Hot Christmas Nights

by Rachel Bailey

  His face cleared. “Right. So what happened?”

  She huffed out a sigh. “One night we went to a nightclub and I wore a dress that covered the essentials, but not much else.”

  His face suddenly darkened. “Did someone hurt you?”

  She shook her head. “I received a lot of unwanted male attention, though—suggestive comments and hands going where they had no right to go. It brought home to me the fact that I could get into some pretty serious trouble if I wasn’t careful.”

  Josh slammed a finger down to the table between them. “Whatever you were wearing, those men should’ve treated you with respect!”

  “Very true…but I wasn’t blameless.” She grimaced. “I was looking for a reaction and I got one.” It just wasn’t one that she’d liked. “I wanted every man who saw me to want me.” She’d thought it’d make her feel better about herself. It’d had the opposite effect.

  She sipped her water. “I was lucky. I went home, got changed and threw that dress in the bin. I was thoroughly ashamed of myself. For a long time any item of clothing involving a skirt reminded me of my stupidity.”

  “So you stopped wearing skirts and dresses and stuck to jeans and cargo pants.”

  “Uh huh.” Besides, the futility of it had hit her too. Josh had been as far out of her reach as ever. She’d packed up her skirts and dresses and her romantic notions about him and had put them away forever.

  “That was eight years ago, Erin.”

  “I guess it became a habit.” She shot him a smile, hoping it’d ease the frown in his eyes. Wearing dresses didn’t mean resurrecting pie-in-the-sky romantic fantasies. She touched the skirt of her dress. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love this. Dresses aren’t practical for work, but maybe…maybe I could wear one to the occasional party.”

  Josh really wished Erin hadn’t drawn his attention to her dress again.

  He gulped down iced water, hoping it’d cool the heat building through him. “You wear a dress like that to the next race day and you’ll have every guy in town panting after you.”

  Her face fell and he could’ve bitten his tongue out of his head. She’d just told him about unwanted attentions and here he was promising more of the same.

  “In a respectful fashion,” he added.

  She didn’t say anything.

  He took her hand. He’d held a lot of hands—soft hands, fragrant hands, smooth hands. Erin’s hands weren’t like that. They were calloused and strong. Like his. Which made it all the more puzzling when her heat and vibrancy sent an answering flash of heat through him. It took an effort to remain focused. “The dress you’re wearing does not shout out—Come and ravage me. It doesn’t even whisper it.”

  His jaw clenched. A woman should be allowed to wear whatever she damn well pleased without fear of reprisals. “What I meant was—”

  She suddenly laughed and the shadows in her eyes disappeared. “I know what you meant.”

  She squeezed his hand before letting it go. He flexed it before rubbing it down his pants in an effort to dispel the sensation of having been branded.

  He glanced across at Erin again. She was twenty-six. It seemed all of the single twenty-six-year-old females in Belltrees had turned their minds to marriage and babies.

  Did Erin want babies?

  Did she want to settle down and start a family?

  If she made herself up all pretty like she had tonight, she could have her pick of men. A scowl scuffed through him. Actually, she wouldn’t need to doll herself up. She’d just need to smile at a guy rather than growl at him.

  “You have a face like thunder!” Erin said.

  His attention snapped back.

  “What now?” she demanded.

  He searched his mind. No way was he going to tell her that the thought of her married to some guy made his gut burn. “Just wishing I could beat up all of those guys who made you feel bad eight years ago.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Forget about them. I have.”

  As she sipped her drink, the frown still hovered in the sea green depths of her eyes. He didn’t want her frowning. He wanted her laughing and having fun.

  He pointed. “Cocktails.”

  She stared at him and then caught on. Her lips lifted. “Tick.”

  He pointed to the dance floor. “Dancing…”

  “Yes! It’s time to tick that off the list too.”

  Rubbing her hands together, she slid off her stool and led the way to the dance floor. He stared at the long line of her back displayed to perfection by yellow silk and had to run a finger around the collar of his shirt.

  She glanced back over her shoulder at him. “I—”

  She broke off, her eyes narrowing at whatever she saw in his face. Hell! He couldn’t let her get wind of the stupid fantasies playing through his mind. Grabbing her hand, he swung her out onto the dance floor. She laughed at the unexpectedness of it. He didn’t know the song, but the beat was loud and fast and Erin gave herself over to it as if she’d been dreaming of dancing for months.

  She should try and get away from her mother for an occasional Saturday night of dancing. It’d do her good. His gaze snagged on the way her hips moved to the beat and he amended that. She should go out dancing with him. Only with him.

  He shook his head, trying to free himself of the thought and did what he could to lose himself to the music in the same way she had. It didn’t work. The harder he tried, the more aware he became of her—of the sinuous movements of her body, of the way her skirt swished about her thighs, of the sexy shine of her hair as she tossed it over her shoulder. A new hunger started roaring through his gut—an ache that became a ravaging need to kiss her.

  He hadn’t kissed a woman, hadn’t dated anyone, in over six months. He wasn’t a player, but he’d yet to meet a woman who’d made him want to settle down, so he hadn’t wanted the complication that dating another Belltrees girl could cause.

