She whipped around. “Listen, pal. I saw way more of you than I planned on.”
“A bonus.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “You cost me away time with my family.”
“Your sisters,” he said, pulling out that little tidbit from conversations he’d overheard at some point or another. “Three of them, right? That’s a lot of estrogen in one place.”
“Yeah,” she admitted with what might have been a very tiny smile on her mouth. “So much so that my dad chops the wood with an ax instead of the brand-new logger he purchased because it takes about ten times as long.”
“Then you should be thanking me. Like you said, you killed some time here.”
She rolled her eyes and once again turned to the door, and he felt his gut sink to his very cold toes. “Wait.” Moving carefully, he spun her around to face him.
She took in his bare chest and his towel, and swallowed hard.
Just that little involuntary movement made him forget being hurt and cold. In fact, it made him something else entirely, not a great thing while wearing only a towel.
Clearing his throat, he said, “Why don’t we work together on this thing. We—”
Suddenly she frowned, her eyes focusing behind him.
“What?” Moving like a turtle, hoping to God that whatever she was seeing wasn’t a bear, he looked behind him.
“There’s no Christmas decorations,” she said.
He blinked. “It’s a rental cabin.”
“Yes, but you’re staying here alone? Through Christmas?”
“Yes…”
“Without a single holiday decoration?”
Turning, he headed straight to the small bar between the kitchen area and living room. It was past time for a drink of something, preferably something hard that would make him forget why he wanted her to stay. Halfway there, his towel began to slip and in the name of any modesty he might have left, he grabbed it at the last second, receiving another stab of pain for his effort. He stifled his reaction and poured a healthy shot of scotch.
“Thought your neck hurt,” she said, and he could tell by her voice that she’d moved somewhere between the door and where he stood.
“Kills,” he said without even attempting to face her. He did however manage to very slightly tilt his head and toss back the whole shot. And then a second one. Oh, look at that, he was over her already.
“You’re supposed to ask your guest if she wants any.”
“You’re driving. And you’re not my guest. You let yourself in to yell at me and got a peep show in the process.” The hell with this. “Look, either stay and join forces with me on this project or go. Your choice.”
She stared at him, and he couldn’t blame her. Working together was not only a rash idea, it was a stupid one. And given the way she was gaping at him, she knew it.
Whatever. She could let herself out, he didn’t care. He needed some clothes and food and sleep, and he’d take them in any order he could get. Setting the shot glass down, he left her alone to figure her shit out and headed toward the bedroom for his duffel bag, holding on to the towel with one hand and using the other to rub at the back of his aching neck and shoulder. It was starting to seize again, and he paused in the hallway, undecided as to whether to get back into the tub or just pass out on the bed and hope he woke up feeling better.
Pass out, he decided, and very carefully sprawled out on the bed facedown, head carefully turned to the one side that didn’t hurt. He was cold, but to get under the covers meant moving. And he was done moving, so he closed his eyes.
WORK TOGETHER? WAS HE insane?
Dammit, Zoe thought, watching him walk out of the living room. Not crazy. He was moving with such careful purpose that she knew he wasn’t faking the pain.
She couldn’t leave him like that, not without making sure he was going to be okay. And then there was the little matter of the flash drive. Not to mention the fact that she wouldn’t mind getting a peek at his design.
The bathroom was lit but empty. She pulled the plug on the drain but drew the line at picking up his clothes. Then she peered into the bedroom. The bathroom light slanted in, revealing one big and still very naked man on the bed. His shoulders were wide, his back sleek and delineated with strength. The towel was low enough on his hips that she could see the line where his tan faded to pale skin. His butt was…bitable.
The only sound in the room was her own accelerated breathing and…a rumbling stomach.
Not hers. “Jason?”
“Either shoot me or go away.” His stomach rumbled again, and the sound created the oddest reaction in her—tenderness. Now she was the crazy one. “You’re hungry.”
That he didn’t respond was answer enough. She walked into the room and tried to dislodge the blanket beneath him. No go. He was a solid, unmovable log. And when her hand brushed his shoulder, his skin was icy cold. A solid, unmovable frozen log. She tried again to get at the blanket beneath him, except this time the only thing that happened was that his towel loosened.
“You’re determined to see my bare ass again, aren’t you?” he muttered, but didn’t budge an inch.
“Shut up.” Turning, she spied a throw blanket over a chair in the corner and tossed that over him. “Better?”
“Perfect.”
“Do you have anything for the pain?”
“I don’t need anything.”
“Jason.”
“No, I don’t have anything. I’m fine.”
She nodded even though he couldn’t see her, and headed to the door, taking one last look back. “You’re going to be okay, right?”
“Perfect,” he repeated, still not moving.
Once again, he was full of shit. She really needed to get the hell out, but she couldn’t get past one thing. He was going to be here, alone on Christmas, without even a single bough of holly.
Or an ounce of Christmas spirit.
Shaking her head, she returned to the kitchen. He was hungry, and clearly unable to get up and about. She’d just bring him something to eat and be gone.
