A Kiss Under the Christmas Lights Read online

  “CPA. Accounting.” Why I needed to clarify the initials I have no idea.

  “No kidding? My cousin Rocco’s a CPA,” Santini said. “He works uptown at some big financial firm. Gabriel Mooney. Ever heard of it?”

  I nodded. Who hadn’t? Gabriel Mooney was one of the most desired accounting firms in the city to be associated with. I’d have given them Mama’s secret coffee-cake recipe as a bribe just to be considered for an interview.

  “Accounting’s a hard field. You must be a math whiz.”

  I shrugged. “Some people are good at writing, some at science. I like math. Numbers come easy to me.”

  “Those tests are killers, though. I remember Rocco didn’t sleep for two weeks before he took them. And I think he failed the first time.”

  “I won’t fail,” I declared with a little more determination than I actually felt.

  He grinned, winked an eye against the sunlight at me, and my toes erupted into little tingly spasms, every podiatric nerve fiber firing.

  “Good attitude. So you’re on lunch break?” he asked, glancing down at my lap where Mama’s half-eaten sandwich sat.

  “Yes.” Finally, something synapsed in my brain allowing me to speak articulately again, so I asked him, “Would you like some? Mama must have thought I was going to be gone for a few days. She made enough to last.”

  He laughed and cocked his head, and I swear I lost all the feeling from my knees downward.

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Please.” I swatted my hand in the air. “You’ll do me a favor if you eat some of it, because I can’t possibly finish it all. If I bring it back home, I’ll get asked if I’m sick, and if I throw it away, well, that’s more sin than I want to commit today.”

  The word sin made me remember what he was. I could feel my neck start to flush with embarrassment.

  Santini just grinned and ignored the comment. I handed him the half of ciabatta sandwich I had left, and he said, “Thanks. I didn’t have time for breakfast before I left this morning.”

  “You’re not on duty today?” I asked, still confused about why he wasn’t in his clerical outerwear. I just assumed priests wore them all the time, whether they were at the church, or not.

  “On duty? No.” He cocked his head. “Not until later. I’m helping a buddy move into his new office this morning. I had to run to the bank on business and was planning on grabbing something from a street cart for lunch when I spotted you.” He took a huge bite of the sandwich, and I suddenly wished I was a pepper on its way to his mouth.

  Gesu, Gia.

  “This is way better,” he said, after swallowing. “Thanks.”

  I nodded, words failing me again.

  Yesterday morning I’d been convinced my strange, erotic feelings for him had been a passing fancy. I’d been able to sit before him in church and then smile at him afterward without any kind of awareness of him as a hunky, gorgeous male filtering through me. Now, seated next to him on this park bench, just like I’d been in the bakery, all I could do was wish I was in his lap, his tongue swiping across my mouth like it was doing to his own at the moment.

  Maybe I was right: in his cassock he looked like a priest, so I could remember he was one, and my unconscious thoughts wouldn’t see him as a normal male. When he wore his regular clothes, I was able to forget his profession and in turn lust after him without guilt attached.

  “I never asked you yesterday, but did you get all the Christmas lights strung for the festival?” he asked.

  I nodded. “It took about another three hours, but yes. After they were all in place, we plugged them in and thankfully, they all worked.”

  I’d added the last part because Mama had gotten the lights from one of Uncle Sonny’s friends, and when Sonny is involved, you just never know how things are going to turn out.

  “Sorry I had to bail on you.”

  “No worries,” I said. “It all got done.”

  “The festival starts tomorrow, right?”

  I nodded and took a sip of my Pellegrino. “Opening is at nine in the morning, and closing time is nine at night. I’ve got second shift for our family booth.”

  “What are you selling?”

  He’d finished the sandwich, practically inhaling it, so I offered the container with the desserts.

  “You’re sure?” he asked.

  “Please. My hips can only stand storing so much food in them in a day, and I still have to eat dinner with my parents tonight.”

