“To get a blanket.” His voice echoed back from the hallway.

When he returned, his arms were filled with the taupe velvet quilt from her bed and a couple of spares that were stored in her linen closet.

“Are you planning to camp out on my terrace?”

“Stow it and follow me.”

“Stow it?” She should rip into him for such disrespect, but he grinned at her with his eyebrows raised as though daring her to complain. “Ye right bogtrotting maggot of a jackeen.”

“That’s the Frankie I know and love.” He shouldered open the French door and strode to one of the double-wide lounges that stood in the slanting rays of the pale winter sun. Dropping his pile of quilts onto a table, he picked up the top one and draped it over the lounge, then folded the other two at the foot. Sweeping his arm over the well-blanketed chaise, he said, “Join me. Our combined body heat will keep us warm.”

There was a hot gleam in his eye that made her pause. She should haul one of the quilts to the lounge next to his. But she wasn’t going to. Not after feeling that beautifully muscled body against hers.

She was human, after all.

“Well, if we’re just being practical,” she said, stretching out on the lounge chair.

Liam came down beside her and pulled the quilts over both of them. The frigid wind still cut through the layers, making Frankie curl into Liam’s warmth. “It’s perishing out here.”

“My nefarious plan worked,” he said, slipping his arm under her shoulders and bringing her even closer against him.

As his body heat radiated through her, she let her head rest against his shoulder. The sun struggled to add to the warmth, painting patches of light on the quilt and her cheek. She swiveled her head to see that Liam’s hair glowed nearly red while his eyes took on the colors of a still mountain lake. Then his eyelids drifted downward, and he let out a huff of pure contentment. His body seemed to sink deeper into the cushions of the chaise.

“I’m adding a terrace to the list of requirements for an apartment here,” he said. His eyes snapped open. “You know what you need? A fire pit.”

She couldn’t picture herself sitting by a fire pit alone. It was the kind of thing couples did. “Something to ask Santa for.”

“You’re giving up on world peace?” His eyes were closed again.

Peace was here, sheltered within the strength of Liam’s arm, warmed by his big body, lulled by the familiar Irish in his voice. Right now, the rest of the world could go up in flames and she wouldn’t care. She wasn’t sleepy but she closed her eyes as he did, heightening her other senses. She could hear the occasional snort of a bus or blare of a taxi’s horn, but the sounds were muffled here on the back of her expensively private sanctuary. The sharp, chilled air was almost scentless, until she turned her head to inhale Liam, a mixture now of wool, evergreen, and himself, the essence of man and friend and something more that sent an ache of yearning through her.

A helicopter roared overhead, reminding her that the world was still there, would intrude, as he went to work tomorrow, molding his new team into the contenders that would fill all the seats of Yankee Stadium. She would do what she had done twenty-three years ago: send him away for his own good. Back then, it had been to soccer. Now, it would be to find a woman who could give him the family he deserved.

But she wanted a memory to keep with her. Something to fill in the empty spot of the tree when it was taken down after the holidays.

She shifted onto her side and lifted her hand to graze the reddish blond glitter of stubble on his chin, feeling the rasp of it on her fingertips. Although he didn’t appear to move, his body somehow pulled tight.

She drew a line along the diagonal of his jaw to the shadow of a cleft in his chin, tracing that shadow up to his bottom lip. When she dragged her finger over the smooth curve of it, she felt his chest rise on a sharp intake of breath.

The strong arcs of his eyebrows gleamed slightly darker than his hair, so she tested the texture of them, softer than she’d expected. His hair tempted her, the thick waving auburn showing a few threads of silver at the temples. Combing her fingers through it so that it fell onto his forehead, she arranged it into a curl before she stroked it back into place again.

“There’s more to me than a pretty face,” he said, his voice taking on the peaty rasp of a strong whiskey.

She felt a little drunk from it all, as she feathered down the column of his throat and under the quilt, flattening her hand on the middle of his chest. His heart beat hard under her palm but the damned thick sweater once again prevented her from feeling what she wanted. However, she hadn’t gotten where she was by letting obstacles stand in her way.

She skimmed her hand down to the sweater’s ribbed hem, feeling the buckle of his belt and the denim of his jeans as she slipped her hand under the wool and the cotton tee shirt beneath that. She heard herself make a sound of satisfaction as she found the satin of his bare skin with a glaze of hair in the center. The wall of his abdomen contracted at her touch and he groaned, his breath ruffling through her hair.

“I can’t decide if I want to live or die right now,” he rumbled.

One hand wasn’t enough, so she levered herself up on one elbow, throwing her leg over his. He caught on fast and used his cradling arm to push her up and over to straddle his hips. She felt the ridge of his erection hard underneath her. But she took her time as she skated her palms and fingertips over the rolling contours of his abdomen, inching his sweater higher so she could see as well as touch. His skin was paler here, although she remembered how tan he would get in the summer, even in rainy Ireland, because he and his mates played shirts-and-skins. Despite his reddish hair, he didn’t burn, but turned a golden toast. Which was probably why he generally chose the skins side.

“Are the scars from cleats?” She traced a white slash of hard, smooth tissue along his side.

“And surgeries.” He twitched as she trailed her fingers along his rib cage. “When you play hard over the years, things stop bending and start to break.”

She pushed the sweater higher so that she bared the flat, dusky circles of his nipples. As she put her thumbs to them, feeling the different texture of the darker skin, he hissed in a breath. She glanced down to see his hands clenched around wads of the quilt underneath them. “Are you cold?” she teased.

He let loose a string of Gaelic. Her translation skills were rusty, but it was something to the effect that she was an evil witch sent to drive him out of his several-expletives mind. She laughed and flicked her thumbs over his nipples, now peaked from the cold and her touch.