The refrigerator was empty, and so was the freezer. Then she remembered “Santa’s Helper.” She found the two bags of groceries still on the floor in the entry-way. Chips, cheese, crackers, deli meat, containers of potato salad, chickens wings, apples, a loaf of French bread and beer, along with several candy bars and the local newspaper. Leaving Jason the wings and salad for tomorrow, she sliced up some of the bread and made a sandwich with the cheese and meat. She cut up an apple and completed the meal with a side of the chips. Then she rifled through her purse for aspirin, but found only extra-strength Midol. She brought the plate into the bedroom. “Jason?”
“Are you wearing the Santa’s Helper costume?”
“No.”
“Could you wear the Santa’s Helper costume?”
“Only in your dreams.” She set the sandwich down on the nightstand. “I brought food.”
There was surprise in the ensuing silence and then, with a groan, Jason started for the lamp and groaned again.
Zoe leaned over him and turned it on.
With the slow precision of the inebriated or someone in great pain, he rolled over.
His hair, dampened by his bath, was a rumpled, tousled mess. If she’d let hers dry like that she’d look ridiculous, but on Jason it gave him a dark edge and was disturbingly sexy.
She helped prop him up with some pillows. He let out a sigh of relief when she’d finished, but Zoe wasn’t relieved in the slightest. Sitting at his hip on his bed while he lay naked beneath nothing but a thin blanket and towel was…well, she wasn’t sure exactly.
Liar, an inner voice said. Your nipples are hard. You know exactly what you are—aroused. “Here.” She handed him the two Midol.
“What are they?”
She hesitated. “Feel-happy pills?”
“You carry Vicodin?”
“They’re not quite that happy. They’re Midol.”
He gave her a you-ha
ve-got-to-be-kidding look and retracted his hand as if she’d asked him to touch a spitting cobra. “No.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, it’s all I have. Take them, it’ll help.”
“How do I know you’re not just going to blackmail me later and threaten to tell the guys you got me to take Midol.”
“Trust me, no one is going to hear of this little adventure.”
He took the pills. “So am I going to get all bitchy and start whining now that I’m swallowing chick pills?”
She actually laughed. “No, it’s going to take away your bitchiness and whininess. At least if there’s a God.”
A very small smile curved his lips. “Nice spread,” he said, gesturing to the plate with the perfectly made sandwich, carefully cut down the center, the sliced apple and chips, neatly segregated. “I had no idea you had it in you.”
“You don’t know a lot about me.”
“True,” he said. “You hide from me at work.”
“We’re competitors.”
“We’re coworkers. There’s a difference, not that you’ve ever noticed.” He handed her half the sandwich.
“I can’t,” she said. “It’s for you. And I have to go.”
“Eat first. You’ve got a long drive.” At her surprise, he lifted his good shoulder. “Quincy, you said, right? To your family thing.”
“You actually do listen, I had no idea.”
“You don’t know a lot about me,” he said, mirroring her own words at him. “Eat.”
It was a command, however softly uttered, and she hated commands. She’d grown up with them, dealt with them at work, tolerated them from her older sisters and…everyone. But then he added the coup de grâce, a softly uttered “please,” which sounded more genuine and sincere than anything she’d ever heard from him, and she caved like a cheap suitcase. She took the sandwhich and she ate.
CHAPTER FIVE
THEY SHARED THE SANDWICH and the apple but Zoe flatly refused the chips. “They’re barbecue,” she told Jason, as if this explained it all.
It didn’t. “You don’t like barbecue?” he asked.
“Love them.” But she was staring down the chips as if they were her mortal enemy.
“I’d shake my head in utter confusion,” he said. “If I could move my neck.”
“They’re fattening.”
He stared at her for a beat. “There’s maybe twenty chips on this plate. How many calories could your half possibly be?”
“A million. And you wouldn’t understand,” she said, still staring down at the chips, naked longing on her face.
“Why not?”
“Because look at you.” She waved a hand toward his torso. “You’re perfect.”
He laughed, but she wasn’t laughing along with him. He swallowed the last of his half of the sandwich and ran a finger along her temple, then along her earlobe, enjoying that it made her shiver. “You’re pretty damn perfect yourself, Zoe.”
She closed her eyes. “Don’t.” Then she belied that statement by leaning into him.
His fingers slid into her hair, drawing her closer, then closer still so that she was leaning over him, hands braced on the bed on either side of his hips. “You are,” he breathed against her lips.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “At the office—”
“We’re not at the office.”
“No kidding,” she whispered. Their lips brushed together, and she let out a shaky breath, her eyes soft as her chest settled against his. Her body heat was seeping into him, warming the core of him. She was a strong woman, one of the strongest he’d ever met, and having her melt all over him was the most rewarding thing he’d ever felt.
“Jason?”
He tightened his hold on her, frustrated that he couldn’t move when what he wanted to do was roll her beneath him and feel her body wrap around his. “Yeah?”
“I still don’t like you.”
Somehow, though he was both in pain and aroused as hell, he still had room to laugh.
“But you smell like chips,” she said, close enough that their lips were still nearly touching. “And I like chips. A lot. Goddammit, you’re going to taste good.” She was breathless, and so was he.
