Merry and Bright(51)

Ned





Yeah, she just bet he needed to talk to her! Only a few moments ago, she had assumed—hoped—he’d actually pick her up at her place so they could go to the ball together. For eight weeks now, he’d driven her crazy with his need to take things slow. Slower than a-snail’s-pace slow. Slower than icicles-melting slow. So-slow-she’d-been-losing-interest slow.

And yet in that bathroom, he hadn’t seemed to be taking anything slow.

Don’t think about it.

The others on her planning team—Adam, Ed, and Lucy, usually all too happy when things were going bad for her—had told her to be patient with Ned because he was a great guy.

Well, Ms. Choos apparently thought so, too. Damn it, even more than tearing Ned apart, she wanted some sexual action.

She wanted the man-induced orgasm.

As she left the building, steam coming out of her ears, she didn’t see another soul. This deep into the year, the nights fell early in the Sierras. In pitch blackness, she made her way through the parking lot, the icy air cooling her off. With a few hours before she had to be back for the dreaded Christmas ball, she should hit downtown and knock off the list of gifts she needed in order to make a showing at her parents’ house for Christmas dinner.

After all, she hated an undone to-do list.

But she was too shaken from the Ned-screwing-in-the-bathroom scene to stop. Plus, it was snowing lightly, just enough to dust all the windows on her car, hampering her vision. She pulled out her ice scraper from beneath her driver’s seat and attacked her windows, but the ice stuck stubbornly. Giving up, she got into her frozen car and cranked the heater, which fogged the windows, adding to the visibility challenge. Things kept getting better and better. Forced to roll down her window to see, she stuck out her head.

But the falling snow blocked her view. So did her own iced-over car. Damn it. She put the car into reverse and slowly eased off the brake—wait.

Had she seen movement back there?

Again she stuck her head out the window, but all she could see was snow flurries. Hell. Luckily, she knew she was the only one in the lot, so with another light touch on the gas, she crept out of the parking space and—

Crunch.

Oh, God! Oh, damn! Jerking her car into park, she leapt out of the car with her heart in her throat and came nose to nose with a man—scratch that. Nose to broad chest. “I’m so sorry!” she said, trying to blink the white flakes from her eyes to see past the man’s long dark coat and hood. “I—”

“You weren’t looking.”

“I couldn’t see—”

“I honked.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Are you in that much of a hurry to get to the Christmas ball?” he asked.

It suddenly sank through her agitation that she knew that frustrated male voice. Craning her head back, she lifted her gaze past broad shoulders and stared up into a pair of slate-gray eyes filled with annoyance.

Oh, no. No, no, no.

Not him. Anyone else on the planet but him.

The him in question pushed back his hood, his dark hair glistening with snowflakes, making him seem even more fiercely intense and devastatingly handsome, if that were possible. Cami imagined even the most hardened of women would sigh over those chiseled features and that rock-hard body.

But not her. Nope, she was entirely unmoved.

Because in addition to the fact that he stood on her last nerve, he was the newly appointed mayor.

Her boss.

Her nemesis, Councilman Matt Tarino. They’d worked together in planning for two years before he’d moved on to councilman six months ago, and in their time together, they’d done nothing but gone head-to-head. He was the bane of her existence.

And now he was mayor. That he was tough as nails and cowed to no one when it came to getting fair share and equal housing for the lower-income population—her pet project—didn’t matter. Nor did the fact that he’d been an excellent city planner, an advocate for all that she herself fought for.

Not when he was everything her orderly, organized, rule-loving brain couldn’t fathom. He had no patience for precedence, rules, or expectations, and adding insult to injury, he seemed like sin personified, possessing a charismatic presence that conquered worlds, parted seas—and women’s legs—with a simple smile.

It drove her crazy.

Logically she knew that these feelings were coming from the little fat kid inside of her, the one guys used to cruelly call Whale-Tail, but she didn’t care. He was just far too perfect. Everything about him made her want to gnash her teeth into powder.

And now, Merry Christmas to her, because she’d crunched his front fender and taken out his right headlight, and quite possibly ruined her life and her career—which was her life. Closing her eyes briefly, she opened them again and looked anywhere but into Matt Tarino’s frustrated face. That’s when her gaze landed on his feet.

Specifically, his black leather dress shoes.

Not Ned in the bathroom with Ms. Fabulous Choos, but . . . Matt?

And just like that, her humiliation vanished, and so did the ball of nerves lodged in her throat. “It was you,” she breathed. “You were the one in the women’s bathroom!”

He blinked. Snowflakes fell from his long, dark lashes. “What?”

It made perfect sense. Women were always talking about him, sighing over him, drooling over him . . . “I heard you two in the stall,” she said in disgust, crossing her arms. “Now, I’m sorry I ran into you, but truthfully, you’d distracted me. Get a room next time, sheesh!”