Once Upon a Valentine

by Stephanie Bond

  He looked at her as if she’d just pushed a knife into his chest. “Yeah, that’s all it is. Just an employer looking out for his employee.”

  “Thanks, boss.”

  “Don’t call me that. Not now.”

  She watched him warily. “I think I should leave.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right. Go take those condoms and put them to good use.”

  “You don’t have to be a jerk about this.”

  “Whatever, Ginger.” His jaw tensed. “Just being around you right now is difficult for me.”

  “Touché.” She didn’t want to let on how much his words hurt her. This was getting out of control. Time to leave and let the magic wear off. Even now, feeling this angry with him, she still wanted his hands on her. His mouth on her. It was like some kind of fever she couldn’t shake.

  “I’m going back to the café so I can talk to that woman.” She turned toward the door. “You stay here. I mean, you already paid for the room so you may as well enjoy it. I’ll deal with any whistling men I come across.”

  “I think you’ll be safe. The spell’s wearing off. I can feel it lifting and it’s not even midnight yet,” he said flatly. “What a relief.”

  Yeah. She was sure it was. But the thought of Stephen no longer desiring her brought with it a deep and painful disappointment. He’d lied to her and tried to ruin her romantic life in one fell swoop tonight.

  And still her heart ached.

  She grabbed the door knob and was about to turn it when she glanced over her shoulder. “Why did you do it, Stephen?”

  “What part? I’m starting to get a little unclear about everything I’ve done wrong tonight.”

  “Why did you stop him? It was just a blind date.”

  “A blind date for which you had a ready supply of condoms.”

  “Hardly a ready supply. Two.”

  He glared at her. “Two too many.”

  “Hey, you had a date tonight, too. Or did you? Brad said that—”

  “Let’s forget what Mr. Perfect said. The magic is lifting, Ginger. You can roam freely about the city now.”

  “I can’t say I’m disappointed about that.” She nodded firmly and turned the knob to open the door. “Good night, Stephen.”

  “Good night, Ginger.”

  She walked down the hallway to the elevator with a heavy heart. It felt as if she’d just lost something really important. Something that had been in her hands—like sand—but had sifted through her fingers so quickly there was no way to stop it before it was all gone.

  The elevator doors opened and she got on. Jabbing the button for the lobby, she pressed back against the mirrored wall behind her and sighed.

  Stephen had chased away her date. He had waited outside that café without giving her any idea of what he was up to. She’d had no clue that he had a problem with her dating. He could have said something at the office this morning when he’d presented the staff with a big heart-shaped cake to celebrate Valentine’s Day. She’d told him all about Brad then, even shown Stephen his picture. She’d played Brad up as being amazing, good-looking, successful, sexy…really slathering it on thick.

  Why had she bothered to do that?

  Come on, a little voice inside her said. You know why. Stop lying to yourself.

  She’d been looking for some sort of reaction from Stephen. Maybe to spark some jealousy in him.

  She’d done it because she was in love with Stephen. And she had been for a very long time.

  “Damn it,” she whispered to herself as the elevator reached the lobby.

  Stephen had wanted to protect her from some guy he didn’t think was right for her. He’d gone about it all the wrong way—and she certainly wasn’t ready to forgive and forget his underhanded methods.

  But why had he really done it? She could understand if it had been after the cookie’s magic kicked in, but it was before.

  She remembered what he’d asked Jorgensen earlier.

  “Are you in love with her?”

  If the author had answered yes, would it have been different? But Jorgensen simply said he wanted her. The other men had shown interest, but no one else had said they loved her.

  Only one.

  She stood in the lobby for about ten minutes, the color draining from her face, before this information completely sank in.

  “Excuse me, miss?” A man touched her arm.

  Ginger turned to look at him. “What?”

  He frowned. “Just making sure you’re okay. You looked upset there for a moment.”

  She waited for him to say something like the other men tonight to show that he was interested in her. But instead he just looked steadily at her.

  No desire. Just concern.

  No more spell. Stephen was right when he said it was lifting. This was the proof.

  “I need to…go,” she said.

  But instead of storming out through the front doors of the hotel and heading back to the café as was her original plan, she turned back toward the elevators, practically running to them. She stabbed at the up button, her heart pounding wildly in her chest.

  I love you, Ginger. So much. You have no idea. You never have.

  He’d said it. It would have made sense if the cookie magic was some sort of a love spell, but she’d never asked to be loved. She’d asked for men to want her so she could pick who she wanted in return. And they had wanted her—for a short time.

  But Stephen had said that he loved her.

  It felt as if it took forever before the elevator finally arrived. She got on it and then it felt as though it took forever until it reached the fifteenth floor. She had no idea what she was going to say or what she was going to do when she got back to the room and confronted Stephen about this.

  The elevator doors slid open to show that he was waiting just outside, his expression anxious.

  His eyes widened when he saw her. “You’re back.”

  For someone who worked with words all day long, she was currently at a complete loss for them.

  “Where are you going?” she forced herself to say.

  He opened his mouth but then shut it as if he’d had second thoughts about what to say. “Out.”

