by Jill Shalvis
“Again. You mean I can’t kiss you again.”
“There was never a first time!”
He leaned closer so that she was surrounded by him. “I have six sisters,” he confided in a voice that managed to convey both his affection and love for his family. “That’s six nosy, bossy, demanding and completely wonderful females.”
She did not want to know this about him. She wanted to picture him as wild, uncaring and…well, a jerk.
He felt safer that way.
But nothing about this man was safe. Nothing.
“So trust me on this one,” he continued. “I learned early to never disagree with a woman, but I’m very sorry to say you’re wrong.”
Did he have to stand so close? She could see his eyes weren’t just a little blue, but all the way, ocean-deep, drown-in-me blue. Terrific. Not only did he love his family, but he had amazing eyes.
Not fair.
He also had a scar that ran along the line of his dark brow, probably from doing something crazy.
Realizing she was staring at him, and that he was enjoying that very thing, she turned on her heels and moved toward the storage warehouse. She didn’t need anything, but she felt so flustered, so uncustomarily unnerved, she opened it, flipped on the light and stepped inside.
Okay, think.
She’d kissed Santa Claus, she knew this much for certain. The rest was pure speculation. She knew what she wanted. She wanted Santa to have been Matt. Wanted Matt to have hoarsely whispered her name with longing. Wanted Matt to have been the one to put his hands on her and gently squeeze as if he could never get enough of her.
Nice, dependable, kind Matt. Grown-up Matt. Perfect Matt.
She had no doubt it had been him, none whatsoever.
None.
Mostly none.
This wasn’t good. In fact, this was bad, very bad.
“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” Bryan whispered.
“No.”
“Liar.”
“If you have six sisters, you also know it’s not exactly flattering to call a woman a liar.”
He grinned.
“I bet you’re the baby of the family,” she said without thinking, and his grin widened.
“Oh, I am. Spoiled rotten, too. And you know what else? You’re interested in me. I like that.” He settled even closer and smiled at her. “What else can I tell you?”
“Why you’d want to play footsy with Holly.”
His smile faded. Honestly faded. “Holly is the last person on earth I would play footsy with,” he said. “That woman is dangerous.”
“Men like that.”
“Men like excitement, not danger, not in a woman anyway.”
“Uh-huh,” she said in a tone that could be construed as nothing other than sarcasm.
“Tell me this much,” he said, strangely intent. “Did you see me egging her on? Or did you see me move away from her as quickly as I could?”
She thought about that. “You moved away from her.”
“Like a mouse out of a snake’s path.”
That made her laugh. “You’re hardly a mouse.” But she could concede that maybe what she’d seen in the meeting had been one-sided. There were, however, other issues here. Personal issues. Bryan may be charming when he wanted, but he wasn’t serious. At least not about women. And she was serious. She wanted a serious man.
“Ask me something else,” he encouraged. “Go on, try me.”
“Okay…why did you take that terribly dangerous stunt job yesterday morning?”
“It wasn’t that dangerous.”
“I watched you pull out of that spin with only seconds to spare.” She hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t meant to sound so worried.
“You watched.”
Oh, yeah, she’d watched. Watched and bitten her nails down to the quick with anxiety she hadn’t wanted to feel. “You fly with wild, reckless abandon.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment!”
“I’m careful, and highly skilled.”
He was talented, she’d give him that. “I just don’t know why you have to do it like that, as if each second was going to be your last.”
“Katie, I live like that.”
She backed up until she came up against a shelving unit, which she gripped at her sides with fisted hands. “Exactly. You live like that. Which is the reason…which is why—” Horrified, she broke off.
“Why what? Why you can’t admit it was me you kissed?”
How to explain that she had a precise definition of what she wanted in a man and he was the exact opposite? She wanted the three S’s. Security, safety, stability. She didn’t want to be afraid for his life on a daily basis. She didn’t want someone who made her feel as if she were on a perpetual roller coaster.
She hated roller coasters!
As if he could read her mind, his good humor vanished, replaced by an intensity she didn’t know how to handle, and he once again closed the distance between them. Now she could feel the warmth of his breath on her temple as he quietly studied her. “Was it that bad? The kiss?”
She studied her shoes. The ceiling. The wall. Anything other than his serious and oh-so-gorgeous face.
But he didn’t give up.
“Did I kiss like a Saint Bernard?” he asked. “Did I have breath like a whale? What?”
She couldn’t help it, she laughed. “I’m not admitting anything, mind you, but no, not bad breath. Not too much slobber. It was…”
“Yes?”
“A twenty on a scale of one to ten,” she admitted.
He smiled, not a cocky one, but it still made her roll her eyes and look away. Until he caught her chin in his fingers and turned her back to him.
“Why don’t you like me?” he asked softly, and when she opened her mouth to deny this, he gently slid those fingers against her lips.
At his touch, a bewildering tightness invaded her insides. Her eyes widened on his. She saw his jaw tighten, felt his fingers tense, and wondered if he felt the same confusion.
