Levi found himself pulling her closer and wanting to wrap his other arm around her too.
He wanted to hug her? Just hug her? Phoebe was the only woman he hugged and, in all honesty, she hugged him. Kaelyn hugged him, but that was definitely not the same thing. She either grabbed him around one knee or she wrapped her little arms around his neck and squeezed as hard as she could. He and Joe did that bro-hug thing that guys did that was not quite a hug but was more than a handshake.
That would make this woman, the built blonde in the red dress, the first woman he wasn’t related to but wanted to hug…ever.
Interesting.
“Well, this Christmas is going to be amazing,” he told her.
She smiled up at him. “Yeah?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re into Christmas?”
He definitely was now. “I grew up with trees and stockings and stuff,” he said. “And my parents always threw a big Christmas Eve party.” He didn’t need to tell her that he’d walked in on his dad screwing his secretary on his desk in the den. Twice. Or that his mother typically got drunk and had smashed at least a few Christmas plates, lit the formal dining room’s curtain on fire with some ornate candelabra, twisted an ankle, cut a finger, thrown out her back and ended up in the ER. Those were the only ways to get his father’s attention away from the secretary on his desk.
Which his mom didn’t typically care about really, but it seemed her husband’s infidelities got to her at the holidays.
Maybe deep down everyone wanted to have a nice Christmas.
Levi frowned. There was no way he could have turned out normal. Not that this was a brand new revelation, but sitting in the quaint, albeit overdone Christmas wonderland that was Sapphire Falls’ town square with a woman who smelled like vanilla, Levi wished like hell he knew a little more about normal.
“Thank you for agreeing to do this,” she said, softly.
She was looking into his eyes like she had been at the bar and he was hit by the punch of desire he’d felt then too.
What was he agreeing to do again? There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t agree to for this woman, but he couldn’t recall the details at the moment. “The formal?” he asked finally.
She nodded. “I know it seems silly, but I’m starving for a nice, normal, traditional Christmas.”
The word starving made him think of things he was feeling hungry for come to think of it.
“I completely understand,” he managed while he was really wondering what would happen if he grabbed her chin and kissed her again. This time minus the mistletoe and with tongue. And with less than sweet, gentlemanly intentions.
“And, um…” Her gaze flickered away from him for a moment and she seemed hesitant.
“Anything.” He meant it. His tone might have been rougher than it needed to be, but he suddenly wanted to be the one making everything just right for her.
She met his gaze again. “Would you want to spend some time together tomorrow? We could—”
“Yes.”
Again, firmer than needed, but he did like the way her eyes went round and her mouth curled.
“You don’t know what I was going to suggest.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m in.”
Her expression shifted quickly from surprised to amused to sly. “What if I want to tie you up in tinsel and keep you at my mercy until New Year’s?”
3
There was a thud somewhere in the vicinity of Levi’s heart. A thud that rocked through his whole body. Just as quickly as he went from warm to burning up, it was clear that she’d realized what she’d said out loud to a near stranger.
She started to pull back, but he put his hand between her shoulder blades and brought her in. “Fucking love tinsel,” he said against her lips and then took her into a kiss that definitely heated things up.
She didn’t hesitate, which further fired his blood. In fact, when he parted his lips and stroked his tongue into her mouth, she moaned.
Tinsel and anything else she wanted. That was the only thing he could really think as she pivoted to lean closer. But they were sitting on a bench, and that meant she had to fold a leg up between them. Neither of them really wanted anything between them at all, so when she made a frustrated little sound, Levi took hold of her hips and picked her up to put her in his lap. Their cups of hot chocolate tipped over into the snow, but they barely noticed.
Thanks to the tight skirt on her dress, she had to sit sideways—pulling the dress up any farther would have put her at risk for frost bite in some very unpleasant places—but they were definitely closer now. And warmer.
She gripped the front of his coat in her hands like she had before. Levi kept his hands on her hips, loving the sweet weight of her against the suddenly noticeable fly of his jeans.
She tipped her head one way, he tipped the other, deepening the kiss, the tongue stroking getting bolder and faster.
She moved her fingers to the buttons on the front of his coat and as the first released, Levi caught her hands. “It’s too cold here for this.” Not to mention public. In a nice small town where everyone knew his brother. He really didn’t have any problems with public displays of many kinds—including some with far more skin showing than he and Hailey were—but his behavior reflected on Joe and Phoebe.
And he was a little afraid of his petite, red-headed sister-in-law.
He planned to stay in Sapphire Falls for several months, hopefully the whole year, to really soak it in and let it change him. He couldn’t afford to be on her bad side.
Hailey sat staring at him, pressing her lips together, looked bewildered and turned on.
He could work with both of those things.
“Let’s go somewhere warmer.”
He started to shift to get up, but she didn’t move. Since she was on top of him, that meant he didn’t get far. She was light. He could have easily picked her up and carried her off to his—Joe’s—truck. But he sensed her hesitation.
Considering they’d just met, that made some sense.
Joe and Phoebe had set them up. They had no reason to fear that the other was a serial killer or anything, but that didn’t mean they should hop into bed together.
Did it?
