It Must Have Been the Mistletoe... (9 page)

L
OST IN THE SOUND
, L
AYLA
was milking the final note from her instrument before she had the presence of mind to realize that there were roughly twenty thousand people watching her. She finished with a flourish and waited for the applause to end and the intro for the next song to begin before she disconnected the amp from her mandolin and made her way back offstage.

He'd kissed her.

More significantly, she'd kissed him back.

Quite enthusiastically.

Her cheeks blazed right along with the rest of her and a cold sweat broke out across her brow. Her gaze skittered around backstage until she found Bryant. He was seated at the Scrabble table, arranging his tiles as though everything was right with his world.

Hers felt as if it had been upended and she was hanging on to what was left of her sanity with her fingernails.

“Well done,” he said, without looking up. “You wanna play?”

“You kissed me,” she said blankly, because she couldn't think of anything else.

He arranged a word on the board, his nimble fingers easily
managing the slippery tiles. He had nice hands. Strong and capable. “You needed a distraction. I was afraid you were going to hyperventilate and pass out.”

A distraction? That's all it had been? Despite the instant prick to her ego, she'd almost prefer to think of it that way. Really. If she thought hard enough, she knew she could come up with a reason why that would be so. Why it would be better to believe that he really hadn't wanted to kiss her, but had merely done her a favor.

She was having a hard time being grateful.

“Sit down,” he told her. “I'll deal you in.”

Because she couldn't think of a single reason not to, Layla did as he directed. He handed her a slide and the required tiles. She quickly examined her letters and then the board. “What did you just play?” she asked, clearing her throat.

This was surreal. Utterly surreal.

“Delicious,” he told her, pointing it out for her benefit. He looked at her mouth and absently licked his lips.

Had she been drinking anything, she would have choked. “Definitely not a four-letter word,” she muttered, feeling her face flame even more.

He laughed. “You okay, Layla? You're looking a little flushed.”

So that's how he wanted to play it, huh? He wanted to kiss her, spell suggestive words on the Scrabble board and then pretend she was the only one who'd been affected. Layla inhaled deeply.

She thought not.

She'd felt a definite bulge against her belly and he sure as hell hadn't had to greedily grab her ass to get her attention. “I'm fine,” she said, putting her own word onto the board.

He grunted and his twinkling gaze met hers for the first time over the table. “Lick?”

“Don't forget my double word score.”

Smiling, he bit the corner of his lip and jotted down her points. After careful consideration, he quickly played again.

Nuzzle.

Suppressing a grin of her own, she commended him on the use of his two
z
's, then set about making her own word. I'll see your
nuzzle
and raise you a
massage,
Layla thought. Gratifyingly, Bryant's eyes narrowed and he shifted covertly in his seat.

“Have you always had stage fright?” he asked. He played a
caress
.

It was her turn to shift. Her nipples tingled and her breasts felt as if they were going to plump right out of her bra. “I have,” she admitted. “Made the whole Cole Family Chorus experience quite miserable, I can tell you that. I try to avoid the stage, stick to the studio.” She laid
suckle
on the board and waited for his response.

“I can hear you, you know,” he said, his lips twitching when he saw it.

She frowned. “Am I shouting?”

“No, I mean, I can hear you in the music. When I'm listening to the radio, I can always tell when you've collaborated, when you've laid the track. You've got a unique sound. It's beautiful. Haunting.”

Surprised, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and felt her middle warm with pleasure. “There are several mandolin players in Nashville.”

“True, but none of them can pull the sound from that instrument the way you do.” He played
slow
and leaned back in his chair. She liked the way his muscles moved beneath his shirt, remembered how his firm waist had felt beneath her hands.

“Thank you,” she murmured, adding
hot
to the board.

He looked up and his gaze tangled with hers. “Three-letter words?” He tsked. “Are you even trying?”

She grinned and gave a shrug. “I thought I'd stick to our theme.”

“In that case—” He quickly arranged his letters, using the
t
in her
hot
to make
wet
. “I'll follow your lead.”