  “Were you going to follow me back to the café?”

  “I wanted to make sure you were safe.”

  “But the spell’s over.”

  “Yes, it certainly is. For me, I mean. For other men, who knows? You might have been engaged five times over by the time you got three blocks from here.” He wasn’t meeting her gaze. “Why did you come back?”

  “Because I needed confirmation about something.”

  “Confirmation about what?”

  “I—I need to know why you chased Brad off.”

  He didn’t speak for a moment. “Because he wasn’t good enough for you.”

  She had the elevator open with her elbow. She hadn’t stepped off it yet. “You could have told me that.”

  “Would you have believed me? Look, Ginger, he wasn’t good enough for you. No guy is, okay? That’s just how I feel. Take it as a compliment. I don’t normally give anyone else’s love life this much thought.”

  “But you do mine?”

  He didn’t reply to that.

  She swallowed and summoned up enough courage to say what she needed to say next. “On the subway, you said that you loved me. But the cookie magic wasn’t a love spell. And you once told me you don’t believe in love.”

  He raised his eyes to meet hers. There was an edge of pain there. “What’s your point?”

  Suddenly, she wasn’t sure. She was horribly afraid she was making a mistake here that would do great damage to their normally wonderful friendship, something she valued deeply and didn’t want to lose. She wasn’t usually so completely unsure when it came to men—reading them, wondering what they thought. It had been a rough night for her ego.

  “No point, I guess.” She let go of the elevator door and it started to close.

  Stephen stopped it. His ga
ze had grown more intense. “What do you want me to say, Ginger? That I’m in love with you? That you proved to me that I can feel that way about someone? That I’ve been in love with you since first meeting you and making a drunken fool out of myself, in public? That I’ve pined for you every day we’ve worked together, imagining what it would be like to tear your clothes off and make love to you on the boardroom table? That every woman I’ve gone out with since I met you has paled in comparison. That I can’t stop thinking about only you? That I wish desperately that you didn’t think of me only as a friend and that you wanted me just as much as I want you?”

  She gaped at him, overwhelmed by his tirade.

  He immediately looked as if he regretted saying all of that and he let go of the elevator door. Before it closed, she slipped off and stood only a couple feet away from him.

  “Well, there you have it,” he said quietly. “You want to know the reason I scared off your date tonight? Why I’d do it again in a heartbeat even if it means you’re going to hate me? It’s because I don’t think that any man in the world is good enough for you. That the thought of anyone else touching you or kissing you drives me insane with jealousy. No man should be with you, Ginger. No man except me.” He laughed humorlessly. “My business is going to hell in a handbasket. Why shouldn’t I destroy my personal life, too?”

  “So, it’s true?” she whispered. “You’re in love with me.”

  “Why else would I act like such a fool on Valentine’s Day—with or without some stupid cookie to blame for it?” His pained gaze flicked to hers for a brief moment. “You should probably go now.”

  “I can’t go.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m in love with you, too.”

  He looked at her so sharply, she almost laughed.

  “Don’t play with my emotions tonight, Ginger,” he warned. “I’m close to the edge.”

  “I’m not playing. I’ve never been more serious in my entire life.”

  A deep frown creased his brow as he continued to stare at her with shock as he took in what she’d just said to him, laying her true feelings out so they were raw and completely defenseless. “Well, in that case…”

  He closed the distance between them in two steps, then pulled her against him and crushed his mouth against hers.

  6

  HER HEART JUMPED in her chest. She’d been so afraid of how this might go. It was a very good sign that coming back up here didn’t seem to be a mistake.

  His kiss deepened and she kissed Stephen back just as hard, just as passionately. It was even better than when he’d kissed her on the subway—their first kiss, then. Their second kiss, now. Sheer perfection. Did he really think Brad was supposed to be her Mr. Perfect?

  He was wrong. So very wrong.

  He pulled back a little, holding her face between his hands and gazed at her intensely. “Ginger…”

  “Yes?”

  “What do you want to do right now?”

  “I want you to take me back into that expensive room you reserved for Robert Jorgensen and make love to me on the king-size bed.”

  He nodded slowly. “Seems like we’re in complete agreement.”

  “First time tonight.”

  He grinned before it faded just a little at the edges. “This isn’t real.”

  “Oh, yes,” she assured him. “It is. Now what are you waiting for, Mr. Fox?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

  Stephen lifted her up into his arms and went back to the hotel-room door. It was a blur as his lips met hers again and emotion swelled in her chest at the taste of him, the smell of his familiar spicy cologne and the bare skin beneath it just waiting to be touched. By her.

  He scrambled to shut the door and she pulled him back around, hurriedly unbuttoning his shirt to bare his chest. She slid her fingers down the front of him, thrilled at the opportunity to touch him like this.

  “How long?” she whispered.

  “How long do I have before I explode right now?” He raised an eyebrow. “Not very.”

  She grinned shakily as he pulled his shirt off completely. “No, how long have you…felt this way about me?”

  “How long have I been madly, passionately in love with you despite claiming not to believe in love of any sort?” he asked. Heat came to her face at the intense way he said it. “Since forever.”