Levi pondered that for a moment. Why not? Joe wouldn’t set him up with someone crazy. And Lord knew, they had the chemistry for it. He was turning over a new leaf, but he wasn’t becoming a priest. Having sex with a nice girl who might expect him to show up at her grandmother’s for Sunday dinner and take her to the movies on Friday night would definitely be different.
Different was what he needed.
“I have one question,” she said. “Before we go to your place.”
Yes.
“Whatever you want,” he told her sincerely. “And if it involves tinsel, all the better.” At her little grin, he leaned in and said softly, “But turnabout is fair play. Remember that.”
“What if you never want to see another piece of tinsel again in your life?” she asked.
He gave her what Phoebe had labeled his bad-boy grin. “There’s always candy canes if I can’t take the tinsel.”
She seemed to be considering that. Carefully. And thoroughly. Much to his delight.
“I may never be able to look at a candy cane the same way again. And that’s just based on my imagination.”
He stared. Completely surprised and as turned on as he’d ever been talking about candy. “I’m buying every candy cane in this town.”
She laughed. “You can’t. Other people deserve candy canes too.”
Was there any chance, any chance at all, that this woman was thinking the things he was thinking about candy canes?
“Fine, we’ll leave three or four. But I’m a huge fan of peppermint flavored…things.”
She laughed, but it sounded breathless. “I can’t believe I’m talking like this with you.”
He ran a hand over the curve of her hip to her butt. “Because we just met?”
; “Because you’re a nice guy who’s doing Phoebe a favor by taking me to the formal.”
No way had Phoebe told her that. If anything, Phoebe would look at this as a favor on Hailey’s part—going out with her brother-in-law, keeping him out of trouble.
“I’ll tell you a secret.” He ran his hand over the delectable curve in his palm. “No guy is so nice that he isn’t willing to do dirty things with candy.”
“Is that right?” Her grin was huge.
“Trust me.”
“Any candy?”
“Any candy.”
“I did not know this.” She was clearly amused.
“Well, I’ll tell you another secret.”
She leaned in. “Can’t wait.”
“Women are pretty much our candy.”
She pulled back a bit, licked her lips and said, “Now that I knew.”
“Want to go make out in my truck?”
“I do. I really, really do.”
Joe flopped onto his back, his breathing ragged. “Wow.”
“Ditto,” Phoebe agreed beside him. “You know, I love our daughter but…”
“You’ll love her even more when she sleeps through the night and not between us in bed?” Joe asked with a grin.
Phoebe nodded solemnly. “Seriously.”
“Sex on the dryer in the laundry room was really good the other day,” Joe said.
“It was.” Phoebe rolled to face him. “But there’s nothing like fully naked, rock-the-bed sex.”
Joe laughed. “I expect we’ll be able to have fully naked, rock-the-bed sex again by the time Kae is, what? Fourteen and going out with her own friends?”
Now Phoebe always kept her pajama top on and one leg in her pajama pants so she could be dressed in two seconds if Kaelyn woke up and cried for her.
Joe felt himself starting to drift off to sleep. He reached over and pulled Phoebe up against his side and opened one eye to look at the clock.
Loud, completely naked sex and asleep by eleven—ten Sapphire Falls time—yes.
His phone buzzed on the bedside table as he felt Phoebe sigh her almost-asleep sigh.
He wanted to ignore it. Almost as much as he wanted ten straight hours of sleep. It was just a text.
But he was a dad now. He had to answer. Anything big and important would have garnered a phone call, he knew, but he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep wondering about the text anyway.
He groped around on the bedside table without fully opening his eyes. But a moment later, Phoebe’s phone chimed with her text message alert and he was suddenly wide awake.
He sat up in bed. “Who’s texting you?” he asked, grabbing his phone. He sighed in relief when he saw it was Levi.
“Kate.”
Ah, her friend from California. “Everything okay with her?” He liked Kate. She was funny and down to earth. He also loved listening to her talk to congressmen about environmental impact and climate change. He always learned something and he loved to watch the politicians underestimate her because she was a beautiful blonde. She was articulate and could put the politicians in their place almost as fast as Joe’s boss, Lauren. And Kate was sweeter about it.
“Yeah, she and Tucker found each other and are having a great time.” Phoebe emphasized great while she held her phone up for Joe to see.
“Tucker is wonderful. Having a GREAT time.”
“I got all caps from Levi too,” he said with a chuckle.
“Met Hailey. I OWE YOU.”
He turned his phone to show Phoebe.
Phoebe read his screen and frowned. “Hailey who?”
“Hailey Conner.”
Phoebe’s gaze flew to his. “My Hailey Conner?”
“The only Hailey Conner either of us knows.”
“Levi and Hailey met up somewhere?”
“Yes.” Joe frowned at her. “At the Come Again.”
“The Come Again in Sapphire Falls?”
Joe put his phone down. “What are you talking about? You knew this.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Then something occurred to Joe. “Kate is out with Tucker?”
“Yes.”
“Tucker Bennett?”
“Yes. In Sapphire Falls at the Come Again.”
“Did I know about that?”
“Yes.” Then Phoebe bit her bottom lip and shook her head. “I don’t know. Did you?”
