by Vivian Wood
I lean in closer, curling my fingers around the soft hair spread across her delicate nape.
“Does that answer your question?”
There’s a barely-contained fire happening behind Violet’s gem-like irises as she faces me—a muted heat glowing beneath her glare. I’m drawn to it. Like a moth to a flame. She looks as if she wants to take a pull closer, but doesn’t dare. And I know it… Because I feel the same thing.
Fucking scared that I might cross another boundary. Scare her off.
Violet’s fidgeting and tightly squeezed leg-cross was always a tell-tale sign of her nerves and even now, as she sits—her stance proud, one taut leg over the other, I know she’s scared of me. I can feel it.
And not that he-might-be-a-serial-killer type of way. But the other way.
An even worse way. That I-wish-I-didn’t-want-touch-you-so-fucking-much.
I know. Because I feel it in this moment, just staring at her. Regret I’d forgotten I had reaches inside my tequila-coated throat, making it sore. And I wish for so many things. I wish for willpower. I wish I had the man Violet deserves inside of me.
I open my mouth, unprepared for what I’m about to say when a camera lens—dark and large—shoves its way against the car window. The flash that follows is blinding, and I blink quickly only to open my eyes and find that the entire town car is surrounded by men and women in suits and microphones. The local media has found us, and they scream questions through the town car’s dark tinted windows.
“Heath!” A reporter in a fur-line trench coat shouts through the colored glass. “Can you speak on the rumors about King & Sparrow taking the Chris Jackson case?”
Fuck. How did the bastards see that I was in here? The tint is darker than the dead of night. I scramble to secure my clothes before re-buttoning Violet’s blouse, and with a press of a button to lower the partition and a frustrated “Drive!” to the chauffeur, we pull away from the curb outside of Violet’s brownstone, leaving a trail of cold correspondents in our wake.
The clamor of the crowd fades to the background noise of the bustling city around us, and as we speed away, we can’t help the burst of laughter that breaks from our throats, the threat of being caught with our pants down a visceral reality that we barely escaped.
Violet turns to me first, adjusting the button-down blouse my hands were just beneath. She smirks in my direction, dazzling me with her pale blue eyes. Her long lashes are a flutter against her pale cheeks, and she glances up at me, her button nose high, her bottom lip just as delectably red enough to bite. She inhales, closing her eyes.
“Can’t we ever have just have one normal moment?”
I snort. “I don’t know if anything between you and I was ever normal.”
“God forbid…” she hesitates, her head of ginger-colored hair tilting. She looks innocent, so sweet. Sweet enough to eat and I know that if I keep looking at her like I have since I first saw her, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Spread her wide for my tasting until my tongue can’t take anymore. I keep my gaze out the window as she silently regards me, her scrutiny more severe than ever before. She leans forward.
“And you having a constant driver doesn’t make it any more normal. Why? Do you have some type of secret life?”
Not the type that you think. I lie. “Hardly.”
“Hiding from a wife?”
“Nah.”
“Hiding from a husband?”
I stare at her, my eyes slanting. She shrugs. “What? I thought you said you had fun in the Rainbow Room…” She smiles, bowing her head, and I want to kiss the side of her mouth. She looks back up again. “You know, I haven’t thanked you yet for what you did…the other day in the office. When you helped me. It’s been easy for the senior partners to ignore me—keep things a secret, and I sort of…” She wrings her hands. “Reacted badly. Twice. With you showing up and then announcing yourself as Head Partner. I think—I think I went a little nuts.”
“Violet,” I say her name, reveling the taste. I finally look at her. “What I’ve put you through—leaving like that for LA after the night we spent together? Hell, what this company has put you through? It would make any fucking body nuts. And just for the record…” I tip her chin with my finger, liking the feel of her. “You are nuts…but the good kind. Normal is boring—everyday. And there’s nothing everyday about you, Violet Keats.”
She stares up at me, suddenly serious. The atmosphere in the small back seat of the car suddenly shifts and I can feel that Violet is ready to say something, but suddenly the car stops. I glance out the window only to find that we’ve finally parked in front of my apartment building—the BatCave location of my penthouse. A place I never take women.
