Unwrapped Bundle with You Don't Know Jack & Bad Boys in Kilts

by Erin McCarthy

  Christian could hear the underlying tone of hurt in her voice. She was trying to mask it with nonchalance and a snarky expression, but it was clear it bothered her. Having a great family himself, he couldn’t even imagine what it must feel like to essentially be alone on Christmas. “Well, we have Doritos and Slim Jims and she’s eating bugs, so it’s all good.”

  “True that.” Blue pointed. “Look, there it is. The No-Tell Motel. God, I can’t believe that’s really its name.”

  Turning into the lonely parking lot of the low slung motel, Christian eyed it through the raging snow. “There are probably worse. Like The Hell Motel. I wouldn’t want to stay there.”

  “Or The Sleep and Peep.”

  Christian laughed as he parked the car. “The Hills Have Eyes Inn.”

  “Bubba’s Bed.”

  “Pappy’s Shack.”

  “The Resting Place.”

  “Hot Brown Haven.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Hot brown. The sandwich. It’s turkey.” She clearly hadn’t grown up in Kentucky.

  “Oh. I’ve never had one.”

  “Well, I’d get you one, but I don’t think they’re to be found at the No-Tell Motel.”

  “There’s no telling what’s at the No-Tell.”

  “We’re getting good at being corny.”

  “You’re drawing it out in me.” Blue grinned and shoved her feet back into her shoes. “Corny is part of your charm.”

  “So you admit I’m charming.”

  She made a face and opened the car door. But then she turned to him, one foot already in the parking lot. “Hey, thanks for hanging with me. This sucks a lot less with you.”

  You’d have thought he won the freaking lottery the way he was grinning as he climbed out of the car and headed for the No-Tell.

  He wasn’t sure how big a leap it was from her saying her day sucked less with him around, to convincing her they were meant to get naked together but he was damn sure going to try.

  Chapter Four

  Blue stamped her feet in the forlorn lobby of the No-Tell, the air not much warmer than it was outside. There was no one at the desk. “Great, no one’s here.”

  “The door was open. There must be someone here.” Christian leaned over the desk towards the back room. “Hello? Can you help us?”

  Pulling her cell phone out of her jeans with nearly numb fingers, Blue scowled at it and shook. “I still don’t have reception. God, being cut off like this sucks.”

  “Think of it as an adventure.”

  All that cheerfulness must be exhausting. “Thanks, Dad.” Blue glared at him as he stood there in perfect nonchalance, clearly convinced this was all going to work out just fine.

  She, on the other hand, was starting to think she might die before this was all over.

  “Where the hell is the employee?” She paced and tried punching buttons on her phone again, just in case something had changed in the last sixty seconds. It hadn’t.

  “Just relax, they’re just not expecting us, but someone is clearly here. I can hear the TV.”

  “Did I mention I don’t have a lot of patience?”

  “You’re also a little cranky, too, but it’s all part of your charm.”

  And he lightly punched her on the arm.

  Blue blinked. He should be exactly the kind of guy that drove her insane. She could only take so much optimism. Normally she went for moody artist types who spent large quantities of time on their hair and ridiculous amounts of money for vintage band shirts and designer jeans. They also tended to disappear for a week or two at a time without warning then reappear with whiny requests for attention.

  Which when put like that made her wonder what the hell she saw in them.

  Christian had managed to make her smile in the midst of a really suck-ass situation and he had never once complained, or God forbid, asked if he could lay his head down in her lap for solace. Yeah, she’d had that happen before. Scary moment.

  “Did we leave the Doritos in the car?” she asked, feeling the need for comfort food. Suddenly it felt like her whole concept of dating and the perfect partner had tilted Titanic style and was slowly starting to sink.

  “Yeah. You want me to go get them?”

  Oh. My. God. And he was willing to just go fetch chips for her? Without her asking or without bitching or without demanding a blow job. Blue’s face went hot and she definitely felt off-kilter. “No, no, that’s okay. I can wait five minutes. I just wish I’d eaten dinner.”

