Jill Shalvis - Small Town Christmas

“Sandy.”

With a sigh, she opened them again, and leveled him with those killer baby blues, which were filled with a shocking, staggering sadness. “Hey,” he said gently, and unable to help himself, leaned in and kissed her lightly. “Missed you.”

“Oh, Logan,” she whispered, as if maybe she’d missed him too, but there was something in her voice that disturbed him.

She didn’t believe him. “I should have told you sooner,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about you. Wanting you.”

“So this is what, a booty call?”

“I wanted to see you,” he said, smart enough not to touch that question with a ten-foot pole.

“Your season’s over now, right? Everyone’s off for Christmas, and you got bored. You were probably on the West Coast visiting your San Francisco relatives, so you thought why the hell not look up that cute little brunette you hooked up with from Lucky Harbor because she was easy enough?”

He stared at her, stunned that she’d think that. “You’re wrong.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah.” And he pulled her into his arms and kissed her to prove it.

One moment, Sandy was sitting there behind the wheel of her car in her righteous resentment, and the next, Logan’s lips had covered hers. His hand cupped her jaw, and he sucked hungrily on her bottom lip, like a starving man in search of a meal.

Confused, dizzy, and extremely turned on, she threw her arms around his neck and pressed even closer. Logan answered with a low, rough groan and stood up, pulling her out of the car with him. He threaded his fingers into her hair while his other arm slid around her hips, hauling her up onto her tiptoes for a better lineup of their parts.

And, oh Lord, how their parts lined up.

She heard herself moan with the sheer pleasure of his hard body. He broke the kiss to stare down at her with a triumphant gleam.

“What was that?” she demanded.

“A reminder of what we had.”

“What we had was a fling,” Sandy said. “A very hot, wonderful fling, but then you left.”

“I had contractual obligations,” he reminded her. “And you’re not remembering all of it.” He brushed his lips across hers. “We said we’d keep in touch because we had something.”

“Chemistry.”

“Yeah. Let me remind you just how much.”

This kiss was deeper, hotter, and far more intimate as he opened his mouth over hers. She told herself to shove him away, to regain some badly needed dignity, but her brain sent the wrong message to her fingertips, and she hauled him closer instead, pushing herself against him. He was hard. Everywhere. She was on the edge, and he’d barely touched her. This did not say much about her will to resist him.

And truth be told, she had just about forgotten why she wanted to.

Because he made you fall for him-hard-and then he walked his sweet ass right out of your life. It hit her like a bucket of cold water. She unfisted her hands from his shirt and gave him a push.

Logan stepped back and looked at her from beneath his sexy, hooded eyes.

“Don’t do that,” she said, annoyed at her own breathlessness.

“Don’t kiss you?”

“Don’t kiss me. Don’t touch me.”

He smiled. “Because you can’t resist me?”

His smile weakened her knees. She gave him another push and then slid into her car again. “And don’t do that either.”

“Talk?”

“Smile.” She turned the key and started her car. “In fact, don’t anything in my presence. Go back to your bigger-than-life world, where women drape their panties on your hotel room doorknob and scream your name and want to be with you.”

“I don’t want to be with any of them. It’s Christmas, and I want to be with you.”

But could she really believe that? “You should go home, Logan.”

He was quiet, too quiet, and she made the mistake of looking at him. He was standing there all leanly muscled and gorgeous by moonlight. “That’s the thing, Sandy,” he said, his voice low and husky. “ I am home.”

Until the season starts up again , she told herself, and revved her engine. “Stand back. I don’t want to run over your foot.”

Not a stupid man by any means, he took a step back, but his eyes never left hers. “I’m going to prove myself to you, Sandy.”

Afraid of him doing just that, she hit the gas and drove off into the night. Don’t look back…

She totally looked back. Logan was standing in the middle of the lot watching her go.

Sandy spent the evening staring at her bedroom ceiling, her body bereft and achy, like she’d betrayed it by not taking Logan home with her.

Sleep , she ordered herself. Concentrate .

But the truth was, she hadn’t been able to concentrate in months. Sleeping through the night had become a forgotten luxury. Instead, she’d toss and turn, remembering the feel of Logan’s hands and mouth on her body, and how he’d made her burn for him…

You could be burning right now, instead of lying here staring at the ceiling .

Ignoring herself, she gave up trying to sleep and showered, then drove to work. She pulled into the lot and blinked in surprise. The old ’72 Buick was gone, replaced by a… BMW.

She stared at it, then strode into the building. “Where’s the Buick?” she asked Kali, the front-desk clerk.

Kali was twenty-four, an avid snowboarder who supported her habit with this minimum-wage position, along with her minimum experience. She was quivering with excitement. “I can’t tell you.”

“Excuse me?”

Kali flipped her cute blond ponytail to the left and then the right, and when she’d satisfied herself that no one was looking or listening, she leaned close and whispered, “He paid me not to tell you.”

Sandy already knew damn well who “he” was, but she asked anyway. “ Who paid you not to tell me what ?”

“Well, not me exactly…” Kali swiveled her chair and pointed to the side counter, which was set up with three large money jars, each for a different charity, the Humane Society, the senior center, and disabled athletes.

Each was full. Shocked, Sandy moved closer. “Oh my God.” Each jar had been crammed with money.

“And those aren’t just one-dollar bills, either,” Kali said in an awed whisper. “Those are twenties . He said he’d have done it in hundreds, but the bank wasn’t prepared to give him that many hundreds on such short notice.”

Sandy’s eyes narrowed as a bad feeling came over her. “ He .”

Kali smiled. “The cutest guy in the history of all cute guys.” From her desk, she pulled out last week’s People magazine and opened it to the Star Track page. There was Logan in full color in his racing gear, hot, sweaty, gorgeous… holding up a trophy and giving the grin that never failed to melt her panties.

Oh, no. No, no, no, no… this was bad. “ Logan ,” she hissed through her teeth.

“Yes!” Kali beamed at her. “Got it in one.”

He was just trying to impress her with the charity jars, she told herself. That was all. And he had more money than God himself, so it wasn’t like he’d done that much.

Except stay up all night and get the old Buick piece-of-shit towed away.

Replace it with his BMW.

Go to the bank and clean them out of twenties.

And stuff the charity money jars full. “Kali, you have one thing to do today.”

“What’s that?”

“Find me a Santa.”

Sandy was head deep in a mountain of paperwork at noon when sushi was delivered.

From a little place in Seattle, her favorite.

She eyed the small card that had come with it. She blew out a breath and opened it.