  After she shrugged off her coat, he slipped the straps of her dress over her shoulders. He raked his gaze greedily down the front of her. “That bra is way too sexy to wear on a blind date, Ms. Redman.”

  She trailed her fingertips over her diamond-hard nipples, clearly visible through the thin-red-lace bra. “This bra?”

  He hissed. “Yes, that bra.” He slipped a strap over her shoulder, pulling it down slowly to bare her left breast. He cupped it in his hand.

  Her breath came quicker, especially when he lowered his head so he could kiss her nipple, drawing it into his mouth and circling his hot tongue around the very tip.

  “Oh, hell,” she gasped.

  He looked up at her. “No, it’s definitely heaven.”

  “I want you.”

  “Answer me a question first.”

  “Anything.”

  He grinned and his expression grew even more heated. “That’s a dangerous thing to say.”

  “Anything,” she said again, firmly.

  “You know when I fell for you—the beginning. When I saw you that night in the bar, before making a fool out of myself. I didn’t know you, only how you looked, how you moved. Physical attraction. The love…it did take at least a couple more hours. I first felt it in the office, when you didn’t hold my behavior against me. God, I felt like a fool for hitting on you like that the night before. But what I want to know is when you felt something for me…when you knew.”

  “When I knew I loved you?” His hands on her bare skin made it hard to think, but she tried her best. “I fell for you the moment you apologized for acting like an ass at the bar. Not every guy would take it seriously. You did. And you honestly felt bad about it. I fell for you then and I’ve wanted you every single day since. But I didn’t know for absolutely sure it was love until tonight.”

  “Tonight?”

  “You wanted me, you desired me, I thought it was only because of the magic. It made me realize how much I wanted and desired you, too, how much it would break my heart to know it was only temporary for you.”

  Stephen shook his head slowly. “Not temporary.”

  “No. Not temporary.” She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I love you, Stephen. Now stop asking me questions, because I need you so badly I don’t think I can keep standing.”

  It was all she needed to say. Whatever control he’d been keeping a handle on tonight—or for the past year—went out the window. His hands moved to her back to unhook her bra and let it join her coat in a silky pile. He deftly unzipped the back of her dress and let it fall, as well. Her hands moved to his waistband, slipping downward over his erection that strained against the material.

  “I need this,” she said very seriously, cupping him, “inside me.”

  He swore under his breath, then lifted her up, his hands under her ass, moving her backward to the bed where he quickly pulled her silky panties off over her legs, baring her completely to him, only leaving her high heels on. Then he swore again as his gaze swept the length of her.

  “Where’s your purse?” he asked.

  She frowned. “My purse?”

  “I think you said something about having a couple condoms in it?”

  “You don’t have any?”

  “I wasn’t planning on…well, let’s just say I’m currently unprepared for romance of any kind.”

  “So your date earlier…?”

  “Lies,” he admitted readily. “All lies.”

  “No more lies,” she said firmly as he began moving down the length of her body.

  “No more lies,” he confirmed as he pushed her l
egs apart, kissing her bare stomach, her inner thighs, closer and closer…until he finally stroked his tongue against her heated core.

  This time she swore, arching her back and clawing at the bed sheets. “Stephen…oh!”

  “Jorgensen said something about strawberries and whipped cream with his dinner.” Stephen smiled darkly up at her. “We’ll get to that later.”

  Ginger stopped thinking. Her world grew smaller and smaller. Nothing else existed outside Stephen’s tongue against her, driving her insane with every stroke. She was begging him, pleading—not to stop, but for more. Deeper. Harder. She wanted him so desperately she became mindless to anything else. And then her narrow vision exploded as an orgasm rocked through her, leaving her gasping and crying out.

  “My purse…” she gasped. “By the door.”

  Stephen pushed away from the bed, but was back quickly as she recovered from the most intense climax of her life. Colors sparkled around her vision. She got up enough to begin undoing his pants with shaking hands, pulling them down over his hips.

  She got up on her knees on the bed next to him and pressed her mouth against his, tasting herself on his tongue in a deep, hot kiss that left nothing unsaid. Her fingers wrapped around his hard cock and she stroked him as the kiss intensified, until he broke it off, gasping.

  “Ginger, I want you.”

  “I think I know that by now.” She grinned against his lips. “If I didn’t, this would be a clear giveaway.” She squeezed him just a little and he groaned deep in his throat.

  “My cock,” he said mock-apologetically, “doesn’t have nearly as much self-control as I try to have.”

  “Clearly.” She kissed him again and pulled him down on the bed so she could feel his weight press against her. He worked his pants off the rest of the way so there was absolutely nothing between them anymore—no clothing, no control…no lies. Just bare skin and heat.

  She grabbed his hand and guided it between her legs. “Feel how much I want you. How wet I am.”

  That earned another dark groan. “I want you, too, Ginger. Every night.”

  “Just nights?”

  He gave her a pained grin. “Days. Nights. Weekends. Leap years.”

  She nodded, taking his other hand and removing the packaged condom from it. She tore it open and helped roll in onto his hard length. “Prove it.”