  His mouth took its time slanting from one corner of his cheeks to the other. Really, he should have come with some kind of warning label: Gaze upon at your own risk. Smile can be addicting.

  Through half-closed eyes, he raked a glance down to my lap, then back up to my face. “Your hips look pretty perfect from where I’m sitting,” right before he pulled one of Mama’s cannoli out of the container.

  Whoa. Definitely getting the flirting vibe again, and this time there was no doubt it really was a flirty remark. In no way was this appropriate. No man of the cloth should say things like this, especially to a female parishioner.

  But then, why didn’t it feel wrong? Deep down? Why did it feel and sound so…right?

  He took a bite of the cannoli, and I was struck dumb when a dusting of powdered sugar stuck to his top lip.

  Can I tell you just how much I wanted to lean over and lick every last morsel and sprinkle of it off him?

  Just as I was thinking this, his tongue skimmed over his lips, and every trace of the sugar went with it.

  Boy, was I jealous of that sugar.

  A soft moan blew from him while he swallowed the rest of the dessert in two bites.

  “That was insane,” he said, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

  “I know,” I said with a sigh and a grin. “Mama’s cannoli are to die for.”

  “I would marry you in a heartbeat just to eat like this every day.”

  He laughed out loud and cocked his head at me again, and I swear on the Holy Father’s rosary beads my insides stopped working.

  Inappropriate, much? Yeah. But you know, at the moment I just didn’t care.

  “So, what are you selling at the festival?” he asked again.

  I swallowed the dry, nervous ball of confusion lodged in my throat.

  “Mama and Nonna make sauce from our garden tomatoes every year. We grow so many during the summer there’s no way we can ever eat them all, and the sauce is Nonna’s family recipe. Mama cans over two hundred quarts a year”—he whistled at the number—“plus what we save for ourselves, and she sells the rest, donating most of the money to the parish for the St. Vincent De Paul coffers.”

  “If the sauce tastes as good as what you just shared with me, I’ll make sure I buy a couple jars for my mother. Especially since the proceeds go to such a worthy cause.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to. Mama always gives a case to Fr. Mario for the rectory’s use every year. I actually think she does it to keep on his good side and in his good graces.”

  I bit down on my tongue, horrified when I realized I’d essentially just told him we bribed his boss so he’d be nice to us.

  His brows beetled above his gorgeous eyes, but he was stopped from saying something when one of the harbor tugboat horns blared from a spot in the water close to us.

  It sounded like a cannon booming but served to divert whatever he was going to say.

  Nervous doesn’t begin to describe how I felt. Why could I not keep my stupid thoughts in my head, or my mouth shut, around this man? It was like my brain turned off my inhibition center whenever I spoke to him.

  With a quick jerk, I shoved the remnants of lunch back into the paper bag and stood.

  He did as well.

  The feeling of being dwarfed in his presence overtook me again, since I needed to bend my head way back to see his face.

  “I’ve gotta get back to the exam center,” I said. “The afternoon session starts in a few minutes.”

  “Gia—” He re
ached out and slid a hand around my upper arm, stopping me.

  I think I gasped. I know, like Lot’s wife, I turned into a pillar of petrified salt and stood stone still, all freedom of movement driven from me.

  He took a step closer, peering down at my face, into my eyes, into my very soul.

  “I—”

  “Look—” he said at the same time.

  We both clammed up.

  His back was to the midday sun, its brightness haloing his head, allowing those little specks of gold and amber to sparkle freely in his eyes, pressing against the darker outer circle. I couldn’t quite read the expression written in them, but they were moist and so filled with warmth all I wanted to do was stare at them—and him—for the rest of the day.

  Who am I kidding? I wanted to stare at him for the rest of my life.

  Just like in the church parking lot, all the normal midday noise and commotion surrounding us faded. I couldn’t hear the soothing slap of the water against the dock any longer; couldn’t hear the voices of the people walking around us in the park; couldn’t see anything but this beautiful man standing in front of me, holding my arm, and my total attention, in his hands.

