by Leslie Kelly
Hot for the holidays!
Every Halloween party has its share of eye candy, and journalist Chaz Browning has just spotted a treat he can’t resist—a deliciously wicked witch with sparkly red hair and deep, dark eyes that promise all kinds of sexy tricks. She wants no names. No strings. Just a night of lust-filled magic.
The witch’s mask may hide her face, but Lulu Vandenberg knows exactly who Chaz is. They spent most of their childhoods tormenting each other. So the moment Chaz touches her and everything turns to lust, Lulu knows she can never reveal her identity. But desire has a memory of its own, and Chaz has vowed to find his fantasy woman before the holidays end…
Praise for New York Times bestselling author Leslie Kelly
“Sexy, funny and a little outrageous,
Leslie Kelly is a must read!”
—New York Times bestselling author Carly Phillips
“Leslie Kelly is a rising star of romance!”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author
Debbie Macomber
“A sexy read with an alpha male,
realistic characters and an entertaining plot.”
—Harlequin Junkie on Double Take
“Kelly succeeds with this sexy story,
keeping the tension high.”
—RT Book Reviews on Waking Up to You
“Kelly employs a great deal of heart and humor
to achieve balance with this incendiary romance.
Great characters, many of whom fans will
recognize, and a vibrant narrative kept
this reader glued to each and every word.”
—The Romance Reader’s Connection
on Overexposed
Dear Reader,
Over my many years writing books for Harlequin, I have really enjoyed creating holiday-themed stories, with several Christmas novels, and some revolving around Halloween.
This year, knowing I had a November release, I decided to try something a little different. Falling right between Halloween and Christmas is one of my favorite holidays: Thanksgiving. I’d never done a Thanksgiving book, nor could I envision a whole Turkey Day–themed novel. But the idea of capturing the entire holiday season, from the end of October through Christmas, excited me. I relished the chance to take one couple from the dizzying excitement of a naughty costumed encounter at a Halloween party through to the happy excitement of Thanksgiving and right into the tender loveliness of Christmas.
I truly love how this turned out, and so enjoyed bringing Lulu and Chaz through my three favorite holidays of the year. I hope their story makes your holiday season a little more sweet-and-spicy, too.
Best wishes,
Leslie Kelly
Leslie Kelly
Oh, Naughty Night!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
New York Times bestselling author Leslie Kelly has written dozens of books and novellas for the Harlequin Blaze, Temptation and HQN lines. Known for her sparkling dialogue, fun characters and steamy sensuality, she has been honored with numerous awards, including a National Readers’ Choice Award, a Colorado Award of Excellence, a Golden Quill and an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award in Series Romance. Leslie has also been nominated four times for the highest award in romance fiction, the RWA RITA® Award. Leslie lives in Maryland with her own romantic hero, Bruce, and their daughters.
Visit her online at www.lesliekelly.com or at her blog, www.plotmonkeys.com.
Books by Leslie Kelly
HARLEQUIN BLAZE
347—OVEREXPOSED
369—ONE WILD WEDDING NIGHT
402—SLOW HANDS
408—HEATED RUSH
447—BLAZING BEDTIME STORIES
“My, What a Big…You Have!”
501—MORE BLAZING BEDTIME STORIES
“Once Upon a Mattress”
521—PLAY WITH ME
537—BLAZING BEDTIME STORIES, VOLUME V
“A Prince of a Guy”
567—ANOTHER WILD WEDDING NIGHT
616—TERMS OF SURRENDER
650—IT HAPPENED ONE CHRISTMAS
663—ONCE UPON A VALENTINE
“Sleeping with a Beauty”
689—BLAZING MIDSUMMER NIGHTS
723—LET IT SNOW…
“The Prince Who Stole Christmas”
747—WAKING UP TO YOU
767—LYING IN YOUR ARMS
776—A SOLDIER’S CHRISTMAS
“I’ll Be Home for Christmas”
795—DOUBLE TAKE
To get the inside scoop on Harlequin Blaze and its talented writers, be sure to check out blazeauthors.com.
To the younger members of my big extended family…
Elliott, Kyleigh, Trey, Addison, Isiah,
Christopher, Jordyn, D4 and Baby Lundh…
I hope the holiday memories you’re building with
your wonderful parents are as magical as mine
always were. Aunt Loulou loves you all!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Excerpt
1
“THERE’S NOTHING WORSE than having the hots for a sexy guy, and then finding out he has the personality of a turnip.”
Lucille Vandenberg—known to her friends and family as Lulu, which wasn’t great, but was certainly better than Lucille—didn’t try to keep the disappointment out of her voice as she griped to her friends, Viv and Amelia. Honestly, a guy who looked as good as the man holding the guitar at the crowded bar should have boatloads of brains and charm to go with his amazing body. But this one? Ugh. She’d had more scintillating conversations with her houseplants.
“Sorry he turned out to be a disappointment,” said Amelia, her pretty, gentle face full of commiseration and support.
Viv wasn’t as comforting. “If the turnip’s hung like a porn star, you can handle a root vegetable, Lulu. I mean, it’s not as if you want a life partner here.”
