Together for Christmas (22 page)

“Actually, I have something more romantic planned,” Casey told her, backpedaling now, trying not to envision both of them naked and panting atop her paperwork, beside her logoed Galaxy Diner mug. “So—”

“So that can wait until later, right?” Smiling up at him, she toyed with the crewneck of his cable-knit sweater as though considering whether to strip it off him or just make it unravel on its own to suit her seduction plan. Her miniskirt-clad hips swayed suggestively nearer to his hips, scrambling his thoughts.

“Right,” Casey parroted. “It can wait until later.”

Wait
. What was he doing? Besides getting incredibly overheated in the thick sweater, button-down shirt, thermal underlayer, and warm wool pants he’d put on as protection against the freezing, finger-numbing Kismet winter weather?

“No, it can’t wait,” he tried again. He caught hold of Kristen’s wrists, then held them close against his chest. It wasn’t easy. Her kittenish pout made him want to set her loose immediately to touch him however and wherever and for as long as she wanted to. “I need to tell you something.”

“If it’s anything besides ‘take off your clothes,’ save it for later.”

“Something important.”

“Is it ‘I’m taking off
my
clothes’?” She sent her gaze roving over him again. “Because I’d like that, too.”

Spotting the wicked gleam in her eyes, Casey didn’t doubt it. He looked down at her impish face, her restive hands, her arresting mouth . . . and loved them all. There was one thing he could say for Kristen: he didn’t have to wonder what she was thinking. Every opinion she had came trotting out, sooner or later, to fascinate him or befuddle him or make him want to know more.

He was glad she was more than equal to keeping up with him. He respected and admired her for that. Brainstorming the potential causes of the issues with Heather’s holiday TV special with Kristen had been invigorating. Casey wished, just then, he had her with him to help on all his jobs.

But that was work . . . and this most definitely was pleasure.

Or at least it would be, once he’d set things right.

“I don’t want our first time together to be here in your office,” he told her gruffly, “next to an industrial kitchen supplies catalog.”

Kristen swept the offending catalog off her desk. Wearing a smart-alecky grin, she lounged near the place where it had been.

“All better now.” She kicked away the catalog for good measure, sending it sliding under a chair. “So how about it?”

“I don’t want it to be where someone could walk in on us, either.”

She locked her office door. Pertly, she faced him. “There. All fixed.”

“I think you have a future as a troubleshooter.”

“Really? You do?” She flashed a knowing grin. “That’s a pretty lame effort in the ‘manipulation’ department, I’ve got to say. Complimenting me on locking a door?” She strolled nearer, waggling her hands. “Whoopee! I have opposable thumbs. Is that all you’ve got? Because so far, I think I’m winning.”

“You’re not winning.”

“Oh no? Because from where I’m standing, I’m winning.”

“You’re not winning,” Casey insisted, “because I’m not done playing.”

Talking wasn’t working. Being responsible wasn’t working.

Kristen was expecting another bout of “manipulation” from him. The only thing that would work, he decided, was action.

So he hauled in a deep breath, strode over to where Kristen stood, then took a long, deliberate, undoubtedly smitten look at her. He cupped her face in his palms. He stroked his thumbs over her cheeks, savoring the softness of her skin, the unique arrangement of her features, the wonderful
her-ness
of her face.

“Pay attention,” Casey said, “because I’m only going to do this once.”

He saw the smart-ass rebuttal leap to her mind. He saw the additional thought—as Kristen looked more carefully at him—that shut it down. He saw her breathe in . . . then nod.

“Okay,” she said. “Do it.”

He smiled. “If I could only do one more thing in my life,” he said, “this would be it.”

Then he brought his mouth nearer to hers, inhaled another breath, and just . . .
felt
her. He felt her tension and her eagerness. He felt her sweetness and her needfulness. He felt her body lean toward his, felt her warmth reach out to meet him, felt her breath flow out to meet his.

It wasn’t a kiss. Not yet.

But it was everything else Casey needed. It was Kristen, with him. It was her face in his hands and her heart within reach. It was nearness and possibility and wild, heady desire.

