Her Secret Santa

by Jill Shalvis

  “Hey. My space.”

  “I like your space. Did you figure out if you want me to take off my jeans yet?”

  “Yes. No!” She closed her eyes. “They stay on.”

  “Let me know if that changes.” He was in close enough that his warm breath brushed her temple. “And as for me sitting next to you, it was for the discussion we’re going to be having about hot massage oil, sex manuals and naked Santas. I thought you’d want a little discretion.”

  Yes, but she also wanted distance, from his big, bad, tough, gorgeous bod. With distance, she could remember that she’d been hurt and embarrassed by the fact that six months ago she hadn’t been enough to hold his interest for more than two dates and she didn’t think anything had changed there. Bottom line, she’d thought they could have had something…

  Hell, she still thought it. Damn him.

  He was slouched back, legs sprawled out in front of him, one long arm stretched out along the back of the booth behind her. He had shoved his sunglasses to the top of his head and had at least a day’s growth of stubble growing on his strong jaw. He looked more than a little dangerous.

  Luckily she already knew she was only in danger if she let down her guard—and that wasn’t going to happen again.

  Their waitress was young and cute and snapping a wad of bubble gum, which she almost swallowed when Eddie smiled at her. “What can I get you?” she practically purred.

  He turned to Ally, a question in his gaze. “What sounds good?”

  What sounded good? His voice. “Pizza.”

  “Pizza it is,” he said. “And two beers.”

  The waitress beamed at him as if he’d just given her the moon, then she bounced off. Yes, bounced. Allie slid him a look. “Does that ever get old?”

  “What?”

  “The adoration?”

  He smiled the smile of a man confident in his own skin. “No.”

  Rolling her eyes, Ally leaned back when the waitress brought their beers. She was a complete lightweight in the alcohol department but she had a feeling that tonight she’d need the fortification. She took a long pull, watching as Eddie did the same.

  Then he set down his bottle, gave her a heavy-lidded look, and pulled open the sex manual to the bookmarked page. “Interesting.”

  Thinking he’d found something she’d missed, a clue of some kind, she leaned into him, trying to see what he was looking at. When she moved, his biceps brushed the side of her breast. And if that wasn’t enough to send a bolt of sheer desire through her, he smelled warm and deliciously male. She ignored it all. “What? What did you find?”

  “It says here the key to a hot kiss is to make it as similar to the sexual act itself as possible.”

  Oh, God. His voice was like a shot of whiskey. Low and smooth and potent. To distract herself, she took another long pull on her beer and slapped the bottle to the table.

  His gaze went from the beer to her mouth, and he smiled. “It says that a kiss should be long and wet and deep, preferably with a slow glide of the tongue.” He cocked his head and kept looking at her. “I like the slow glide part.”

  She remembered! Worse, her body remembered too. Her breasts felt…full. Her thighs were clenched, and between them, she felt an undeniable tingle.

  “It also says that full body contact is suggested, from chest to groin to thigh.”

  He hadn’t used a single obscene word and she’d gone damp. She squeezed her thighs and let out an indistinguishable sound that she covered by downing the last of her beer.

  He was watching her carefully. “I think we’re ready for the next chapter,” he murmured. Then he started to read. “Getting from the kiss to the naked stage—”

  He broke off when she slapped her hands over the pages. If he continued in that voice, she might have an orgasm on the spot. “We failed there.”

  His gaze searched her face. “Failed?”

  “Okay, not we. Me. I failed.”

  He studied her a long moment. “Explain.”

  “We went out.” Damn beer. Her tongue felt loose. “Twice.”

  “Yes.”

  “We kissed.” She pointed to the book. “Long and deep and wet.”

  Now his lips curved and he sighed in fond memory. “Uh-huh.”

  “And then nothing. You never called me again. No naked.”

  He looked at her for a long moment. “You never gave me any indication that you wanted to go in that direction, or even that you wanted to see me again. In fact, when I walked you inside your place after our second date, you patted me on the shoulder and said you’d be real busy over the next couple of months but that it’d been real nice hanging out.”