  Christian was about to respond, but just then a man who looked approximately a thousand years old shuffled in through the door to the back room.

  “What do we have here?” he asked them, adjusting his glasses and craning his neck to see them from his hunched over position.

  “Hi,” Christian said, sticking out his hand. “How are you tonight, sir? Merry Christmas.”

  The man shook Christian’s hand. “Thank you, thank you. Merry Christmas to you, too. Like those hats you’re wearing, very festive. Are you kids traveling in this weather? Doesn’t look very safe out.” He gave them a look of concern.

  Blue smiled. “Unfortunately, it’s not. We had a bit of an accident and now the road is closed for travel, so we’re kind of stuck here for the night. Do you have two rooms available?”

  Not that she was opposed to bunking with Christian, because she was pretty sure she wanted to shag his brains out, but he was going to have to make the first move. She did have some standards with men she’d just met who weren’t her type.

  “Two rooms? Nope, can’t do it. We don’t get much business here and I’m semi-retired and well, I haven’t kept things up as good as I could have and the place needs a new roof. With all the snow, seven of the eight rooms have leaks with buckets in them. There’s only one that’s fine and it’s the one closest to the office here where my grandson did a patch on the roof.”

  “You can take that,” Christian said, looking at her. “I’ll take the one with the least leaking, I don’t mind.”

  Was there a pause there? Was he waiting for her to say something? Blue wasn’t sure, but she realized he wasn’t going to throw it out there in front of the old guy, and he was clearly trying to be a gentleman. Blue hadn’t been aware that those still existed, but apparently she’d been wrong. Maybe about a lot of things.

  “Christian, you don’t have to take a leaky room. You can just share mine, it’s not a big deal.”

  “Are you sure?” He smiled and it wasn’t a ‘gee, thanks’ kind of smile. It was a ‘I’m going to ignore my bed and be in yours’ kind of smile.

  Perfect. “Yes. I have to warn you, I’m kind of a slob, though.”

  “I wouldn’t have believed anything else.” He turned back to the motel owner. “Okay, we’ll take the good room. How much will that be, sir?”

  “Oh, I don’t take credit cards,” the manager said, when he saw Christian pulling his out of his wallet. “But don’t worry about it, I’m not going to charge folks who are stranded on Christmas Eve.”

  “It’s no trouble,” Christian insisted, pulling several twenties out of his wallet. “We’re just grateful you can put us up.”

  “Put your money away.” He waved his hand and looked offended. “I’m not having none of that.”

  “Well, thank you,” Christian said. “We appreciate it. I’m Christian, by the way, and this is Blue.”

  “What did you say?” He scrunched his eyes up at Blue. “Did he say your name is Blue?”

  “Yes.” She shrugged. “My mom was trying to be unique.”

  “Huh. I knew a fella named Red once, but that was his nickname. Never met anyone named after a Crayola crayon before. But my grandson’s name is Rock so I guess if you can be named for something no one ever wants to be as dumb as, I guess you might as well name someone after a color in the rainbow. Not sure what happened to Sarah and William though.”

  “My sister’s name is Sarah,” Blue told him, rocking on her heels, amused
by his assessment of the randomness of name choices. “I think my father saw the error of his ways.”

  He nodded. “I can see that.” Then he winked behind his thick glasses. “Though I reckon you’re the prettier one anyway. I’m Roy, by the way.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Roy.”

  “Is there any chance I can borrow your phone, Roy? I just want to call my friend and let her know what happened to me.”

  “Sure, sure, no problem.” He pushed the phone over to her.

  Blue dialed Emily and left her a voice mail explaining the situation when she didn’t pick up her phone. She handed the phone to Christian, who called his parents. Curious, she half-listened to his conversation, noting that he was both respectful and comfortable in tone.

  “Where were you headed?” Roy asked Blue.

  “Florida. I was supposed to be going on a cruise.”

  “Oh, boy. Mother Nature can be a bitch, can’t she?”

  That made Blue nod grimly. “Yes, she can be, Roy.”

