“My hero,” Caroline said, smiling, and reaching up on tiptoe, gave him a big wet smack on the mouth.

He tensed. She could feel his muscles becoming even harder under her hands, his big hand between her shoulder blades pressing her forward.

His mouth settled over hers.

This kiss was different from the other ones. Maybe he had a whole repertory of them? This was warm, possessive, right from the beginning. He didn’t coax her mouth open with his to test her with little forays of his tongue. Her mouth was already open to him, to the slick feel of him licking inside her mouth. She was still on the step above his and it was wonderful being almost at the same level, so she didn’t have to stretch up to kiss him. She slumped against him, heart beating wildly as he kissed her nearly senseless.

Every stroke of his tongue sent shooting darts of fire all through her, but particularly between her legs. He cupped the back of her head tightly and changed the angle of his mouth so he could delve more deeply inside her, and this time when his tongue touched hers, her vagina fluttered. Oh my God, he was making her vagina contract with his mouth alone!

She pulled back and gazed at him wordlessly, almost frightened at the power he seemed to exert over her body. Caroline had always been so slow to arouse, and here she was having the prelude to an orgasm with a mere kiss.

She had the same effect on him. Under the deep tan and his naturally dark skin, deep red slashes of red rode his high cheekbones and lower, she could definitely feel what she’d done. His penis lay like a column of marble against her belly.

Nervously, Caroline licked her lips. He followed the movements of her tongue closely, breathing hard. When she wet her lips again, his penis surged against her stomach.

Which growled.

Caroline lifted startled eyes to his, blushing furiously. “Sorry,” she gasped, mortified. Her body was making parallel demands—for sex and food—and her head couldn’t keep up. “I guess that’s a sign for me to go cook our dinner.”

“I have another idea.” He bent to kiss the corner of her mouth. “Don’t cook. Why don’t you put some stuff on a tray and bring it into the living room? I’ll light a fire, and we can have a Christmas picnic.” He bent again to her, lightly brushing lips and teeth along the skin of her neck. “I don’t want you spending hours in the kitchen cooking. I want you spending hours with me.”

Oh God, when he did that, she melted. Caroline’s neck arched, and she found herself smiling. How could anything so simple feel so good? He was barely touching her with his mouth, yet it sent pleasure zinging through her body. “Sounds wonderful, but I used up all the wood yesterday. If we want a fire, I’ll have to—”

Jack frowned down at her. “I’ll go to the garage and stack some wood. Then we stuff our faces.” He took her hand and started back down the stairs. Caroline grasped the banister, which had been dangerously loose, and made a point of shaking it. She couldn’t move it at all, it was solid. Jack watched her, smiling faintly.

“You did a good job.”

He nodded his head. “Got an advanced degree in stair and banister repair. Aced the classes.”

Maybe he did have a degree in stair and banister repair. Boiler repair, too.

She was almost certain he had a degree in something, he was surprisingly well-spoken and seemed somehow very knowledgeable about the world. Part of that was the travel, even if to places where sandbags and machine guns trumped museums. They did say that travel was broadening.

He had been an officer, she was almost sure he’d said that. And didn’t officers have to have a college degree? And what was his degree in?

She was suddenly desperately curious about this man, who’d appeared out of nowhere to give her amazing sex and repair her house. “Where did you—” she began, but he was striding away.

“Hurry up with the food, I’m starving too.” His deep voice floated in from the mudroom, and a second later she heard the door to the garage open.

Caroline started ferrying the food out on big trays—cheeses, whole wheat bread, corn bread, focaccia, leftover roast beef, slices of baked ham, butter, lavender honey, homemade chutney, a sliced tomato salad with a drizzle of olive oil, lettuce and arugula salad, carrot and celery sticks with a sour cream dip, a bowl of Greek olives and two slices of chocolate cake—one big and one small.

In the time it took her to bring out several trays of food, Jack had neatly stacked enough wood in the bin to keep the fireplace going for days. It was a job she hated, and she rarely lit the fire because of it, except, of course, when the boiler died. It was dirty, backbreaking work, and he’d done it in the blink of an eye.

It was hard to keep her eyes on what she was doing. Jack was kneeling in front of the fireplace, building a fire, massive thigh muscles straining his jeans, broad back outlined in red from the burgeoning flames, exactly like last night. With any luck, it was a sight she’d be seeing all winter—Jack stoking the flames, the firelight dancing across his strong features.

He moved easily, with grace. He knew what he was doing, too. In no time, a perfect fire was blazing.

Caroline stepped back and looked, pleased, at the spread on the big coffee table. She lit four red candles and placed them on the four corners, and thought it looked like a very festive Christmas meal.

The fire had already begun blazing merrily, the warmth seeping into her bones. Jack stood, brushing his hands, looked at the spread and turned to her. “Looks nice.”

“It does, doesn’t it? So I guess we’re all set—oh! Wine. We finished the bottle last night, I’ll go down to the cellar and get another one.”

“I’ll go. You relax on the couch. Any special bottle?”

Her father had always opened a Burgundy at Christmas. “Get a red, a Burgundy. You’ll find a selection on the far wall. The cellar is—”

He had already disappeared, before she had a chance to tell him that the door to the cellar was next to the kitchen door.

It was completely dark outside. Christmas Day had passed, and it was already Christmas night. A day she’d dreaded since Toby’s death was almost over.

There were no sounds at all outside. Usually, she could hear the sound of the odd car driving by, or a dog barking. Now, they could have been the last human beings on the face of the planet, it was so quiet.

Who knew what was happening out there?

She was feeling so good, maybe world peace had broken out. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Only one way to find out. Caroline clicked the remote control on to the local news channel and found snow. CBS, NBC, CNN…snow.

She began clicking through all the channels when suddenly the remote disappeared from her hand and the TV screen went black.

“I’m not ready for the outside world yet,” Jack said, putting the remote down with one hand and wagging a bottle from side to side with the other. “I think we should be doing our celebrating without any interference from all the yahoos and creeps out there.”

“Okay.” He was perfectly right. “TV wasn’t working anyway. We’ll need a cork—”

Somehow, by some magic, he had the corkscrew already in his hand, and Caroline laughed. The cork came out with the cool little pop of a well-aged bottle, and Jack poured them half a glass each while Caroline filled their plates.

Both of them ate with enormous gusto. Sooner than she’d have thought possible, they’d polished everything off, including the cake crumbs. The bottle was almost finished. Caroline had forgotten to put water out, but who needed water when there was excellent wine? The Burgundy was liquid joy. It was exactly the bottle she would have chosen. He had a sophisticated wine sense, her soldier.

Caroline settled back with a happy sigh into Jack’s arm, bare feet curled over the edge of the coffee table. The fire crackled and hissed merrily.