  Kissing Erin could create the biggest complication of all.

  But that thought didn’t dampen the need.

  It could be worth it.

  As soon as the thought slid into him, he couldn’t get rid of it. He kept moving to the beat of the music and tried to shake it free, but his body started burning with a fierce and insistent need. He might be a hundred different kinds of idiot, but as he stared at the high-gloss pink of Erin’s lipstick, at the plump curve of her bottom lip, it occurred to him that in this moment he’d risk a whole lot to kiss her.

  And why not? They were both adults.

  After three dance tracks, the music changed to a slow number. Erin smiled and hitched her head in the direction of their table. Before she could take a step away, he gathered her in his arms, a fever taking hold of his brain. “Dance with me,” he murmured in her ear.

  She hesitated, but with the tiniest of shrugs, she placed her right hand in his and lifted her left hand to his shoulder.

  A shudder rippled through him. Closing his eyes, he pulled her in close, his hand resting against the bare skin of her back as she relaxed against him. For a moment everything felt right.

  He buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply. “You smell amazing.”

  “I ought to. The new perfume I bought this afternoon cost an arm and a leg.” Her voice emerged breathy and a thrill of sure knowledge flooded him. Erin wasn’t as indifferent to their contact as she’d have him believe.

  With a lazy finger, he traced a spiral against the bare skin of her back. She shivered and the grin inside of him widened.

  They moved together in perfect harmony, attuned to the other’s rhythm and movements. He could’ve explained that as years of working together, but this didn’t feel practical. It felt primal and mesmerizing. If dancing with Erin had every atom of his being firing to thrumming life, how much more amazing would making love with her be?

  It’d blow his mind.

  The thought made him stumble.

  Erin’s head lifted, her lips moved towards his ear, and everything inside
of him froze. If she touched her lips to his cheek, he’d have them upstairs in her room before she could say, Line up the Long Island teas.

  “At two o’clock there’s a sultry brunette who’s been checking you out since we arrived.”

  What the…?

  “And at six o’clock there’s a perky redhead who’s being far more subtle, but her baby blues keep returning to you.”

  His gut burned. “And you’re telling me this because…?”

  She eased back to look at him. “You don’t want to have fun with anyone in Belltrees because of the potential mayhem it could cause, but you can have fun here.”

  A fist reached out and squeezed the air from his chest. All the time he’d been fantasizing about kissing her, Erin had been setting him up with other women?

  She couldn’t have made her lack of interest any plainer if she’d tried!

  He unclenched his jaw to say, “You think I should ask one of them to dance?”

  She winked. “You catch on quick.”

  “Any preference?”

  “Ow! You’re hurting my hand.”

  He immediately loosened his grip.

  “As for a preference…” She shrugged. “If you want my opinion…go with the redhead if you’re after laughs. If you want fire and heat then my money’s on the brunette.”

  And what if he wanted a smart-mouthed sandy-blonde?

  The particular sandy-blonde he was interested in, though, had well and truly removed herself from the mix.

  The song came to an end, but he refused to release her. “What will you do?”

  He didn’t want to let her go.

  You want to become one of those men to plague her with unwanted attentions?

  No! He would never do that. “What will you do,” he repeated.

  “I’ll go and sip my mojito for a while. If someone asks me to dance, and I like the look of them, I’ll dance.”

  He couldn’t believe the ripple of jealousy that spiked through him.

  “Now are you going to let me go?”

  With a start, he realized he still held her captive. He let her go, but only to take her elbow. “I’ll see you back to the table.”

  When they reached it, he took a generous slug of his drink.

  “Josh?”

  He glanced down to find her staring at him with narrowed eyes.

  “This holiday is as much for you as it is for me. I want you to know you don’t have to look after me. I’m fine. Honestly. I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.”

  “Are you worried I’m going to cramp your style?” Maybe she was the one who wanted an anonymous holiday fling?

  Her smile widened. “I see we understand each other perfectly.”

  He wanted to hurl his glass against the nearest wall.

  He went to stalk away, but swung back. She was still his friend. His best friend. “If anyone bothers you or makes you feel uneasy, you come and get me, okay? I’ll be happy to see you to your room at any stage.”

  She smiled and reached up to clasp his upper arm. “Josh, go have fun.”

  Without another word he turned and left, moving in the direction of the brunette’s table. Fire and heat, huh? He was in the mood to play with fire.

  An hour and a half later, Josh let himself out onto the balcony of his apartment. The sound of the water lapping on the shore greeted him, the scent of frangipani on the air drenching his senses, but an alert sixth sense had him turning to his left.

  Erin leant against the railing of the balcony next to his, silhouetted by the light filtering from her sitting room, a tiny breeze lifting strands of her hair.

  “Gorgeous view, isn’t it?” She didn’t turn her head. “Did you have fun tonight?”

  He mirrored her posture, staring out at water silvered by moonlight. He spied a pair of lovers beneath the palm trees, arms entwined. “I did,” he lied. “You?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He felt her gaze, but he didn’t turn his head.

  “You’re home earlier than I thought you’d be.”

