Naughty and Nice

by Shannon Stacey, Jaci Burton, Megan Hart; Lauren Dane

  “Thank goodness. I was going to head to the diner before the hypothermia set in, but then my mom called.”

  “You know what would warm you up?” Besides sex. Sex so hot, sweaty and sticky we’d both be warm for days. “Beef stew.”

  “You said you aim to please, but you didn’t tell me you cooked too.”

  She didn’t want any part of him cooking, that’s for sure. His own mother had given up on him in the kitchen department. “I don’t, but Monday nights are beef stew night down at the diner.”

  Reaching down to scratch the top of Kojak’s head, she finally looked at him. “You mean, like a date?”

  Maybe? “Usually I try to show a girl a better time than the beef stew special, but this way we both get warm, we both get fed, and you’re kinda sorta not really lying to your mom.”

  While he kept his body language deliberately casual, on the inside he was willing her to say yes. He wanted to sit down with her, away from what was—for him—work, and share a meal with her.

  “What about Kojak?”

  “He usually stays in the truck and naps.”

  “In the winter?”

  “He’s a German shepherd, not a poodle. And if the weather’s too nasty, I either leave him home if I know I’m going to be somewhere I can’t take him for a while, or I leave the truck running.”

  “Beef stew sounds great. And, like you said, I really shouldn’t lie to my mother.”

  They took separate vehicles, at Chloe’s suggestion, but it wasn’t long before he slid into a booth across from her, as far from the coffee counter as they could get. With any luck, they’d get to eat in relative peace and quiet. Especially if Freddy went to his parents’ for spaghetti night like usual.

  “So tell me about life in the big city of Boston,” he said when their coffees were poured and orders taken.

  “It’s not really that exciting. I’ve got a small condo I picked up on the cheap. Luck, timing and a distressed seller. I spend most of my time there, working, but I get out and about with friends a lot. I didn’t realize until I came home how loud and bright the city is, though.”

  He wondered if she was even aware she’d said home. Maybe, even as adults, people often called the houses they grew up in home, but the way she said it piqued his curiosity. “Guess things seem a little slow here.”

  “A little. But it’s a nice break from the norm. Hoping to get caught up with some work.”

  A break. A temporary break, which was something he needed to remember. By the time John and Anna got home, she’d be bored and restless and ready to hit the southbound fast lane.

  “So what do you do for fun around here?” she asked. “Hopefully not the same thing we did back in high school.”

  He’d spent his spare time back then at Freddy’s house, playing video games, but he didn’t think that was what she meant. The cool kids, which she’d been, had driven the back roads looking for private spots to drink beer and make out in the backseat of their parents’ cars.

  “I watch television. Hit the snowmobile trails. Play catch with my dog.” No sense in sugarcoating it—he was either working or relaxing. Not a lot of in between. “If there’s something good playing at the theater, I’ll tag along with Freddy and his girlfriend.”

  “Freddy Baker? He has a girlfriend?”

  “Yes, he’s got a girlfriend. Met her at the video store. So how come you remember him and not me?” Not that he was jealous. Much.

  “You were quiet. He wasn’t. And we had gym class together.”

  Scott had to laugh. “I guess that would be unforgettable.”

  “So what about you?” she asked, fiddling with her napkin. “No girlfriend?”

  “Not at the moment.” He shrugged. “I’ve dated on and off, but nothing serious for a while. Your mom probably told you I’m single.”

  “You know she did, as well as letting me know you’re a nice guy with a good job.”

  So Anna was on his side. Not that there really were sides, but it was nice to know she wasn’t totally opposed to the idea of him hooking up with her daughter.

  Except she probably wasn’t thinking in terms of a hook-up for her daughter. She wanted to pick out a mother-of-the-bride dress and cry at the wedding, and then rock grandbabies like most of her friends.

  “What about you? Nobody serious?”

