Kansas City Christmas

by Julie Miller

  Well, that last part might not be true, exactly. Her beaded sweater had caught in the nubby tweed of his sweater, pulling it off her shoulder and leaving nothing but a few layers of silk between her body and his. Her heart wasn’t the only one racing. Why was Edward here? Why did he have to hide?

  But questions would have to wait. Blake and her sister had come through the outer office door.

  Her initial thought was to simply hold tight to the clutch of wool at his bicep and silently catch her breath and calm her nerves. But he was standing so close, shielding her from prying eyes should their visitors decide they needed something from the closet. Every time she breathed in, she inhaled Edward’s clean, leathery scent. Every time his chest expanded, it thrust directly against silk and breasts, hardening her nipples into pebbled nubs. The aroused tips seemed to catch in the weave of his sweater, shooting prickles of desire deeper into her body.

  And there was so much heat inside this tiny closet—most of it generated from the man who held her. Scared to death, in the middle of winter—and Holly was on fire from head to toe.

  But there was nothing she could do but simmer and breathe and listen.

  And she didn’t like what she was hearing.

  The laughter and conversation out in the office was punctuated with ever-lengthening pauses, hinting that Blake and her sister were making out. A breathy moan and some urgent words confirmed it.

  Holly squirmed against Edward’s hold, but he wasn’t budging. A different, more wary, sort of tension replaced the tautness in her body.

  “Okay, Blake, that’s enough. Where’s this amazing view of the city? You said you could see the glow of the Plaza lights from up here.”

  “It’s a party, darlin’.” She heard a soft moist sound that must have been another kiss. “Let’s party, already.”

  “No-o-o,” Jillian hummed in weak protest.

  So help me, if that bastard thinks he’s entitled to something from Jillian…

  “Shhh.” A voiceless note of calm brushed against Holly’s ear.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to breathe deeply. But all she got was a noseful of Edward’s musky masculine scent and another dose of frustration.

  “All right, then, beautiful.” Blake was talking again, though he sounded farther away. “We can do it by the window. You enjoy the lights and I’ll enjoy you.”

  Holly dug her fingers into the swell of Edward’s arm and buried her face against his shoulder. She didn’t want to hear this. She didn’t want to be a witness to her sister falling prey to Blake’s smooth line and handsome face again. She had to do something.

  “I’m not playing hard to get, Blake. I’m saying no.” Clutching tighter, Holly silently cheered her sister’s firm voice. “We haven’t seen each other for four years, and this is all you want? I’m going back to the party. If I see you there, I’ll know we’re cool. If not…then I’m glad I got to touch base with you. But I don’t think you need to call me again.”

  “Jillian…”

  Holly raised her head and listened as the office door clicked open and closed. Good. Leave that user alone.

  But Blake Rivers wanted what he wanted, and Holly’s triumphant smile disappeared. “You’ve grown up too much like your big sister—an old lady trapped inside a cold fish carcass,” he yelled at the closed door. “You used to be more fun than this!” But then a thought must have soothed his temper. “I just have to remind you how good it was between us. I’ll put in my time. I like a woman who’s a challenge.”

  Holly didn’t hear the insult as much as she heard the determination in Blake’s voice.

  “That’s my sister. I have to warn—” But suddenly Edward’s lips were pressed against hers, short-circuiting both her thoughts and her voice. At first, they functioned like the same hard, unmoving muzzle his hand had been, but then…

  The outer door opened. “Wait up, Jillian,” Blake called. “I’ll walk you back downstairs.”

  The threat of discovery left the room, the outer door closed and Holly breathed a guarded sigh of relief. With a crowd of guests serving as a visible audience, Blake Rivers wouldn’t be able to pursue the “challenge” of bedding her sister.

  With the sigh, her lips parted and squeezed together, brushing against Edward’s mouth in an unintended mimic of a kiss. Suddenly, every sense was focused on the point where their lips met. That innocent caress felt like the sweetest, most dangerous thing she’d ever done. As tender as a first kiss—as risky as waking a sleeping dragon.

