“You two know each other?”
“Oh, way back.” Of course they did. I was the one who was new on the scene. This was Sophie’s territory, her home before the University days, the place she’d come back to when I’d disappeared down South and got married. Strange how the two people I got to know best at University lived within a stone’s throw of each other. Charlie persuaded me to come visit for some TLC and Sophie, well Sophie got me to stay.
My two best friends had brought me to this place like it was my destiny. The place they’d told me to come to when I’d told my cocksucking, whip-loving husband to shove it. Bitter? Me? Well, maybe not bitter but angry, confused and more fucking alone than I’d been in my whole life.
Come here, crash at my place Charlie had said. Stay here, I know the perfect place for you to work, said Sophie, we’ll be fine. So I had. And we were. I think.
I gave her a look—she must have known when I was going on about my eye-candy just exactly who I was talking about, and she’d never let on. Although to be fair I had been keen to point out that as horny as he made me feel, I was keeping my distance. And my clothes on.
I gave an inward sigh, anyhow why was I surprised? Not many guys in this place had the drool factor, and not many girls were quite as come-to-me sexy as Soph, so it figured they’d know each other, didn’t it? But we normally had different taste in just about everything from shoes, to bags, to men so that was why it had never actually lodged in my brain that she and Dane would even know each other.
“Is this buy one, get one free?” He flashed a look back at me and took the one step it needed to squeeze between us and reach the bar.
“And what if we say yes?” Sophie’s voice was just loud enough for me to hear and I could feel the heat spreading right to my scalp as he half-paused, turning back toward her, and much as I hated myself for it I would have loved to have seen the look on his face.
“Hey, I’m not for sale, whatever you two have going.”
He turned back my way and his eyes were as dark as I’d ever seen them, sending a little spasm of need to my pussy. Then he grinned, and the look vanished as though he needed to get back onto surer ground. “I could murder a pint, so how’s about I buy you both a drink then?” He slipped a hand round my near-naked waist and I could tell from the way Sophie eased her hips forward until they were rubbing the brushed denim of his jeans that he’d got a hold of her as well. Any second now and she’d be purring.
I love Sophie, I really do, we’ve been good mates, best mates, ever since Charlie introduced us, but sometimes the girl needs a stop button. Especially when she’s rubbing her tits against the only man I’ve truly lusted over. Which is stupid, because hey, what do I care? A man like Dane is the last thing I need right now.
Sophie wasn’t bothered that she was dressed up as Santa’s little helper, with a green tunic that barely covered her thighs, a black belt that was cinching her waist to break point and a top that was only just this side of decent. At least we’d ditched the naff hats. Maybe I just needed to lighten up a bit, unless I want to spend the rest of my days admiring my handsome farrier and watching him use his capable hands on everyone but me.
But lightening up wasn’t easy when I’d got a draft up my skirt and felt like some sacrificial lamb. When Soph had talked me into helping out at the firm’s Christmas grotto I’d thought it was for the kids—and not that we’d be there to keep the dads happy as well. Santa had ho ho hoed one time too many as he’d rubbed his polyester beard against my cheek and pinched my bum. ‘Got to have something to keep the staff happy too.’ He’d chuckled, just before I used my pointy little boot on him. Trouble was I just knew he was leery Steve from accounts and this was his one opportunity of the year to do some groping, but not up my tunic, matey.
Dane’s fingers tightened slightly, reminding me he was there—as if I needed it. And the movement sent a tingle straight to my barely covered breasts. “Where exactly are you off to? I take it the fancy dress isn’t just to turn me on.” He freed his right hand from around Sophie and took a long swig of his beer. That rippling throat needed my mouth on it, right here, right now, his Adam’s apple bobbing against my tongue. Shit, I had to stop this before the mind police came and took me away, just before I turned into a melting pleading mess.
“It turns you on?” The slate eyes shimmered back at me and the corner of his mouth twitched, his eyes opened a bit wider as he raised a brow. I swallowed hard and tried to exert some control over my wayward body. “Sophie agreed to help with the grotto at work and somehow I was stupid enough to let her drag me along.” I should have left her to it, common sense had told me to stay out of it. But we are mates aren’t we, share and share alike the good bits and the bad bits. Except now from the look in Sophie’s eye we could be on collision course.
