Chasing Christmas Eve

“Now.”

Spence was wrapped in warm, sated woman and feeling pretty damn good about the evening as he dozed off, when suddenly Colbie stirred and murmured his name.

It was one a.m. and she’d been out for at least thirty minutes. He’d put her into a pleasure coma and it’d made him feel more than a little smug. He stroked a hand down her back. “You okay?”

“Who’s Brandon?” she asked, voice thick with sleep. “I meant to ask that before but you distracted me.”

“He’s an old college roommate.”

“And . . .?” she asked, running a finger over his chest, an unbelievably soothing touch.

“. . . And,” he said, “he’s also someone I stupidly gave an interview to when he asked.”

“Hmm . . .” Her fingers danced lightly over his ribs and abs, which he liked way too much. “I take it that the interview didn’t go well,” she said.

“He works for a tech magazine and he needed a story. I agreed, as long as the article was business only, nothing personal. He promised.”

“And then . . . he broke the promise?” she asked, her hand stilling.

“He gave my life story,” Spence said. “Most of it pieced together from what he knew of me in college, the rest from gossip he’d dug up.”

“Ah,” she said. “And the next thing you knew, you were on San Fran’s most eligible bachelor list, getting marriage proposals via texts with NSFW pics to go with,” she guessed.

He groaned, which got a smile out of his bedmate. “Well you are pretty eligible . . .” she teased.

He sighed and she laughed, but it faded as she slid her hand up his chest to cup his jaw, her eyes sympathetic now and full of understanding. “I get it,” she said. “No one’s built for this kind of public scrutiny.”

The thought that she understood him should’ve been comforting, but it wasn’t.

Because in one week she’d be gone . . .

“He had no right to do that,” she said, “to play on your friendship. I haven’t known you very long, but even I know that your privacy is super important to you. He shouldn’t have asked you for the interview in the first place.”

“And now he wants a follow-up interview.”

“I hope you told him where he could put it,” she said, voice tight with anger for him.

That she was worked up over this for him was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. He covered her hand on his chest with his own. “I did tell him.”

“But it still sucks,” she guessed. “So . . . how can I make you feel better?”

He slowly nudged her hand southbound.

Colbie laughed. Her eyes were that dark jade green they got when she was unbearably aroused and she reared up so that her mouth could brush against his, her lips soft and sweet. When her tongue touched his, his control snapped and he moved his hand to the back of her neck, closing his mouth over hers, drinking her in.

He should’ve been sated, but the kiss was deep and going deeper by the second. Her hands were running over his body, stopping at all his favorite parts. Ripping his mouth free, he rested his forehead against hers for a few seconds, listening to the both of them breathe like lunatics.

“This is a little bit insane,” she whispered.

“Completely insane.”

“I think about you too much,” she admitted.

“Yeah?” He buried his fingers in her hair and met her gaze. “What do you think about?”

“This. You.”

His heart skipped a few beats at the longing he saw in her face. He pressed her into the bed, needing to feel as much of his body covering hers as possible. He shuddered as her long legs wrapped around him, and he captured her lips in another mind-bending kiss, drinking in the little noises she made deep in her throat.

Then she pulled back, studying him, and he wondered what the hell she saw when she looked at him like that, like maybe he was the best thing that had ever happened to her. Which was gratifying since he was starting to come to terms with the fact that he felt the same. She was definitely the best thing to ever happen to him.

Something he thought about every morning when he dragged himself out of her bed and left her before she woke and saw it all over his face.

As he thought this and let it sink in, it suddenly took everything he had to not tell her. But he wanted her to be the one to make the decision about where to take things next, if they took things anywhere at all. He was starting to realize what his feelings were, but she needed to do the same—in her own time.

He thought maybe he’d see it in her eyes, but he wanted the words, and then, as if she could read his mind, she opened her mouth—but what came out wasn’t anything he expected.

“Oh my God, wait!” she gasped and wriggled out from beneath him.

“What’s wrong?”

“I forgot!” She sat up. “I forgot to tell you something. I can’t believe I forgot but there were the brownies and then you naked . . .” She tugged the sheet up to her chin. “Sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Since her voice was very serious and also very panicked and he couldn’t see enough in the dark room to suit him, he reached across her and turned on the small lamp by his bed.

She’d been wearing a soft, warm glow when she’d first drifted off but right now her eyes were wide, dark, and full of haunting secrets.

Shit.

With his gut sinking hard, he watched her slide out of bed and grab the first thing she came to on the floor.

His shirt.

It looked good on her, falling to her thighs, open to expose a strip of creamy skin he knew tasted like heaven. He caught a glimpse of some whisker burn between her breasts and low on her belly before she yanked the shirt closed and started buttoning herself in.

“I’m really so very sorry,” she said, head bowed to her task, her fingers fumbling. “I meant to tell you before we . . .”

Because her fingers were shaking, he got up and moved her hands aside, first undoing what she’d done since she’d lined the buttons up to the wrong holes, before starting anew. As the backs of his knuckles brushed over her flesh, she trembled.

Which killed him. What the ever-loving hell?

When she was buttoned from throat to thigh, he let out a breath and stepped back and pulled on his jeans. “What is it?” he asked quietly.

She chewed her bottom lip. A tell. She did it whenever she was trying to hide an emotion, be it humor, arousal, or in this case, dismay.

“Okay,” she said. “But I want you to know that I promised myself I’d tell you before we . . . we were intimate again. I was going to tell you tonight at dinner, only . . .”

“You ate brownies instead, got high, and then jumped my bones.”

He meant for her to smile, but she didn’t. She looked unsure of herself, kind of the same way she’d looked right after Daisy Duke had sent her swimming. It’d melted his damn heart then, and it did so now, even if he didn’t want it to.

“I may have left you with the wrong impression of who I am and what I do,” she said and hugged herself.

He stared at her and then sank to the bed. “Tell me you’re not a reporter.”

“No.” She paused. “It’s . . . worse.”

Shit. Elle had been right, and oh how she was going to love that. “I need a minute.”

“Now?”

“Yeah.” He shook his head and got to his feet, walking out of his bedroom. Only there wasn’t enough air in the living room either, so he went out the front door with the intention of going up to the roof, where he could sit in peace and quiet on the ledge and stare out at the world until he felt his blood pressure come back down from stroke level.

But he’d forgotten his keys.

Instead of going back inside his place, he pounded the elevator button with enough force to hurt his finger. It opened immediately. He stepped on and hit the basement floor.

Twenty seconds later, he walked into the large room and halted an ongoing poker game. Sitting at the table were Elle, Caleb, Joe, Archer, Finn, and Pru.

They were all smoking cigars, the ones that Luis—Trudy’s three-time husband—had brought back from his trip to Cuba.