  Chloe shook her head. “Haven’t found the right guy yet, I guess. Was in a relationship for a long time, but it dead-ended. I tried internet dating for a while—and don’t you dare tell my mother that—but I gave up when my last perfect match showed up with his twin brother. Promised to double my pleasure—wink wink, nudge nudge.”

  He laughed, but even to his ears it sounded a little forced. “That could be dangerous.”

  “I was careful. And it’s a big city, with a lot of single guys in it. Thought it would help to narrow down my choices a little.”

  Fortunately the arrival of their beef stew put an end to that conversation. He wasn’t into hearing too much about her dating history. They were quiet while they exchanged the salt and pepper and slathered butter on thick slices of homemade bread, but it was a comfortable silence.

  “This is delicious,” she said after she’d had a few bites. “If I hadn’t blown up the microwave, I’d ask her for a dozen orders to freeze for later. Cooking’s not really my thing.”

  “Mine, either. Kojak’s pretty happy his food comes ready to eat or I’d probably screw that up too.”

  Her laughter was sweet and so infectious he ended up chuckling at his own joke. She laughed a few times as they talked about movies and television and the effect sweat had had on their former gym teacher’s comb-over.

  But all too soon the coffee was gone and he’d paid the bill and it was time to go. He held the diner’s door for her, wondering if she’d give him a wave and slide into her car, or if she’d linger. Was she wondering if he’d kiss her? If she was, was she for or against?

  When the diner door had closed behind them, she smiled and walked directly to her car before looking back. He guessed that was against. “Thanks for dinner.”

  “No problem. So…I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “Bright and early. Goodnight, then.”

  “Goodnight, Chloe.” He waited until she’d backed out of her parking space to climb into his truck. “This job’s going to kill me, Kojak.”

  The dog sniffed and rolled over, presenting his stomach for a scratch. That was the nice thing about dogs—no guessing what they wanted. Food, water and a good belly scratch.

  Women, though, were a mystery. He’d thought he’d hit the jackpot with Janie, right up until the day she’d packed up everything she could fit in her car and driven away. And now he was getting mixed signals from Chloe. The way she looked at him didn’t jive with her hurry to get in her car.

  The only thing he knew for sure was that every day of the next three weeks was going to be torture.

  Chapter Three

  Chloe sat sideways on the couch, with her back against the arm, her computer on her lap and a very large, snoring German Shepherd keeping her feet warm.

  While her romance writing client got input from a few thousand of her closest friends, readers and fellow authors, Chloe had turned her attention to a site redesign she was doing on the cheap for a low-budget Boston non-profit.

  Over the past couple of days, she’d managed to ignore Scott’s presence in the house…mostly. It wasn’t easy, but ogling the contractor wouldn’t pay the bills, no matter how enjoyable it was as a way to pass the time.

  Sometimes, though, temptation got the better of her self control and her gaze was drawn to him like he was the Death Star and she was the hapless Millennium Falcon caught in his tractor beam.

  When he stopped in the kitchen, directly in her line of sight, and yanked up the hem of his T-shirt to mop the sweat off his forehead, she couldn’t have looked away if she wanted to. And she didn’t.

  Unless rewiring houses was a lot harder work than she’d t
hought, Scott spent time working out, because nobody came by abs like that naturally. They rippled as he moved and she swallowed hard as she watched the taut muscles disappear behind the fly of his low-riding jeans.

  It wasn’t until the muscles froze that she looked back to his face and caught him watching her watch him. The heat pooling in her body crept up into her face, but she forced herself to smile as if he hadn’t just caught her eyeing him like a jungle cat looking to get animalistic with the first male to wander into her territory.

  He, on the other hand, looked like he was more interested in strangling her than doing her jungle cat style. “What the hell do you have the thermostat set at?”

  “Seventy-five, I think. When I sit still for long periods, I get cold so I turned the heat up.”

  “Well, I’m not sitting still and I’m not cold so your options are to put a sweater on and turn the heat back down or I start stripping.”