  She’d obviously thought he’d spend the night with the brunette. “Monique is very beautiful. She dances well, is full of interesting conversation and is a classy woman, but she leaves me cold.”

  Erin straightened. “Heavens! You’re a hard man to please.”

  With that she retreated into her apartment, closing the glass sliding door of her balcony, leaving him out in the dark on his own.

  “No I’m not,” he whispered to the stars twinkling far above him. He wasn’t a hard man to please at. All he wanted was Erin.

  The realization was both freeing and frightening.

  This was Erin he was talking about—best buddy and business partner. And he didn’t want her for a single night. He didn’t even want her for a holiday fling. It might just be that he wanted her forever. The only question now was, what was he going to do about it?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Every cell in Erin’s body clenched when Josh set his towel beside hers on the sun-drenched beach the next morning.

  She glanced at him from behind her very dark sunglasses. The brim of her sunhat was pulled down low so he mightn’t have known that she was watching him but, either way, he didn’t try to hide the smoldering appreciation that lit his face as he made a lazy survey of her body. Her skin prickled with unaccustomed heat. Beneath her sea-shirt her nipples puckered and tightened.

  “Are you ever going to wear that bikini?” he asked, throwing himself down to his towel.

  She sat up, her heart thumping and her fingers cold. “We’re not going to do this, Josh.”

  He wasn’t wearing a shirt and her gaze zeroed in on washboard abs that made her mouth dry.

  “We’re not doing what?”

  She knew him well enough to know he was fudging for time. “You know exactly what I mean.”

  The breadth of his chest made the pulse in her throat pound. An ache stared up inside her. An ache uncannily similar to the one that had fired to life last night when he’d pulled her close. It’d made her feel protected, cherished…beautiful.

  It was only a dance!

  It’d become so much more once Josh had started drawing circles against the bare skin of her back. With a lazy—and no doubt deliberate—intent he’d set about building a storm of need inside her. His chest had brushed against hers, his thighs had pressed against hers, and his breath had teased the hair at her temple until she’d wanted to melt into him.

  And she almost had before common sense had asserted itself.

  She could do with a cold hard dash of sense right now too.

  Why on earth didn’t he put on a shirt? She pointed to the sky. “Aren’t you concerned about sunburn?”

  He reached across and grabbed her tube of sunscreen, held it towards her with a challenge in his eyes. “Would you do the honors?”

  His grin set her teeth on edge. Did he think she wouldn’t be able to control herself if she touched him? She snatched the tube.

  “And while you’re at it, you can tell me what it is we’re not going to do.”

  Gritting her teeth she aimed the tube at his chest and squirted a blob of sunscreen dead center before shuffling around behind him. “Rub that in while I do your back.”

  The pulse in her throat pounded to life the moment she touched him. The sun had warmed his skin, and as she rubbed the cream into his shoulders the heat transferred itself to her fingertips. And then her blood.

  He sucked in a breath when she worked her way across his nape, and her heart performed a slow disorienting somersault. She clenched her thighs together to counter their sudden weakness. “What we’re not going to do,” she started between clenched teeth, “is the friends-with-benefits thing.”

  He stilled and then nodded. Not an acceptance of her words so much as an acknowledgement that this was the conversation they were going to have.

  She poured more sunscreen into her hands and worked her way down his shoulders and back, her breath jamming in her t
hroat. He was all hard male muscle vibrating with lusty good health and her fingers delighted in the feel of him.

  “Erin?”

  “Hmm?”

  “If you mean what you just said, then you better stop touching me like that.”

  She froze. Dear God!

  She shuffled back to her towel, her cheeks burning. “It would’ve been easier to put on a shirt,” she mumbled.

  He leaned across her, trapping her between his arms and her towel as he surveyed the book she was reading. “Nora Roberts?”

  With a superhuman effort she found her tongue. “It’s very good.”

  He turned his head a fraction, his lips a mere breath away from hers. She sat there suspended between hard pounds of her heart.

  “And just for the record,” he murmured, “having you slather me in sunscreen…”

  Her lips parted to drag in air.

  “Is a lot more fun than wearing a shirt. And having you look at me with that hungry little twist to your mouth is satisfying…and hot.”

  Her pulse went mad. No! Planting a hand in his chest, she pushed him back to his towel. “We’re not going to do this.”

  “Why not?”

  She gaped at him.

  “We’re both free and single. We’re friends, which is a bonus as it means we actually like spending time together. You’re beautiful, beguiling…sexy.”

  Her stomach kicked at every word.

  “And I don’t think you find me completely repulsive.”

  If only she’d did! She folded her arms. “And you think those are reasons enough for us to sleep together?”

  “We’d be hot together, and you know it.”

  Just for a moment she imagined tangled limbs and heat—

  She waved her hands in front of her face. “You’re crazy! It’d become too complicated. Sex isn’t worth it.”

  He leaned in close. “Then you’re not doing it right.”

  Her breath hitched at the promise lacing his words. She pulled in a long, slow breath. “I don’t want to risk our friendship, Josh. It means too much to me.”

  She pulled her sunglasses from her eyes to meet his gaze—so he could see the fear that lay behind her words. Whatever he saw, it made him swear.