Cole For Christmas

“Nobody better be looking out the window,” she murmured without lifting her head. “Otherwise we’ll never be able to convince them you’re not my boyfriend.”

“Does it matter that much what they think?” he asked. His breath was warm against her temple.

“It’s not so much what they think as what they’ll do,” she said. “They’re crafty. They like you. They’ll throw us together whenever they can.”

“Is that why you never brought Larry Lipinski home?”

“I never brought Larry home because he was a chronic liar,” she said. “I couldn’t trust him.”

He was silent for a moment. “Then why did you date him?”

“It’s not like I knew he had a Pinocchio complex ahead of time,” she said. “But we’re getting off the subject. We were talking about why you can’t spend tomorrow with us.”

She felt his body stiffen. “I already said I would.”

“I have an idea about that.” She spoke into his chest, finding it easier to deliver her news when she wasn’t looking into his devastatingly attractive face. “When I go back inside, I’ll tell them you remembered accepting another invitation.”

“But I didn’t.”

“They won’t know that. It’s the perfect plan.”

“You say that like it’s already been decided.”

Realizing she couldn’t drive home her point while talking to his chest, she lifted her head. His sensuously curved lips had thinned and his eyes had hardened into chips of blue ice, not the mark of a happy man.

“It has been decided,” she said firmly.

“No,” he said, shaking his dark head emphatically. His jaw firmed. “You decided. I didn’t. This isn’t like at work where your word goes, Anna. Your family invited me. I have some say in whether I show up.”

She felt her eyes widen. “You can’t mean you actually want to spend Christmas with my family?”

“I like your family,” he said. She got ready to argue that he’d never have met her family if it hadn’t been for her but he wasn’t through talking. “And it would sure beat staying home alone.”

The argument died on her lips. Alone, he’d said. “You mean you really don’t have plans?”

“I told you. I’m new in town. I don’t know many people.”

“Nobody invited you over?”

“A couple friends in San Diego, but I decided to stay here. I didn’t think it would bother me to spend Christmas alone,” he said, then gazed at her so intently she was surprised his glasses didn’t fog up. “Until your family invited me to spend it with all of you.”

She sighed. “You don’t play fair, Cole Mansfield.”

A corner of his mouth kicked up. “Does that mean you’re as much of a sucker for a guy alone on Christmas Day as you are for one going solo on Christmas Eve?”

“Not quite, but close.” Now that they were no longer at odds, she was intensely aware of her body humming in sensual awareness against his. That called to mind, once again, their problem. “Tell you what, you can come tomorrow on one condition.”

A fat snowflake drifted down from the sky and hit her nose, distracting her from what she’d been about to say. It was followed by another and then another. She raised her eyes and saw hundreds of white flakes leisurely falling to earth against the gray blanket of night.

“It’s snowing,” she said, grinning up at him in delight.

Almost instantaneously, she heard voices in the distance break into “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.” Making sure to stay in the warm circle of Cole’s arms, she turned to watch a party breaking up across the street. The departing guests were singing. Most of them had their arms flung around each other.

She giggled. “It looks like the Gumberts can’t restrain themselves.”

“Neither can I. Not any longer,” Cole said in a strangled voice. His arms tightened at her back and she felt the tension in him give way as he gathered her close.

Even before she turned all the way back around, she knew he meant to kiss her. He was so tall that avoiding his mouth would have been a simple matter of bowing her head. Instead, with her blood thrumming and her senses singing, she lifted her head and met him halfway.

In Anna’s experience, first kisses were usually clumsy, with neither party sure exactly how to please the other. But Cole’s mouth molded to hers as though it had been designed to fit there, like the interlocking piece of a puzzle.

His lips, warm and tasting vaguely of the fine red wine he’d drunk at dinner, moved gently, persuasively against her mouth. The lower part of his face was vaguely scratchy against her smooth skin, underscoring his potent masculinity.

Intoxicating sensations poured through her, surprising in their intensity. She could feel his erection against the lower part of her stomach, and a swirling, liquid heat settled deep inside her.

She moved her hands from his waist, up the hard contours of his chest and circled them around his neck. If she didn’t anchor herself, she was afraid she’d get drunk on his kiss and sink bonelessly to the sidewalk.

His tongue slipped inside her mouth, feeling like heated velvet. She moaned, and a heady sensation shot straight to her head.

She was getting drunk on his kiss.

She angled her mouth to give him greater access, wanting to get closer to him. She almost cried out in dazed protest when he lifted his head, but then the cool feel of the snow falling on her face penetrated her haze.

The snow reminded her of where she was. She blinked once so that his face came into stark focus. She needed to remind herself of who she was with: Cole Mansfield, the man angling for her job. Lines of strain rimmed his mouth and his glasses were fogged.

“If we don’t stop now,” he said in a low growl, “I’m afraid your neighbors across the street will get more of a show than they bargained for.”

Although an unwise part of her wanted to cling to him, she resolutely loosened her arms from around his neck. She stepped back from the protection of his overcoat and the chill of the night immediately enveloped her.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow then,” she said, trying to resurrect the businesslike tone she used at the office and failing miserably.

One of his large hands came out to brush the hair back from her face, an intimacy she shouldn’t have allowed him. But then hair touching paled in comparison with lip locking. He gave her a sexy, lopsided smile.

“You never did tell me that condition,” he said.

She drew a blank until it occurred to her that she had been about to place a provision on him spending Christmas day with her family.

“Of course, the condition,” she repeated, stalling while she searched her muddled brain for it. Finally, it came to her. “Tomorrow, you need to make it clear to my family that we’re not involved.”

His dark eyebrows arched. “In that case, I’ll need one to last me.”

Before she could guess his intention, he cradled her head between his large hands and brought his mouth down on hers. Their initial kiss had exceeded every expectation she’d ever had about first kisses, but this kiss surpassed it.

This time, there was nothing tentative about the way they came together. Their mouths opened, their tongues tangled in an erotic dance and her insides quaked so hard the rumbling might have registered on the Richter scale.

He held her head steady but it wasn’t necessary, not when she couldn’t gather the will to move away. Knowing that she shouldn’t be kissing him didn’t seem to matter, not when the heat was back, making a mockery of the winter night.

She met his passion, ravishing his mouth the same as he did hers. Her mind seemed to switch off so only sensation remained. Again he was the one who drew back, but she couldn’t have said for certain how much time had passed: seconds, minutes, hours.