Unwrapping Holly: (7 page)

She curled her jean-clad legs onto the seat and angled herself toward him. “I have two sisters and a younger brother who I adore, but I don’t think I could work with any of them.” She lifted her cup and mock-toasted him. “You’re a better man than I.” She sighed and set her cup back down. “Though I’m looking forward to seeing them when they get here. I just have to get my work done first.” She glanced at her watch. “They’re closing here soon.” Holly sighed. “And my parents’ place is proving a distraction that’s not working.” She laughed, feeling a bit awkward about what that distraction truly was. “I guess this town will never be big enough for a Starbucks. I would’ve torn through some pages with a good White Mocha in hand.”

“I have a nice, quiet den with a fireplace,” he said. “Come home with me, Holly.” A smile touched his lips. “Use me for my work space.”

She laughed despite the nerves fluttering in her stomach. She shut her computer. “No. That’s not a good idea.” It was time to go far, far away from Cole Wiley. Before she did something she would regret later. It was too late for fantasy. She couldn’t be the wild fantasy girl, free of inhibitions when she was Big Sis Holly Reddy, home for the holidays.

He sat up, fixed all his attention on her so she felt couldn’t breathe. “No,” she said, answering before he could ask again. “You’ll distract me.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“It won’t work.”

He laughed. “Good. I don’t want it to. But the truth is, I have piles of paperwork waiting for me, with deadlines of my own. I’d still be working, but I was seeing double and had to take a break.” He arched a brow at her. “So you see? We both have to work. We’ll hole up by the fire and motivate each other to get our work done.”

She laughed, and slid her computer into her briefcase. “You think we’ll motivate each other to work.” It wasn’t a question. Nothing about being with this man was going to motivate her to work. More like, motivate her to get naked and scream an “Oh God! ” two or three or ten times.

Mischief and mayhem lurked in the depths of those brown eyes as he said, “I’m a firm believer in reward programs.”

Heat spiraled in her core. “Rewards,” she repeated, her tongue thick with the word.

“Rewards,” he assured her. “Would you like me to offer a few examples? Say, you complete five pages, so I—”

Holly’s heart jackknifed as Carol approached the table. “No. No!” she cut him off. “No need for examples.”

“Here you go,” Carol said, setting the bag on the table. “A big piece of pie for Jacob.” She pulled out her pad of paper. “You ready to order, Cole?”

He glanced up at Carol. “This will do it,” he said, reaching in his pocket and tossing money on the table. “Just needed a little caffeine and it’s back to work for me.”

Carol made a
tsk
sound. “You’re always working.” She motioned to Holly. “You should try and make him relax a little.”

Cole arched a brow, all sexy and playful, silently challenging her to do that and more.

Holly laughed nervously. “I’ll get on that,” she said. “Right after I write another three hundred pages.”

Carol rolled her eyes. “What am I going to do with you two?” she asked before she scurried away as another customer called to her.

“The real question,” Cole said, “is what are you going to do with me?”

Rip your clothes off. Lick every inch of delicious muscle.
Holly shoved those naughty little thoughts away and finished packing her bag.

“Say good night is what I’m going to do,” she said, but she wanted a push, a reason to do the naughty, not the nice. “So good night.”

He studied her a moment, and she could feel him sizing her up, gauging her position. “I’ll walk you to your car,” he said finally. “You can follow me home.”

There was her push. Holly’s heart exploded in her ears, and she made one last-ditch attempt to convince herself to say no. The time for fantasy had passed. It was time to focus on the here and now. But the rewards Cole had mentioned . . . perhaps the rewards would be motivational. She would type five pages, she’d have an orgasm. Another five pages, it was his turn. Oh yes, she liked that. It might be highly productive.

“I have to get my work done,” she stated. “This isn’t negotiable.”

A smile tugged on his lips. “Work first. Rewards later.”

She inclined her head, satisfied he understood. Holly shoved her bag over her shoulder. “What are you waiting for?” she asked. “I thought you had a lot of work to do?”

One sexy dimple greeted her as he pushed to his feet. His big, delicious body towered so near her, she shivered with excitement. Because soon, that big, delicious body was going to be her reward. For the first time since arriving home, she couldn’t wait to start writing.

Not ten minutes after leaving the diner, with butterflies in her stomach, Holly stood in the foyer of Cole’s home as he followed her inside. The ranch-style home sat only a few miles from her parents’ place, and from what she could tell, it was cozy in its own right. Four stairs led from the tiled walkway of the entrance to a sunken living room. Decorated in warm browns, the overstuffed chairs and an amazingly comfy-looking couch sat before a massive rock fireplace. A big masculine desk framed the corner to the right of the hearth, with a notebook computer in the center, along with an open binder and files. If this was where they were working, it certainly was inviting.

The door shut behind her, and Cole stepped down the hallway to join her. Holly eagerly returned her attention to Cole, watching as he set the bag with her computer on the ground—he’d insisted on carrying it inside for her. Without question, he was as much a gentleman as he was a sinful diversion, one that she was no longer going to deny herself. Though she barely recognized the woman she’d been in the front seat of that truck, wild and wanton, unforgiving in her demand for pleasure, she had found that freedom alluring. If any man could awaken that side of her, Cole was that man.