  As Christian hung up the phone, Roy got them a key and handed it to him. “If you all are up and hungry in the morning, come on over to the office here and have some breakfast with me. Doesn’t look like my grandkids will be able to collect me until the afternoon with the weather like this, and I’d enjoy the company.”

  “We’d love to,” Blue said, knowing instinctively that Christian would be on board with that. A glance over at him showed he was nodding in agreement.

  Which was something most men Blue had dated would not have been happy about.

  That odd little unsettling feeling hit her again. “Have a good night, Roy. Stay warm.”

  Christian gave him a wave and they headed out to the car. Blue leaned in the backseat and gathered up her purse and the bags from the gas station. She was about to go to the trunk to get her suitcase when she saw Christian already had both her bag and his and was opening the door to Room 1.

  “Ladies first,” he told her with a smile, the doofy Christmas tree on his head bouncing.

  She swallowed, trying to recover her earlier crankiness. Pissed off was a better place to be than unsure of herself. That was a feeling she couldn’t stand and with Christian, she definitely felt off-balance. He was a breed of male she didn’t understand. The good guy who got married and bought a suburban house and mowed his lawn. It was freaking her out how much she was attracted to him.

  Slipping into the room, she dumped the plastic bags on the tiny table and tried to ignore the fact that it smelled like old sock. “At least it’s warm.”

  “And snow free.” Christian put their suitcases against one wall and peeled off his coat. “So your sister’s name is Sarah? How did that happen?”

  “My father recently married a girl twenty-four years younger than him—exactly half his age, not that I’m doing the math—and they just had a baby they named Sarah Jane. I guess the nearly three decades since my birth mellowed him into a traditionalist.” She grinned. “After all, having a mid-life crisis and marrying a pretty young thing is fairly traditional for men.”

  “I don’t even know what to say to that,” Christian said. “You’re handling it much better than I would. I think I would yak if my dad married some chick younger than me.”

  Blue kicked off her shoes and sat on the edge of the bed, wiggling her toes. “Yeah, well, I saw it coming. Over the years as his hair got thinner, his girlfriends got younger. My parents split when I was two, so it’s not like I knew anything different. Seeing him with girlfriends was no big deal. But I have to admit, I had a cringe moment when he actually went and married this one and had a baby. But Sarah is a pudgy cutie and it’s not her fault her parents’ marriage is doomed to failure any more than it was mine.”

  His eyebrow arched. “Cynical?”

  “Who me? Never.” Blue peeled off her coat. “My God, it’s like a thousand degrees in here. Where’s the thermostat?”

  “Too cold . . . too hot . . . there’s just no pleasing some people.” He grinned when she threw her scarf at him, even as he was already readjusting the thermostat. “Ready for a margarita, Scrooge?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.” She stood up and emptied the plastic bags of their dubious spoils. “Is it gross to eat Doritos with margaritas?”

  “Yes. But that’s not going to stop us, is it?”

  Blue ripped open the bag and popped one in her mouth. “Hell, no.”

  She turned to hold the bag out to him and almost bumped into him. He was right behind her and he had peeled off his sweatshirt, leaving him only in a T-shirt. Yep. Those arms had some serious muscles. “Oh! Sorry,” she said, immediately wanting to kick herself for sounding so stupid and flustered.

  But damn it, she was flustered. He was close. Cute. Sexy. Generally speaking, she dated men who were skinnier than she was, and the way he sort of towered over her, his chest like twice the width of hers, was . . . hot.

  Christian didn’t back up. He just stuck his hand in the bag and grabbed a handful of chips. “You’re right, it’s burning up in here. I wish I had shorts.”

  And with that, he tossed the chips in his mouth then stripped off his T-shirt, revealing a chest worthy of a skin calendar. Drool pooled in Blue’s mouth. Holy crap, she was as vulnerable to a pair of biceps as the next woman and had never known it.

  “It is hot in here.” Stupid, lame ass thing to say. Turning back to the table, annoyed with herself, she twisted the cap on the tequila bottle hard. “But unlike you, poor sap, I have a whole suitcase full of summer clothes. Maybe I’ll just put on a sundress and make you jealous.”

