“Hey, Justin.” A woman slid up next to him at the cash bar and it took him a few seconds to place her. She ran the contractor desk at the local home-improvement store and he was pretty sure her name was Jen. Usually she had a name tag on pinned to her work vest, but tonight her dark hair was teased and hairsprayed to what looked like its breaking point and her V-neck sweater was a little more V-necked than it should have been.
“Hey, how’s it going?”
“Not bad. Running empty, though.” She set an empty glass on the counter and waved to the bartender.
“Next one’s on me,” Justin said, because he wasn’t sure if she was fishing for him to buy her a drink or not, but he thought she might be. It seemed the polite thing to do, plus she always took good care of him at the store, so he pulled out his wallet.
Jen was smiling at him over the rim of a fresh rum-and-Coke, when it belatedly dawned on him she might be looking for some extra-curricular company, so he looked around the room until he spotted Claire again.
This time, she wasn’t laughing at something one of her clingy male satellites had said. She was looking at him. Or rather, she was looking at Jen. And she looked annoyed, which wasn’t like her. Then a tall plumber who’d once screwed up one of Justin’s roofs with a bad venting job walked up and handed her a glass of something red, and she smiled up at him.
“I think you have to have a claim on the lady before you can beat the crap out of the guy hitting on her,” Jen said and he scowled at her, which made her laugh. “Don’t bother denying it. You looked like you were mentally ripping his head off his shoulders.”
“He hacked up a roof I did once.”
“And then he bought a drink for the woman you arrived with.”
“We’re just friends.”
“Sure. Hey, I see somebody I want to say hi to. Thanks for the drink.”
“No problem. See you around.” He took a sip of his beer and looked around for somebody-anybody but Claire-to talk to and spotted a few guys he knew standing around in the corner shooting the bull.
On his way over, he caught sight of Claire through the corner of his eye. She was still talking to the idiot plumber, but she was watching Justin. And her expression looked a lot like Jen’s expression before she caught on she wasn’t holding his interest, but he told himself it was just his imagination.
Just friends. That was all they were.
Chapter Four
Claire sipped at her cranberry margarita-a lovely and potent holiday concoction of tequila, orange-flavored liqueur, and cranberry and lime juices-and watched Justin over the rim of her glass. She wasn’t sober anymore, but she wasn’t drunk, either. She’d hit that sweet spot of inebriation where she could check out the man’s ass and not feel weird about it.
And what an ass it was. Every woman in the room had checked it out, even the ones who’d had to be sneaky about it because they hadn’t come to the party alone.
Claire hadn’t come alone. And she wouldn’t be going home alone, either. The hot ass in the tight jeans would be leaving with her, since Justin intended to crash on her couch, as he always had in the past.
Warm and flushed and basking in a mild alcoholic glow, she watched Justin laugh at something one of the other guys said and thought about how, a few hours from then, he’d be stretched out on her sofa in his sweatpants and the Bruins T-shirt that always rode up in his sleep and exposed his abs. And then, because her hormones and the margaritas had lit a fire in her belly, she thought about him stretched out on her bed, minus the sweats and T-shirt.
He turned at that exact moment and caught her staring. Or devouring him with her eyes, as the case may be. Judging by the way his eyebrows rose and a soft flush of pink crept up his neck, whatever look she was giving him wasn’t one he’d seen her give him before.
Without breaking eye contact, he took a long swig of beer and she realized he was giving her a look she hadn’t seen from him before, either. Hot. Hungry. The kind of look a man gave a woman when he was considering his chances of getting naked with her and hoping they were good.
She gave him the wrap-it-up signal and he smiled at her over his bottle. He extricated himself from the conversation and then pulled out his phone to call for a cab. And as he made his way over to her while saying a goodbye here and there, she tried not to think about the fact they were going home together. Which they’d done before, of course. Quite often. But not after exchanging sizzling glances over the tops of their drinks.
He did most of the talking on the ride home, telling her a funny story about a drywaller accidentally closing a homeowner’s Chihuahua up in the wall, but she was barely listening. And when they got home, she unlocked her door and picked up Moxie to get her welcome-home love in a daze. Not an alcoholic daze, but a daze caused by the now undeniable fact she really, really wanted to have sex. With Justin.
When Moxie squirmed in her arms, Claire set her down and found herself with nothing to do but stand in the middle of the living room and look at Justin. Who was looking right back at her.
He shook his head, even though she hadn’t said anything out loud. “You should go to bed.”
Oh, she intended to. The question was whether or not she was going alone. Sleep wasn’t going to happen. Not with dreamed images of his hands on her filling her head while her body trembled for his touch. She wanted to feel him against her. Not fleeting nocturnal imaginings, but hot and hard and real.
“Jesus, Claire, stop looking at me like that,” he said in a low, rough voice she wanted saying naughty things against her ear.
“I’m a little bit drunk.”
“So am I, which is why you need to stop looking at me like that and go to bed.”
“Or…” She paused to catch her bottom lip between her teeth, which was a nervous habit rather than intentionally sexy, but she saw his jaw tighten.
“There’s no or. Go sleep it off.”
“But you’re standing under the mistletoe.” Kind of. Close enough, anyway.
“You told me it was just a fun decoration. Go. To. Bed.”
She didn’t think-just acted. Standing on her tiptoes, she pressed her mouth to Justin’s.
His body stiffened and his lips were unyielding against hers. The butterflies of delicious anticipation turned to stone, dropping like lead weights in her stomach as she realized what she’d done.
She pulled away, turning so she didn’t have to look at his face, while desperately scrambling for words to fix what she’d done-words that could salvage the most important relationship in her life.
Then Justin swore viciously under his breath and she gasped as he spun her back to face him. Before she could even read his expression, he slid his hand behind her neck and hauled her against his body.
His kiss was hard and punishing and she surrendered to it completely. When she wrapped her arms around his neck, he moaned quietly against her mouth and she knew she wouldn’t be going to bed alone. But then, just as suddenly, he ended the kiss and tried to take a step back.
“God, Claire. Go to bed before we do something you’ll regret in the morning.”
Instead she moved closer and pressed her palms to his stomach because she didn’t miss the fact he didn’t think he’d regret it in the morning. His abs tightened as he sucked in a breath and she slid her hands to his hips. When he did nothing but stand there frozen with his hands fisted at his sides, she gathered up the bottom of his shirt until she could get her fingers under it. She wanted skin.
“Claire.” She ignored him, busy as she was exploring the hard expanse of his chest, but he grabbed her wrists through the fabric. “Claire, listen to me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Because you know what I’m going to say.”
He might have her wrists, but she could still slide her fingertips over his skin. “Are you going to say you’re not attracted to me?”