Unwrapping Holly

Cole pushed off the hearth then, and Holly’s heart raced as he moved closer. Cole knelt beside her, the coffee table and his body enclosing her against the couch. He reached out and brushed hair from her eyes, the barely there touch charging her with awareness.

“You won’t fail, Holly.” His expression filled with tenderness rather than lust, desire rather than demand. “You won’t. In fact, I won’t let you. How long are you here for?”

“A month.”

“How many pages a day do you have to write to get the book done?”

“Including time off for the holiday, twenty good pages.”

“How many have you written today?”

“Ten.”

“Were they good?”

She nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I think they were.” Which was a miracle in and of itself.

He leaned closer, dipping his head, his breath a warm rush of tantalizing promise. She could almost taste his kiss, and he hadn’t even touched her yet. “You need ten more pages,” he repeated.

“Good pages,” she whispered, thinking more about his mouth than about the keyboard begging for her fingers.

His lips brushed hers and she shivered. “I want you, Holly,” he confessed, a moment before his tongue caressed past her teeth and drew her into a spellbinding kiss. She melted into the connection like warm chocolate near a hot flame. It was a long, sensuous kiss, a kiss of passion, a kiss of promise.

When he pulled back, Holly wanted to hold him, to tell him to keep going. But he framed her face with his big hands, held the control with that gentle touch, as he might hold a key.

“Ten more until I can do that again,” he murmured. “Ten pages until I strip every inch of your clothing off and feel you next to me. That’s torture, Holly.” He kissed her forehead. “So get to work before I explode into flames.” And then he was gone, pushing to his feet and leaving her feeling cold. The kind of cold no fire could warm. Only he could. Only Cole.

Holly watched as he settled those long, powerful legs behind his desk, and she drew a deep breath, her nostrils still alive with the fresh male scent of him. He flipped the desk light on and glanced her way. Their eyes connected, and they shared a smile. And then Holly went to work. Ready to finish those ten pages, to reach her career goals. Cole was right. She would not fail. Failure was not an option.

Holly had been punishing herself for not reaching page count, depriving herself of any form of pleasure, and it had paralyzed her. There was a lesson in all of this, no matter what happened with Cole. And thanks to Cole, she realized now that success and pleasure were best served in combination. She’d start with her part, the success, the page count. Then, move on to the part with him—the pleasure.

***

HOURS AFTER INITIATING THEIR WORK challenge, Cole sat back in his chair and watched Holly diligently typing, deep in concentration. The faces she made, smiling or frowning, were adorable, as if she were living out the scenes on her pages.

He wondered at how a trip to grab coffee and stretch his legs had turned into Holly being here with him. He didn’t invite women to his home, and he told himself he’d done so with Holly because she came with no strings attached; she wasn’t in town to stay. Come the end of the holiday season, she would be gone. He didn’t want or need the complications of a small-town romance, especially not when he was in the middle of a major life change in starting a new business.

But none of that explained why he felt so right sitting with her in front of the fireplace. Why the silence between them was comfortable rather than awkward. Why he could look at her for long spells of time without losing interest and it had nothing to do with the lust she’d stirred within him.

Lust that pulsed through his veins at rocket speed as she did a languid stretch before turning her attention on him. A barely there, shy smile tugged on her pretty pink mouth and told a silent story—in a mere two hours, she was done with her ten pages. And he was more than ready to offer her the reward.

As if confirming his observations, she pushed to her feet, her jeans cradling a lush ass the way, he vowed, his hips would be, sometime before this night was over. She crossed the room toward him, and he had no qualms about openly admiring the natural sway of her feminine curves as she sashayed toward him.

“All done, I take it?” he asked, leaning back in the leather desk chair, exploring the nuances of what made Holly, Holly—what made her so damn addictive.

“I am,” she confirmed, easing around the desk to perch beside him on the edge of the wooden surface. “But now that I’ve finished my ten pages, I have a confession to make.”