Layla felt her nether regions weep and a deep, dark throb built low in her loins. She chuckled softly, then chewed the inside of her cheek. She looked at her tiles and tried to come up with something equally depraved. She settled for
nibble
and imagined doing just that to him. Where would she start? she wondered. Shoulder? Neck? Ass?

“You're up,” he said.

She glanced at him. “What?”

“Time to go back onstage.”

Panic hit her anew and her palms slickened. She felt her heart accelerate, her breathing go shallow and the tips of her fingers become numb.

He shook his head and sighed, and the sound had as much resignation as anticipation. She wasn't sure what she thought about that, but knew it wasn't entirely flattering. “Clearly I'm going to have to distract you again.”

“I'll be fine.”

He stood and tipped her chin up with a single finger. His touch sizzled through her. “Better safe than sorry,” he murmured.

He kissed her again…and she was neither safe, nor sorry.

Which didn't bode well for the rest of the tour.

Or maybe it did, depending on how one decided to look at it.

 

“W
HERE ARE YOU GOING
to plant your dogwoods and sweet peas?”

Layla looked up from the bizarre book she'd been studying—it looked like a scrapbook of some sort—and her confused gaze tangled with his. Bryant slid into the seat across from her. The bus was rapidly closing the distance between themselves and Fort Lauderdale, and though he'd managed to
stay away from her for several hours in this confined space, he'd just given up.

Curiosity had gotten the better of him.

“What?”

He sneaked a look at the book she'd been poring over. It was a picture of a two-story farmhouse, clearly cut from a magazine and pasted into place. “Last night when you were freaking out you said you wanted to pay off your land and plant dogwoods and sweet peas. Where?”

She blinked and a furrow emerged between her brows. “Oh. It's uh…” She smiled, a bit self-consciously, and tucked her hand behind her neck. “It's just a little piece of property close enough to my parents to make them happy, but far enough to keep me sane.”

He chuckled. “Sounds like a good plan. They're in Ponder Hill, right?”

She looked surprised that he remembered, her green eyes widening prettily. Pathetic how he'd filed every little nugget of information about her away in his mind, unwilling to forget a single detail. Furthermore, though he didn't live in Ponder Hill proper, he still held the same address.

“Yeah,” she said. “I'm about ten miles from them, out in the country.”

“Really?” He was, too. A strange tingling had started low in his back.

“How much land?” he asked casually.

“Twenty acres out on Hardscrabble Road,” she told him, her lips twisting with wry humor. “It wasn't the picturesque address I'd imagined, but the property is beautiful. Lots of hardwoods and a nice building spot.”

He felt a smile slide slowly across his lips. “Met your neighbors yet?”

Unbeknownst to her, she was sitting across the table from one. He'd wondered who'd bought that property, but had never
gone to the trouble to find out. He had plenty of room on his own twenty-acre farm and had built so far back into the plot that his house wasn't visible from the road.

“No,” she said. “I didn't see the point until I actually moved out there.”

To tell her or not to tell her, that was the question. For whatever reason…he decided not to. He'd let that be a little surprise.

“When do you break ground?”

“I promised myself that I wouldn't start the house until the land was paid for—I wanted to completely own that little part of the earth first, you know?” She shook her head, looked away as though confessing something she regretted. “It probably doesn't make sense, but—”

“No, it makes perfect sense.” He smiled. “And the bank typically likes that plan as well.”

She grinned and peered up at him from lowered lashes. “True.” She sighed. “Anyway, looks like I'll be breaking ground after the first of the year.”

His knee bumped hers beneath the table and that lone contact made him react. “Miserable time to get started. The weather's terrible.”

“I want to be in by spring,” she said. “I want to start planting.”

He inspected a single charm attached to his bracelet. He'd cast it himself. It was a tree, complete with roots. He knew exactly where she was coming from on this. His father had been a perpetual renter, had never owned anything more than the cars that took them from place to place. He inclined his head knowingly. “Ah, yes. The dogwoods and sweet peas.”

She nodded primly. “And lots of other stuff, too. But those are my favorites. I'm looking forward the most to watching them grow.”

“Any particular significance?”