This is a first.
I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be here at fucking all.
In this city. Running my father’s firm. Talking to a woman I can’t touch. In a world I wasn’t invited to…
Again.
The bad decisions just keep on coming, but the moment I stepped into the bar and found Violet, the second I sat down beside her and got a whiff of her fantastic fucking smell, I knew I couldn’t just walk away. Not now. The sound of Violet’s soft sniff is imprinted on my mind and when she turned her teary-eyed gaze to me, sadness in her eyes, anguish molding her pretty mouth into a line, I realize that there is more to this attraction than what I once thought.
I liked this girl. I liked her a hell of a lot more than I let on.
But she doesn’t like me.
She brushed me off when we first met again in the bar with Brett and Elsie, ignored me in the office. Every day at King & Sparrow, before I could touch her, tango with her, say anything at all, she would head for the exit, half-sprinting on her way out, and like the puppy dog I’d suddenly become in her presence, I would fall in step behind her, scrambling for what the fuck to say.
All that would usually come out was a bark instead.
Right now, it sucks hairy fucking balls what I’m doing to her with David King’s bet—and I know it, and seeing her like this, saddened and alone, makes me want to stroke her misery away with my tongue…or something else that was just as soft that is suddenly rising, as I stare at her beautiful face, dying to wipe her salty tears dry. I touch her arm, lightly stroking.
“Come on,” I urge. “You’ve been mopey since I saw you sitting at the bar. Doesn’t the holiday spirit usually cheer you women up?” I ask with a small smirk.
She snorts. “Doesn’t it look like it?”
“Tell you the truth…it looks like Christmas came to town and exploded.” I glance at the decor outside our windows and then her face. “And… I’m guessing that’s why you’re giving me that look right now that says you want me to slam you in the fist with my face…” I tilt my head, turning to look at her further. “You don’t like this holiday stuff?”
“I mean, I did once…” She smiles wistfully out the window. “But I don’t know. Someone… Well, Emily made me realize that maybe I could use a little more Christmas spirit.” She glances back at me, and I grin. Her face falls. “So, yeah, I do like this stuff. Just not for me anymore.”
She looks up and down the decorating buildings, and I find myself shrugging. “So…?”
She spins to me. “So what?”
“Maybe we need to make sure the firm gets more holiday cheer,” I add in. “My father would hate it…” I smile at the thought. “But adding a couple of bad lights and some tacky streamers into the King & Sparrow office wouldn’t be the end of the fucking world. If it was, my eighth birthday would have been followed by the coming of the apocalypse. My Serbic mother and her plight to act like an ‘American.’ Looked like the Fourth of July had fucked a bag of sprinkles.”
She laughs, a light breathy sound that makes me want to bend her over right now, and when I look into her eyes, this time, a light dims the sadness that was there earlier at the bar. And I feel the need to keep it there.
I slap a hand against the seat, sliding over her
seat belt. I buckle it before fastening my own beside her in the back seat.
“Fuck it.” I reach towards the town car’s roof. “Let’s get out of here then.”
“Where are we going?”
“Where all the magic happens.” I tap her chin. “Just sit tight. I know a place that will take care of all of your needs.” I don’t tell her that the other place is my bedroom… though the dick part of me, the piece-of-shit liar part of me, is dying to. I keep the tidbit to myself. I lower the partition, and the driver finally looks back, his brown eyes widening as he takes in my beautiful date. His gaze darts between us.
“Where to?”
“Lead the way, Rudolph. The lady here needs Christmas decorations. And make it stat.”
Violet laughs softly, obviously disbelieving me. But when the driver pulls away from the curb, heading towards the store, the smile falls from her face, replaced by a look of shock. She glances at me. “Wait, what…?”
Chapter Nineteen
HEATH
Santa Claus, my ass.
I’m spending way more money than the fat man ever could. And I have no problem dropping the cash.
It’s St. Heath to save the day. For once.