He gave a deep throaty laugh and sent a shiver of goose bumps down my arms. “Oh, the annual grab and grotto at Grove and Grove.”
“No one warned me about the grab bit.” I’d just been happy that it was the last day before the office closed for the holiday period, and in the spirit of Christmas had agreed to let my normal defenses down a bit.
“So which bit turns you on, Dane?” His attention swung back to Sophie, but his fingers did a gentle squeeze on my waist that made me want to squirm, and his other hand stayed wrapped around his pint.
“Ah, now you’ve got me there, Sophie.” That rough, gruff voice was low and confidential so that we tipped our heads in closer together and the fresh herbal scent of his shampoo mingled with the sharp tang of burned hoof. Okay, not everyone’s cup of tea but for me that smell meant man, all man. Rough, strong male and it woke up every tingling nerve in my body.
“It could be those sexy tops that almost cover your bums.” I tried to give mine a surreptitious tug on the back with my free hand. “Or it could be the way they don’t quite fasten at the top so that I can almost see your lacy bra.” Shit, no way could I pull the top any tighter it was stretched to its limits and I was beginning to feel like I was doing a weird contortionist act. These outfits were obviously made for real life elves…or kids, or girls who didn’t care. Sophie was leaning in closer, so that he had a better chance of seeing exactly what she had down hers, my guess was boobs and not much else. “Or it could be those sexy green stockings. I think you girls need some protection though, not safe to be out and about dressed like that.”
“Are you offering?” Sophie was tracing a fingernail slowly down his muscled forearm and I didn’t need to glance down, just from the way his fingers tightened on his pint I could tell he was tempted.
“You know me, I aim to please.” He drained his glass. “Back in five, just gotta talk to a man about a - ”
“Dog?”
“Horse.” He nodded across the bar towards a stocky figure I recognized from the local riding school, gave my waist a last squeeze and strode off with his easy ground-swallowing gait. Yes, cowboy. Charlie might or might not be a surfer dude, but Dane was definitely all cowboy.
“He is abso-fucking-lutely gorgeous isn’t he?” Sophie had her hand on my knee and was leaning so far forward that one more inch and she’d be off her barstool and in my lap. The wistful sigh told a story all of its own. “So, cough up, I’ve known him since primary school, but where exactly did you bump into him?”
I matched her eye for eye. I had told her, but Sophie didn’t always listen, she was usually off on a tangent dreaming up her next escapade. “In here, and then it turned out he was the farrier on the yard.” She was giving me a slightly blank look. “You know, farrier? He shoes my horse?”
“Ah yes, I forgot he did that.” It was my turn for the blank look, what else did a farrier do? Duh.
“He used to just do ironwork for his dad at the forge, I forgot he’d branched out. We never really talked about work.” She grinned and rested her chin in her hand. “So why haven’t you snaffled him yet?”
“Well, I can tell you have.” She didn’t take offence, just grinned.
<
br /> “Well, you can’t blame me, Dane was the hottest guy at school and he’s still pretty good to look at. Pity…”
“Pity what?” My voice came out sharp even to my own ears.
“Nothing.” She shrugged, but I could tell there was something. “Just a pity he went a bit weird after Sally.”
“Sally?” Shit, don’t you hate it when you’re the only one in town who doesn’t know what anyone is talking about?
“Oh, just some girl he went off with, she had her claws deep into him that one, and then they split and he just…”
“Went weird?”
“Well, he kind of stopped dating as much, he flirts and everything but he’s a bit of a one date guy.”
“And you wanted two?”
“Oh shit, no.” She giggled. “I had him first, way before long, tall Sal. I like him just the way he is as a laugh, but he just seems a bit, I dunno, antsy.” She drained her glass and plonked it heavily on the bar. “Ideal for you right now, a good no strings attached, no expectations shag.”