Lulu wasn’t convinced, mainly because, once again, she’d set herself up for disappointment. For the past month, since she’d moved to Washington, D.C., she’d been on the lookout for an interesting guy to help break her long romantic dry streak. For what seemed like forever, she had been so focused on getting through grad school, and then on her internship in Rwanda, and then on her new job with a local NGO. She hadn’t allowed herself a single date in ages. Of course, that also could have been because her last serious relationship had been with someone who’d been so self-absorbed and career-focused, he hadn’t even known her middle name, her favorite color, or much of anything else about her a year after they’d been together.
But now she needed sex. Badly. Needed to have it with somebody who would make her forget she hadn’t had it for so long...or at least make her believe the wait had really been worthwhile. She could deal with him not caring about her middle name or favorite colors, at least for one night.
“I just wanted to meet somebody nice, sexy and smart, and have a welcome-to-Washington adventure,” she mused.
And when she’d come into this Dupont Circle bar earlier in the week and met the super-hot guitar player, she’d thought she might have found the perfect person with whom to do it.
&nbs
p; But when they’d talked tonight, he’d turned out to be as adventurous as a trip to the dentist. Not even a trip for a filling, or a root canal, just a plain old check-up. Yawn. The monosyllabic conversation they’d shared when she arrived tonight had crushed her fantasies completely.
“Who cares about his IQ?” Viv added. “It’s his looks and size that matter.”
“Maybe to you,” said Amelia, her tone a bit disapproving.
Really, the two former college roommates couldn’t be more dissimilar, and Lulu wondered how they’d survived. They were like Oscar and Felix, only female. One was sexually conservative while the other was a bit of a slut. A definite odd couple.
“I wish I could be as brutally shallow as you, Viv,” Lulu said. “But I need conversation to go with the pecs and schlong.”
Viv grinned, impossible to insult. She was the queen of mean. “Fine, forget him. But don’t give up. The night is young.”
Maybe. But she didn’t want merely smarts, she also wanted a guy who was honest and direct, who didn’t play games with his intentions. Someone who knew what he wanted and went after it...not a wishy-washy dude who couldn’t even speak unless the subject was his favorite band.
Why the hell was it so hard to find somebody like that?
Amelia raised her voice to be heard over the crowd, which was growing louder with every costumed body that crammed into the trendy bar. “There will be lots of guys here tonight. You’ll find somebody better.”
“I doubt it.”
“Have another drink. They’ll all start to look better after three of those things,” said Viv, gesturing toward Lulu’s glass.
Lulu was already feeling the effects of two. Unfortunately, they were making her more choosy, not less. “I’m not the one-night-stand-with-a-stranger type.”
Viv raised a brow and gestured toward the guitarist.
“He wasn’t a stranger,” Lulu insisted. “I sorta knew him.”
“You exchanged five words with him before tonight,” Viv said with a smirk.
“But I knew his name.”
“Only his last one.”
“Yeah, what’s up with that?”
Viv shrugged. “Schaefer’s all mysterious about his first name. I bet it’s something stupid like Fred or Homer or Ralph.”
Amelia, smiling sweetly, said, “Maybe he’s just trying to keep some things private, since he’s in the spotlight.”
Perhaps. But she suspected the broodiness and first-name mystery were intended to heighten interest in an otherwise pretty uninteresting guy. It had certainly worked on her, at least until she’d heard him say more than “Got a request?”
Sighing, she swirled her Devil’s Brew—the drink on special for tonight’s big Halloween bash—and sipped it. She was careful not to splash any of the red liquid onto the half-mask that covered her face from mid-forehead down to the tip of her nose. Lulu had gone to a lot of trouble with this costume, having fully intended to look as sexy and wicked as she could in hopes of stirring some naughty thoughts in the guitarist. She was a witch, but her green mask wasn’t the least bit scary—no long nose or warts. She’d gone instead for a Mardi Gras type facial covering, with sequins and cat-shaped eye openings. Beneath her pointy hat, her hair was curled and teased, wild and untamed. She’d also sprayed a coating of glittery red hairspray onto it, making herself even more unrecognizable.
Schaefer had noticed. She’d seen appreciation and heat in his eyes. His brain might be all vegetable, but his body apparently had some blood flowing through its roots. Er, veins.
That probably would have been enough for most sex-starved twenty-six-year-old women. Maybe it would have been enough for grad-school Lulu. But she’d changed since she’d returned from her internship in Rwanda. Working in a country filled with people who had so little, and then for a nonprofit group that gave microloans to similar, desperately-hopeful populations, would do that to a person.
She supposed she really had grown up. But that didn’t mean she didn’t still have the desire to go out and cut loose, if only to escape the sadness and deprivation she often witnessed in her job. But not with a turnip.
“Whoa, striptease at eleven o’clock,” Viv said, her dark eyes widening.
“Wow, I thought this place was more upscale than that. Maybe we should go someplace else before then,” said Amelia, sounding a little shocked.