Stuck in a red and green hell, stranded in the center of a jam-packed Holiday department store, I load a million things into my cart until there’s nothing to load anymore.
A flood of bright fluorescent lights burn down on me. Surrounded by a sea of soccer moms scrambling for last-minute Christmas presents, my eyes scan over the big bright banners celebrating the holiday seasons, the sales signs as far as the eye can see.
If this was a year ago, I’d be drinking alone in my penthouse, thinking about how much I hate the holidays.
But I’m actually having fun.
It’s one of the first times I’m able to do so without food, a friendly drink or fucking, and I know, without a doubt in my mind, that this is new territory for me. A whole new experience.
Even amidst the throngs of runaway toddlers ripping through the aisles and last-minute holiday shoppers swarming the store, I’m surprisingly enjoying myself.
Maybe the holiday season is rubbing off on me. Maybe it’s Marilyn’s advice. Maybe it’s something else.
I have a sneaking suspicion that something else is the sensual woman strutting towards me, looking every bit of a Christmas gift in a Santa-hat and stockings that skim just below her tiny knees.
She twirls in the aisle and I can’t help but goddamned grin, my breathing growing shallow as she smiles back, fanning a hand along her curvy body.
“I couldn’t resist. These socks were on sale. Some of the ladies at the office might love it.”
“So you decided it’s best to dress up as a Peewee Herman nightmare?”
“Come on.” She scoffs, looking down at the outfit. “It’s not that bad.”
“Not that bad?” I chuckle as I circle her, carrying a sleigh rides worth of ornaments in my arms. “Keats, you look like an oversized peppermint stick.”
“Oversized?” She grunts. “I resent that. I think I look just the right size of peppermint. The only thing here that’s oversized is your mouth, Grinch.” She points, heading back towards a second aisle. I slant a hand out, stopping her from leaving, pulling her close.
“Yes. What a big mouth I do have.” I lean closer. “The better to eat you with, my dear…” My voice sinks, and Violet shudders, looking up at me. Blue eyes tinged with desire, hinting at a hidden longing, I’m tempted to kiss her, take her in my arms and let her violate every part of me she wants to.
But I let her go.
Deciding not to defile the eyes of kiddies traipsing through the store, I check my phone in my pocket for the hundredth time since we’ve been here, my concentration swinging back onto the stock market, my hand thrumming through all the charts, lines and numbers with a nervous thumb.
My composure is nearly shot. Shaky, at best.
The day’s markets have taken a tumble, and with the DOW ending on a down swing, my heart beats just a little harder, my joy at seeing a snowflake-patterned Keats made a little less jolly as my cell phone beeps for the billionth time—just another reminder that my bet with David is looming over my head.
Except the beeps don’t stop.
Not a notification, no. My cell phone is ringing. And as I sling it from my pocket, my face somehow finds the will to smile when I see the name imprinted on my screen. I pick up with a long, lofty sigh.
“How have you been feeling, superwoman? Recovering okay?”
“Trust me.” My sister exhales on the other end of the line. “There’s nothing super about me. I’ve got antiseptic all over my body, bandages all over my ass. Please, if I ever think about getting in a car again, just dunk my head in a vat of water until I stop struggling. At least, that would be a cleaner death.”
“Hey…” I snap back, the word death making my pulse drum. “You’re not fucking dead, Mare. And you’re lucky not to be.”
“Yeah, tell that to my producers who don’t want to see this new ‘mug’ of mine. They told me to rest until I get better before coming on set. Translation: You look like the Elephant Man, and we wouldn’t want you scaring the kiddies.”
“Have faith, supermodel." I press the phone closer to my face. “They’ll go right back to judging you for your outer beauty in no time.”
“You think so?"
“I know so.” I laugh. “So enjoy the time off. You work too hard.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Her tone is softer this time. More subtle. I can tell she’s thinking of something. “Speaking of working, are you still there? I don’t want to see you running yourself into the ground like you always do.”
I hesitate. “I’m not. I’m doing the opposite, actually. Kind of got myself stuck Christmas decoration shopping.”