I sighed. “Sophie.” Whatever Sophie wanted she went out and got, which was one of the fundamental differences between us. Going out and getting what I wanted at work was easy, but men were different. And even worse after James. “I don’t want—”
“You bloody do!” She had a slightly calculating look in her eye. “You really want him, don’t you?”
“It is possible to look and not touch.” I tried to be huffy and failed.
“Oh, I don’t think so. And he’s nice, and he likes you.”
I laughed, slightly nervously because something told me that she actually meant it. “We’re mates with a bit of meaningless flirting thrown in.”
“Flirting is never meaningless, girl.”
I guess my problem is that meaningless doesn’t come naturally. All my relationships have been of the true love and eternal happiness type, not the kiss them quick and shag them quicker type. Well, at least they had seemed that way at the time.
“Your problem—” Here we go. “—is that you take it all too seriously. Look hun, don’t even think about that bastard ex-husband.” Hard to forget. “Even Robin Hood, bless his heart, probably had more than one Maid Marion.” She sat up straight and reached for the fast-emptying wine bottle.
I wasn’t quite sure where Robin Hood came into all of this, maybe it was being dressed in green that had confused her. But yeah, I got the gist. I really did. It was just that James had struck at something so deep inside me, at what I believed in. I’d never thought of playing at relationships, I’d done them properly like I did everything.
“More than one Maid Marion and several merry men, I imagine.” I don’t think the man had found a boundary yet, the only fly in the ointment had been me.
She giggled, but it was a throaty, sexy giggle not the type of girly nervous one I normally did. “You don’t have to be top of the class at this, Holly. Just have fun. Try it, for me? And I can tell you for nothing that Dane is up for lots of fun.” If I didn’t know her better I could swear there was a blush in the making just at the point where her tunic didn’t meet in the middle. “Christmas is for sharing, remember?”
I glanced up, straight into the stormy eyes that were watching us from the other end of the bar. I did want him, which was why I kept bumping into him in this bar, why I watched his every move when he was shoeing the horses, why it felt right when he was in my personal space. He half-smiled—just a hint of a lift at one corner of that beautiful mouth and it was the sexiest thing I had ever seen.
Chapter Two
“So, are you doing the gentlemanly thing then?” Whatever faults Sophie had, prevarication wasn’t one of them.
Dane smiled good-naturedly. “Anything for you.” And he gave my waist a friendly squeeze which squashed the pips right out of that gooseberry feeling.
I guess normally there is no way I would have walked out of a bar with Dane sandwiched between me and Sophie, I would have just left her to it. But this wasn’t normal. This was I’m dressed like some weird busty elf and I’ve just shared a bottle of wine with a man eating elf who has insisted on a festive season of sharing. Which put a slightly different slant on things, and despite my no getting involved with anyone-who-has-a-penis rule, I liked Dane. A lot. And I’d already broken the rule by moving with Charlie hadn’t I, even if it was on a strictly mates basis?
As Sophie’s place was on the edge of town and up the type of hill that was lethal after a drink or two, and mine, sorry Charlie’s, apartment was very much in the centre of things she was staying over, so that’s where we headed. All the time me hoping that I wasn’t spotted a) in this ridiculous revealing outfit, and b) as the bread part of a Dane sandwich.
“Here.” Soph pushed open the door with one hand, with the kind of familiarity which made me sure she’d stayed over at Charlie’s more than a time or two, and grabbed Dane’s shirt with the other. “Come and share a late night pizza, you’re hungry.”
“No wonder I keep away from you.” She raised an enquiring eyebrow and pushed the door shut so that he couldn’t change his mind. “You’re so bloody bossy.” Not that he seemed to mind.
“I’m just a woman who knows her mind, you complaining?”
He grinned and settled down on the sofa looking completely relaxed and at home. “I wouldn’t dare.” And the confident way he said it spelled him out very much as the type of man who would if the urge took him. He winked in my direction and the cluster of butterflies in the base of my stomach started chasing each other round a bit faster.