She seemed to mull that over. “The dogwoods I just love. Hearty little trees, delicate flowers. They're beautiful.” Her gaze turned inward and she lifted a shoulder. “My grandmother always had sweet peas. She'd set little bouquets of them in every room, put them in Mason jars. They were simple but pretty, and I love the scent.”

Good enough reason, Bryant thought. He'd never gotten to know his grandparents. His father's parents had died before he was born, and his mother's parents… Well, he didn't have any idea where they were or if they even knew about him. He'd often toyed with the idea of trying to track them down—not his mother, because she definitely knew about him and hadn't wanted him. But with his grandparents there was always the possibility that they hadn't known. Maybe that would be his Christmas present to himself this year, Bryant thought. Maybe he'd try to fill in a few blanks on his family tree.

He was never more aware of being alone than this time of year. When other people talked about Christmas presents, baked ham and Aunt Rose's terrible fruit cake, he got an uncomfortable knot in his belly because he never had anything to add. Take now, for instance. Trick, the sound guy, was currently in a bidding war with someone on eBay for some sort of fake hamster that ran on batteries, and Mason Carpenter, lead guitarist, was wrapping presents for his girls. Chuck Murray, a fellow security agent, had been bemoaning the hectic Christmas schedule and how he'd like a simple holiday at home without playing musical houses.

He should be grateful he had somewhere to go, in Bryant's opinion.

“I guess I should thank you,” she said somewhat shyly. She slid her fingers over the corners of her book. He remembered the small calluses on her fingertips against his skin and his blood heated. She felt right. She tasted right. She fit, for lack of
a better description. And she was his neighbor. Coincidence? Bryant wondered. Or fate?

He smiled. “Thank me for what?”

“For distracting me. I wouldn't have been able to have gone on without your—” She struggled to find the right word.

“Tongue?” he supplied helpfully.

She blushed, chuckled low under her breath. “I was going to say ‘assistance,' but tongue works just as well, I suppose.”

“It was my pleasure.” Truer words had never been spoken.

“It definitely did the trick.”

He leaned back and laced his hands behind his head. “Especially considering you don't like me, huh?”

Her gaze flew to his and the grin turned a bit guilty. “Who said I didn't like you?”

“Who had to?”

“I like you well enough,” she told him. She grimaced. “But my sister doesn't.”

There we go. The heart of it. He knew this conversation was inevitable and it was better to get it over with before he slept with her. He'd given up any pretense of pretending, even to himself, that sex wasn't going to happen between them.

It was.

It was as inevitable as this damned conversation he didn't want to have.

Yet they had to have it. He wanted her. He ached for her. He needed her…and Bryant Bishop wasn't used to
needing
anyone. Layla Cole was like a virus under his skin and the resulting fever was burning him up. Bedding her was the cure, he knew, and even if it wasn't, then at least he'd have had her. At least he would have buried himself into her heat, felt her sweet little body wrapping around his.

And that, he told himself, would be enough.

Whatever it was that was making her—and had always
made her—so irresistible would wane after he'd bedded her and the mystique was gone. Right? Right.

He liked this plan and had every intention of putting it into play tonight when they settled in at the hotel. Bryant grinned.

He'd give her a distraction she'd never forget.

H
E WINCED
. “I'
M NOT
surprised your sister doesn't like me,” Bryant readily confessed, to Layla's immense shock.

She sagged like a spent party balloon and mentally swore. She'd been secretly hoping that he'd either play dumb or deny it so they could continue to play dirty Scrabble like they had last night, and he could keep using his kiss therapy to keep her stage fright at bay. She'd actually done better onstage than she'd expected and she didn't know how much of that was thanks to Bryant.

“Women don't like being thwarted any more than men do,” he continued with a casual shrug, “and I'm sure that when I told her I wasn't interested I became one of her least favorite people.” Half of his mouth lifted into a wry smile. “I got the impression she's not used to being told no.”

Layla blinked, confused. “I'm sorry, what? What do you mean she's not used to being told no?”

He shrugged. “She hit on me.” His gaze tangled significantly with hers. “I wasn't interested. Another Cole girl had already caught my eye.”

“
She
hit on
you?
” she repeated, still reeling from his version of what happened. Much as she loved Rita, in retrospect Bryant's version made more sense.

