All He Wants for Christmas

by Lisa Plumley

  What woman hadn’t dreamed of a hot-hot-hot holiday fling? If that fling were with a rich, powerful, incredibly charismatic CEO, well . . . so much the better, right?

  Too bad she was the only one who was stuck on that sizzling scenario, Danielle mused. As far as she could tell, Jason was focused solely on business. So far, he’d conducted himself like the perfect professional . . . whereas Danielle wanted to throw caution to the wind and treat herself to more than candy canes and fruitcake this year. She wanted to abandon her pursuit of a promotion and pursue Jason instead—with every intention of getting him naked.

  Maybe she could, it occurred to her. After all, she’d already clarified her position with him. She’d already stressed that she didn’t want Jason pulling some Mr. Munificent routine and handing her an undeserved promotion. He’d agreed to that.

  They’d reached an understanding. She’d purposely taken the possibility of preferential treatment off the table. If she did get promoted, Danielle knew, it wouldn’t be as a thank-you for sleeping with the boss. It would be earned on her merits.

  There wouldn’t be any confusion about their relationship, either. After all, Jason was a man. (He was all man.) Men could compartmentalize, couldn’t they? Her ex-husband, Mark, certainly had. He’d compartmentalized his way into staying married to her while fooling around with Crystal. So if that was possible . . .

  Ugh. Reminded of that disaster and all the unwanted fallout from it, Danielle shook herself. She was insane to even consider having a fling. She wasn’t a fling kind of woman. She was . . .

  . . . the kind of woman who gawked, hungrily and helplessly, at her unrepentant boss as he burst into the diner in her wake.

  Yanked from her fantasies, she became newly aware of the murmur of conversation surrounding her. Inside the diner, there was an appealing air of conviviality and an ongoing soundtrack of holiday music. There were tables full of customers and more Christmas decorations than existed in the whole seasonal section at Danielle’s favorite local discount store—some of them collected by Kristen and her employees, others donated by her more famous sister, pop songstress Heather Miller.

  But Jason had no awareness of any of those details. His hair was windswept. His expression was arresting. His eyes were that same melty shade of chocolate brown that she’d noticed earlier. Mmmm. Chocolate. Danielle liked chocolate almost as much as she liked unfastening a man’s button-down shirt, peeling away its luxurious fabric, exposing the muscular chest beneath . . .

  . . . staying employed and responsible. Damn.

  If Jason wasn’t into her, making a move on him would turn things awkward in a hurry. She’d better try to rein herself in.

  “I hope your wallet’s fat,” Danielle said to distract herself, “because I love pie. And you’re paying for both of us.”

  “Pie? Yeah, I guess pie’s okay.” Jason swept his gaze over the diner’s unique décor, taking in its overall ambiance as well as its over-the-top Christmassiness. Holiday garlands wrapped around the chairs and along the vintage Formica countertops. Multicolored lights flashed overhead. Three Christmas trees of varying sizes had been wedged in between the dining tables, the kitchen area, and the painted windows. Each tree was decked out with more lights, garlands, and ornaments. Everyone in town knew that Kristen Miller was crazy about Christmas and everything that came with it. “I’m more of a cookie man, myself, to tell you the truth,” Jason admitted. “I can take or leave pie.”

  “Not this pie, you can’t.”

  Skeptically, he scrutinized the plates—each topped with a tidy napkin, a mini-pie-filled wide-mouth Mason jar, and a garnish—coming and going in the hands of the busy servers. Those plates would not have been out of place in a glossy foodie magazine. Jason shrugged. “I think I’m immune to pie.”

  Several people waiting in the entryway gasped. Danielle grinned. “You probably think you’re immune to Christmas, too.”

  “Aren’t you?” he countered. “You work in retail. You know how the sausage is made. You’re part of it all.”

  “My Christmas gullibility”—or the lack of it, to be more precise—“is not under discussion here.”

  “Aha. Gullibility, huh? That word choice says it all.”