  His lips parted, and his tongue swirled across his bottom lip.

  Sweet Mother of God, I wanted to tug it into my mouth with such a longing it made my insides jiggle like overcooked linguini.

  Just as the idea came and settled, his head inched down to mine. All sense of propriety flew as I matched his movement, rising up higher on my toes to meet him.

  Neither one of us closed our eyes, as if doing so would somehow spoil the moment. I was hypnotized by the circles of light and dark in his irises. He didn’t even blink. Not once.

  The last coherent thought I had before his lips touched mine was what in the name of all that’s holy are you doing, Gia?

  A sensation of almost unbearable heat surged through me when our lips came together.

  Patiently, just touching and nothing more, we kissed. From somewhere far off, my sense of hearing returned and the deepest, softest, most wistful sigh I’d ever heard sailed into me expelled straight from somewhere deep inside him.

  His lips pressed more firmly, possessively, fully, against mine.

  From the inner recesses of my nonfunctioning brain, it occurred to me that this, this, is what a kiss should feel like. Sweet, but arousing. Complete, but leaving you wanting more.

  Never had a simple kiss made me ache.

  Before I could stop them, my hands dropped the forgotten lunch bag and floated up his torso, over the soft, pliant feel of his vest, to wind around his neck and cross behind it. My fingertips skimmed the collar on his soft-as-velvet shirt and then threaded upward until I could twine them in his close-cropped hair. I was on the very tips of my booted toes unable to move up any further unless I jumped and wrapped my legs around his waist, which believe me, I considered, when he bent further to meet me halfway.

  He pulled me in so close there wasn’t a whisper of room between our bodies, save for our clothing. So close I could feel his heart hammering against me, his chest rising and falling with every breath as fast as pumping accordion bellows. So close, in fact, there was no masking the unmistakable feel of his arousal pulsing against my belly.

  Madre di Dio.

  My lips opened on a lust-filled cry, and his tongue wasted no time slipping in and joining with mine.

  His mouth may have felt like a warm blanket, wrapping and snuggling me in its heat, but the touch of his tongue against mine was like boiling volcanic lava spreading though my system, lighting me on fire and burning a path straight to my soul.

  With a subtle move, he changed the angle of the kiss so he could delve in deeper, and pressed his massive hands across my butt, pushing me even nearer until I was all but wearing him.

  Every little tug and nip of my tongue with his dropped another bead of red-hot longing down to my girlie parts, which were now wet, throbbing, and—blessed Lord, forgive me—seeking release.

  It was a good thing he was holding me or else, like a melting Italian lemon-ice on a hot summer day, I would have been a puddle of colored water on the ground beneath us.

  His fingers slipped into the back pockets of my jeans, curling under the curve of my backside, almost lifting me off my toes.

  My hands clamped around his neck even tighter, a tiny, scared but wickedly excited gasp shooting up from my lungs.

  His heart beat a wild tarantella against his vest. I could feel it pounding against mine, my own keeping in perfect time to his, a dancing partner I could see spending a lifetime with.

  No other man’s kiss had ever done this to me, stripped me of any and all free will, made me feel as if we were the only two people on earth.

  He shunted his knee along my own, insinuating his leg into the top of my thighs, separating them, and sliding along the hottest part of me.

  I knew, knew, he had to feel how damp I was, how much my body wanted him, was prepared for him.

  Heaven above, this was insane.

  I was standing out in the open practically having sex with my clothes on with a man who was pledged to another. And not just any other, but God Almighty himself.

  This was not the same Gia San Valentino who left her parents’ comfortable brownstone this morning, secure in the knowledge that she was a good and obedient God-fearing Italian girl. No, this Gia was someone I didn’t recognize: a wanton risk taker with absolutely no control of her body or mind.

  And you know what? In the moment, I didn’t even care.

  Pressed up against him, his warm breath skimming over my cheeks as he kissed his way down to my jaw, then back up to my lips again, I didn’t think about anything but how wonderful, how perfect, how right it was to be in his arms.