“I don’t think so.”
They’d been so crazy getting Kaelyn packed and over to grandma’s house and then packing themselves and getting to the airport that it was possible that they thought they’d mentioned these things and hadn’t actually gotten around to it.
“So Kate and Tucker?” Joe asked.
Phoebe nodded. “Levi and Hailey?”
“Yeah. Levi’s in town for Christmas. Hailey agreed to be his date for the formal.”
“Your idea?”
Joe nodded. “Levi’s decided to try some new things—like not smashing his skull in or ending up dead.”
“Good things to try,” Phoebe said dryly. She loved Joe’s brother, and his accident had shaken her. For a long time, they’d both seen Levi going down a bad path fast. They hoped the accident would be a wakeup call.
“He’s convinced Sapphire Falls can be good for him like it was me. And he wanted to date a local girl. Like you.”
Phoebe grinned at that. “But you set him up with Hailey?”
“She’s a local girl.”
Phoebe laughed. “And that’s the extent of the things Hailey and I have in common.”
It was true that they seemed different. Phoebe was everyone’s friend, Hailey liked to boss people around and didn’t really care what anyone thought of her. Phoebe’s look was more natural and girl-next-door with her red curls and blue jeans, while Hailey always looked like she’d stepped out of a fashion magazine with her sleek blonde hair and designer labels.
But the women both loved Sapphire Falls and wanted the best for their hometown. They’d slowly become friends over the past few years—something that surprised them as much as anyone.
“Well, Hailey won’t let Levi’s charming bullshit sway her away from keeping him out of trouble,” Joe said.
“Ah, you gave her a mission.”
“I did.” And he was counting on the mayor to accomplish all objectives—no jail time, no hangovers, no banged-up fenders or women falling in love with Levi between now and the Christmas formal.
It was only a few days. Surely Levi could stay out of trouble that long. With help.
“So what’s up with Kate and Tucker?” Joe asked.
Phoebe lifted a shoulder. “Kate wanted a wonderful Christmas for a change. No one does Christmas better than Sapphire Falls, and when I was thinking of nice country boys to take her out, Tucker came to mind.”
“He’ll be nice to her,” Joe agreed. “I’m glad they’re having fun.”
Then he thought of something. “Where’s she staying?”
“In our guest…” Phoebe trailed off as she realized what Joe had just realized.
Kate and Levi were both staying at their place in their guest room.
“Uh oh,” Phoebe said.
“Yeah. Well, maybe Kate will stay with Tucker,” Joe suggested. There was no way Levi was talking his way into Hailey’s bed. Hailey was hit on almost constantly. If she wanted casual flings, she could have them all the time. But she didn’t. Hailey was probably the one woman Joe knew that Levi wouldn’t be able to impress. That was exactly why he’d chosen her.
Phoebe frowned. “Hey, they’re having a good time. That doesn’t mean they’ll sleep together. Kate’s a nice girl and she wants a simple Christmas.”
“Nice girls have sex too,” Joe said, giving Phoebe a grin. She was a nice girl and he’d gotten her out of her panties pretty easily.
She swatted him on the arm. But she seemed to be pondering something.
“What are you thinking?” he finally asked.
“I set her up with Tucker.”
“That might mean Kate stays at Tucker’s,” Phoebe admitted.
“Kate might go for a fun Christmas fling? Nothing wrong with that.”
“No, I don’t know that she would, but…it’s Tucker.”
“What’s the mean?” Joe knew exactly what that meant.
According to all women in Sapphire Falls and the surrounding four counties, or more, the Bennett boys were everything any woman would ever want. Even the women who were happily married to city boys who knew next to nothing about corn and cows. Only three of the Bennetts lived in Sapphire Falls. The youngest, Ty, was off being a professional triathlete—whatever that actually meant—in Colorado. And now that Travis Bennett was taken, that left only Tucker and TJ as the epitome of all things manly and sexy. And TJ was a grumpy guy who liked to keep to himself.
Which was all a long way of saying that Tucker Bennett got a lot of female attention.
“It’s Tucker,” Phoebe said again, as if emphasizing his name was all the explanation needed.
And it was.
“You realize I’m your husband right? The man you love and want more than any other? The one who has made you blissfully happy?”
Phoebe smiled and patted his cheek. “Of course you are.”
Joe narrowed his eyes and started to grab for her. Not because he was actually worried about Tucker, or any other guy, but because it was so fun making her say his name over and over again in that breathless, pleading way she did when he—
Phoebe’s phone rang.
Then his rang.
Damn.
They reached for their phones at the same time.
“Hailey,” he said, reading his display.
“Tucker,” Phoebe said with a frown.
“Hello?” they asked simultaneously.
“Joe, put me on speaker,” Hailey said.
What had Levi done? Joe pressed the button for the speaker phone. “Okay.”
“Tucker is here with me.”
Phoebe pushed her speaker button too and laid her phone on the comforter beside Joe’s. “What’s going on?”
“Well, about this gorgeous blonde in the red dress,” Tucker started.
“Kate said she’s having a great time,” Phoebe broke in quickly.
Home for the Holidays: A Contemporary Romance Anthology Page 43