“Truth,” he whispered. “For months and months now you’ve done your damnedest to avoid me. Changing directions in the hallway, sitting far away in staff meetings, dealing with my pilots when you need something, instead of dealing with me. Why, Katie? At least tell me why.”
One last stroke with his fingers and then he lifted them away from her lips, but he didn’t move, so that when she tipped her head up to look at him, her mouth was only inches from his. It shocked her to realize her body was straining closer to him, and once again she flattened herself against the shelving unit. “It’s not that I don’t like you. But we have nothing in common.”
“How do you figure?”
“Well, other than us being day and night? Oil and vinegar—”
“Concrete reasons. No cheating with silly metaphors.”
“Okay, well…I’m plain. And you’re—” Outrageously sexy. “Not plain,” she finished lamely.
“Neither are you.”
“Then you’re too tall.”
He laughed. “Chicken excuse, but I’ll let you have it. What else?”
“I like everything planned out.”
“And I don’t?”
“You’d jump off a cliff on a whim.”
“If I had a good rope, maybe.”
“See? Polar opposites. That’s us.”
“That’s not completely true.” His voice was low, husky, his direct gaze like a caress. “We both love airplanes.”
“How—” How could he have known about her secret passion and love of planes? That she hoarded and devoured every book she could find, every picture, every magazine. That sometimes, late at night, she wandered through the hangars and just looked at the planes that so fascinated and terrified her at the same time?
“I’ve seen you.” He lifted a finger and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. The touch electrified her. “I’ve seen the look of longing and passion on your face
as you’ve touched a sleek Lear, seen your yearning. Why don’t you fly, Katie? What keeps you grounded?”
“My father,” she confided before she could stop herself, and this time it was her who covered his mouth. “Don’t. Don’t ask, I don’t want to talk about it.”
His hand came up and circled her wrist. When he spoke, his lips tickled her palm. “We should.”
“No. Look, it’s nothing personal.”
“I think it is.”
“I just…” Lord, it was hard to think. She had her hand on his mouth, his very sexy mouth, and she couldn’t tear her gaze from it, even when it curved with satisfaction. “I’m not much of a risk taker.”
His eyes sparkled at that. “You’re here alone in the warehouse with me, aren’t you? Seems pretty risky to me. Tell me, what drew you to Santa that night? What made you want to kiss him?”
“I’m not going to tell you that!”
“Please?”
“This is silly. It doesn’t matter to you.”
“Tell me.”
“It was Matt.”
“Matt.”
“Yes. He’s dependable. Reliable. He’s—”
“Mr. Perfect.” He shook his head even as a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I’ve heard the women talk about him.”
“Then you already knew what attracted me.”
“Dependability? Reliability?” He made a face. “Sounds like a car. A new one, when we all know it’s the used models, the coveted and experienced and loved ones, that have all the nerve and personality.”
“Bryan—”
His eyes flashed now, still with good humor, but with something more as well. “I was Santa, Katie. And I’m going to prove it to you.”
“No!” Not stopping to think about her sudden, irrational fear, Katie ducked from between the shelving unit and his body, not stopping to look at him until she had the door handle firmly in her hand and opened.
Bryan lifted his hands. “I wasn’t going to prove it that way.”
“Oh.” She felt dense. “I just thought—”
“I know what you thought. That I was going to kiss you again. But if I wasn’t Santa that night, if I wasn’t the one to give you that kiss—which must have been a helluva doozy, by the way, to have made such an impression—you have nothing to worry about, right?”
“Um…yeah. Right.”
He laughed softly then, a terrifyingly sexy sound that made the butterflies go to town on Katie’s stomach again.
“How about I prove to you that it was me, but in another way?” he suggested.
Warily she eyed him. “How?”
“And when I do—” he completely ignored her question “—you’re going to admit you were wrong. Out loud this time. To me.”
She still had one foot out the door. She was safe. Yeah, safe as a name caller in a glass house. “I have no problem admitting my mistakes,” she said so stiffly he laughed again. “But I’m not wrong here.”
“Uh-huh. We’ll see. Dependability. Reliability? Those are the things you need?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He looked slightly disgusted, but resigned. “Damn. I was afraid you were going to say that.”
A FEW DAYS LATER, Bryan was in the middle of a final check, trying to get out of Wells for the day, when he heard a strange noise coming from the opened cockpit of his plane.
He set down his clipboard and walked around the Cessna, his mind a million miles away.
He was thinking fondly of mistletoe and sexy red Christmas dresses. He was thinking of warm, vulnerable, whiskey-colored eyes, and sweet-scented, shoulder-length hair brushing over his arms as he leaned into the kiss that had rocked his world.
Was still rocking his world.
It had been a week.
Seven days.
One-hundred-sixty-eight hours.
He didn’t know how many minutes, but for an admitted adrenaline junkie, he was dying for another rush.
Another kiss.
He’d tried his damnedest to appear to be the model citizen whenever Katie was around. Dependable. Reliable.
He did it all.
He tried so hard his head hurt. What was he doing? Why did he even care? Was he that egotistical that he couldn’t let it go?
So Katie wanted neat and simple Matt, who was sedate enough to put a gorilla to sleep without effort.
