You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(131)

“I think he’s recovered from that scene with his dad,” Trevor said into her ear when Dean walked back into the living room, clothes disheveled, lips red and swollen.

He looked like walking sex.

“Yeah,” she said.

But he wasn’t recovered.

And in a room full of friends and people he worked with, she had the feeling she was the only one who knew it.





Chapter Three





December 24, 2011

6:43 AM

For a minute, before opening her eyes, Trina Crawford allowed herself to believe she was in her own bed.

But there was someone else in this one.

And there had not been a someone else in her bed for a very long time.

Oh no, what have I done?

Trina turned her head on the pillow and nearly bumped noses with Dean.

Dean McKenzie. I did Dean McKenzie.

She clapped a hand over her mouth, squelching a delighted squeak.

Maybe this is a dream… just some strange stress-and-coming-back-to-Dusk-Falls-induced dream.

But when she squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, Dean was still there. So was the headache pounding behind her eyeballs.

I slept with Dean.

His long, angular face was relaxed in sleep, his black hair like great sweeps of ink across the white pillowcase. His mouth, those wide lips—she curled her fingers against the urge to touch them, trace their edges—they’d been soft, softer even than she’d dreamt.

And she’d dreamt about Dean McKenzie’s lips a lot.

The second half of her senior year, after that night on her porch. Her first year of college. After breaking up with Trevor after the party, she’d spent several long months counting every opportunity she’d missed with her once-best friend.

That all ended last night.

Needing a shot of courage before facing her future—which, oddly enough, looked a lot like her past—she’d stopped at Holly’s on the edge of town, and there was Dean, sitting alone, nursing a beer. Blinking Christmas lights from the mirror over the bar had been reflected in his dark hair.

Like a Christmas sex fantasy come true.

After that, all of it—every moment, every breath and touch—had seemed inevitable.

As if, since their birth, they’d been working their way to this.

I blame Christmas. And our fathers. I blame Christmas and fathers for everything. Romeo and Juliet have nothing on us.

Head pounding, she held her breath and slid backward beneath the quilt, the cold air of Dean’s apartment chilling her body inch by inch. Tomorrow she’d analyze every minute of last night: the beers, then the shots, the flirtation, his hand on her hip, her fingers in his hair. That kiss in the hallway near the bathroom.

“Come home with me, Trina,” he’d whispered. “Haven’t you always wanted to find out what it would be like between us?”

Because it was Christmas, and Christmas made her crazy. And because yes, she had always wondered, like a million times she’d wondered—she’d kissed him back and she’d said yes.

And she got her answer—oh boy, did she get her answer. Well, sort of. Some of the details were a little hazy. But between what she remembered and the way her body ached in all the right places in all the right ways, she could jump to some pretty logical conclusions.

Hot. Together they’d been hot. Incendiary. She was amazed the sheets weren’t scorched from their bodies. But that was another thing she would analyze in the days and weeks ahead. For now she just needed to get out. Get her head together. Find some coffee.

She got one foot on the ground and forced herself not to recoil back under the warm covers with warm Dean.

Winter in Dusk Falls, Wyoming was no joke. She’d forgotten in California. It had been nice to forget. She looked up at Dean, sleeping on his side. He had one foot poking out of the bottom of the blankets.

She’d forgotten a lot. Too much, maybe.

Naked and shivering, she got up off the mattress Dean had on the floor and looked around for her clothes. She found her jeans. Her sweater. One sock. The cold plank floor creaked under her feet and she paused every time, holding her breath, glancing over her shoulder at Dean, who only sighed and rolled over, revealing his long, pale torso, ridged with muscles. He looked like a marble sculpture.

But he’d felt like fire.

She shoved her feet into her boots, ready to sacrifice her new bra and underwear, her other sock. All in order to get out of there before she made more mistakes.

“I didn’t peg you as the love ’em and leave ’em type.”

Dean was awake.

Crap.

And his voice was gruff and warm, with—as usual—a laugh, buried somewhere inside.

“I didn’t want to wake you up.” She looked down at her boots, like getting them perfectly tight was all that mattered.

“Right.”

The tone of his voice made her head snap toward him. Still laughing, but now there was an edge to it. He was sitting up on his mattress, blankets pooled around his waist. His bright blue eyes were lined with dark lashes, and they saw right through her crap.

They always saw right through her crap. From the minute she discovered her own crap—he was seeing through it.

“If you’re going to run away, at least have the guts to say it.”

“I wasn’t—”