  Edward’s mouth moved against hers and Holly held her breath. He was tentative at first, almost as if he was testing to see if their lips were really touching. “Holly?”

  Was he looking for her to either welcome him or push him away? Dragon or prince? She’d always had a penchant for the more magical of the two.

  In a heartbeat, the needy woman inside her made her choice. She licked her lips and whispered his name. “Edward.”

  With no other magic than that, she’d loosed the dragon. Edward’s mouth opened silently, hotly, firmly over hers. With a hand bracing the wall on either side of her head, his chest and thighs still pinning hers, he thrust his tongue between her lips and forced her to open wider beneath his sensual assault. He slid his tongue along hers, and she tasted her own chocolate drink on him. He gently suckled the swell of her bottom lip between his teeth, drawing pinpoints of fire to that sensitive spot. When she moaned in pleasure at the heady spell he was casting over her, he plunged in again, kissing her with a raw need that was as powerful as it was exhilarating.

  Trapped as she was, Holly could only curl her fingers into the front of his sweater and hold on as he plundered her mouth and she tried to return the favor. By the time he’d tunneled his fingers into her hair to pull her away from the wall and tip her head back to brand her cheeks and eyes and lips with more hungry kisses, Holly was breathing hard, boiling over and unaware of anything except the needs of this man and the needs spreading like a flash fire through her own body.

  “No way…” Edward grimaced against her mouth, kissed her again. He raised his head, sucked in a deep breath, then leaned in to gently rub his grizzled cheek against her softer one. “…are you a cold fish. You’re…you’re…” He squeezed her shoulders and set her firmly back against the wall. It was too dark to read the expression in his eyes, but his ragged breathing washed over her in warm, uneven waves. “I didn’t want to kiss you.”

  Not what she’d expected him to say. Holly desperately tried to focus. What was going on here? What just happened? How could a man just turn his passion off like a switch? She was still reeling with it. “You didn’t want…?”

  “Holly…”

  She shoved him aside and fumbled with the doorknob, embarrassed that her lips felt bruised and swollen, embarrassed that she couldn’t catch a deep breath—embarrassed that she wanted him to kiss her again. “Well, Merry Christmas to you, too.”

  “Don’t say that.” His steadier hand reached around her and twisted the knob open.

  Holly pushed open the door and stumbled out into the room on legs that trembled like gelatin. “Don’t say ‘Merry Christmas’? Who are you, Ebenezer Scrooge with a badge and an attitude?”

  While Holly tugged her sweater back into place, Edward limped up beside her on his cane. Masquerading as some wounded veteran of life. Ha! He’d just proved very convincingly that his big, bad body was working on all cylinders. It was just his personality that needed the crutch. “Those words have meaning to me. I can’t stand to say them or hear them tossed out in anger like that.”

  “Don’t get righteous with me, Lieutenant. They mean something to me, too. I was just dishing out the same sarcasm as you were throwing.” But maybe she was prodding the dragon too far. The grim line of his mouth was set too tight, and his deep gray eyes burned from the shadows. She ignored the tug at her heart, gathered her pride and opened the door. “Fine. We’ll leave it at you didn’t want to kiss me. Stupid mistake on my part, too.”
/>   “Holly.” See? The man with the cane could really move when he wanted. He caught up to her in the hallway and touched her arm. She shrugged him away and marched toward the elevators. “Holly, it was an accident.”

  “How can you accidentally kiss somebody?”

  “It wasn’t the right time to do it.” So there would be a right time? A frisson of anticipation fizzled out when he grabbed her hand and pulled her to a stop.

  When she couldn’t slip away a second time, she pulled up straight on her high heels and looked him in the eye. “Making out in the closet wouldn’t have been my first choice for a romantic interlude, either. But it takes two willing participants to make something like that happen.”

  His steel gray eyes darkened and narrowed. “I meant I don’t want you to go playing spy-girl again. You nearly got caught.”