  Whoops. “Well, I’m a townie,” Danielle explained with a shrug. She didn’t want Jason to think she was some kind of heartless Grinch. She wasn’t. Years in, she’d simply grown weary of all the ho-ho-ho-ing. “I grew up with all this stuff. I’m not likely to get starry-eyed over tinsel and sleigh rides.”

  “There are sleigh rides? Awesome.”

  “I’ll take you on one,” she offered, “if you want.”

  “I want. Absolutely. How fast does the sleigh go?”

  “You know.” She gave a vague wave. “Horse speed.”

  Jason eyed her. “You’ve never taken a sleigh ride, have you?”

  Guilty. “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.” He shook his head with pretend dismay. “Surrounded by all this . . .” His gaze took in the over-the-top holiday brouhaha in the diner. Shifted outside to encompass the entirety of Kismet. Moved to her. “But immune to it all.”

  “I didn’t say I was immune. Only a Grinch would be immune.”

  A Grinch might not be promotable. Not in the toy biz.

  “So you don’t like Christmas,” Jason mused aloud, “yet now you manage the merriest toy store in Kismet?”

  “Now I’m trying to get promoted out of Kismet. Remember?”

  “But you want to stay in the toy business?”

  “Of course. I love working at Moosby’s!” She felt herself inadvertently jostled a few steps nearer to him as the entryway continued filling up. “When Edna hired me, it was a lifesaver.”

  His gaze turned compassionate. “Because of your divorce?”

  “Partly. I needed the money. And the distraction.”

  “It must have been difficult. Were you married long?”

  Long enough to have had three children and a lot of dashed hopes for the future. But Danielle didn’t want to say any of that. She wanted to stick to a more businesslike approach.

  “Long enough to know I’m better off divorced.”

  An astute look. “You can trust me with the truth.”

  “I’m a merry divorcée. That’s the truth.”

  The skeptical way Jason pursed his lips unnerved her . . . and not just because it made her imagine kissing him. Repeatedly.

  How did he know she was fibbing, anyway? Her own father hadn’t known. Forrest Benoit was a sensitive, award-winning poet. He should have been able to discern her true feelings.

  “Mark and I are getting divorced, Dad,” she’d told him.

  “Great! Now you’ll have time to come to Burning Man with us! I always knew Mark was the reason you’ve stayed home.”

  Actually, the reason had been that Danielle was nothing like her artsy parents, who’d been pushing her for years to join them at festivals and workshops. But they’d chosen to blame her ex-husband for being a “stultifying influence” on her “essence.”

  “I liked it better when you were bossing me around,” Jason said, breaking into her thoughts. “When you were commanding me to keep the press and the protestors out of your store—”

  “Don’t forget telling you to apologize.”

  “—that seemed authentic.” His unabashed grin reminded her that she hadn’t won that particular concession from him. Not yet, at least. “But this . . . well, let’s just say you have a tell.”

  “A tell? Like in poker?”

  A nod.

  “I do not.”

  A wider grin.

  “I do not!” Then, “Tell me what it is. I’ll obliterate it.”

  “Then I wouldn’t be able to use it.”

  “Why would you want to use it? And for what?” Danielle cast an exasperated glance at the crowded diner. “An itemized list would be nice. Don’t be afraid to go into detail.”

  Jason gave her an offhanded shrug. U
nfortunately, that blithe gesture only made her imagination run wild. Part of her wished he was hinting that he’d like to use her supposed tell as part of seducing her . . . exactly the way she’d imagined. The rest of her knew that giving in would be a colossal mistake.

  She had to keep her head on straight, Danielle reminded herself. There was a lot at stake here. Time was tight. There was only one critically important Christmas shopping season every year, and it was happening now. She couldn’t afford any screwups. Jason might be able to fool himself into believing he could finesse his situation without changing himself or apologizing. But she knew better. She knew he needed to do more.

  Tricky situations didn’t just improve with no effort.

  As long as he allowed her to take the lead, she could make Jason look good. With her store’s excellent sales performance. With her own personal expertise. With his association with that expertise. That’s why she’d offered to let him “use” her.

  Even if, just then, she wanted to “use” him to satisfy her newly reawakened desire to spend an afternoon naked and sweaty.

