Jill Shalvis: Kiss Me, Katie! & Hug Me, Holly!

“Good evening.” His voice was perfectly calm. Almost asleep calm.

Catatonic calm.

“It looks as though nearly everyone showed up tonight,” he said.

How could he sound so…so normal? With one kiss he’d leveled her, and yet he stood there as if it’d been no big deal.

Was it possible he hadn’t felt what she had?

And how humiliating was that?

“Matt, about what just happened-”

He looked at her blankly. “What just happened?”

“Exactly,” she said, nodding. “About that-”

“Excuse me?”

“No, excuse me, ” came a low, husky male voice that made Katie’s entire body tighten.

Bryan Morgan.

Head pilot and local daredevil. He was the hero of every man at Wells Aviation, and the center of every woman’s fantasy.

Every woman but Katie. He was a jump-off-the-cliff type of guy, far too similar to her daredevil father who had gotten himself killed when she was just a teenager. As a rule she steered clear of him, though the reasons were so complicated she didn’t often allow herself to think about them.

Especially now, when he was smiling at her, a wide, devastatingly charismatic smile that would have melted any other female in the room.

“You look lovely,” he said, which was funny only because he was tall, leanly muscled, rugged, and the most gorgeous man ever to walk the planet, and he thought she, plain-Jane Katie, looked lovely. Right.

“Thank you,” she said politely, pointedly turning away from him back to Matt. Darn it, she wanted to talk about their kiss.

“And the decorations,” Bryan said, a small smile in his voice. “So tastefully done.”

Great. He liked the decorations. Now could he just go away? She had a kiss to discuss!

“Especially all that strategically placed mistletoe,” Bryan added, and Katie finally went still, giving him her one-hundred-percent undivided attention.

“What?” she whispered, her heart all but stopping.

Bryan just looked at her, his brilliant blue eyes innocent. And hot. Now she realized that was a complete contradiction, but it happened to be true. Something deep down within her unfurled, hesitated. “What did you just say?” she asked again.

He merely smiled. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

BRYAN MORGAN threw his plane into a spin, acknowledging he had about ten seconds to pull himself out if he wanted to live.

Nine…eight…

The image of last night’s party floated through the haze in his mind. There’d been plenty of loud talking and even louder music, reminding him of his huge family. Growing up with six older sisters, there hadn’t been a lot of quiet, or alone time. So he had a fine appreciation of both. Because of that, he liked his parties a lot more intimate and personal…but there had been one redeeming factor last night. A surprising one.

A woman. Now, Bryan loved women, he really did. All shapes and sizes. But in his mind, he already had a permanent force of at least seven in his life, if he counted his mother as well as his sisters. All of whom had bossed, charmed, coaxed and threatened their way for each of his thirty-two years. And since they showed signs of living another half a century at least, it wasn’t often Bryan allowed another woman to play a serious role in his existence.

In fact, it was downright rare. Oh, he dated. Often. But things were always on a walk-away basis.

Always.

And yet last night he’d held Katie and his heart had sort of fumbled. Warm, vital, sweet, funny Katie, with her soft, wavy, whiskey-colored hair that matched her whiskey-colored eyes, eyes in the past that had always looked at him so aloofly.

Seven…six…

She’d looked amazing in that shimmery red dress. Who would have thought? He’d even dreamed of it, the way it had fallen over her curvy little body and trim thighs. So different from her usual prim-and-proper business attire, which suited her accounting position, but not the heat and passion he knew lurked just beneath her surface.

Well, to be fair, he didn’t know for certain she had heat and passion beneath her surface, he’d known her all year and hadn’t been able to tell…until last night.

In spite of the force of gravity pulling his face into a grimace, he managed a grin. Because now he knew, oh yeah, he definitely knew.

Five…four… But what he didn’t know was why she seemed so wary of him. Over the years he’d caused a lot of feelings in women, most of them pretty good, some of them not so good, but never once had he caused wariness.

Three …and the plane continued to spin. So did his head, bringing his thoughts back to the task at hand.

Now was not the time to be daydreaming about things that would drain the rest of the blood from his head to parts south.

He needed his wits.

He was good at flying, really good, and it wasn’t cockiness that told him that, but fact. Yes, he was confident, but then again, a good pilot had to be, and Bryan was nothing if not a good pilot.

Two… He hoped they were getting the shot they needed below, that the cameras hadn’t failed as they had earlier because he really didn’t think he could pull off this particular stunt any better than he just had.

It was the perfect ride, glorious blue skies, not a cloud in sight and…

One. Just a flash second before hurtling both him and a very expensive plane into the ground, he pulled out of the spin and shook his head slightly to clear it.

“Got it?” he asked into his headset.

“Holy cow!” Ritchie yelled into Bryan’s ear. “ Holy, ace, that was absolutely amazing!”

“Gee, guess you got it.”

“You’re wasting your talents taxiing the rich and famous in expensive airplanes, you should be doing stunts all the time.”

Ritchie Owens was a Hollywood producer. That’s what he told women, anyway. Mostly he did beer commercials. The stunt Bryan had just pulled off would be shown in an adventurous, exciting, quick-paced, filled with loud music ad spot designed to raise a man’s thirst.

Or so he supposed.

Bryan didn’t really care; it gave him an excuse to fly, and to fly with abandon, and that was all that mattered to him. “I don’t taxi people. I run a charter company.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Still a waste.”

Bryan didn’t bother to correct Ritchie. He didn’t feel any particular need to defend himself, not when he truly did love his work. In his opinion, he had everything he would ever need, and Ritchie, all four and a half feet of him, driven by the materialistic meter of success of the film industry, would never understand.

“God, that was fantastic.” Ritchie was clearly ecstatic. “The best I’ve ever seen! We’re gonna get tons of feedback from this one, ace. Tons. I feel it in my bones.”

Bryan remained silent as he easily circled and came in for his landing. The sun was at his back, the wind was with him. On top of the world, he took a deep breath, as always awed by the glory of being in the air.

No problems, no stress. Life was everything he wanted, everything he made out of it.

But inexplicably, that wasn’t the case today. And if he was being honest, something he always was to a fault-just ask any of his past girlfriends-he had to admit it had everything to do with last night.

The Christmas party.

And the surprise Christmas kiss.

It’d been a helluva great gift. Admittedly, the gift giver hadn’t meant to give him the kiss, but he’d tried to tell her he wasn’t who she thought he was, hadn’t he?

Well…maybe he hadn’t tried very hard.

Maybe he hadn’t managed to say anything except her name, but he was only human. And yeah, maybe a better man might have told her the truth right then and there, but he wasn’t out for any hero awards.