She would have thought she’d be scared right now, afraid she wouldn’t know how to respond to Cole or live up to his expectations. But she remembered that moment in the truck, when she’d felt embarrassed, and how amazingly wonderful he’d been. So far it seemed that, with Cole, there was no right or wrong to pleasure. There was simply pleasure. That was a trend she wholeheartedly hoped would continue.

Holly watched as Cole shrugged out of his jacket with a delicious flex of muscle and hung it on the rack beside him. Anticipation thrummed through her veins as he eased her coat from her shoulders. The coolness of the room shimmered over her skin, a contrast to the heat Cole generated within her. Her nipples tightened, her breasts grew heavy. Would Cole touch her now? Would he kiss her?

The answer came after he’d hung her coat up. His hands settled on her light blue, long-sleeved sweater, his hips framing her backside without actually touching. The urge to lean back and feel that long, hard body pressed close was almost too much for her to resist.

“Welcome to my home, Holly,” he whispered near her ear, his mouth nuzzling her neck for a moment before he stepped away. Her body vibrated with dissatisfaction at the loss of his nearness, and she turned to face him, finding him still close, so very close— he towered over her, his ruggedly male presence stealing her breath. Their eyes locked, the sexual tension between them riveting. One dark brow lifted in challenge. “Shall we get to work so we can earn those rewards?”

Work. Right. Work. Her book. “Yes. Yes, let’s do that,” she said softly, thinking about the rewards with ever-growing interest.

He retrieved her bag from the ground and motioned her forward. “Will the couch work or do you need a table?”

“The couch works great,” Holly said as she walked down the few short stairs. “I love the sunken living room.”

“My dad and I built my place,” he said, setting her bag down on the oversize, square coffee table. “Then about two years later, we built the one next door for my brothers to share.”

More and more, she liked this man. His way with people. His way with family. His way with her, for that matter.

“Sounds like you’re all very close,” she said appreciatively. She wondered about his mom and dad, but didn’t ask.

He shook his head. “Yeah. We are. Losing my dad was rough. He had a heart attack a year ago.” He pulled open the iron fireplace curtains. “Mom died of cancer a year before that. Honestly, I don’t think my dad wanted to live without her.” He shoved some wood into the fireplace, arranging kindling and logs.

“My grandmother died this past summer,” she said. “Same kind of thing. My grandfather went and she was ready to go with him.”

Dusting his hands off, Cole reached for a long lighter, and paused with a thoughtful look. “Hard to imagine that kind of love.” He flicked the lighter to life. “But my parents certainly had it.”

Pondering the concept of love, Holly typed in her password on her computer, while Cole finished setting the fire. Flames flickered, rich with shades of blue and red, and she lost herself in thought, wondering about that kind of love. She’d never yearned for love. Never felt incomplete without it. But lately, she had been empty inside in an unfamiliar way and assumed it was the seclusion of writing.

Suddenly, Holly blinked and brought Cole into focus, realizing that he was sitting on the edge of the hearth, watching her.

“It’ll be warm soon,” he said, tilting his head slightly, studying her. “Penny for your thoughts.”

Holly glanced at his corner desk and back at him. “Wondering what you’re working on?” she asked, and silently added,
And when you are going to kiss me
. “Looks like you have quite a stack of papers.”

“Oh,” he said, weariness slipping into his expression. “Yes. A never-ending pile, it seems. We just sold the family business to a Manchester firm, and they want every job we’ve ever done logged in a spreadsheet.”

“Wow,” she said. “That’s a big step.”

He nodded his agreement. “But not a big decision. I was ready. Most of our work was in Manchester, despite our efforts to find enough here in town, which had been our plan. The drive back and forth was killing profits and time.” He ran his hands down his powerful thighs. “Once I finish this spreadsheet, we’re done. We move on.”

Disappointment jabbed at Holly. Was he leaving Haven right when she was thinking of returning? Not that she really thought she would return. In fact, most likely she would not. But still. She wanted to know. “What will you do now?”

“What I intended in the first place,” he commented. “We’re already working on that. We bought a house a few miles away to convert to a bed-and-breakfast. With all three of us focused on making it a success, we hope it will be one of several ventures in the future. Three brothers, three operations—that’s the goal. But, of course, only after we master success with the first one.”

“That sounds wonderful,” she said sincerely. “And daring. Leaving behind an established business.”

“Like leaving a law career to write novels?” he inquired.

Her stomach twisted a little at that comparison. “Yes. Exactly. I just made the big leap recently, and apparently I have performance anxiety.” She laughed, but not with humor. “It’s scared me into writer’s block.”

His brows dipped. “If you were successful enough to write full-time, why be nervous now?”

It was a question that she’d explored over the past few days and had come to a conclusion, one she was surprisingly comfortable sharing with Cole. “It’s all I have now. The only source of income. I can’t fail. . . .” The vulnerability of starting that sentence and finishing it with the reality of her situation, twisted her in knots.

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.