  “Never mind,” Danielle bluffed. “I don’t want to know.”

  “There it is again.”

  “My tell?” She gave a frustrated sound. “How in the—”

  Before she could unleash the annoyed expletive she had in mind, his laughter cut her off. His dark eyes gleamed teasingly at her. “Gotcha. Again.”

  Again? Great. She’d been sure she hadn’t been offering up any tells that time. Maybe he was making up the whole thing.

  She’d been enjoying it, though. Bantering with him was fun.

  Danielle didn’t want to admit it. But it was.

  “So, anyway,” she made herself say with new crispness, “as I was telling you, I needed a job after my divorce—”

  Jason quirked his mouth. “Were you telling me that?”

  “When Edna hired me,” she went on, “I had a few years of on-and-off retail sales experience in college. That’s all. But I was determined. I was smart. I knew everyone in town, and I knew toys. I was motivated, too. So I did well at Moosby’s.”

  “You must have. I understand Edna resisted retirement.”

  Good. Steady ground. “She just wanted a worthy successor.”

  “And that was you?”

  Danielle nodded. “Ask anyone. I’m really good.”

  “Oh?” His grin could have melted butter. “I’m intrigued.”

  And I’m an idiot. Why had she practically purred that boast about herself? She didn’t sound capable; she sounded hot to trot. Double entendres weren’t even her style.

  What was wrong with her today?

  It was almost as if being jostled against Jason amid the teeming crowd accidentally wasn’t enough for her anymore. It was almost as if she wanted to feel his warm, solid chest and lean midsection and strong arms pushed against her on purpose.

  It was almost as if, after years of being good, Danielle wanted to be bad instead. To live dangerously. Starting now.

  Oh, wait. She did. She did want those things.

  The crowd’s next shift fulfilled her wish. Danielle stumbled. She put out her arms. An instant later, her outflung palms encountered deluxe, city-slicker fabrics and—even better—Jason’s sturdy, masculine chest muscles underneath them.

  Mmm. Nice. Those substantial muscles flexed as Jason effortlessly caught her. He squeezed her, briefly treating her to a personal demonstration of biceps strength. But that wasn’t enough to completely stop her fall. Their legs collided, feet entangled as Danielle tried to steady herself and failed. Her nose bumped against Jason’s broad, coat-covered shoulder.

  He smelled like soap and spiciness. He felt like . . . heaven.

  His warmth shocked her. It was as if he’d been superheated.

  In her eagerness to please, maybe she’d turned up her car’s heater too high. Or maybe they were both heating up. Uh-oh.

  She looked up. Orange fun fur hovered precariously close to Jason’s nose. Her jacket’s collar wanted to be close to him too.

  Would he mind if she enjoyed another teensy grope? If she pretended, just for a minute, that she couldn’t get her balance?

  Ill-advisedly, Danielle dropped her hands and did just that. Mmm-hmm. Based on a surreptitious, exploratory fondle, Jason was built like one of those superhot male models . . . all hard angles, interesting bunched-up muscles, and acres of warm bare skin. Did he have some chest hair? she wondered. How much? Or did he keep everything bare to show off his sculpted chest?

  The moment she found herself contemplating that personal detail, she knew she’d gone too far. With effort, Danielle levered backward to restore some much-needed personal space between them. It turned out not to be enough. She still wanted him.

  She had to keep from touching him! It . . . did things to her.

  “Thanks for the assist. I’ll just go check on our table,” she said perkily. “You start schmoozing. I’ll be right back.”

  When leaving Moosby’s, Jason had thought that getting outside into the frigid air would stall his libido. He’d been wrong. When arriving at the Galaxy Diner, he’d thought that hosting an impromptu meet-and-greet with half of Kismet’s pie-loving population would demolish his fantasies. It hadn’t.

  Now more than ever, he wanted Danielle. Every time she touched him—innocently and accidentally—he wanted her more.

  This was bad. Danielle was doing her best to turn him into Mr. Goody Two-shoes, up to and including letting her townie reputation lend him instant trustworthiness, and all he’d been able to do was replay, over and over in his mind, the moment when she’d stumbled into his arms and inadvertently touched him.

