The Boss's Mistletoe Maneuvers (12 page)

Chaz ran a hand through his hair, feeling like an idiot for pressuring her into admitting a thing like that, and for having almost convinced himself on the way over here that her issues might have derived from something as simple as never getting the gift she asked Santa Claus for. In retrospect, he had failed to give her full credit for having real and serious causes that required the special clause in her contract.

He felt like a heel, and deserved every name she might have called him. The cookies he sent were in a pile of boxes on the floor by his feet. He had brought a tree, planned a party and insisted she go—which made him no better than a goddamn bully.

It was too late for his lame excuses, though as her boss, this was something he had needed to understand. The question now was how much damage he had done to a potential relationship by applying all that pressure?

He kicked a box with his foot and sent it skidding in McKinley’s direction. Her gaze moved from the box to him, where her focus stayed.

Chaz was certain the hunger he felt for her was mirrored in her eyes.

* * *

“Will you excuse me a minute?”

Kim got to her feet, fending off two urges at once. The first was to throw herself at Monroe again, no matter the consequences. He stared at her seriously, as if seeing her inner workings for the first time. Kissing him would break the tension in the room and release some of her pent-up emotions after a confession like that.

The second urge was to sprint for the kitchen, close the door and lock herself in.

The latter seemed the best option now that he knew her secrets. If he equated her frank announcement with her recent mental state, it might someday undermine their business relationship. He’d keep an eye out for signs of the same tendency for depression exhibited by her mother, or her threats to pack up and leave. But if that were the case, and he held this against her, Chaz Monroe wasn’t worth the shirt on his back.

Laugh maniacally or cry? Run or break down?

She wavered among all of those options, having disclosed what haunted her. Her life had been laid bare, the darkness had taken wing, but elation didn’t come right away. Some ghosts were clingy.

The way Monroe studied her was sensuously sober, and produced another flicker of heat deep inside her. She had all but begged for him to leave her alone, though she desired the exact opposite. She craved closeness and sharing and mind-bending sex. With Chaz Monroe.

She had bought into her mother’s beliefs about men long after they had stopped making sense.

“Suffering isn’t supposed to be prolonged, especially this time of year,” she said. “Christmas is about joy and light, ideas that might have made a difference to my family if my mother had gritted her teeth and moved on.”

Did things have to be so complex? Light...company...happy times...cookies and a tree. A man beside her to love, and who would love her back unconditionally, loyally and forever. These were what she wanted so badly.

Sex with Monroe wasn’t going to get her those things, and yet it somehow seemed a fitting end to the evening. He would hold her. He would be here and make her happy, if only temporarily and for tonight. The main result would be that with his ultramasculine presence in this house, her mother’s dark spell over her daughter would be lost, once and for all. She felt that spell already beginning to crack.

To hell with work, her job and how she’d feel tomorrow.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he said, getting to his feet, moving to stand beside her.

He didn’t touch her and didn’t need to. His voice and his tone created a vibration that worked its way down her spine and keep on sliding, finding its way beneath the waistband of her sweatpants and along the curve of her hips to end in a place a vibration had no right to be.

Monroe was no longer the enemy, and she didn’t want him to go away. Arguments aside, she felt good around him. She felt completely awake and alive, every nerve tingling, each neuron she possessed calling for her to get closer to him.

“I’m not sure what you’ll do with all that,” she said, feeling unsteady, unnaturally warm and slightly queasy with him beside her.

The touch came. Only a light one. He tilted her head back with a finger so that she had to look into his eyes. “I’d like to move on to another confidence, one of mine, putting yours aside for now, if you don’t mind.”

Kim tried to turn her head. He brought her back.

“You do like me, in spite of all this, and all that we’ve been through so far,” he said. “I can feel this. Am I right?”

He went on when she didn’t answer. “I want to be near you. As a matter of fact, I can’t seem to stay away. I believe we can make this work. You and me. We can try.”

“How? It’s already going to be bad when rumor of the scene in the bar spreads. I love my job, and it looks like I’ll have to leave it.”

“No. Trust me, Kim. Ride this out, and you’ll see what can happen. Stick out your tongue at those rumors. I’ll take the heat. While I’m in that building, I’ll spread my own story about everything being my fault, and we’ll make the other employees believe nothing bad happened.”

