Kiss & Tell

She started to tell him that he’d already done his conscientious-bartender-and-childhood-friend duty and taken her wineglass away. Then he realized she wasn’t the one to whom he was speaking.

She glanced over her shoulder and peered into the dark. A man was walking toward them from the club’s far corner, a coffee cup and saucer in hand.

He was tall, and he rolled with a swagger, his legs long, his hips and waist narrow, his shoulders wide beneath the dark jacket he wore with his jeans…his jeans…

She’d sat in the lap of a man wearing jeans, a man who’d watched her show from the club’s far corner. Crap and double crap. She turned back quickly, hissing at her ex-friend to get his attention.

“He’s been here all this time and you didn’t tell me?” Dear God, had she given herself away? Had he overheard Alan call her Miranda? Had she confessed that she was still reeling from the contact of their lips and their tongues? “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Alan smirked his ex-friend enjoyment of her distress. “Patrice said you’ve been extra moody lately. I figured you might need to get laid.”

“I hate you, you know.”

“I know. I hate you, too.”

Thank God she hadn’t taken off her wig. That was the only thought that crossed her mind before the stranger who kissed like a god climbed onto the stool beside her, filling the space as if it had been waiting a lifetime for him to find it. Uh, yeah. This couldn’t be good.

“Thanks for the coffee,” he told Alan, giving Miranda his profile to study as he handed the cup and saucer across the bar. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it to my room, or even remember where I put it.”

As hard as she tried not to, Miranda couldn’t help a soft laugh; the sound had him swiveling slowly toward her, cocking his head, drinking her in until she forgot to breathe and changed her mind about this being good.

“Laugh at me, laugh with me. I’ll take either one.”

Oh, he was sharp. And gorgeous. Somehow she’d missed the full extent of his gorgeousness when she’d been in his lap, but there was still nothing she wouldn’t give right now for a big fat hole in the ground.

A hole swallowing her would keep her from looking at his mouth. His mouth, his lips, his tongue, his teeth. She remembered them all. She wanted them all. She wanted more.

She wanted him. She’d been right the first time. This was not good.

“Caleb McGregor,” he said, offering her his hand.

After a moment, she took it. “Candy Cane.”

“According to the marquee,” he said, before letting her go.

Touché, she thought, refusing to confirm his assumption with body language or voice. “I’m not sure if I should thank you or beg your forgiveness.”

The mouth that had been all over hers and made her into a marshmallow smiled. “There’s nothing to forgive, and I’m pretty sure I’m the one who should be thanking you.”

He was smart. Smooth. Cutely self-deprecating rather than smarmy. Or maybe that was the kiss talking, and she should be listening to her survival instincts instead. “You were a good sport, and I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. I don’t usually get that…personal with the audience.”

He paused a moment, taking her in. “Then I’m glad I was there when you decided to change things up.”

Spice, Alan had called it. Adding spice to Candy’s routine. If only it were that simple, adding, changing, but the truth rarely was. And this particular truth wasn’t easy to admit.

There had been no conscious decision in what she’d done. Her brain had had nothing to do with her sliding into his lap. Hormones and lust were responsible for her pressing her mouth to his and giving him her tongue. She’d seen him. She’d wanted him. She’d taken him.

And now here he was, sitting beside her, close, his knee brushing her thigh when he swiveled on the stool, a whiff of Scotch and coffee reaching her nose along with the scent of something earthy and warm.

She needed to excuse herself. To go. She was in so much trouble here. So, of course, she went ahead and made it worse. “What brings you to Mistletoe, Caleb? You’re not here alone, are you?”

“Actually, I am,” he said, bursting that insulating bubble.

Kiss or no kiss, his having a companion would’ve put him off-limits. Now he wasn’t, which was going to make it hard to say no—to him, to herself…especially with Alan’s comment about her needing to get laid echoing with more veracity than she liked.

She pushed aside the noise of that echo, focusing on Caleb’s hand that rested flat on the bar. His fingers were long, thick, the backs broad and dusted with golden hair. She closed her eyes, opened them slowly, hoped he couldn’t read her mind because, oh, there were so many places she wanted his touch.

“Alone? Really?” She cleared her throat. “I’m surprised.”

He glanced over, arching a brow, questioning, curious. “Surely you get the occasional single up here.”

She stared at him, studied him, liked too much what she was seeing…his stylishly mussed hair, a warm brown toasted with highlights…his eyes that were a gorgeous blend of gold and bronze…his mouth that she was certain did more things than kiss well.

Good. Not good. She didn’t know the difference anymore. “I don’t mingle enough with the guests to be sure, but I can’t say I’ve seen anyone not part of a couple.”

“Well, now you have,” he told her, teased her. “Seen someone who’s not, and mingled.”

She looked down, went back to picking at the bar. “I’m just breaking all sorts of rules tonight.”

“Must be the company you’re keeping.”

“I can’t think of any other reason.” It was hard to think of anything with her heart in her throat, choking her, cutting off her ability to breathe.

He watched her hands, then looked up, his eyes saying more than his words, saying that he knew what she was feeling, the extreme pull she was fighting. That he was fighting the same. “Can you think of one that would keep us from getting a drink?”

She nodded. “The bar’s closed.”

“That’s a hard one to get around,” he said, adding, “though I can think of one solution.”

“No,” she told him. Absolutely not. “I won’t come up to your room for a nightcap.”

“Rules?”

“Rules,” she said, and nodded again.

“Too bad about the rules,” he said, and she laughed. And then she stopped because he leaned close to say, “You’re a hell of a kisser.”

Well. She’d been hoping to hear him tell her goodbye. Or hear that he wasn’t much for obeying the rules. He seemed the sort, a bit brash, a bit dangerous. He’d obviously convinced Alan to let him hang out long after closing.

“It was all part of the act,” was what she finally said, ignoring the flutter of her pulse as he breathed her in and sighed, and the tongue of flame in her belly when he came back with, “The hell it was,” a response that begged the question, Where do we go from here?

Alan clearing his throat pushed her to answer. “If you can stomach the mess, I have a bottle of Drambuie in my dressing room.”

He didn’t respond right away, looking her over, staring into her eyes. His were hard to read in this light, but that didn’t lessen the impact of his gaze, or the heat simmering in the air around them.

She wasn’t sure if she should take back the offer, if she’d been too forward in making it. If he had wanted nothing from her. Or had just wanted an acknowledgment that the kiss had been way out of line.

That wasn’t how she’d read him, but she was so out of practice with men—