  He’d stiffened as if he’d been sucker punched. In a way, he had. Because nothing in Jason’s life had prepared him for this.

  He’d never been more bowled over by a woman in his life.

  Why did the one woman who accomplished that feat have to be someone he needed to stay on a hands-off basis with? For all he knew, Jason reminded himself, Chip’s spy was still skulking around, waiting to catch Jason red-handed. Being bad. Again.

  To keep himself occupied after his spontaneous public appearance had wound down and he’d slipped into a booth across from Danielle, Jason directed his attention to the diner itself.

  A metal roll-up service-bay door—an obvious holdover from the property’s past—formed one exterior wall. Antique auto lifts made up the bases of three of the tables. Several dinged-up, hand-painted metal FILLING STATION signs hung on the walls beneath the holiday garlands and lights. The place’s remodel was an unequivocal success. Jason couldn’t say the same for his own pathetic attempts at diverting himself. He could still feel Danielle across from him, exuding warmth and intelligence, tempting him to forget everything except her big blue eyes and the cute, telltale way she crinkled her nose while fibbing.

  Come to think of it, she’d done a lot of nose crinkling while discussing her ex-husband. Did that mean she still had feelings for that jerk? Unreasonably, the idea annoyed him.

  Now he needed a distraction from that, too. Frowning, Jason pulled the table’s spotless antique auto ashtray—now filled with multicolored packets of various sweeteners—closer. He plucked out a few packets. He set them alongside his plate of pumpkin streusel pie-in-a-jar, then added some toothpicks to the pile.

  Absently, he fiddled with them while Danielle talked about seasonal Moosby’s specials, seasonal pie specials, and growing up as a full-time resident in a resort town that specialized in holly-jolly seasonal cheer. He slipped the paper napkin from beneath the wide-mouth Mason jar on his plate, then folded it.

  “So, you know all about me.” Danielle rested her elbows on the table, made a cradle of her interlaced fingers, then propped her chin in her hands. “It’s time for you to tell me about you.”

  He disagreed. “I don’t like talking about myself.”

  “That explains why there’s a tell-all unauthorized bio in the works about you,” she said. “You k
now, if you give people some information, they don’t have to make up stuff to fill that vacuum. Maybe if you cooperated with the press a little more—”

  He stopped fiddling. “How do you know about that?”

  She named her favorite Internet search engine. “You’d be surprised how much a person can find out online if properly motivated. Say, after they’ve been ambushed by protesters.”

  “Betty and her friends weren’t protesting that book.”

  “It might have been nice if they had been. That’s what real fans of yours ought to do,” Danielle insisted. “Rise up to protect your privacy, if that’s what you’re all about. Why not?”

  “Because it would be preposterous. People don’t care about me. They care about who they think I am. It’s not the same.”

  “I bet you wish it was.”

  He did. But there was no reason in the world Danielle ought to have known that. Fold. Fold. Crease. The origami-style shape he was making came into focus. He flipped the napkin. “Nope.”

  “Mmm.” She watched him. “You have a tell, too.”

  “Like hell I do.”

  “Believe what you want.” An airy wave. “But telling me a little about yourself doesn’t feel so bad now, does it?”

  “As an alternative to discussing an unauthorized biography that pisses me off every time I think about it?” She had him there. Jason couldn’t help grinning. “You’re not wrong.”

  “So?”

  “So you’re untrusting and pushy.”

  “You forgot unrelenting. And crazy about cranberry pie.”

  Ardently, Danielle nodded at her jar of cranberry-pecan pie and its accompanying orange-scented whipped cream. She’d dived into it like a woman possessed. All that remained were crumbs.

  “You forgot to lick the plate.”

  “I didn’t forget. I’m waiting for you to look away first.”

  He laughed. “You’re not serious.”

  “No? Try me.”

  For an instant, something . . . sensual and inviting glimmered in her gaze. Jason could have sworn that Danielle wanted him to try her in a sense that went way beyond pies and plates.