  “And it had been nice.”

  “It felt like a brush off.”

  “No, it wasn’t. It was me…trying to open up.”

  He shook his head in bafflement.

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “I said it was nice. Nice is a perfectly good word, Eddie.”

  He looked at her as if she’d come from another planet. “Nice is the word you use to describe the guy you call when you need a tire changed. Nice is the man at the store who reaches something on the top shelf that you can’t. Nice is for the neighbor who brings in your mail when you’re out of town. Nice is not for the guy you want to go out with dancing until dawn and then come home and get naked and sweaty and have some wall-banging sex. Nice is not for the guy you want to take you to the mountains for screaming sex beneath the stars.”

  Oh my. Wall-banging sex?

  Screaming sex?

  God, all she could think was, Yes, please. Where did she sign up for that?

  “Ally?”

  She realized he was waving a hand in front of her face, and she jumped.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes,” she said faintly.

  Pay attention.

  Distance.

  They were both keys to a good, smart, effective investigation. “All of those traits,” she said. “The car thing, the mail thing…I like them. I’d like them in a man.”

  “Yes, but they put a man decidedly in the ‘friend’ category.”

  “When I date someone, I want them to be a friend.”

  Still watching her, he took her hand. “So what are you saying? That you would have kept going out with me as a friend, or as a friend and also…more?”

  She swallowed and looked away. “Well, I guess we’ll never know.”

  He paused, then shook his head. “No wonder you close a staggering seventy-five percent of your cases when most investigators are lucky to get thirty. You probably drive your suspects so insane, they’ll confess to anything.”

  She was fairly certain that was not a compliment. “I’m good at what I do.”

  “Yes. Of that, there is no doubt. But how about other things outside the job?”

  She was quiet a moment, trying to come to terms with what needed to be said. “There are some areas in my life that could use some work,” she admitted. When he sent her a slow, knowing smile, she rolled her eyes and had to smile back. “I’m working on it,” she said softly. “At my own pace.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.”

  CHAPTER 4

  THEIR PIZZA ARRIVED, and Ally dug in. After her long day, she felt like she was starving to death. She was halfway through her second piece before she realized Eddie was skimming the notes in her file and smiling.

  “You’ve made a list of all the fire stations,” he said. “Are we all under suspicion?”

  When she didn’t answer, he raised a brow, then kept reading. When he came to her list of suspects, he tossed back his head and laughed out loud. “Me? I’m your sole suspect?”

  She lifted a shoulder.

  Still smiling, his gaze ran slowly over her features. “Any time you want to search my person, you let me know.” He turned a few pages. “A list of places that sell dirty wrapping paper. And a list of the adult novelty shops in the area. So what’s the plan? You going to go storm them, gun blazing?”
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  “Give me my file.”

  “You are,” he murmured, still grinning. “God, please let me watch.”

  She reached for the file but he slid it to his far side, making it so that she had to reach across him to get it. She was practically lying on his broad chest trying to grasp the papers when he let go of them and slid his hands up her arms.

  Pleasure slammed into her and she went still. She was doing a pretty crappy job at that distance thing.

  Eddie had gone still too, his long, leanly muscled body hard beneath hers. Slowly his gaze dropped to her mouth.

  When she shivered, he leaned in to kiss her. And since she already knew he kissed like heaven on earth, her entire body shivered again in anticipation.

  But instead of planting one on her, he reached past her for the sex manual, which fell open to a chapter entitled Sexual Fantasies.

  “I probably could have written this chapter,” he said.

  Unsure if she was relieved or disappointed about the lack of a kiss, she sat back and grabbed another piece of pizza. “Let me guess. Your fantasies are about two women kissing, or two women naked, or better yet, two women kissing and naked.”

  His eyes dilated. “Not bad,” he said, voice husky. “But mine tend to be more specific.”