“Nothing did happen.”

“It’s about to now, I think. Don’t you?”

His mouth came close. Kim worked desperately to keep from closing her eyes, needing to see him before feeling the truth of his statement.

“There are more things to disclose in the future about the business that might positively impact your position in the agency. We will get to that, I promise. For now, for tonight, let’s enjoy what this is.”

His arms encircled her possessively, his warmth persuading her to give in to the rush of need coursing through her body.

She had spoken the magic words to free herself from her mother’s tyranny, and she had let a man in. The difference here, between this situation and what happened to her mother, was that she didn’t expect any future with Chaz Monroe. If he left that minute, she’d be no worse off because she wasn’t fully invested in this liaison producing any kind of relationship and neither was he.

That’s what she told herself, anyway, knowing it to be a lie and afraid to admit otherwise. Each minute in Monroe’s presence was like one of those holiday gifts she had never received. Being with him brought her some long-awaited anticipation and joy.

“Bedroom,” he whispered to her, a world of meaning in that one word.

“No. Not there.” Her heart continued to pound. Adrenaline rushed through her to whip up the flames.

They were going to do this.

“Then it will have to be here,” he said, swinging her into his arms, kneeling on the floor and placing her there, beside the pile of boxes and bows.

Kim looked up at him, realizing she’d really done it this time. She would soon see all of Chaz Monroe, test her theory on one-night stands being okay for the truly needy, besides being one hell of a spellbreaker...and trust him to take her mind off the rest of the world.

Just for tonight.

No one could stop what was about to take place. She craved heat and closeness and for the pain of her family’s story to end here, now, completely.

“There’s only one problem,” she said, pulling him closer.

“What’s that?” The mouth hovering over hers held promise in the way it curved up at the corners.

“We have too many clothes in the way,” Kim replied with her hands on his chest.

Fourteen

T
he kiss was new and intense. Open mouths, damp, darting tongues, breathlessness. There was nothing patient about their need. This wasn’t going to be a night of foreplay and tender exploration. They were too excited.

Kim savored the burn of Monroe’s closeness, drank him in with each kiss, bite and scratch of her fingernails across the fabric of his shirt. The lid was off the pressure cooker, and she was savage, desirous, anxious for everything he had to give, anxious to find out if it would be enough to permanently keep the ghosts of Christmas past at bay.

In between deep kisses, he gave her time to breathe and searched her face. Their bodies were pressed tightly together, his stretched out on top of hers. His hands were in her hair, on her cheeks, feathering over her neck. Trails of kisses followed each touch of his fingers.

Kim thought she might go mad with her need for him. Her body molded to his, their hips meeting in all the right places as if their bodies were a perfect match. His lips inflicted a torture of the highest caliber, offering promises of what was to come.

When he pulled back, it was only to head south with his incendiary mouth—over her collarbones and over the blue silk covering her breasts. He kissed her there, and she moaned.

She tore at his buttons with impatience. The next sound was of fabric tearing. He had ripped apart the thin ribbon straps of her camisole, exposing her shoulders. Hungrily, he pulled her forward, kissed her again then eased the sweater off and away.

He paused to look at her, his gaze incredibly intimate. Upright, and without the straps, the silk slid downward over her breasts in a sensuous rustle.

He pressed the palm of one hand against her right breast then cupped her. Kim shut her eyes and began to rock, first backward, then forward. He quickly replaced his hands with his mouth and drew on the pink exposed tip of her breast so deftly, she fought back a cry.

It was too much, and too little. She had never felt anything remotely like this, or wanted so much.

Finding the strength to withstand the pleasure Monroe’s mouth gave her, she shoved him back, and with her hands on his buttons, looked at him pleadingly.
No more time. No distractions.

He understood.

His shirt came off with a twitch and a shrug, baring a muscular chest with a slight dusting of brown hair. As if his magnificent nakedness were a magnet, Kim couldn’t keep herself from touching him, running her fingers over him, getting to know every inch from his shoulders to his stomach. He was taut, in perfect shape, the epitome of masculine perfection. But then, she had guessed that from the start.

Aware of her silent approval, Monroe eased her back to the floor and removed her sweatpants in a graceful move that left her shuddering in anticipation. He didn’t have time to get to his own pants. She had his belt off and was at his zipper with shaky fingers.

