit them had been the last year his parents had been alive. There was something visceral in that, a kind of physical memory that could not help but remind him of things that were better off left in the back of his mind.
But to deny Miri’s request, a simple and obvious one given the circumstances and time of year—two Jews stranded together over Hanukkah—would be to punish her for the fact that he had things he’d rather remained buried and forgotten.
If it weren’t Hanukkah, she wouldn’t have even suggested it.
He knew that.
It was a normal, logical idea.
Except that unpacking his old family menorah, freeing all the associated memories it held, wasn’t a normal thing for him to do, at all.
And certainly not with a woman he barely knew.
It was an intimate thing to do.
Just like everything else that had occurred between them since their meeting had ended—an hour later than it should have.
For not the first time in his life, what a difference an hour had made.
It was the difference between appreciating the opportunity to work with a woman possessed of a body as fine as her mind and knowing what that woman felt and tasted like.
It was the difference between getting important work done and showing her a good time that was becoming progressively more personal.
He would put a stop to the momentum tomorrow, should the storm continue.
He would create some distance between them, blaming work if need be, to ensure there were no more slipups.
He had never had to be so diligent around anyone before.
But was it any wonder, really?
Even time worked strangely around Miri, flying by or stretching long in correlation to whether he was deep in conversation with her or anticipating the point at which he would see her again.
It was not an experience he regularly had in his life.
He had mastered time a long time ago.
The death of his adopted parents had been due to losing track of distance and time and running out of fuel in a rickety yacht just waiting to sink, and because of that he had disciplined himself into a man who was strictly aware of each minute as it passed, always knew where he was and insisted on high quality.
He controlled his time, he controlled his relationships, and through that, he limited life’s capacity to surprise or hurt him.
But he was frequently surprised when it came to Miri.
At her door, to which he had personally led her through the multiple staircases and long hallways between the attic and her room because he hadn’t wanted her to get lost, he had told her, “Dinner will be set for us at the informal table, near the fireplace where we ate the doughnuts.”
Heat had come to her cheeks at the reminder of their night, as it had every time anything touched on what they had done on the couch, and she had clutched his old clothing to her chest, her glowing amber eyes racing with thoughts that she did not share. Instead, all she said was, “Great. I think I can make my way back there.”
And he had wanted more, had walked away looking forward to the moment when he could have it.
And now he waited for her in the sitting area.
Since when did he wait for people?
He didn’t wait for people.
Was there any greater waste of time than waiting for people?
A man could spend his whole life waiting and never get anything.
One had to act, and efficiently, to gain the kind of power and control to impact and save lives.
A man did not get there by waiting.
But, because it was Miri, he was waiting—and because it was her, the wait felt longer than it should have.
While he brooded on the couch and stared into the flames, his staff set the table and quietly left again, abandoning him once more to his private thoughts in his private living room.
“Things took a bit longer than anticipated.” Her voice broke into his thoughts first, entirely too welcome. “Turns out this was one of those rare times you were wrong. The high school attire didn’t fit and then took me a while to squeeze out of.”
Turning in her direction, all thoughts immediately disappeared from his mind.
How was it possible for a woman to look so absolutely stunning wearing a simple spa robe?
The short robe was wrapped and cinched tight around her waist, stretching across her chest at the same time it hugged her hips and skimmed across the tops of her thick thighs, barely covering her gorgeous ass.
On her feet, incongruously and painfully sexy, she wore her work pumps.
Clenching his fists at his sides, he swallowed, his own thighs flexing and releasing as he focused his entire strength and will on not leaping at her.
He had already acknowledged that she was put together like no other woman he had ever encountered.
Now he was forced to admit that he might be developing some kind of kink around it.
At the very least, she had become the prototype for a new fantasy overnight.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, forcing himself to be a host instead of a pervert, and she smiled.
The smile was a reward on top of her delicious body, and one that he didn’t deserve.
Not when he didn’t have the strength to redirect the flow of his thoughts.
“I figured we’d do the candles first,” he said, voice rougher than he had intended.
Or perhaps it was as rough as it needed to be, given the fact that she was standing over there looking the way she did when they were about to light candles in his family menorah for the first time since he had lost his family.
There was only so many stimuli a man could take.
“Sounds good to me,” she said softly, crossing the space between them, past the set table, to stand beside him in front of the fireplace.
The menorah rested on the mantel, candles in place.
Retrieving a lighter from his pocket, he held it up, gesturing with his other hand for her to do the honors.
Their eyes locked and though he would have thought it impossible only an instant before, for a moment he forgot about even the titillating robe.
Her eyes were so beautiful.
They were warm and boundless, tough and compassionate, brilliant and sexy.
They were the eyes of a woman with good ideas, a welcoming heart, and the strength of will to be honest and real.
They were eyes, he realized, that he couldn’t imagine tiring of, even should they be snowbound for the entire duration of Hanukkah.
She moistened her lips, reminding him of what it had been like to explore her mouth, and reached for the shammash.
He struck the lighter.
To the side of them, the fire in the fireplace made silhouettes of them both, two backlit and shadowed profiles gazing into each other.
She tilted the candle wick into the flame, holding it sure and steady until it caught.
Releasing the lighter, Benjamin watched her, attention focused and detailed, noting everything about her in this moment.
Her hair, the robe, her satin skin glowing in the firelight, her eyes bright—everything about her radiated.
Smiling upon the lighting, she turned to him.
She lifted her chin, angling her face toward his, taking a step toward him—opening her mouth to recite the blessings. It was natural for him to tilt toward her in return.
As if drawn by a force outside of their control, their mouths neared each other—until suddenly she blinked, gave her head a small shake and cleared her throat.
“Maybe it’s enough to just light the candles tonight?” she said breathily.
This time she had been the one to come to her senses.
Shaking himself, Benjamin flashed her a sardonic smile before looking up and away, staring into the storm in the darkness outside rather than the woman who was a flame to his moth.
“Certainly,” he said, his voice not his own, thick and gruff. “I’m sure you’re hungry. The table is ready if you are.”
Nodding, she jumped on the subject eagerly. “Yes, starving.”
He led her to the table and held out a chair.
She sat delicately, careful to ensure that the short robe continued to cover her ass as she did.
Clenching his hands around the chair, he swallowed as he gently pushed her in.
“Thank you,” she said. “Once again, everything looks wonderful. I hope we didn’t let it sit too long.”
Her voice was airy and light.
“Nothing to worry about. Hot plates,” he said, gesturing to the well-set table, each dish sitting on a state-of-the-art warming plate kept at its own perfect temperature.
“It looks delicious,” she said, drawing in a deep inhale. “Smells delicious, too.”