  “You were playing spy-boy.”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  She twisted against the grip on her elbow. “Apparently, you didn’t know it when you were kissing me.”

  “Who’d have thought a sweet thing like you would have such a smart mouth.” He released her and Holly spun around and headed toward the elevators. But the tap of his cane followed closely behind her. “Trust me. I knew exactly what I was doing when I kissed you. That bastard’s insult was way off base about you—I want you to know that. I didn’t want you to cry out to tell him where to get off. And then I got carried away when I should have been thinking about your safety. I guess I’m more out of practice with this man-woman thing than I realized.” He was right beside her when Holly reached the elevators and pushed the call button. “I’ve been here before as a guest of my dad’s friend, Bill Caldwell. I know how to get around this place and what I’m looking for. I know how to not get caught.”

  “I wouldn’t have gotten caught,” she insisted.

  “Your sister and her boyfriend almost spotted you in the hall, and then you darn near revealed yourself to get them to stop making out. She sounded like she was a grown woman, like she could handle herself. She didn’t need your interference.”

  “I wouldn’t be talking about interference if I were you, pal.” Holly hugged her purse tightly to her chest, staring resolutely at the steel elevator door. But then she considered that an explanation might serve better than a snappy comeback. “I have reason to be concerned about Jillian. There are issues you don’t know about. In high school, after our parents were killed in a plane crash, she got herself into trouble. Got hooked on cocaine. Party-boy Blake back there was one of her main co-dependents. He had the money for whatever she wanted as long as she gave him a tumble.” She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and held it there, fighting back the painful memories of sleepless nights and constant worry. “You don’t know what it’s like living with someone who has an addiction. You want to watch over them all the time. You want to protect them from themselves and from anyone who wants to take advantage of that weakness.”

  Holly waited in uncomfortable silence for his response to the revelation of how her dysfunctional family dynamic worked.

  The elevator arrived, the doors opened and Holly stepped inside. Edward pushed the lobby button and retreated to the opposite corner before he finally spoke.

  “Trust me, Stick. I can tell you anything about addictions you want to know.” She slid him a sideways glance. His eyes were focused on a distant place. “You can love your sister to death and try to protect her all you want, but in the end, she has to fight her battles herself or she’ll never control the monster.”

  “The monster?” Jillian had used that term before.

  Edward’s gaze rose to meet hers, shrinking that distance between them. “I have a feeling, after a screwed-up night like this one, I’ll need to go to an AA meeting.”

  Holly relaxed her defensive stance. “You’re an alcoholic?”

  “Recovering. I’ve been clean and sober for eight months.”

  His chest expanded and fell with a gut-deep sigh. “Explains a lot about me, huh?”

  She took a step toward his corner of the elevator. “I didn’t know. Eight months.” Holly clicked off the numbers in her head. “That’s since your father’s murder. That’s a wonderful tribute to him. Congratulations.”

  For a moment, he seemed taken aback by her compassion. But then his mouth set in a grim line, and he thumped his cane in his hand. “I can’t lose anyone else. I can’t start to care and lose anyone again. Is that clear?”

  Did that mean he cared about her? Holly took another step. “So, now who’s being overprotective and not letting someone fight her own battles?”

  “This is different. Z Group is different.” He thumped his cane in his palm a second time. “You leave bending the rules and risking somebody’s neck up to me. You stay in your lab where it’s safe, and everything will work out just fine.”

  “You’re sacrificing your career—maybe even your life—for this case? I thought you didn’t want to lose anything else.”

  “Don’t get smart with me and twist my words around.”

  “Then say what you mean.” Now that she wanted eye contact, he wouldn’t look at her. She touched his chin and turned his face to her. “Let me see—you don’t like to say ‘Merry Christmas…’” He pulled his chin away, but she cupped his strong jaw and kept him facing her. “You don’t like kissing women in closets, you don’t like anyone hinting that you’re a good cop whom KCPD could still use and you don’t like admitting when you have feelings for someone.” Holly stroked her thumb across his lips, thinking about reawakening his dragon’s heart with another kiss. The elevator hit a gentle bump and slowed its descent. “Am I pretty clear as to what your words are telling me?”

