Matt Sanders

He was still sitting up, but Matt Sanders had gone to sleep on her couch, Aubree noted. Another woman might have thought it wasn't a very exciting end to what had turned out to be a wonderful evening.

But, staring at him mesmerized, Aubree thought it was perfect.

Sometime during the night--around the time she had made that announcement about spending Christmas alone, intended to solidify in her own mind and her independence, but something turning pathetically maudlin instead--he had let go of some finely held tension in him.

Now, she loved watching him sleep. She could study him to her heart's content without the embarrassment of him knowing.

And so she indulged in the guilty pleasure of just looking at him: the crumple of dark hair against his collar, the lashes so thick they could have been ink-encrusted, and cast soft shadows that contrasted the hard angles of his face, cheekbones, nose, chin.

His jaw was relaxed. And he didn't snore.

Sighing with the oddest contentment, she got up, finally, moved the hot chocolate from where he had sent it on the ottoman and unplugged the Christmas lights. She fetched a blanket. Her intention was to toss it lightly over him and tuck it around him. But his head was tilted at an odd angle, so she gently leaned over and put pressure on his shoulder. He sighed, leaned, and she tucked a pillow behind his head.

Better, except that she felt reluctant to remove her hand from his shoulder.

He reached up and took her wrist, yanked gently. "Lie down beside me."

She knew he was sleeping, or in that groggy stage between being asleep and being awake where he didn't really know who she was or what he was asking.

His guard had come way down tonight. Now he was in a really vulnerable state, and admitting something he would probably not normally admit.

He did not want to be alone.

Just like her.

She knew she should disengage his fingers one by one from her wrist and tiptoe off to her own room. Probably he would wake sometime in the night, be embarrassed to find himself asleep on her couch and disappear.

So she knew what she should do. But it seemed all of her life had been about shoulds The one time she'd rebelled and not put her own life on hold because she should defer to her fiance's more lucrative career it had ended rather badly.

So, maybe she'd become even more attached to shoulds than before.

For all it's talk of joy of freedom, wasn't Bliss: The extraordinary Joy of Being a Single Woman just another book of shoulds? It was a desperate need for an instruction manual to guide her through her life, to make the rules for her. Hadn't the book just provided another excuse not to rely on herself, not to risk following her instincts, not to risk taking control of her own life?

This was the truth: there was no instruction manual for life.

No one was going to grade her on what she did next. It was possible no one even cared. Her mother was in Thailand. Her father had long ago replaced his first family.

So why not do what she truly wanted? Why not do what would give her a moment's pleasure, even if that pleasure was stolen?

She didn't have to stay tucked into Matt's side. She could just see what it felt like, enjoy it for a few minutes and then go to bed.

With a sigh of pure surrender, Aubree sat on the edge of the couch, leaned tentatively into him. He was so solid it was like leaning against a stone, except the stone was deliciously sun-warmed.

He let go of her wrist, but his arm, freed, circled her waist and pulled her deep into his long leanness. For a moment, she felt as if she couldn't breathe.

What was she going to say if he woke up suddenly and completely?

She held her breath, waiting, but he didn't wake up. If anything his breathing deepened, touched the sensitive skin of her ear, felt on her neck exactly as she had always known it would, heated, as textured as silk.

She willed herself to relax, and as she did, she noticed awareness of him deepening. Her own heart seemed to rise and fall with his each breath. He was not at all hard lines as she had first thought. no, he radiated warmth, and his skin, taught over muscle, bone, sinew, had the faintest seductive give to it.

There, she told herself, she had felt it. She could get up and go to her own bed now, satisfied that she had followed her own instincts.

Except it was harder than she could have imagined to get up, to leave the warmth and strength of him, to walk to her lonely room and her cold bed.

It was harder than she could have ever imagined to walk away from what was unfolding inside of her. A brand-new experience. A very physical feeling of connection. Closeness. Awareness.

A physical experience that had a mental component...

For as she snuggled more deeply into him, Aubree felt the moment begin to shine as if it had a life of it's own.

Her mind struggled to put a label on the level of sensation she was experiencing. And then it succeeded.

Bliss.

Aubree fell asleep in the circle of his arms. And then woke in the morning to winter sunshine pouring through her windows.

For a moment, she felt it again, bliss.

