“Ask me to stay, Cat.” He gave the order calmly, quietly. She blinked, opened her mouth to argue. But her body didn’t want her to argue. Her body wanted to curl up next to Noah’s heat, wanted to wake up to that soft look and those strong hands.

But, damn it, her body also wanted pizza and a Jack and Coke and deep fried Snickers. Her body did not rule her mind.

“Stay with me. Please.” The words were out of her mouth before she could corral her traitorous urges.

He pulled her back against him, his lean, hard body cradling hers. Cat resisted the urge to relax, but his heat and the gentle stroke of his hand over the curve of her hip were impossible to fight.

“I have questions,” she said into the dark.

“Okay,” Noah sighed indulgently into her hair. “Fire away.”

“Your mother. Why is she… the way she is? And why is the Christmas Festival so important to you personally?”

He took another breath, let it out slowly as if he were carefully choosing his words. “My dad was an alcoholic gambler. But I didn’t know that until years later. All I knew when I was five or six was that he scared me. There was never enough food. Never any money. The house was never warm enough in the winter. My mother was never happy. They fought a lot at night. He’d disappear for days at a time.”

Cat sat up to look at him. This was not what she’d expected.

Noah swallowed hard and then gave a wry smile.

“One day he was supposed to be watching me while my mom went to the grocery store. He thought I was making too much noise. So, he… he, uh, locked me in the basement. When my mother came home, he was passed out drunk, and she thought I’d wandered away. The cops were called, but it took a while before they finally found me.”

“How long were you down there?” Cat asked quietly.

“Six hours.” There was no amusement in Noah’s dry laugh. She reached out and interlaced her fingers with his. Just a touch. A friendly reminder that the past was where it should be. Far, far behind him.

Cat swore under her breath. “You could have just said ‘none of your business, nosy.’”

He gave her a crooked grin and adjusted his glasses. “After what we just experienced right there,” he said, pointing to the floor, “you want to start drawing boundaries?”

“I don’t want you to feel obligated to tell me…anything,” Cat began. “It’s just—I mean I know it has to be hard for you, and we didn’t exactly get off to the best start.”