Lone Star Christmas

“So?”

Another silence fell, this one fraught with tension. “So...he can’t even figure out what a daddy is. Yet.” Nash lounged against the counter, legs crossed at the ankle, his hands braced on either side of him. “Except that he knows he wants one and doesn’t have one.”

Her jaw took on the determined tilt he was beginning to know so well. “Brian will get over it.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“He is going to have to,” Callie insisted, looking Nash right in the eye, “because I am not going to marry again without love. And I’m not going to marry for purely romantic reasons, either.”

* * *

HER WORDS WERE TRUE. Nevertheless, Callie still wished with all her heart that she hadn’t said them. Hadn’t revealed nearly so much about herself to the man standing opposite her.

Nash looked shocked. “So you won’t marry again, period.”

His low, masculine voice sent a thrill through her. “Nope.” Determined to keep him at arm’s length, she continued, “Once you’ve had the best, anything that follows is bound to be second-rate, and who wants that, right?”

His chuckle was warm and seductive. Gazing down at her, as if she had just given him the opening he needed, he turned to face her, trapping her between the counter and his big hard body. “Not even for companionship and sex?” he taunted softly.

Pretending she couldn’t feel the sizzle of awareness sifting between them, she backed up as much as she could, which turned out to be about half an inch. “Why do you keep bringing the subject back around to sex?”

He remained close. Still not touching her, he shrugged. “Not sure.” His gaze traced the shape of her lips before returning evocatively to her eyes. “Just seems to be on my mind whenever I’m around you.”

Hers, too. She flattened her hand across his chest. “Well, stop thinking about it.” Her attempt to shove him aside failed.

He remained as unmovable as a two-ton boulder. Dipping his head, he kissed the back of her forearm. “Easier said than done.”

Her entire body leaped into flame. And he hadn’t so much as actually touched her yet. She lifted her hand away from the hard musculature of his broad chest and the slow, steady beat of his heart. “Listen to me, Nash Echols, I am not the woman for you.”

He flashed another thoughtful half smile, then lowered his head and slanted it across hers. “Actually, Callie,” he said, pausing to deliver a gentle, persuasive kiss, “you might be just what I need.” Hands still braced on the counter on either side of her, he kissed her again, even more provocatively this time. “And I might be just what you need,” Nash persisted, trailing kisses over the nape of her neck, across her collarbone. “Since you’re in the market for sex-with-no-strings-attached...”

Callie’s eyes shuttered closed, but she forced them open. Forced herself to look him in the eye. “I never actually said that.” Although she had been thinking it, at least whenever he was around.

His chuckle remained confident. “Speaking hypothetically is one step away from actually doing something. You know that.”

Fine. So maybe the idea of going without making love again—ever—was not only depressing, it was a tad unrealistic, too, given the signals her body had been transmitting the past few days.

But not about to give him the satisfaction of being right, she squared her shoulders. “I didn’t say I wanted the sex to be with you.”

He looked down at her old, loose chambray shirt—seeming to visually strip her naked, to see what was beneath. “Not verbally. Physically,” he looked again, as if he could tell her nipples had peaked, “you seem to be hinting at just that.”

She moaned as his hands slid under her blouse, moved upward to cup her breasts. “I knew you were trouble the first day we met.”

He bent to kiss her again. Slowly, tantalizingly. “But it’s the kind of trouble you want to be in. Would be in, if you weren’t so set on living the life of a nun.”

One button was undone, then the next, and the next. “And it’s a damn shame to see you so alone.”

She willed herself to move, but found her legs would not cooperate. Nor would her knees. She swayed back against the counter, holding on to the edge on either side of her. “Why?”

The side of his hand moved across her collarbone, lower still, to the valley between her slowly rising and falling breasts. “Because you’re young and vital and beautiful.” His fingers grazed across her skin. “And, judging from your display of temper the other day, have way too much passion locked away inside.”

Passion that welled up, unchecked, whenever she saw him. Passion that—like now—made her helpless to fight the desire roiling inside her. She moved her hands up to his shoulders, intending to push him away and failing. “You don’t know anything about me,” she whispered, looking deep into his dark silver eyes. “Not really.”

He reached around behind her, unfastening her bra, caressing and claiming her beneath the sheer lace cloth. “I know,” he rasped, “that widow or not, you miss being kissed. Touched. Loved.”

“I do. Not—” Her words were smothered by the feel of his lips on hers.

She meant to resist him, she really did, but the heat and pressure of his mouth sent a thrill spiraling through her. For too long she’d been treated with kid gloves by everyone around her. For too long, she’d felt only half alive. Yet now, with his hands on her skin, his mouth on hers, that was no longer true. She was more alive than she had been in her entire life.

“See?” he whispered, stepping back. “That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”

She exhaled slowly, wishing there were some way to discretely refasten her bra. As embarrassment and anger surged within her, she scowled at him and turned away. “I should have known you wouldn’t be a gentleman for long.”

He stepped behind her, fastened her up again. Then, coming around to face her, reached for the buttons on her blouse, declaring proudly, “I thought my kiss was very...gentlemanly.”

She shoved his hand away and put her shirt together herself. “Erotic, yes.” She looked down to make sure the buttons were in the right holes.

He chuckled. “I can go with that.”

Finally, Callie was dressed again, but her breasts were still tingling. Lower still, a wildfire of need raged.

She drew a deep, bolstering breath, determined to put him in his place. “But let’s be clear here. A gentleman wouldn’t have kissed me at all. Especially after promising me that he wouldn’t!”

Mischief danced in Nash’s eyes. “You’re right. It is all a little too soon. This being our third date, after all.”

“Third!” Callie sputtered. Now she knew why she had never dated a bad boy before. They were definitely too much trouble.

“The first was the night you brought me dinner. The second, Thanksgiving.”

“There were twenty-six people here, if you count my in-laws!”

“I admit it was kind of a group thing. Till after...” He waggled his brows suggestively. “Then, it was just you and me. And then of course, there’s tonight. I really enjoyed tonight.”

The hell of it was, so had she. From the moment he had stepped through her front door, she had felt incredibly excited and alive. But that was neither here nor there. “You may annoy the heck out of me.”

He grinned.

“But this isn’t seventh grade.”

“You’re right.” He rubbed the flat of his hand beneath the underside of his smoothly shaven jaw. “I never went to second base in seventh grade...and I suspect you didn’t, either.”

Ignoring that last comment, she plunged ahead. “Furthermore, I don’t get involved with sexy upstarts. Never have. Never will.”

His expression sobered, all but his eyes, which were still gleaming merrily. “Good to know.”

Feeling like a schoolmarm in front of an unruly class, Callie lifted a lecturing hand. “From this point forward, there is not going to be anything going on between us—except cooperation of a business nature.”

Nash went back to the table to claim the serving dishes. “Speaking of which...did Frank and Fiona Sanders tell you that they have invited me and my crew to join the Old-Fashioned Christmas Celebration at Sanders Mountain on December twenty-first?”