Sophie laughed and headed across the open plan space to the kitchen area, clattering about with beer and glasses as though she owned the place. She was singing something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Santa Baby’, with a few modifications of her own, which was good because I could concentrate on that rather than the fact that the most gorgeous man I’d seen for a long time was sprawled out in front of me sporting the type of inviting smile a nun would find hard to resist.
His strong capable hand patted the seat next to him and I hesitated. Touchy feely in the bar, in public, was one thing, having a flirt on the yard surrounded by horses was fine too. But here?
“I promise I won’t bite, not like that bloody moody mare of yours.”
Which made me laugh and cringe at the same time. He’d been on the teeth end of my horse more than once, which I suppose was better than a sharp kick, but left a good mark. “I’ll show you the bruises later.” He’d read my mind which made the little knot of nerves in my stomach tighten into something a bit harder to untangle. “Me and Sophie were just a quick fling many years ago.” His voice had softened and I let a little inward sigh escape and kicked off my shoes, like I always did when I got home, and plopped next to him on the sofa. Yeah, home. This was like a home to me because even though I’d been planning on renting my own place, I’d been here four months and just hadn’t found anywhere. All the flats I’d seen just seemed like places to eat and sleep. Sophie would say they had no heart, no trace of me. And she was right in a way, but I think in my heart I just wasn’t ready to settle—I didn’t know what I wanted, I hadn’t yet decided what was me. I was in a kind of limbo, most things just seemed to be temporary at the moment.
But Charlie’s place was different, this place was heart and soul and it was hard not to relax here, everything was slightly battered at the edges. Comfortable. And there were scattered piles of magazines, books and bits of him everywhere. He had achieved the impossible – turned a very smart minimalist town centre pad into a cosy lived in bolt hole in a record amount of time. It wasn’t exactly messy, just a reflection of wraparound Charlie and I think I was using him as a comfort blanket.
“Less of the many, buster.” Sophie was back, leaning over the back of the sofa and offering Dane a bottle of beer. She brushed one finger tip along the back of his neck so that he hunched his shoulders and tipped his head back so he could look her in the eye.
“Big ears.” It was hard to work out exa
ctly what their relationship was. I could imagine her looking out for him, like she did with everyone. Sophie collected people like a lepidopterist collected butterflies, and she looked after them just as carefully. Minus the pins of course. But the pair of them were flirty enough to make me think that whatever they’d had hadn’t ever quite been closed off, and matey enough to make me think that maybe it never would be.
“Not even I understand it.” He grinned at me and took a swig of the beer, then she plopped down next to him sending a splash down his shirt.
“That’s cos you’re a man.”
“Hey less of the generalizations, and the tipping my drink down me.”
“Might have to strip off your shirt, and lick—” she bit his neck just above the collar “—you dry.”
The chuckle came deep down from somewhere in the middle of that broad chest and he settled a bit deeper into the sofa, legs wide and the unmistakable outline of his erection stretching the denim tight. “And I might have to give you a good spanking.”
“Promises, promises.”
“So how do you pair know each other?” The smoky gaze was back on me, but Sophie spoke before I had chance.
“We met at Sheffield, then because she is such a smarty pants she went down to the big city to try her luck, and because I’m not I came back here.” Which wasn’t that accurate, I’d done well on my IT course because I’m a natural geek, but Sophie did brilliantly at her maths course because she’s got a brain that’s practically computerized. Job offers were thrown from all directions, but she’d wanted the actuarial job that Grove and Grove put on the table. She’d always wanted it. And Sophie was more tenacious than a terrier.
The oven pinged. “Yay, food time.”
“So you’re not here to stay?” He was studying me in that intent kind of way someone does just before they kiss you and it made me squirm inside, because I did want to kiss him, but if I did things would change. Kissing led to more kissing or it led to the end, and I quite liked things as they were. The wanting, the lusting after my perfect man without all the crap that came with it. And even if Soph was right and he was the perfect one-off shag candidate it would still change things. I liked having him as a mate, he was good company, friendly without being nosy. And even just looking at him made me happy, or maybe just horny, it didn’t matter. Whatever.
Good Enough to Share (Good Enough, Book 1 - Christmas) Page 2