Questioningly, Kristen angled her head the merest inch upward. Her hands grasped fistfuls of his sweater; her booted feet crowded against his. It was close and not close enough. It was more than he’d ever dreamed, and he meant to take even more.

“I can’t wait to be with you,” Casey said, finally bringing his mouth near enough. He brushed his lips against hers.

Gratifyingly, Kristen gasped. So he did it again.

“I need you to know that,” he added, keeping his mouth against hers as he spoke. The texture of her mouth made him dizzy; the warmth of their mingling breath made him lean closer.

“I need you like apple pie needs à la mode,” he went on, grinning at his own daffy analogy but liking it anyway. It was more apt than she knew. He
loved
her baked goods. But that was his own secret to keep—just one of many. Bringing his mouth to hers again, he closed his eyes and offered another slow, luxurious glide across her lips. “You feel . . .
so
good.”

With an incoherent sound, Kristen crowded closer, but Casey resisted the urge to deepen their kiss. It wasn’t time for that. Not yet. First he needed to show her that he meant this.

So he bided his time by gently biting her lip, by giving her another slow, soft kiss . . . by tracing his tongue just over the seam of her lips. The sensation made him feel drunk with need.

“Casey—” Kristen gasped, but he wasn’t done yet.

“I thought nothing could come close to the way I imagined this moment,” he said, flexing his fingers against her jaw to hold her steady for his next tender kiss. Kristen wiggled a lot, he noticed, when he flicked his tongue to meet hers. She panted and clutched his clothes and did everything except climb on top of him. All because he truly delighted in kissing her. “But you’re everything I’ve ever wanted and more. You’re amazing.”

“Mmm.” She wriggled enticingly again. Impatiently, she grabbed his head. “
You’re
the amazing one. Are your lips drugged or something? Because I’ve
got
to have more.”

Kristen levered upward and pressed her mouth to his, taking charge of their kiss herself. This time, Casey was the one who gasped. He abandoned his hold on her jaw to wrap his arms around her waist. He pulled her against him, then deepened their next kiss. With gratifying eagerness, Kristen pressed both hands to the back of his head and held him there. She moaned while their mouths came together again. Again.
Again
.

Kissing her felt like the key to the universe, like the answer to every question Casey had ever had, and if she hadn’t kissed him back, he felt pretty sure he would have stopped existing altogether. Because this was necessary. It was now. It was mouths and tongues and heat and wetness, and he didn’t care that her desk jabbed him in the ass and that cornball Christmas music kept playing outside, vaguely filtering through her office door, and that the location was neither romantic nor ideal for making an impressive seductive move. Because he wasn’t trying to seduce her. He was trying to tell her, with words and kisses and the most hard-to-control touching he’d engaged in for years, that he needed her and wanted her and cared for her.

Wide-eyed, Kristen leaned back. Her pupils were huge, her expression thrilled and surprised at once. “Yeah. Like that.”

“It’s good,” Casey agreed in a husky voice. “
So
good.” He twined her hands in his. He gave her a squeeze. “Which is why it has to end here. Because I don’t know how much more I can take—”

“I can think of a good way to find out.”

“—and you mean too much to me to go on this way.”

She gave him a puzzled look. “Huh?”

With tremendous effort, Casey pulled away. The few inches of fresh air he placed between them felt almost impossible to achieve, but he did it. “I have to leave now.”

“You’re not serious.” Kristen gawked. “
Now?
But I locked the door. I kicked away the catalog. I—” She frowned, then crossed her arms. “This doesn’t usually happen to me. Usually I’m
really
good at spur-of-the-moment casual encounters.”

Casey couldn’t help smiling at her. “Then that’s where the problem lies,” he said, letting himself reach up to caress her cheek one more time. “Because this
isn’t
a casual encounter.”

He leaned in for a final kiss, hauled in a deep breath for fortitude . . . then unlocked her office door and walked back into the Christmasville diner, hoping like hell he wasn’t making a huge mistake by leaving Kristen behind in the process.