  “Like?”

  He arched his brow, silently asking if she really wanted to hear this, and her mouth promptly disconnected from her brain. “Tell me.”

  “You,” he murmured. “My fantasy is you, in that little black dress and those do-me heels you wore at Thanksgiving.”

  She arched a brow, and he nodded.

  She finally found her voice. “That actually seems relatively tame, me in the dress.”

  “With nothing beneath it except your gun.”

  She blinked.

  He let out a low laugh. “Yeah, I get a lot of mileage out of reliving that scene at the Thanksgiving fire. Except in my fantasy, you’re walking through my house instead of the warehouse. And you take me down instead of your perp, and then…”

  His breathing roughened. “Sorry,” he said with a shake of his head. “This is my favorite part. You slip out of the dress.”

  “Tell me I’m not really wearing just my gun beneath it.”

  “No.” He smiled. “You’re also wearing lipstick.”

  She shoved him to the far side of the booth and finished her pizza, trying not to think about why her belly was quivering. “I don’t wear lipstick, I wear lip gloss.”

  “Even better.”

  * * *

  “THANKS FOR the pizza,” Ally murmured when they’d finished. “You can just take me back to my car.”

  Yes, Eddie got that loud and clear. She wanted him to go away. He’d always gotten that loud and clear from her. But apparently he’d been wrong, and that fascinated him. She fascinated him.

  And she wanted him. The knowledge made him happier than he’d been in a long time, and he intended to return the favor.

  When he drove past her office, heading into downtown, she sat up. “You missed my—”

  “I know.”

  “Well, stop.”

  When he didn’t, she sighed. “This is kidnapping. Unlawful restraint.”

  He slid her a look and a smile. “Going to cuff me?”

  Her mouth tightened, and did so even more when five minutes later he pulled into the lot of Sally’s Special XXX Toy Store.

  “I’m not going to ask how you know where this place is,” she said, the irony of the name of the shop not escaping her. Toy shop.

  Toys.

  That was where all the trouble had begun in the first place.

  Eddie guided her inside, the file tucked beneath his arm. The place had black walls decorated with porn movie posters and neon signs that said things like Live Girls Nude and Hot Rod.

  “Cute,” she murmured beneath her breath.

  He smiled. He loved how she was acting all tough and yet he had to practically push her through the store to the counter.

  Sitting out on full display were a handful of vibrators, each bigger and more colorful than the last. Ally took a look at the largest one, which was a foot long and as wide around as her forearm, and tripped.

  Eddie grinned and slipped an arm around her waist as he nodded to the guy behind the counter. The man was an indeterminable age, with a long straggly gray ponytail to his waist and a Grateful Dead T-shirt on his lean frame.

  The clerk slid a look from Eddie to Ally, taking his time with her, before shifting back to Eddie again, a sly light in his eyes. “What can I do for you two this evening?”

  Ally was looking at him long and hard. “Do I know you?”

  The guy smiled wickedly. “Depends. You a regular customer?”

  Eddie arched a brow at her, but Ally narrowed her eyes. “No,” she said forcibly.

  Eddie opened her file, revealing the picture of the massage oil. “You sell this here?” he asked the clerk.

  “Nope. We have better than this.”

  Ally showed him the book. “How about this?”

  The clerk flipped it open to the bookmarked page and grinned. “You having trouble with kissing?”

  Ally appeared to grind her back teeth. “Just answer the question, please.”

  He scratched his head. “That’s from Double D’s Adult World on Ninth Street.”

  Allie had turned to walk away when he spoke again.

  “But we sell the wrapping paper that you have in there.”

  * * *

  DOUBLE D’S ADULT WORLD was closed. Back in her office parking lot, Ally turned to Eddie. “Thanks for the backup.”

  “I’ll watch your back anytime.” He smiled. “Too bad Mr. Grateful Dead didn’t have any way of knowing who’d recently purchased the wrapping paper. I thought you were going to pull your gun on him. Or maybe that was because he’d suggested you might be having trouble with kissing.”