  Now there was a plan she could get behind. Even better than watching him peel his clothes off, though, would be taking them off of him herself. She’d have to stand on her toes, her body pressed to his, to get his T-shirt free of his arms. Then she’d pop the button of his jeans. Ever so slowly pull the zipper down. Then take her sweet time stripping the denim from his body.

  She couldn’t read his mind, but whatever he was thinking erased the annoyance from his expression, leaving a naughty twinkle in its place. “You’re considering it.”

  If her face was anywhere near as easy to read as his, there was no sense in denying it. “You can strip if you want to, but I’m not paying extra.”

  He laughed and shrugged as if to say it was her loss. And he also dropped the hem of his T-shirt so it covered those abs again. While losing the view was sad, hopefully she’d stop making an ass out of herself now.

  “I need to make a couple of phone calls,” he said. “See if any of my usual suspects are free to give me a hand for a couple of hours. I need to feed wires from the panel up to the attic and it’s a lot easier if I have somebody to feed them to.”

  “I can catch a wire. If it’s not hooked up, of course.”

  He shrugged. “I can get somebody if you’re busy, but if you want to help it’d save you a few bucks. Does your cellphone have a speaker function?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So does mine, so we’ll use that to communicate. I’ll be in the basement and you’ll be in the attic, but you need to know when the wire’s coming. If you use the speakerphone, you’ll have both hands free to reach in the wall.”

  “Wait…what? I have to reach in the wall? You’re the one who said this house is older than sliced bread. What if something’s living in there?”

  “Trust me, anything that lives in a wall is more afraid of you than you are of it. Except maybe snakes, but they almost never nest as high as the attic, especially if there’s a basement.”

  “Almost never?”

  “Almost never.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got a little while before I’m ready, but I’ll let you know.”

  “Okay.”

  “And turn the thermostat down before I die of heat stroke and your parents have to find a new electrician.”

  She didn’t need the thermostat turned up at all if he kept looking at her like he had a few minutes ago, but that she managed not to say out loud.

  After nudging the thermostat down to sixty-eight and pulling on a sweater, then letting Kojak out for a quick trip to the bushes, she forced herself to focus on work.

  * * *

  Scott had finally managed to coax Chloe, over the phone, to put her hand into the wall and fish around for the wire but, a few seconds later her scream made the speaker crackle.

  His heart seemed to stop, then it kick-started into overdrive as he pounded up the basement stairs. Had she gotten shocked? The wire wasn’t live, he told himself as he ran across the first floor, and none of the existing wiring in that part of the house should have been live. But what if he’d made a mistake?

  He ran up the stairs to the second floor, then down the hall to the access stairs to the attic, cursing big New England farmhouses with every step. When his head finally cleared the opening, he saw her sitting in the corner with her arms wrapped around her knees. Kojak sat next to her, ears at full attention.

  She didn’t look hurt. “Are you okay?”

  “I touched something furry.” She shuddered. “I tried to tell you I wasn’t hurt, but you didn’t answer.”

  “I left my phone. I thought I’d electrocuted you and your parents were going to kill me. I would have had to move.”

  She stood and brushed attic dust off the seat of her jeans. “Very funny. It had fur, Scott. Like a giant rat.”

  He probably would have laughed at her if he’d recovered enough oxygen from his mad flight up three flights of stairs. And from the fear. Not because John and Anna would have tarred and feathered him or because his insurance company would have put a hit out on him, but because he liked her. He didn’t want to electrocute her.

  “Did it bite you?”

  “No.”

  “Did it move?”

  “No.”

  “Did it do anything?”

  “Yes. It scared the crap out of me.”

  Somehow, during the course of the conversation, they’d moved toward each other and now he was close enough to touch her. Or kiss her. Preferably both.

  And she knew it too. He could tell by the rise and fall of her chest and the way her tongue flicked over her soft, slightly parted lips.

  “It was very scary,” she whispered.