Chapter 14

Kismet, Michigan
Christmas Takeover: Day 12¾

It took Kristen almost fifteen minutes to pull herself together after Casey left her in her office at the diner. She needed another hour or so before she quit remembering his kisses and breaking out in spontaneous goose bumps. But despite all that, by the time she arrived at the Kismet Senior Center that evening for their annual Christmas Disco Night, she still hadn’t been able to get Casey’s parting words out of her mind.

Then that’s where the problem lies,
he’d said with absolute conviction.
Because this isn’t a casual encounter.

But it
had
to be a casual encounter, Kristen knew. That’s why she’d decided, spontaneously, to abandon her litmus test.

Because there couldn’t be anything else between her and Casey except a casual encounter. She still didn’t know if she could trust him. She still wasn’t sure if Casey was only using her to get to Heather. And she still didn’t want to get close to somebody from her sister’s glammed-up showbiz world, either.

Because if she did, inevitably, the comparisons would start. Then the disappointment would set in. Eventually, things would end badly. It was the only way the scenario could play out.

After all,
her own parents
couldn’t seem to see Kristen whenever Heather’s overwhelming, glittery shadow got in the way, Kristen reminded herself. Their canceled Christmas plans with her, multiple media interviews about Heather, and time spent on their @Heather_Hotline Twitter account—when they were
supposed
to have been (traditionally) Christmas shopping and cookie baking and wrapping gifts with Kristen—were proof enough of that.

Could Kristen realistically expect Casey to spot her,
Where’s Waldo?
-style, and then to stick with her, when he’d encountered her showier, more celebrated sister first?

No,
Kristen reminded herself as she skirted a snowbank, opened the evergreen-wreath-festooned double glass doors of the Kismet Senior Center building, and stepped inside.
She couldn’t expect that. Not from Casey or anyone
. She followed the sounds of kitschy 1970s Christmas music down the corridor toward the rec center, knowing that while she might be a fantastic person in her own right—and she
was
, damn it—to anyone who’d met Heather first, Kristen was an also-ran. End of story.

She’d come to terms with that a long time ago. There was no point mulling over the roads not taken on her own personal Google map of life now. All she could do was go forward.

The only mistake she’d made with Casey, Kristen decided further, had been underestimating him. When they’d headed into her office together, she’d actually thought she could beat him at his own game. She wouldn’t be making that same mistake again.

But she
would
be getting more than a few mind-bending kisses from him tonight. She could guarantee that. Because she hadn’t thrown over her litmus test for nothing. She wanted more. More more more. And she wanted to prove to herself that this
was
a casual encounter between them. Not that it wouldn’t also be good, Kristen knew. It would be good and steamy and hot hot hot. Because if there was one thing she was drop-dead certain about when it came to Casey, it was that he . . .

. . . was a
Boogie Nights
-caliber disco dancer?

Boggling at the unexpected sight before her, Kristen stopped inside the rec room’s doorway. Beyond it, a disco ball spun from the ceiling, splashing multicolored shards of light on the garland-swagged walls and light-festooned crown molding. In one corner stood a tall, fancifully decorated Christmas tree; in another, a handmade crèche held a place of prominence. In between them, people crowded in groups of fours and fives. They clustered at the refreshments table. They grooved on the dance floor. They chatted near the makeshift DJ booth where Gareth was currently bopping his headphone-adorned head, making the long strings on his Nordic knit trapper hat wave to and fro.

But Kristen noticed all those details only in the most subliminal way. Because in the middle of everything, surrounded by smiling, dance-happy seniors and the seniors’ family members and several regulars and staff from the Galaxy Diner, was Casey.

Seeing him there, unselfconsciously making like John Travolta in
Saturday Night Fever
with two laughing, gray-haired septuagenarian ladies for partners, Kristen just . . .
melted
. Those were not the actions of a Terminator. Casey didn’t have a single thing to gain by charming two elderly senior center residents. He was simply . . .
generous,
Kristen realized. He might not want to admit it—and in fact, he’d probably actively deny it—but she couldn’t think of another word to describe it. Casey was . . .
nice
.

He was dancing to a deep cut from a disco-era holiday novelty album. He was laughing and doing that goofy pointing gesture. And he seemed to be enjoying himself while doing it.