“I wasn’t talking about the time, Miss Literal.” Viv pointed. “I mean at my eleven o’clock.”
Lulu and Amelia both turned, peering through the crowd, trying to see what had caught Viv’s attention. At first, Lulu merely spied a sea of devils, vampires, sexy nurses and construction workers. Then she spotted a figure standing alone near the dance floor, facing away from her. And she simply couldn’t look away.
The guy had donned a white sheet for the event, going for the age-old ghost outfit that had gone out of style before Lulu was in elementary school. But even a single sheet was apparently too much. As if he’d felt he’d done his holiday duty by appearing in a requisite costume for a little while, he’d begun to pull the sheet up to remove it. He’d already revealed long legs covered in soft, loose-fitting jeans that draped across powerful, muscular thighs. Not to mention an utterly delish male ass lovingly cupped by that faded denim.
As he stretched his arms up, he caught the bottom hem of his shirt, which was now rising with the sheet—perhaps by design, but more likely by accident. Whatever the reason, she, Viv, Amelia and, she noted, every woman around them, watched him with avid attention as he bared smooth, supple skin, golden and slick with sweat from the hot, crowded bar. His jeans hung low on lean hips; his waist was slim, every inch of him hard.
Lulu reached blindly for her drink, sipping, but she didn’t take her eyes off the ghost. The sheet and shirt went higher—oh, God, that back. It rippled with muscle, every bit of him powerful and sexy. In that body, strength wasn’t just implied, it was promised, and though she wasn’t a petite woman, she suddenly felt very feminine and fragile in comparison.
Catching a glimpse of ink on the back of his shoulder, she waited for more of it to be revealed. She held her breath, dying to see the broad shoulders and bare, flexing arms.
Unfortunately, he appeared to realize he’d been putting on a show. The man yanked the shirt back into place with one hand, and whipped the sheet the rest of the way off with the other. She almost heard a universal sigh of disappointment from every double-Y chromosome in the joint.
“A blond,” Amelia said with a pleased little sigh.
“I like blonds,” Viv purred.
Lulu never had before, but she was definitely seeing the appeal. “I’m quickly developing an appreciation for them.”
Viv tried to stake her claim. “If he has a face to go with the rest of the package, I’ll be poisoning your drinks so I can get to him first.”
Lulu waited, sending mental signals for the guy to turn around so she could judge if the front was as amazing as the back. He didn’t accommodate her fully, but he did glance toward the guitarist, nodding hello to Schaefer. Lulu got just a brief glimpse of his profile, but it was enough to make her gasp in shock.
Lurching from her chair, she said, “It can’t be.”
“Can’t be who?” asked Amelia.
“Chaz.”
Viv frowned. “A guy who looks like that is named Jazz?”
“Chaz,” Lulu insisted, shaking the confusion out of her head and slowly lowering herself back down as her two friends eyed her curiously. “No, I’m wrong. I have to be. No way is that Chaz Browning.”
“Hmm,” Amelia mused, “that name sounds familiar.”
“He’s a journalist—some of his stuff has been in Time magazine and now I think he works for the Associated Press, or maybe Reuters,” Lulu said, still trying to get the crazy thought that the Chaz she’d
known as a kid could possibly have grown up to be the stud she’d just been ogling.
“Who are we talking about, the guy over there?” asked Viv.
“No, it’s just a resemblance.” She sipped again, willing her heart to stop thudding. “Chaz Browning was a boy from my hometown in western Maryland, literally the boy next door. Our parents are best friends, but we always tormented each other.”
Well, mostly she’d tormented him. She smiled, thinking how silly she’d been to equate Chaz Browning with the red-hot dude across the bar.
“I’ve barely seen him since he graduated from high school nine years ago. But our families are still close. My mother told his mother that I was moving here, and he emailed me with info about his Realtor. That’s how I got my apartment.”
“And Chaz is definitely not Mr. Sexy Ghost?” Viv said, still focused on the handsome stranger, now ringed by a trio of costumed women. Lulu frowned, seeing the way they leaned against him, brushing body parts against his thick arms and strong legs.
None of your business, she reminded herself, turning in her chair to face her friend, and not the walking sexsicle.
“No way. Chaz was a total nerd. Skinny, awkward.”
He definitely didn’t have tons of muscles or an ass that could make a wolf-whistler of a nun. Sweet, quiet Chaz had as much in common with ghost-guy as Brad Pitt did with Elmer Fudd.
“Well, Mr. Ghost is definitely not a wimp,” Viv said.
Chaz hadn’t been a wimp, either, exactly. Memories flashed through her mind and she felt the same pang of guilt she always felt when she remembered the boy she’d known. She’d harassed him mercilessly—like the time Chaz had gone up onto the roof of the garage to retrieve a football. She’d waited until he was up there, and had then taken the ladder away. Chaz, not wanting to admit defeat to a mere girl, had jumped, landing hard enough on the ground that he fell and cracked his tailbone.
Her mom had accused Lulu of picking on Chaz only because she had a crush on him. She’d denied it, though she’d always thought he was kind of cute when he blushed. Which was often.
