You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(2)

“Bob” settled beside her. “Well, I was going to suggest a beer at a local dive but I figured I’d save that for the second date.” He reached for her hand and she moved it.

“If there is a second,” she teased. “Don’t count your chicks, rock star.”

“Am I taking too much for granted ag–” He stopped himself. “Take off the coat…Betty. You look like you’re about to run away and it’s making me nervous.”

She undid the top button. “The dress you had delivered is skin tight…” Kayla inched the coat up her leg to show how the red jersey-silk clung. “I might need alcohol first.”

His dark gaze caressed her thigh. “Or we could forget drinks and get a room.”

“Without even buying me dinner?” She refastened the top button. “Shame on you, Bob.”

He tried to look chastened, but his eyes gave him away. Like the woods in the Robert Frost poem, they were “lovely, dark and deep.” But there were shadows there, sharp-edged. Her beta mate had turned wolf. Every time he returned from touring it took him longer to re-assimilate into real life.

He’d become more confident but less patient, more passionate but less tender, more self-centered and less considerate. Less hers.

Except he wasn’t hers, she reminded herself, not tonight. Tonight, he was a sexy stranger.

“We could get room service,” he encouraged. “I’ll buy you filet mignon, lobster, anything you want. And then we’ll order apple pie”—her favorite—“and see where we can get the cream.”

Kayla fell out of character. “God, no! Too messy.” Getting her four-year-old to decorate home-made Christmas cards with paint, glue and glitter had seemed liked a good idea until Madison’s baby brother had gotten involved.

The red paint and glitter all over the kitchen floor made it look as though Tinkerbell had been murdered there. But they weren’t here to talk about mommy’s day.

“Then how about a long soak in the spa bath instead?” Bob’s gaze dipped to the swell of her breasts under their woolen covering. “Imagine the luxury of uninterrupted leisure, Betty. Luxury bath oil instead of a budget gallon of banana-scented bubble bath. Not having to share with toys and kids…”

She unfastened two buttons. “Keep talking.”

“It’s a simple plan. I’m going to seduce you into leaving your husband for me.”

Her fingers faltered, then she laughed. For a moment he’d sounded so serious.

“Kayla—”

“Betty,” she reminded him.

The cocktail waitress arrived, leggy and blond, with a professional smile that got real when she looked at Jared Walker. Her gaze darted to his date, assessing and then dismissive in an unconscious gesture that would have been insulting if Kayla hadn’t become so used to it.

A pretty woman carrying some baby weight was a six, at best, in Hollywood where even the waitresses—many of them would-be models or actresses—were often eights.

“Welcome to Joy,” The blond angled her body toward Jared. “May I take your order?”

“Your call, Betty. Stay…or go?”

Kayla shrugged off her coat. Her husband was good at buying clothes but the dress was tighter than she’d worn since having kids, with a deep cleavage she had to stop herself adjusting. “Let’s have a drink and see what happens.”

His eyes were hot as he glanced down her dress, and a shiver of anticipation quickened Kayla’s blood. A heady sense of power.

She looked at the waitress, who was clearly revising Kayla’s grade. “Mulled wine, please.”

“Sure. And for you, sir?”

“Another beer for me, thank you.” The slow curve of his smile was still there as he looked up. The blond sucked in a breath.

“I see you chose one of our craft beers, let me tell you about the others.” As the waitress launched into serious flirt mode, Kayla surreptitiously checked her cell in case the sitter was having trouble settling the kids.

A masculine hand covered the screen. “Remember the rules—cells only for emergencies.” Jared confiscated it. “And give me your wedding ring.”

The waitress blinked.

Kayla tugged it off. “I see you’ve already removed yours,” she commented. The wedding band of cheap, shiny gold—all they could afford then—gleamed as she dropped it into his outstretched palm.

“No ties, no responsibilities and no guilt,” he reminded her. “This evening we’re all about…pleasure.” His pause left no doubt as to what that pleasure entailed. Tangled sheets and tangled bodies.

“I’ll get your drinks,” the waitress murmured.

“Was that wise?” Kayla said, when she’d left. “Your face has been everywhere the past couple of months.”

“I could tell she didn’t recognize me. You look gorgeous,” he added. “I got the size perfectly.”

And wasn’t that like a man. Tight is good, tighter is better. God bless their sexual myopia. “So, Bob.” Channeling a throaty-voiced temptress, Kayla sat back. “Is this the part where you tell me your wife doesn’t understand you?”

“And you tell me your husband takes you for granted.” His tone was wry, as their eyes met in rueful acknowledgment of his earlier slip.