But then she had realized why she had awoken. It was because he was awake. Oh, God. Why hadn't she just enjoyed the sensation for a moment and then gone to bed as she had originally planned?

It would have saved them both the terrible embarrassment of this situation.

Now it felt horribly awkward. He hadn't even been fully awake--maybe not even partially awake--when his hand had encircled her wrist and he had asked her to lie down with him.

What was he going to say now?

What the hell do you think you're doing?

Aubree could feel her whole body stiffening, bracing itself for his rejection.

Instead, his fingertips brushed her cheek.

"Hey," he said softly, something of discovery in his voice, "you have a print on your cheek again."

He didn't kiss it this time, though, just put her away from him, got to his feet and stretched.

The rumpled T-shirt lifted as he stretched his arms over his head, showing her the taut washboard of his stomach.

Her gaze drifted upward to his face. he was smiling. He didn't seem to find the situation awkward or embarrassing at all.

"Hmm." he said thoughtfully, "I guess now I know what's so great about sleepovers."

He was not sorry. It occurred to her that he hadn't been asleep at all when he'd invited her to cuddle with him. It hadn't been an accident. Or a case of groggy mistaken identity.

"Is my hair standing straight up?" she asked him.

He cocked his head. "No. More sideways."

That's what wasn't so great about sleepovers. And what now? Did she offer him breakfast? Did she show him the door?

He had his cell phone out of his pocket, scrolling through it. "No calls from Ace," he said with relief.

It was the mark of what kind of man he was that Aubree had not even known he had a cell phone until that moment.

Karl's had been more than a cell phone: it could practically start his car on command, and she realized now that Karl's cell phone had been like a third party in their relationship.

And that it would never be like that with Matt Sanders.

"But I think I better go get her. Saturday is our day. She's pretty fussy about that."

"Okay." Was she being dismissed? That made her feel so bereft she couldn't even tease him about not going shopping this time.

"You want to spend our day with us?"

Her mouth fell open.

"I promised Ace a sleigh ride."

A sleigh ride?

She had to say no. Look at how she had just spilled the beans to him last night about her whole life history! Look how she had reacted when she thought he was not going to be included in his plans for the day!

Bereft.

No, throwing out the rule book did not mean leaving herself wide-open to hurt. And to get involved with this man that had the potential to make her redefine hurt.

On the other hand, a sleigh ride?

Aubree nearly sighed out loud. It was the kind of family outing her childhood dreams had been full of. Despite her mother creating a picture perfect Christmas, there had never been the connection of a perfect Christmas. Christmas activities had involved entertaining, not playing.

Aubree had dreamed of tobogganing and skating and sleigh rides. She had dreamed it in such perfect detail that she could picture it already, with startling clarity. The three of them--her, Matt, Ace--nestled in a sleep red sleigh, their legs covered in a soft, plaid blanket.

He would be holding the reins of a spirited white stallion. The horse would snort and throw up clouds of snow with each prancing footfall. The air would be full of diamond ice crystals and the sound of bells.

There was an old-fashioned romance about his invitation that was irresistible.

"I'd love to join you and Ace on a sleigh ride," Aubree said.

Even though it was against her better judgement, this thing was unfurling inside her, like a flag. More than happiness. More than excitement. More than anticipation.

This time it was familiar to her, so Aubree identified it much more quickly.

"Happy," Matt said.

She preened that he had recognized her mood so quickly.

"That's Ace's pony's name. It's kind of like when people name a Great Dane Tiny. He's not that great with a sleigh."

Okay, so he hadn't recognized her mood. And the white steed was out. Still, gliding across the fields was gliding across the fields.

"I'll come back for you in an hour or so," he promised.

And he was gone, which was good, because she had been gravely tempted to lean forward, and close her eyes and offer her lips as a form of goodbye.

"You're dreaming," she warned herself as she heard his vehicle roar to life outside.

In fact, it would have been too easy to dismiss the whole thing as a dream, except that her coat hangers were hung and her Christmas tree was up. Except the lights winked from the branches, and the star, that age-old symbol of hope, shone bright from the very top of that tree, a pinnacle she could not have reached without a ladder.

It would be easy to dismiss the whole thing as a dream, except that Aubree looked in the mirror, her hair was standing up sideways and her cheek held the perfect imprint of his shirt.