A Little Bit of Christmas (Crystal Lake 3)

“Considering what?”

She didn’t reply.

Cash stood up. “I would never make light of anyone’s dreams.” He was dead serious.

Chess played with the tab on her beer can, twisting it until it snapped off. She didn’t say anything, and just when Cash thought she was going to ignore him, she let out this small sound like a sigh.

“I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write words that mean something, like Toni Morrison or Tennessee Williams. I loved Emily Dickinson. I won a competition in junior high, and when I brought home my award to show my mother, she took it from me and threw it in the garbage. She told me that girls who look like me don’t become writers. She told me that the only way I’d get ahead in life was to use my looks, to aim for the popular boys, the ones headed somewhere.” Her voice wavered. “I believed her. I stopped writing. I stopped reading. I stopped doing anything that brought me joy, and I wallowed in her self-pity. I let it cover me like a shroud, and it didn’t take long for me to forget my dreams. And now…”

Cash moved closer. “Now?” he prodded gently.

“It’s too late.”

Cash moved closer yet. So close, the toes of his boots touched hers. “It’s never too late, Chess. If that’s your dream, if that’s your passion, then do something about it.” He smiled when she looked up at him. “Look at me. An ex-con living the dream, or at least my kind of dream.” He held her gaze until his entire body was awash in heat. Until his breath came faster and his heart was a roar in his ears.

“Do you ever wish you’d done things differently?”

He thought about that for a bit. “I wish my parents hadn’t been assholes. I wish my sister hadn’t been caught up in their shit. I wish I hadn’t left her behind, and I wish I hadn’t used my fists to right a wrong, because that landed me in a dark place.” He frowned. “I guess there’s a lot of things I wish I’d done differently, but I also think that all these things we’ve done, even the ones we regret, well, they make us who we are. It’s up to us what we do with all that baggage. Do we sink beneath the weight? Or do we use it to make us stronger?”

“Do you ever get lonely?” she asked quietly.

“Not often,” he admitted. “It hits home when I meet someone like you.”

“Like me?” She made no effort to hide her surprise.

Cash sat beside her and slid his hand along her jaw until she was forced to look him in the eye.

“You make me think of things I shouldn’t consider.”

“Like what?” Her breath was warm on his face, and damned if her eyes didn’t pull at him something fierce.

“Like sticking around when I know I can’t.”

Cash had had enough of this dance. He slid his mouth over hers and finally took what he wanted. What he needed.

Chess opened beneath him. There were no coy moments, no retreat and then advance. There was just two people who’d been drawn to each other in spite of their circumstances, or maybe because of them. Cash didn’t want to think about any of that stuff. His only thoughts were of the woman in his arms.

He could have used all the finesse and skill he’d amassed in his career of kissing women, but he didn’t need to. Their kiss was action and reaction. It was fluid and hot and instinctual. She tasted even better than he thought possible, and as she snuggled closer to him and her arms crept up behind his neck, Cash’s world spun off its axis.

He kissed Chess until he damn near lost his mind. Until his cock was hard and uncomfortable and he knew that if he didn’t get his shit together, he was going to lose it. When she groaned and pressed her softness against him, he nearly did. Cash couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman the way he wanted this one in his arms.

And if he had? The old Cash would have had her naked, and he’d already be inside her. No questions asked, no discussion about feelings or consequence.

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? He wasn’t the old Cash, and Chess Somers touched something inside him he never knew he possessed. It was that something that drove him to break the kiss and very carefully extract himself from her. He needed a moment and ran his hand through his hair. If they were going to do this, he had to get this right. She needed to know the truth.

Chess deserved that.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered, licking her bottom lip, the one bruised from his own. She looked sexy as hell with her hair all over the place, her soft skin flushed with desire. Shifting painfully, he tried to get himself to a place where he could talk coherently.

After a few moments, he cupped her chin. This woman had been hurt by a lot of men in her life, and he didn’t want to add his name to that long list.

“Normally when I meet women, they’re not the kind I have conversations with before hitting the sack. It’s just the way I’ve always rolled. I don’t like complications. I take them to bed, we have a good time, and I leave in the morning without saying goodbye.”

Her expression was unreadable. “I get it,” she replied.

Cash exhaled and shook his head. “No, I don’t think you do. You’re different, Chess. You’re not a woman I’ll easily forget. Your face won’t disappear like the others. I need for you to understand a few things, though. Then how we proceed is up to you. If you want to get under those covers and keep warm and do nothing more than sleep, I’m okay with that. If you want more, well, I’m pretty sure you can see my answer.” Her eyes dipped to the bulge in his pants. “But the thing is that once I see my family, I’m outta here, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. I’m not the prince who kisses sleeping beauties. I’m just a man who wants a woman so bad, it hurts.”

Damn but he was making a mess of this. He opened his mouth, no doubt to make things worse than they already were, but she put her finger against his lips.