In contrast, she thought Bryan wild. Uncontrollable.
That sound came from the cockpit again, and he climbed up the landing stairs of the sleek plane to peek inside.
Nothing.
He went in, took a step toward the cockpit, then froze when the door slammed behind him.
“What the—” He turned back just as a soft weight plowed into him. “Oof.” The backs of his knees hit a low seat, tripping him, and he crashed into the wall of the plane.
On the floor, with his legs still draped over the back of the seat and that soft weight draped over the top of him, Bryan shook his head and evaluated.
Hot flesh and overly scented skin? “Holly! What the hell—”
That was the last word he managed before she straddled him, leaned in and whispered, “Take it like a man, would you? I need to use you for a second.”
“What—”
“Hush! He’s coming. I want him to see!” And she took his mouth with hers.
Behind them the airplane door opened abruptly and Katie’s voice called into the dark depths. “Bryan?”
Both he and Holly swore.
“Matt’s there, too!” Holly hissed. “Damn that man, he’s so slow!”
“Bryan?” called Katie. “I need an invoice….”
Oh, perfect.
Bryan tried to jerk free, but Holly was quicker, and prepared. She pressed down on him, both with her knee in his windpipe and her mouth on his.
Worrying about Katie seeing the kiss became secondary to actually breathing. And still he heard Katie come closer.
Inanely, Bryan wondered if she would believe he’d passed out and Holly was performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Certainly she’d never believe the truth, that he’d been attacked!
Hell, he hardly believed it.
“Bryan—” Katie’s voice stopped short on an audible gasp as she caught sight of him—big, bad Bryan Morgan, being held to the floor by Holly’s lips.
Dammit! Struggling to sit up, he shoved Holly off his thighs.
Katie was already halfway across the hangar floor.
Surging to his feet, he leaped for the door. “Katie!” he bellowed.
She turned, just as Bryan took a quick step, too quick, and promptly fell out of the plane, flat on his face.
When the stars and pain faded, he rolled onto his back on the cold concrete floor of the hangar and blinked Holly into view.
“Save your breath,” she said with a sigh. “She’s gone. For such a well-curved little thing, she sure can move. And apparently Matt wasn’t with her.”
Bryan spared her one quick glance as he surged to his unsteady feet. “You. Stay. When I get back you have some explaining to do.”
“Oh, Ricky,” she whined in a perfect mimic of Lucy Ricardo.
Instead of strangling her, Bryan shook his head and went after Katie, but Holly happened to be right on one score—Katie could really move.
By the time he figured out which way to go, she’d crossed the entire length of the tarmac, her low, economical heels clicking loudly, her long skirt flowing wildly in the breeze.
“Katie!”
Naturally she kept walking, even faster now, and he jogged up to her, passing her, running backwards in order to stay right in front of her, but she wouldn’t even look at him. “Katie, I—”
“I’m busy,” she huffed.
“You’re also upset.”
“Why? I don’t care who you kiss.”
Ouch, though it was a good point. She didn’t care, he didn’t care…so what was the big deal?
He wished he knew.
His face hur
t from taking a dive on the hangar floor. His head hurt, too, and though he was in excellent shape, he could hardly keep up with her. “Can you stop for a moment? Or at least slow down?”
“Nope.”
He glanced behind him to make sure he wasn’t going to fall, again, and kept running backward. “About what just happened—”
“Forget it.”
He’d like to. “I can’t. You know, it wasn’t really what you thought.”
“Really?” Finally, she stopped, put a hand on her hip and lifted an eyebrow. “What did I think?”
“Um…” He was feeling a little slow on the uptake.
“That you’re slime? That you’re sick? That you’re— You’re bleeding!”
Why that softened her, he hadn’t a clue.
“Your lip,” she said and lifted a hand before she stopped herself. “You should tell your little girlfriend not to bite so hard.”
“She’s not—” Hell! How did this stuff happen to him?
They were on the far side of the tarmac now, the wind blowing fiercely, whipping Katie’s hair into both of their faces. Her skirt rioted, too, tangling up in his legs as well as hers. They were close to the lobby door, close to the first hangar, but neither of them moved. “I suppose you won’t believe the truth,” he said.
Her gaze narrowed and now she did touch his mouth and stared at her finger. Then she stabbed it into his chest, hard. “That’s not blood, it’s bright red lipstick! Gee, I wonder how that happened? Oh, wait, I know.” She let out a tight smile. “You’re a closet cross-dresser.”
“She jumped me,” he said inanely, going with the truth instead of the resuscitation excuse, thinking he should get points for honesty. “Really. I heard this noise and went to investigate.”
“In your parked plane.”
“Yes.”
“I imagine you thought it was a mouse or something.”
“Or something, yes,” he agreed, ignoring her huff of disbelief. “Then suddenly there she was, kissing me.”
“She plowed you to the ground, naturally,” Katie said agreeably. “Straddled you. Forced your arms around her, then attacked your mouth.”
Pleased by her compassion and understanding, he smiled. “Yes! Exactly!”
Katie’s eyes went cold. “Someone ought to put out a bulletin. You men need a new story.”