  “I’ve never once wanted to wear a sundress.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “Do you have a bikini in there?” He reached around her, his bare arm brushing hers as he popped the lids off the travel mugs.

  “Yes.”

  “Black?”

  “How did you know?” she smirked, dumping a boatload of tequila into both cups.

  “Lucky guess.” He picked up the bottle of mixer, his eyes challenging her. “If you put on the bikini I’ll really be jealous.”

  “Is that right? Are you sure this isn’t just some kind of guy trick to get me almost naked?” One she didn’t really mind. The particular warm and increasingly wet sensation between her thighs had nothing to do with the overactive furnace and everything to do with wanting him on her, in her. All of the above.

  “It totally is,” he admitted. “But if we grab a towel from the bathroom it has the added benefit of making you feel like you’re on vacation.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, right. This is so far from my idea of a Caribbean cruise it’s not even funny. But if I put on a bikini I get to take off these stupid antlers.”

  “Hey, don’t hate on the antlers. They’re cute and festive. Roy said so. But yes, you can take off the antlers.”

  “Where did yours goes, by the way?” She crossed her arms and glared at him. Somehow he’d managed to ditch his tree hat without her noticing.

  “I couldn’t get my sweatshirt off with it still on.”

  “Uh-huh. Likely excuse.” But nonetheless, Blue backed up, taking in the sight of him in his jeans and socks and nothing else. After a second of digging around in her suitcase, she found her bikini and her travel bag. Time to brush her teeth, while she was at it. Dorito breath was not hot.

  “But when I come back out here, I think you need to be my pool boy.” She snapped her fingers and pointed. “A drink, please.”

  Christian’s eyes lifted from the bikini in her hand to meet her stare. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Blue strolled into the bathroom, making sure she put a little roll into her gait since she knew he was checking out her butt. Once the door was closed, she did a little victory dance. So no cruise for her, but she was going to have sex, and sometimes that was better than a vacation. Sex and a vacation would be ideal, but she was going to take what she could get, and if Christian’s biceps were any indication the getting would be good.

  When
Blue opened the bathroom door, Christian had already downed half his drink, feeling very hot and thirsty. Partially from the overly warm room, but mostly from anticipation. He totally dug Blue and if he was reading the signs right—please God, let him be right—she was on board with a little horizontal shuffle.

  Not exactly how he had pictured his day going when he’d left the office today, but when Blue strolled back into the room, he almost fell to the ground in gratitude. Holy shit, she was smoking hot. As all the blood rushed from his brain south and his erection swelled to unmistakable proportions, Christian just stared at Blue. Her body was exactly as he’d pictured it, small, perky breasts and a flat stomach above lean, long legs. Legs he could perfectly picture wrapped around him.

  She had a towel over her ass and she wrapped it over her front, knotting the fabric so that he could no longer see her thighs, which was damn disappointing.

  “I have your drink ready for you,” he told her. “Like a good pool boy.”

  “Excellent.” She pulled a pretentious pose then sat on the edge of the bed, crossing her legs.

  He handed her the plastic mug and said, “Do I have permission to sit next to you?”

  “I don’t know if that’s appropriate,” she said breezily. “But fine. It’s your job on the line.”

  “I’m willing to risk it. Besides, my boss is on break.” Christian sat down next to her and there was a moment of silence between them. He’d swear he could practically hear their sexual energy crackling in the air between them. “This isn’t so bad, huh? We have all the important things.”

  “We need music though,” she said. “And I don’t mean Christmas carols.”

  Christian glanced around but there didn’t seem to be a radio or anything. “I have my iPod but I didn’t bring the speakers.” And he’d be damned if he’d let her plug into it and tune him out. He wanted to talk to her, among other things.

  “That’s okay. I guess I shouldn’t bitch. This is about as good as it gets under the circumstances.”

  Hmm. That wasn’t exactly a glowing review on time with him. Not that he should blame her. This wasn’t how she’d planned her Christmas to go down. “Hey. I’m really sorry about your cruise,” he said in a soft voice.