  Edward turned his whole body toward her, huffing up. He opened his mouth, about to deny the truth.

  But the elevator doors slid open and a woman’s voice spoke from the lobby. “Edward?”

  The party’s host, and Caldwell Technologies’ owner, William Caldwell, braced the doors open with his hand. He looked every inch the wealthy entrepreneur and power broker she’d read about in the papers—from his hand-tailored tuxedo to the polished gold pinkie ring he wore. But it was the elegant brunette on his arm who’d spoken.

  Holly quickly snatched her hand from Edward’s face. This was what “caught” felt like. Now she was about to be escorted off the premises—if not hauled away in a police car.

  Perhaps sensing her urge to bolt, Edward’s hand clamped down over her wrist. He pulled her off the elevator beside him. “Mom.”

  Mom? Holly felt her eyes bug open. This was his mother?

  The dark-haired older woman stretched up on tiptoe and exchanged a hug and a kiss with Edward. “I didn’t know you’d changed your mind about coming tonight, sweetie. Does this mean you’ll be at the house for Christmas Eve, too?” Holly had managed to wipe the shock off her face by the time the woman turned to greet her with a warm smile. “Hi. I’m Susan Kincaid, Edward’s mother. Are you a friend?”

  She could see the resemblance now—the bone structure around the cheeks and eyes, the dark brown hair—though hers was peppered with streaks of gray. Taking Susan Kincaid’s hand, she completed the introduction. “Holly Masterson. I’m…”

  What was she? Accomplice in crime? Confessor? Closet make-out artist?

  “She’s an M.E. from the crime lab, Mom.” Edward’s gruff voice answered the question for her.

  “Oh.” The small lines beside Susan’s dark eyes creased with disappointment. But just as quickly, her expression perked up again. She beamed a smile at her son. “You’re working?”

  Mr. Caldwell lifted his chin, looking curious to hear the answer to that one, too. “Have you finally decided to go back to KCPD, son? Or are you moonlighting on your father’s murder investigation?”

  Edward’s grip on her wrist tightened and he muttered under his breath. “I definitely need to find a meeting.”

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  Chapter Six

  Edward pul
led his stocking cap low over his ears and turned up the collar of his coat to keep the newly-falling snow from drifting down the back of his neck.

  “You’re going to do the right thing, aren’t you, Daddy?”

  There were bad nights when Edward couldn’t fathom why he’d been left alive when the two people he’d loved the most had been taken from this world. And then there were ones that were off-the-chart crazy like this one, and he had a sneaking suspicion that learning to cope with beautiful, headstrong, insightful, vulnerable, well-meaning, complex, troublesome, stubborn women like his mother and Holly Masterson was actually some kind of cosmic punishment for failing his family.

  “Yeah, baby, I’m gonna try,” he muttered into the freezing air. “I’m going to try.”

  “What’s that?” Though covered by a long dress coat, Holly’s delectable bottom bounced like forbidden temptation as she backed out of the rear seat of her Honda. Edward sternly tipped his face to the black sky and the snow that seemed to be falling straight from the lights towering over Caldwell Technologies’ parking lot. She straightened with the scraper-brush she’d gone fishing for in her hand and matched his stance, squinting up into the falling snow. “Is it getting worse?”

  Edward wished he could have explained to his daughter what it cost a man to be a gentleman sometimes. But Melinda never would have understood. Her world had always been black and white. Good and evil. Daddy was a good guy, so he would separate work to be done from the pleasure to be had in kissing Holly again.

  He’d let his mother think that his life was getting normal enough to attend a party with a female friend again. But the truth didn’t sound much better. Um, no Mom, I’m not dating—I’m following up a lead on a case I’m not really supposed to be working on because, you know, I’m not really a cop anymore and, oh yeah, the potentially incriminating evidence I found here tonight might just point to our old family friend who seems to be becoming much more than a friend to you since Dad died.