That sexy sound of a zipper opening filled the room. Kim saw only Monroe’s face—his expression of lust, his own version of need. Mixed in with those things lay something else: something that she didn’t dare put a name to, but knew was reflected in her own expression, and somewhere deep in her body. Deep in her soul.

Chaz Monroe hadn’t been kidding. He liked her. He wanted her. His expression said he cared, and that he needed her, at least tonight, as much as she needed him. Knowing this changed things for her, and upped the ante.

He scooped her hips up in both hands and settled himself against her, still looking at her with his eyes wide open. She felt how his muscles tensed. He dipped into her gently at first, easing inside, eyeing her all the while for her reaction.

She had to close her eyes again. Had to. The pleasure of having him inside her was extreme. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure if she could handle this, handle him. Already, she felt the rise of a distant rumbling deep inside her body.

He must have felt that rumbling. He used more force after that, entering her with a slick plunge that rocked her to her core. The cry she had withheld escaped.

“I know,” he whispered in her ear. “I know.”

With strong thighs, he urged her legs to open wider. This time when he entered her moist depths, it was with real purpose. The plunge went deep, forcing another cry to emerge from her swollen mouth.

The internal rumbling gained momentum quickly, hurtling toward where he lay buried inside her, threatening to end what she refused to have finished.

“Can’t...” she gasped.

“Yes,” he told her. “You can.”

His hips began to move, building a rhythm that drove him into her again and again. Her hips matched his, thrust for thrust. Her hands grasped at his bare back, tearing at his flexing muscles with no intent to control his talented ministrations, but to encourage him to proceed, lock him to her, ensure that he wouldn’t get away until this was finalized. Until it was over.

The claiming was mutual, necessary and too hot for either of them to prolong. Finally, as time became suspended and the world seemed about to crash down, he drove himself into her one last time...and their startled cries mingled loudly, shockingly, in the room’s musty air.

They lay on the floor, quiet and trembling while they caught their breath. Moments later, they started the whole process over again.

Fifteen

C
haz spiraled in and out of dreams. He wasn’t cold, exactly, yet he felt a distant discomfort that forced his eyes open.

He was on his back, on a hard surface. His shoulders ached. So did his knees. Something soft covered him. A blanket?

It took a minute to remember where he was. The room was dark, which meant that not much time had passed since he and Kim had gone at each other.

She wasn’t beside him. He sat up, noticing right away that he was buck naked. Their clothes had been discarded completely after round two, in preparation for round three. The edge of a shaggy rug scratched at his thighs.

Kim was gone, but had covered him with a blanket, which was a nice touch. Maybe she preferred a soft mattress to cushion her spent body after a couple hours of sexual gymnastics, and had trotted off to find one. He couldn’t really blame her. Then again, she hadn’t offered to take him to bed with her, and this threatened to bring on a bout of concern.

Using the coffee table for leverage, Chaz got to his feet. He felt for a lamp on a table next to the sofa and clicked it on. Their clothes were there, strewn across the floor and the chair. Seeing those clothes, Chaz felt slightly better. Kim hadn’t tidied up, gotten dressed or removed the outward evidence of their union.

He blew out a breath, unable to recall having spent a night like this in...well, ever. And, he reminded himself, this didn’t have to mean love was involved. Great sex amounted to great sex, that’s all. Problem was, he wanted her again right that minute. Stranger yet, he desired to hold her, nestle against her, sleep beside her, with Kim curled up in his arms.

This realization came as a shock. Usually the one to grab his clothes and hit the road to terminate a one-night stand, he had stayed, drifting off into a blissful slumber.

And Kim had left him on the floor.

Her absence didn’t have to mean she had left him altogether, though. After all, this was her house. So, what did this incredible impulse to nuzzle her imply?

More trouble ahead.

The intensity of the sex they’d shared was rare, sure, but did the rest of his urges have to have anything to do with
love?

Surely not.
He was merely feeling satisfied and empathetic.

He looked around. The floor was a mess. Piles of cookies had been scattered. Crumbs were everywhere. They had left the tree on the porch. Nothing in this room reflected comfort, really. Kim needed to get out of here. She no longer belonged in this place, and how she felt mattered to him.

She mattered.

His gut tightened. “Kim?” he called out, daring to wake her, needing to disturb her to confirm the new sensations rippling through him.