  “Maybe I should hold you until the shaking stops.”

  She moved toward him. Just a little, but it was an unmistakable invitation. “That might help.”

  As soon as he slid his hands around her waist, the pretense ended. When she wrapped her arms around his neck and tilted her head back, he met her halfway. His mouth touched hers, tentatively at first, and then with an increasing hunger that took him by surprise.

  As her fingernails bit into his shoulders, he lifted a hand to cradle the nape of her neck. A quiet moan escaped her as his tongue danced over hers and his body reacted, wanting her. Wanting to hear her moan again.

  He kissed her until he reached the critical moment when it was time to end the kiss or try to steal second base. Even if she wanted him as badly as he wanted her, there was nothing romantic about a dusty attic floor.

  “Wow,” she said when he’d reluctantly pulled away.

  He’d second that. It actually shook him a bit, just how wow it was, but he tried not to let it show. “I don’t know about you, but that made me forget all about furry creatures living in the wall.”

  “I think I forgot my own name.”

  It might have been a nice ego-stroke if not for the fact he felt the same way. It was a little unnerving, actually, how perfect that kiss had been. It had seriously fried his circuits and the only way he was going to get his mind off rolling around on the attic floor—and screw the dust—was getting back to work.

  “Sadly, I don’t get paid to stand around kissing pretty women, so let’s find that wire.” He grabbed his leather work gloves from his back pocket and tugged them on.

  “No fair. You’ve got gloves!”

  “There’s something furry in that wall.” He winked. “Damn straight I’m not sticking my bare hand in there.”

  After the furry creature—which turned out to be nothing but a clump of blown-in insulation—had been removed and he’d fished the end of his first wire out, he handed the gloves off to her and went back downstairs. They had to repeat the process another half-dozen times, though hopefully without the screaming and the heart attack.

  The kiss he’d like to repeat, though, at the first opportunity. Maybe when the work was done for the day.

  * * *

  Chloe packed what seemed like her fiftieth snowball and gave it a toss. Kojak caught it in mid-air, his teeth obliterating the ball and leaving him with nothing but a coating of fluffy snow
on his face. She laughed and, when the dog crouched down expectantly, bent to build another snowball.

  Even wearing her father’s big parka and her mother’s winter boots she was chilly, but chilly was good. She needed to cool off a little after their steamy encounter in the attic. Not that it was anywhere near as steamy as the imaginary encounters she’d dreamed up during the many hours she should have been sleeping, but it definitely curled her toes.

  It didn’t help any that Scott had been just as affected. She’d seen it on his face and felt it against her hip when he held her close. Even though it would put a dent in her ego to have a guy remain unmoved after kissing her, the fact they were both wound up like eight-day clocks made ending up horizontal together almost a foregone conclusion.

  She threw another snowball, but it was a bad toss. Kojak missed it and Chloe laughed when it smashed and the dog started sniffing the ground like a bloodhound, looking for it. When he growled, she took pity on him and made another.

  “He’ll do that all day if you let him,” Scott said from the front porch.

  She took her time packing the snow, letting the air cool her face. Even the sound of his voice had her ramped up, for goodness sake.

  “I don’t mind,” she answered, tossing the snowball high into the air. “It’s a good excuse to get off the couch and breathe some fresh air.”

  “I guess I’m about done for the day.”

  Which meant…what? Were he and Kojak going to hop in his truck and drive away? Would he linger? Kiss her again?

  Since Kojak abandoned their game in favor of a good ear-scratching from his owner, Chloe had no reason not to turn and face Scott. “Sorry about the whole screaming thing.”

  He smiled, his eyes warmer than a crackling fire. “I’m not.”

  She wasn’t really either, but it had been something to say at least. The awkwardness—would he ask her out and would he kiss her or was he even that interested—was like being a teenager again, only nobody had ever kissed her like that in high school.

  Scott shoved his hands into his pockets, seemingly reluctant to leave. “Any big plans for tonight?”