Chasing Christmas Eve

He blinked at the quick subject change, his thought processes more than a little impeded by the alcohol. “Uh . . . the movie doesn’t come out until next week.”

“I know. I’ve already seen the movie. I got a special preview a month ago.” She paused, and he couldn’t figure out why they were talking about this when—

“I wrote the books,” she said. “I’m CE Crown.”

His brain was having trouble connecting the dots. “You’re not Colbie Albright?”

“I am. But I write under the pseudonym CE Crown.”

He paused. This wasn’t what he’d expected, although he couldn’t have said what he did expect.

She was watching his reaction very carefully. Only he wasn’t sure what his reaction was supposed to be. Hell, he wasn’t sure of anything at the moment, other than he was wearing a way-too-small pink sweatshirt that pronounced him a princess.

“I came to San Francisco because I’ve been having trouble writing,” she said. “I was hoping to pull myself out of my rut.” She gave a small smile. “Which did happen.” She paused, looking even more unsure of herself now as she met his gaze. “I didn’t intend to tell anyone who I was. It’s not this huge secret or anything, I just wanted to get away from my crazy life and all the responsibility for a bit and find the joy in writing again. But I just . . . It didn’t feel right not telling you anymore. After the past two weeks with you, I wanted you to know the truth. Especially after we . . .” She looked toward the bedroom. “You know.”

Struck dumb by her news, which was nothing even close to what he might have imagined, he nodded inanely.

“So.” She clasped her hands together. “Now you know my big, dark secret.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” she mirrored back softly, and then headed for the door. She lifted her gaze to his and searched his eyes once more. There were more questions there, questions she clearly wanted to ask, but after a long hesitation she didn’t. “I was feeling really bad for misleading you,” she said instead. “But I’m not feeling bad anymore. Especially since the truth is that I wanted you to know me as myself, as Colbie Albright, not CE Crown. That’s all anyone sees these days when they look at me. But CE Crown isn’t real. I’m real.”

At that, his chest suddenly felt too tight and it wasn’t the damn sweatshirt. “Colbie, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry I vanished on you.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Her eyes were shiny bright when she turned away and walked out the door.

It took him a beat to acknowledge that either he was having a heart attack or the sweatshirt was just that tight. “You really are an idiot,” he told himself and started to go after her. But then he caught sight of himself in the foyer mirror and stopped short.

Wow. Not only was the sweatshirt pink with Princess on it, it was bedazzled. And here he’d thought it couldn’t get worse. He ripped it off over his head, tossed it aside, and then headed out. He took the stairs to the third floor and knocked on Colbie’s door.

No answer. He knew it was late. No, scratch that, it was early, very early, but he knocked again anyway, slightly harder.

Mrs. Winslow from 3D stuck her head out her door. She took in the sight of Spence standing there in just his Levi’s and nothing else and put a hand to her heart. “Oh my saints alive.”

“I’m sorry,” Spence said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Mrs. Winslow tilted her head up to the ceiling. “Nice work,” she whispered.

Spence sighed and turned back to Colbie’s door.

“Even better from the back,” Mrs. Winslow said.

Spence closed his eyes and thunked his head on Colbie’s door. “Go back to bed, Mrs. Winslow.”

He heard her door shut. But what he didn’t hear was Colbie opening hers. He could feel her though, just on the other side of the wood. “Look,” he said. “Clearly I was telling you the truth when I said I was bad with women. I don’t know jack about making them happy or keeping them.”

Nothing.

“Colbie, open up so I can apologize properly. You deserve that much at least.”

More nothing.

He decided to try to appeal to her warm, nurturing side, hoping she wouldn’t be able to resist. “My feet are cold,” he said.

And bingo, she opened the door to reveal two females staring at him, one human, one feline. He quickly stepped into the human one, nudging her back so he could get inside.

“Maybe I didn’t want to let you in,” Colbie said a little pissily.

“Yeah, well, right back at ya, honey.”

Chapter 21

#Balls

Colbie didn’t give herself a pep talk about staying mad, because she was so mad she thought the pep talk wouldn’t be necessary.

But she wasn’t prepared for the sight of the six-foot way-too-good-looking Spence Baldwin standing in front of her wearing only a pair of dangerously low-slung Levi’s and an even more dangerous smile.

“You’re cold because you’re not wearing a shirt or socks,” she said, pointing out the obvious. And then she paused, her head kicking up a notch as she took him in from head to bare sexy toes and back again, lingering on the parts of him she now knew intimately . . . “Or underwear,” she added.

He blinked at that, slow as an owl, reminding her that he was tanked. But even so, his usual calm and easy control was still in play, with or without his usual reflexes.

“How do you know I’m not wearing underwear?” he asked.

Mostly because the jeans were so low that if he took so much as a halfway-deep breath, he’d lose them altogether, no matter how lovingly and intimately they cupped him. All she could see were muscles and skin, along with those sexy vee muscles that made women stupid. No cotton or knit undies peeking out from his waistband, nothing but Spence. “God-given talent,” she murmured.

He smiled at her, an open, warm smile that caught her off guard. She rolled her eyes, but it was to her shock that she found herself having to fight a return smile. “Why are your pants half falling down?”

“Because I’m the current Pacific Pier Building poker champion.”

“Hmm.” She cocked her head. “So on a scale of sober to several pot brownies, just how intoxicated are you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Which of the three of you are asking?”

A part of her softened and wanted to laugh but the rest of her, still hurt, held it together.

He looked at her for a long moment. “I’m sorry, Colbie. I heard you say you weren’t who you’d claimed to be and . . .” He shook his head. “I’d just had that call from Brandon and I lost it. I wasn’t thinking and I should’ve listened to you before leaving like that. I just needed a minute and then that minute turned into a poker game because I’d convinced myself I’d fucked up and you’d be long gone.”

“I should have been.”

“I’m glad you weren’t,” he said. “Because I think you’re amazing. What you do, what you’ve accomplished . . . truly amazing.”

She let out a tiny smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He took her hand and slowly reeled her in.

She fought him for about a second and then let her hands come up to his chest like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Admit it,” he said. “The Princess sweatshirt was hot, right?”

She fought a laugh and lost.

“Right. And you thought I was sexy as hell in it.”

“I think you’re something,” she said. “Not sure what though.”

“Maybe we should figure it out from a horizontal position.” His voice was the same one he used to whisper naughty nothings in her ear when he was busy taking her straight to heaven and back.

She’d like nothing more than a repeat, but they had problems. One, he hadn’t trusted her. And two, if she was being honest, she hadn’t trusted him either. She’d been wrong, she knew that now. She could trust him with anything.

Except for maybe the one thing she wanted to trust him with—her heart. “We don’t tend to talk when we’re horizontal,” she reminded him.