Finding the stairs, he took them two at a time. Although the hallway at the top lay in darkness, light from below made it possible to see four closed doors and one open doorway. Chaz made for the latter with his heart in his throat.

The blinds in the room were partway open, and the curtains drawn back. By the light from a streetlight, he made out the outline of a bed, a dresser and a light switch, which he flipped on.

Though the bed looked rumpled, Kim wasn’t in it.

“Kim?”

No reply came.

He found the bathroom in the hall filled with Kim’s scent, but she wasn’t there. Back in the hallway, he stopped to listen. The house lay in complete silence.

Bedroom number two was empty, as were the rest of the rooms on that floor. Kim McKinley simply wasn’t there.

He’d been jilted. Left. Abandoned in somebody else’s house.

And that left him with a very bad feeling about what this meant.

* * *

Kim waited by the curb after calling for a cab. Nearly out of breath from hustling to get her act together, she was sloppily dressed in a pair of old jeans, a turtleneck sweater and boots she had found in the closet.

Sore, tired and anxious, she limped back and forth along the sidewalk. The man of her dreams lay on the floor of her mother’s living room, surrounded by the cookies he’d brought her. There should have been a law against leaving a man like that, but her first waking instinct had been to flee.

They had broken the house’s spell, smashed it to smithereens. And she wanted to run right back inside and do it again, have Monroe again, feel his breath on her face and his naked body against hers.

Breaking old rules had never been so glorious, and at the same time confusing. She hadn’t made love to him in order to plan for a future of bedrooms and kitchens. She looked for companionship and warmth on a chilly night, a temporary relationship worthy of blasting away the past. Well, she had found those things. Too much of those things.

She was doing the walking-away routine. As hard as that was and as bad as she felt about it, she had to leave. Monroe might be one hell of a guy, but leaving him now meant he wouldn’t have the chance to leave her later or be afforded the opportunity to break her heart. Monroe would cause trouble in her future if she stuck around, because she really, really liked him. She wanted him badly. More than ever. She needed iron willpower in order to remain on the street.

What would he do when he woke up in a strange house, alone? Curse? Get angry?

She wasn’t going to see that reaction now or in the future. In the aftermath of shared confidences, confessions and a night of raw animal sex, being in the same business, in the same building, would be out of the question. No way would she be able to hide her hunger for Chaz Monroe after tonight. If she caved on this point, she’d be setting herself up for a fall.

She felt as though she’d had a taste of the fall already. Her chest hurt. The inner fires still raged.

When the cab pulled up, Kim took one more glance at the dark house before giving the driver her destination and some special instructions. Then she climbed into the backseat. With Monroe off-limits from now on, she’d at least have a keepsake. A trophy to remember this night by...as if she could ever forget it.

It’s okay. I’ll be all right.

The hurt of leaving Monroe would stop eventually. With her mother’s hold broken, she was free to sell this house and enjoy the things she had shunned. Acknowledgment of that gave her a sense of freedom.

Having made the decision to part company with Monroe and get on with her life, she’d be embracing the phrase
starting over.
Monroe had helped with that. “Thank you,” Kim whispered as the cab headed for the city.

Halfway there, her tears began to pool.

Damn if she didn’t miss him already.

* * *

Chaz didn’t want to focus on the phrase that came to mind as he sat down on a step in Kim’s mother’s house.

The little vixen used me?

After years of dating, he’d been jilted after the best night of his life. By the only woman he wanted in his life.

How did that happen?

Could he have been wrong about her? Wrong about how fully she’d enjoyed the sex and his company? No one had that kind of ability to fake the pleasure of round after round of mind-blowing physical connection. No, Kim had thoroughly enjoyed what they’d done. She’d participated, wanting that union as much as he had. Tears had stained her cheeks once or twice, and that had damn near broken his heart.

What about the blanket she’d covered him with? Was that the action of someone who had faked her way through an entire evening, possibly with an ulterior motive or secret agenda?

Can’t see that.

So, if she had gotten as much pleasure out of their evening together as he did, why had she gone, and where?

Chaz glanced at his watch.
Two o’clock in the morning.