He lifted one shoulder in a negligent shrug. “She'd had too much to drink,” he said. “It happens.” He grinned again. “But probably not to you. I get the impression that you like to be in control.”

He'd pegged her right. Honestly, Layla liked a fruity cocktail as much as the next person but didn't have any desire to get drunk. She never had. She didn't like feeling out of control or nauseated or any of the side effects that came along with having too much to drink. She liked to get a buzz every once in a while, just enough to make her laugh a little too loudly, but otherwise that was the extent of her recreational drug use. She shared as much with Bryant.

“Judging from your reaction, I take it your sister gave you a different version of events.”

She nodded. “Rita said it was you that wouldn't take no for an answer.”

He merely grinned. “Not to sound arrogant, Layla, but there are too many women who say yes for me to worry about one saying no.”

Didn't she know it? Layla thought, her belly going all hot and muddled from watching his mouth. It was overtly carnal. And she loved the way it had felt against her own.

She wasn't going to touch that comment with a ten-foot pole. “Rita has calmed down a bit,” she said instead. “She's still looking for Mr. Right though.”

“What about you?” he asked, studying her from beneath a sweep of lashes that would make a supermodel envious. “Is Mr. Right going to help you build your house?”

He was fishing, Layla realized, and resisted the urge to preen. “No,” she admitted. “But I'm willing to accept all of the help I can get, so that would include Mr. Right, Mr. Wrong, Mr. Right Now and Mr. Maybe.” She laughed. “I can hook every one of them up with a hammer.”

His laugh echoed between them, warm and strangely soothing. “Any able-bodied man then?”

She took a sip of her soda. “That's about the size of it, yes.”

He shot her a speculative look. “Maybe I'll give you a hand.”

A bubble of anticipation rose to the top of her belly and popped. “You know your way around a nail gun?”

His gaze met hers and something wicked lingered there, making the tops of her thighs catch fire. “I'm good with my hands.”

Oy.
She'd just bet he was.

He leaned forward. “Can I be straight with you, Layla?”

What was she supposed to say to that? No, please lie? She was absolutely certain this conversation was about to take a turn that was going to lead her straight into his bed.

As if she hadn't been destined to wind up there at some point or another since the second she'd laid eyes on him. She'd been carrying a sexual torch for him that had made every flicker or flame she'd felt for other men pale in comparison.

She swallowed, nodded. “Sure,” she said, hoping she sounded offhand. “Go ahead.”

He leaned forward, his gaze intense. “Something about you just trips my trigger, you know? Just sets me off. I feel you even when I'm not touching you and when I do touch you…” His gaze skimmed over her face, settled hotly on her mouth. “It's like sexual crack. Tomorrow night after the show, we're both going to go our separate ways, but I was really hoping that you'd spend a little time with me tonight.”

Wow. She'd never had a guy lay it on the line quite so…explicitly. Without the let's-go-to-dinner-and-see-what-happens dance. In a nutshell, he wanted her and was willing to tell her that without the so-called traditional dating prelude. It was exhilarating. Refreshing. Disconcerting, too, if she were honest.

“I don't need distracting tonight, Bryant.”

A wicked smile crossed his lips. “You might not need it, but I can make you want it.”

Blood boiled beneath her skin at the blatant sexual bravado in that simple sentence. Her hoo-hah caught fire and she resisted the urge to make sure that steam wasn't seeping out of her panties.

“What do you say, Layla? You up for a little mutual enjoyment?”

Mutual enjoyment with a guy who'd likened her to sexual crack? Oh, yeah. She was up for that. Because it was him. Because, against all reason, something about him made her feel…safe.

And he hadn't played her. A girl always knew where she stood with Bryant Bishop.

Or maybe where she
lay
was a better analogy.

 

J
UST BECAUSE HE'D BASICALLY
alerted Layla to his sexual intention didn't mean that he didn't know how to treat a lady. While his father hadn't been very good at keeping a woman around, he'd been stellar at attracting them in the first place. This meant being courteous—opening doors, pulling back chairs, a light touch at the small of her back.