  She got out and slammed the door, moving quickly toward her car, but he caught her just before she slid into her driver’s seat. He wrapped one hand around her arm, the other going to her hip, gently pressing her against the side of her car. “Hey.”

  “Hey is for horses,” she said.

  With a slow smile, he leaned into her, his hard body coming into contact with hers, making her body instantly react. It knew, dammit, it knew the pleasure he could bring. Her nipples hardened against her top, and when his denim-clad leg slid between hers, she nearly moaned. Instead, she blew out a breath and met his amused gaze. “You’re finding this whole thing funny, aren’t you?”

  “Some parts.” He ran a finger over her temple, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Not all.”

  She shivered but managed sarcasm. “Do tell.”

  “I like watching you run this like an official investigation. You’re a deductive reasoner, a problem solver.” He paused, his words raising goose bumps on her skin as he slid the same finger down her jaw, watching her carefully. “It makes me hot,” he admitted. And then his lips grazed her earlobe, causing a full body shiver to wrack her.

  She locked her knees. “You had your chance—”

  His finger covered her lips. “Yeah, now that’s the part I’m not amused by. I backed off, Ally, because I felt like I was pushing. I wanted you to want me.” He stroked his thumb down her throat, his fingers stretching so that they just slid under the edge of her top, over her collarbone, coming to rest on the curve of her breast.

  She felt a rush of lust.

  “I want another chance at making you want me,” he murmured, his fingers lightly teasing.

  A shuddery sigh escaped her. “Th-that isn’t the problem.”

  “Good.” And then he slid his fingers into her hair and kissed her. The first touch of his tongue sent shockwaves of pleasure straight through her. Time seemed to stutter to a halt. Everything faded away except the feel of his hard muscles moving against her. And it wasn’t just his muscles that were hard, she realized as his arousal nudged her leg. He held her, his hands gl
iding over her back, then beneath her top so that she could feel the warm roughness of his calloused palms.

  “I missed this,” he murmured, his breath hot and heavy on her neck, her throat, and she was shocked to find her own mouth at his shoulder, nipping at him. Her hands had made themselves at home beneath his shirt, as well, flat on his ridged abs, her fingers running over him like she was trying to read braille.

  “Well that mystery is cleared up now,” he murmured thickly, pressing his forehead to hers, clearly trying to draw air into his taxed lungs. “You definitely don’t need that chapter on kissing.”

  “No?”

  “No.” He smiled. “You knock my socks off, Ally.” His velvety green eyes met hers. “Come home with me. Let’s try this again.”

  Her body perked up and sent a please yes! message to her brain. But she’d made a career out of caution, and exercised it now. “I don’t want to revisit a mistake, Eddie.”

  She expected anger. Frustration at the very least. But he surprised her by pressing his mouth to her temple and gently stroking his hands over her back, soothing now instead of trying to ignite. “This thing with us isn’t an investigation,” he murmured. “It’s not black and white, and it’s not something you leave on your desk at the end of a hard day. It’s real life, Ally.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then let go and give it a shot.”

  At her silence, he sighed and stepped back. “Think about it.”

  That, she could guarantee.

  CHAPTER 5

  OVER THE NEXT SIX DAYS, Eddie put in four twenty-four hour shifts. At the end of the week, with only two weeks before Christmas, he staggered out of the station with Sam at his side.

  “Shit,” Sam murmured wearily, squinting at the winter sun as they stood and stared at the churning ocean. “I’m exhausted.”

  Eddie slid on his sunglasses and nodded, too tired to even agree verbally. He had a box of toys in his truck for Ally, but he needed a good solid eight hours prone on his bed before even thinking about being on his toes enough to face her.

  The last time he’d seen her had been when he’d pressed her up against her car and kissed her like she was the very air he needed in his lungs. He’d asked her to give this, them, another shot.