Her voice was low and sexy, but somehow surprised and curious. Then her tongue outlined his lower lip and he was the surprised one. “Christ, Zoe.”
“I know.” She pulled back and covered her face with her hands. “God. I’m sorry.” She dropped her hands and pointed at him. “But this is all your fault.”
He laughed again. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted to strangle a woman at the same moment he’d wanted to strip her naked and bury himself inside her. “My fault?”
“Yes! I mean, you’re lying there, hurt and in pain, and I…I can’t stand it when someone’s hurting or in pain. And then there’s the chips. The irresistible barbecue chips, Jason. I mean, why couldn’t it have been plain chips? Plain, I could have resisted—” She started to get up, but he managed to snake his fingers around her wrist.
One little tug and she was back on the bed. Another tug and he put her off balance so that she fell over him.
He threaded his fingers in her hair, tilted her head so he didn’t have to tilt his and kissed her, long and slow and deep. He knew she was right there with him when she moaned low in her throat and pressed up against him, her hands running restlessly over whatever she could reach, making a sound of frustration when she was thwarted by the blanket between them. She tugged, reminding him he was bare-ass naked beneath it. “Zoe,” he said in warning.
“Not done tasting the chips,” she murmured, and brought his mouth back to hers.
Not one to argue with a woman—not when her hands were on the move southward and heading toward home base—Jason gave in, nipping her jaw, running his tongue over the hollow of her throat.
“This is crazy,” she gasped, even as she arched against him, moaning with pleasure. Her suit jacket was in his way, so he nudged it from her shoulders. She never took her mouth off him as she shimmied out of it.
“Crazy,” he agreed, pulling her so that she was now straddling his hips.
“I mean, I could totally resist you if I wanted.”
“Good.” His hands went straight to her blouse, flicking the buttons open as she wriggled on him and made his eyes cross with lust. Her skirt had risen up past her thighs so that the only thing separating them was the thin blanket and what looked like a very sexy pair of silky pale blue panties.
She got busy sucking on his tongue. Not wanting to disturb that, Jason spread her blouse wide and tugged the cups of her bra down.
Her fingernails dug into his shoulders, slid quickly down his chest to his abs and back up, as if she couldn’t get enough of him. He urged her even closer so that he could suck her nipple between his tongue and the roof of his mouth. The sweet sounds she made in response wreaked havoc on any control he had left. She was writhing on him, her eyes closed, mouth open, skin dewy and flushed.
She was his every fantasy.
“I want you,” he said hoarsely. “Zoe, I want—”
“Yes. God, yes,” she said with a shudder as he lifted her enough to rip away the blanket and then the towel from between them.
“Oh,” she murmured huskily in soft pleasure as she stared down at the part of him that was the most happy to be there. She wrapped her fingers around him, making him thrust up into her hand. But the movement jarred his neck and he sucked in a breath as the pain slapped him.
“Oh, God,” she said shakily, still holding him in her hands. “Are you okay? Should we stop?”
“Only if you want to see a grown man cry,” he managed to say, gripping her ass in one hand, rolling her nipple between his fingers with his other. He hadn’t chosen to be here, certainly hadn’t planned on this, but now there was nowhere else he wanted to be. He wanted to stay like this, exactly like this, with her. And even though he told himself there was no sense in craving things he couldn’t have, he continued to tease
and coax her body into needing his.
“Don’t move,” she demanded. “You hear me? I’ll do it.”
He’d never been much for following directions, and he’d certainly never lay pliant in bed before, but there was something about letting her be in control, letting her have her way with him that excited him.
“Condom?” she whispered.
He stared at her, gobsmacked. Never in his life had he forgotten a condom. “I don’t—” Shit. “I didn’t expect—”
“I’m on the pill,” she murmured. “And I haven’t had sex in two years.”
“Two years—”
“You?”
“I’ve never had sex without a condom. But—”
The words backed up in his throat when she scraped her panties to one side and guided him home.
Oh, God. The feel of her silky wet heat… She’d told him not to move, but he couldn’t help it. He reached down and rubbed his thumb over her until she gasped.
“There.” Her fingers dug into his biceps. “Oh, God, Jason. There.”
Which he took to mean “don’t stop.” He didn’t, and she gasped again, and then she cried out and came. Watching her, hearing her, did him in. He wasn’t going to last. He gripped her hips, desperate to hold it together.
“Jason. God, Jason.”
“I know.” He wanted to slow down, wanted to build the pleasure for her again, but the way she was looking down at him, the bewildered arousal, the tight need, how she’d given herself to him after not being with anyone in so long, was seriously testing his control. “Come here,” he whispered. She leaned over him, sucking his lower lip into her mouth.
His control slipped yet another notch and he rocked his hips into hers, holding there, sucking in air as she grinded on him. He closed his eyes. “Zoe.”
“Mmm,” was all she seemed to be able to get out. He slid a hand between their bodies and stroked, watching as she quivered, loving the way her head fell back on her shoulders, how she cried out and shuddered and came all over him. It was the most erotic, gorgeous sight he’d ever seen, and far too much for his already shaky control. Unable to hold back, he followed her over.
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