In a few hours, he had a meeting with some bankers to discuss the possibilities of a future sale, a meeting that had been set up before he stepped foot inside the agency, and before he’d first caught sight of Kim’s enviable backside in the corridor. Her disappearance sidelined the opportunity to tell her about his plans for the future sale of the company. Likely she had left him believing it imperative for one of them to go. The way she left, without a word, presented only one scenario. Kim was saying goodbye to all of it—the job and him.

“Well, that sucks,” he muttered, looking around the room where they had
merged.
An appropriate term for what they had done, as many times as they’d done it, since they hadn’t taken the time or the precision necessary for it to have been called
making love.

Making love
would have meant something more than casual sex. The thing that came after all the lust had been explored, involving slow exploration and much softer kisses.

Tonight had been about casual sex between consenting adults. Right?

All of a sudden, he wasn’t so sure.

His spirit took a dive.

He wanted her back.

Kim McKinley had one-upped him again in a game he had no longer planned to play. Regretting that, Chaz looked to the front door, then to his clothes on the floor.

So, okay, he had tried and lost. He had lost
her.
He’d live. Monroes were champion survivors. Buying and selling businesses hardened his anti-relationship stamina, and he had every intention of learning to deal with the consequences.

In need of air, he picked up his pants and dressed. Opening the front door, hoping Kim might be on the porch, his stomach took a tumble when she wasn’t.

But he paused in the doorway, heat shooting up the back of his neck. He grinned. Something about that porch seemed different, and that difference told him this wasn’t over.

The silky-skinned little siren might have fled, yes. But she’d taken the Christmas tree with her.

* * *

Kim woke exhausted and achingly sore in every muscle after two full days of recuperation time from her evening with Monroe. The sense of being perpetually on the edge of a state of anxiousness refused to leave her. Her heart continued to race. Her ears rang.

Not her ears. The cell phone on her table by the bed made the racket.

After rolling onto her side, she checked the caller ID, holding the phone aloft while it continued to screech. The screen said the call came from a private number. Letting it go to voice mail, she tossed the phone to the foot of the bed and stretched out on her back. She had nowhere special to be on day three of her plan to not only eradicate the sadness of the past, but to obliterate it, too.

Her fingers slid sideways to the empty spot next to her on the mattress, then recoiled.
He
wasn’t there. No one was. Funny how real dreams could be.

Her project for today was to make another attempt at forgetting Chaz Monroe, which had so far proved difficult. She’d spent another mostly sleepless night thinking about what to do next and trying to erase all thoughts of him. Each time she closed her eyes, he was there, strong, handsome and tenacious. Last night, six cups of strong black tea had been necessary to keep her eyes open and the memory of him controlled.

Her body now paid for the lack of sleep, as well as the antics of her hours spent with Monroe on a hardwood floor, by offering up protests, bruises and stiffness whenever she moved. Monroe had deliciously involved every part of her body, over and over, until she thought she might perish in a state of pure, blissful pleasure. Being manhandled by him had been outrageously satisfying.

But that was in the past.

Today was all about new beginnings that didn’t include Monroe or his advertising agency. This was about her, moving on.

And what was the best way to take a break from reality?

Shop.

She planned to pile on new sensations, spend some of her savings and revel in the freedom of a new mind-set.

Today was the first day of the rest of her...

She sat straight up.

Somebody knocked at the door.

Scrambling out of bed, wincing with each movement of her tender thighs, Kim limped to the door. The visitor had to be a neighbor, or Sam would have let her know. Maybe it was Brenda, who had her own key, and therefore didn’t really have to knock, except out of politeness and to prevent Kim from having a heart attack.

Through the peephole she saw Brenda, chic and festive in a dark green suit.

Kim opened the door. “I don’t actually want a gossip hour today, Bren, unless you’ve heard of a decent job opportunity through the grapevine
and
brought breakfast along. I’m starved.”

Brenda gave her a pained look, pursed her mouth and stepped aside.

Traitorous Brenda wasn’t alone.

Surprised, Kim stepped back with her heart hammering.

“I have a line of gossip I think will interest you,” Monroe said in the husky voice that always made her knees weak and made them weak now.

Kim blinked, and looked to Brenda.

“It’s news you truly might like,” Brenda seconded. “You can kick me later for delivering it this way.”

Though she tried hard not to look at Monroe, the strength of his presence drew her like a suicidal moth to an impenetrable flame.