“You? Christmas? Shopping?”
“Don’t act so surprised.”
“I’m not acting at all,” Marilyn answers. “I thought you hated the holidays. In fact, I know you do. I’m going to have to break out the ice-skates.”
I frown. “Why?”
“Because Hell just froze over.” I can hear her smile over ten miles away. “Who is this impostor and what has he done with my brother, Heath?”
I snort, walking waywardly down a white-tiled aisle. “He’s chopped the real Heath’s balls off and shoved them into a shredder, just for kicks.”
“Uh huh,” Marilyn presses. “And the pod-Heath?”
“He’s carrying two nutcracker figurines, a pile of tinsel and more Christmas lights than you can shake Santa’s cock at.”
“He’s fictional, Heath. Fictional characters don’t have cocks.”
“I’m sure he did before Mrs. Claus got to him.”
“Oh, I see…” she coos, the pitch of her tiny voice twisting as the wheels spin in her suspicious mind. “There’s a ‘Mrs.’ involved. Give. Who’s the girl, Heath? And don’t pretend there isn’t one. You already told on yourself.”
The words stick in my throat. I’m tempted to hold back, but I know my sister. She’ll hear it in my voice or figure it out herself, her cute narrow nose always sticking where it doesn’t belong. Mostly in my business. I take a deep breath, savoring her name. “Violet Keats.”
“You mean the Violet Keats? The Violet Keats you told me you couldn’t stand? My Violet Keats?” she presses.
“Since when has she been your Violet Keats?”
“Since we’ve been hanging out every week after you took off to LA. You do know that I helped her get the job at daddy’s firm?”
“And you’re so humble about it,” I rumble low.
“I am.” My brat sister giggles. “She didn’t need my help. She’s smart, Heath. Really sharp. She’d be a catch to any firm…or man for that matter. So my question is…” she hums, “what in the world is she doing with you?”
“Besides making me question if I have a cock anymore?” I snort with a small laugh. “Teaching me a thing or two about th
e ten different types of tinsels.”
“Tinsel—I know nothing about it. Call me when the conversation is about lipstick. And who, dear brother, said you ever had a cock?”
I glance up at the ceiling, my eyes glued to it as I exhale. “‘Preciate it, sis. Nice talking to you. Thanks for the Christmas spirit.”
She only giggles in response. “Any time, bro. I love you.”
“Love you too, Squirt.”
Ending the call, I can’t help but think about how enamored every Sparrow seems to be with Violet Keats, my gaze catching the gorgeous lawyer out of the corner of my eye. She’s absolutely fucking adorable, when she’s loose like this, laughing—herself.
Within minutes, I send her back to the waiting town car, throwing the rest of the items into the cart. Heading to the cashier, I wonder what will happen when I eventually head back to Hollywood…and how the hell I’m going to get this woman out of my system.
VIOLET
I don’t have nearly enough cheer to drown in.
Tinsel is everywhere, attached along my face and clothes. Streaked across the front of my blue button-down shirt, hanging along stray strands of my ruby hair, any stranger coming into the back seat of Heath’s chauffeured town car might think I’ve been in a hurricane.
A Tropical Shit-Storm is more like it.
I’ve been hit by a Category Five Heath, and the only way I know how to recover is to dive headfirst into a mountain of Christmas.
Sitting in the idling vehicle, my bags are covered in silver glitter, from top to bottom. My southern, Georgia-bred Grandmother Nelly’s voice is somehow in my head, chastising the holiday mess I’m currently making in Heath’s expensive rented car, but it’s the other voice in my head—the low, masculine one that I’m more afraid of. The one that speaks to me in silk-lined, raspy tones.
A rumbling, decadent sound that’s in my ear. Seducing me without my permission.
The wind whips outside the windows, the signs of a new winter storm to come, and as I try to calm my frayed nerves, my fifth attempt of the night, my cell phone rings, sending my fingers flying towards my purse, a trail of white snowflake dust tumbling in its wake.