  There are some things in life you know without ever knowing why you know them. You’ll always love your family no matter what happens; you’ll love your children no matter what stupid messes they get into; you’ll always have your faith.

  These things are givens. You know them before you realize you know them.

  Standing in Battery Park, my lips pressed against Tim Santini’s, I knew without a doubt no one would ever kiss me like this again no matter how long I lived.

  I truly can’t tell you how long we stood there wrapped in one another’s arms, but it felt like forever and yet not nearly long enough.

  The tugboat horn split the air again, causing enough of a blast to jolt us apart when we heard it.

  We were both breathing as if we’d just climbed Mt. Etna barefoot on a sweltering August day and were in need of air and cold water.

  I don’t know what he saw on my face, but on his was complete, utter bafflement and total confusion, mixed with undisguised, blatant, and full arousal.

  I knew just how he felt.

  His lips were kiss-slicked wet and swollen, his beautiful eyes dilated to where all I could see was the inky black of his pupils. A tiny pulse bounded in his neck, and for a hot second, I wanted to rub my lips across it and suck hard.

  My hands slowly came down from his neck to the spot he’d just kissed, and I dragged one finger across my mouth, a mouth which now ached and throbbed.

  “Gia,” he said. “Gia, I’m sor—”

  I didn’t let him finish. I couldn’t.

  Supreme humiliation and shame warred with longing.

  The mortification won.

  I shoved my hand up over his mouth, silencing him. His free hand wound around my wrist, encircled it, and then he traced a kiss across my palm, keeping my hand prisoner in his.

  I snatched it back as if it had been scorched in hellfire.

  “Don’t,” I whispered. Shock consumed me like a lit matchstick on dry grass. I couldn’t wrench my eyes from his face. “I can’t do this. We can’t do this.” I threw my messenger bag over my shoulder and across my chest. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to get away from you.”

  “Gia, please. Let me explain—”

  “No. No.” My head was spin
ning, and I couldn’t get away from him fast enough. “No explanations can make this right. We’re going to burn in hell for eternity.”

  “No, we’re not. Gia, please—”

  I shook my head so violently spots formed in front of my eyes. “You’re—I’m—I can’t.” Tears of frustration and yearning swelled in my eyes, and when I blinked, they began cascading down my cheeks. “It’s forbidden,” I said through a sob. “You’re forbidden.”

  His mouth dropped open, and through my disgrace, I watched his head shake, his brows kiss in the middle over eyes that narrowed to slits.

  “What?” He reached out to take my hand, but I slapped it away. "Please, Gia, listen to me—”

  “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to. Go. Please.” Heedless of the garbage I’d dropped on the ground, and without another word, I sprinted away from him as fast as I could, holding onto my messenger bag with both hands as if my life depended on it.

  Just like the night before when I’d run from the bakery, I never looked back. Running faster than I think I’ve ever moved before, I darted across the traffic, heedless of the moving cars all around me, and back to the exam center.

  What had I just done? What in the name of all that was holy had just happened? Had I lost my mind? My reason? I couldn’t begin to count the number of sins I’d just committed.

  And more importantly than anything else, what was I going to do about it now?

  Chapter Six

  Walking home from the train three hours later, I was still reeling.

  I’d been kissed by a priest.

  A priest.

  Well, okay, for the purposes of full disclosure, an almost-priest since he hadn’t been ordained yet. But regardless. He was a man who had no business kissing a woman, any woman.

  And it wasn’t a simple, chaste, little buss of his lips on my cheek. The kind you’d give a child or an elderly relation.

  No.

  It had been a full-out, tongue-mating, inside-quaking, panty-dropping kiss filled with passion, longing, and—again, blessed Lord, forgive me—absolute and total lust.

  On both our parts, because not only had he kissed me, I’d kissed him back.

  Boy, had I. No thoughts of what I was doing or with whom had stopped me. In all honesty, I don’t think anything short of being forcibly wrenched away from him by someone else would have stopped me from responding to his kiss.