Though he could have said something like he wanted to feed her because she was going to need her strength later in the evening, Bryant kept dinner conversation on an even keel and devoid of much sexual innuendo. The hotel restaurant was decked out in its Christmas finery with lots of tinsel and candlelight, and the waitresses all wore flashing pins that read “Ho Ho Ho.”

The truth was, he simply enjoyed Layla's company. More than was strictly advisable, if he were honest with himself.

He liked listening to the sound of her voice—a strange combination of husky and smooth—watching the way her eyes moved. Sweeping glances, lowered lashes, a twinkling.

Every emotion was telegraphed by those amazingly expressive eyes.

Her hair was equally vibrant. Long, loose, buttery curls framed her elfin face, trailed over her small shoulders and settled just above the back of her bra. She had the most amazing complexion, too. Creamy, like a porcelain doll, with an underlying wash of pink. Her upper lip was slightly off center, adding enough imperfection to make her interesting. For reasons he couldn't explain, there was something fundamentally sexy about that flaw.

She smiled self-consciously. “You're staring.”

“You're beautiful.”

Her eyes glittered and a becoming rose spread over her cheeks. “That's not necessary, you know. You had me at ‘sexual crack.'”

He shook his head. “It's the damnedest thing, Layla. I've been jonesing for you since the first time I saw you. If I hadn't dawdled in making my move at Jeb's party, your sister would have never hit on me—or at least, I hope not—and I would have made a play for you then.”

She studied him thoughtfully. “What about a couple of years ago, at Chris and Maggie's New Year's Eve party? What stopped you then?”

He laughed. “That death ray glare you gave me.”

Her mouth gaped. “I didn't give you a death ray glare.”

“Bullshit. My skin should have melted off.” He tipped his longneck up. “You'd already decided you didn't like me by then.”

“Maybe,” she admitted. “But it didn't keep me from thinking you were hot.”

Masculine pride made his chest puff and he felt his lips twitch with pleasure. “Ah. So you liked it when I distracted you?”

“It could easily become one of my favorite pastimes.”

Bryant had been in a state of semi-arousal since they'd
entered the hotel restaurant, but with that little admission he went painfully hard.

She wanted him.

She gazed at his chest and quirked a brow. “I like that pendent,” she told him. “It caught my eye yesterday, but I was too stressed over my impending performance to comment on it. It's a tree, right? Like the one on your bracelet.”

“It is, thanks.”

She reached across the table and inspected the little charm, her cool fingers brushing against his too-warm skin. The merest touch of her fingers made something in his chest flutter and expand. “It's lovely. Silver?”

“Pewter,” he corrected. He swallowed. “I cast it myself.”

Her eyes widened with obvious delight. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Wow. That's cool. Do you do a lot of this?”

“Only when the mood strikes.”

Her forehead wrinkled in concentration. “It's so detailed. You're very good. Just men's jewelry then?”

“For the most part,” he told her. “I don't use a lot of stones—prefer to work with metal.” He grinned. “Women tend to like more sparkly things.”

“I like amethysts,” she said, pointing to the pendent around her neck.

He'd noticed. “That's nice. Where'd you get it?”

“Sedona.”

Bryant inclined his head. “Vacation?”

She nodded. “Yeah. It's lovely. And the energy is just…amazing.”

“So I've heard.”

“You've never been?” she asked.

“Driven through on the way to somewhere else, but didn't stop.” He grinned. “I don't suppose that counts?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, no. You should go sometime. You'd like it. Lots of artists there. You'd fit right in.”

He cocked his head. “You trying to run me out of Davidson County?”

“You're still there?” she asked.

He nodded, unwilling to elaborate on exactly where he lived. Why not? Who knew? But he hung on to that little tidbit all the same.

She hesitated and he felt the impending shift in the conversation. “My sister isn't going to appreciate this,” she said, and he interpreted
this
to be the fabulous sex they were about to have.

He covered the check with a sizable bill, took her hand and pulled her from the booth. “Then I guess it's a good thing she isn't here.”

Time to get her out of his system once and for all, Bryant thought. If Layla was the disease, then sex was the cure.

It had to be…because anything else was unthinkable.