A Blazing Little Christmas(69)

“I want you to stay,” she said, fighting the urge to stare at the floor.

The edge of his mouth curled up, and not in a pretty way. “You want to make the other guy jealous? Sorry. Find another schmuck.”

Obviously her lurid propositioning skills were getting rusty because her lurid proposition had completely flown over his head.

“You don’t understand. A friend of mine set me up with him—”

“And you don’t want to be set up with him?”

“No, I did,” she replied honestly. “But now I don’t.”

“What happened?” he asked, not quick to read between the lines.

“I want you to stay,” she repeated.

“Because of one kiss?” he asked, and she wished he didn’t sound so—startled.

“Yes.”

“One kiss?” he asked again.

Oh, come on. What was he? Fishing for compliments here? Rebecca squared her jaw and looked him straight in the eye. “Yes. One kiss. Okay, I’m impulsive. I’m adventurous. I liked the way you kissed, and I wanted to sleep with you. Have sex. Make love. Do me. Screw me. Do the wild monkey, whatever euphemism is easiest for you to understand, that’s good with me.”

Her stomach cramped in two. This was worse than her bad-perm incident, worse than her first job interview, worse than the day the podiatrist told her it was orthopedics forever. This man couldn’t reject her. Rebecca needed this weekend, this runaway weekend to forget about money, job security and food. This was about living for the moment. Alec was a life goal. This guy was a single moment of time. Right now, she only wanted the latter.

He just looked at her, blinked slowly, then frowned.

“And what about Alec? You’ll keep dodging him?”

At least it wasn’t no. “I didn’t ask for Alec to meet me up here. This wasn’t a date.”

“I think he thinks it was a date.”

“He’s entitled to think whatever he wants, but as the other party cluelessly involved in this setup, I’m not responsible for his preconceived expectations. Only my expectations. I have my own expectations. I mean, I had expectations. Well, they weren’t really expectations, more ideas, and Alec Trevayne isn’t involved. At least not anymore.”

“You have this much trouble with communication in the classroom?”

“No,” she answered. She usually didn’t have nervous neck sweat, either.

He stared at her skeptically.

“I don’t want to think about work. I want to think about nonwork…and if you were interested in nonwork—with me.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea.” But while his mouth said no, his eyes weren’t so sure. She could see it.

“Fine,” Rebecca stated, calling his bluff because reverse psychology was on the books for a reason. “Go on. Leave.” She even opened the door.

His feet didn’t move.

“Not leaving?”

“I’m still thinking.”

“I’d prefer not to hit menopause before you decide.”

His mouth quirked up on one side. “Okay. We have sex. Make love. Do you. Screw you. Not doing the wild monkey sex, though. That’s a little weird. But I’m only stuck at the lodge for a few hours, maybe a night at the most.”

Brutal honesty. Brutal, stick-in-your-eye honesty.

Rebecca hated that. “I don’t remember mentioning anything more.”

“I just thought you’d like to spend a by-the-numbers, romantic weekend with a guy who seemed like a good guy—once you get past the whole Brit thing.”

“Can we leave Alec out of the room?”

The man shrugged. “Your decision to make.”

“Yes. Yes, it is,” she said, satisfied with her decision. And his decision, too. A good, safe two feet separated her from him, but the silence grew until it became a living, breathing elephant smack in the middle of the room. They were going to have sex. She was going to have sex with a stranger. She kept the panic carefully concealed from her face—another kindergarten-teaching survival skill.

Rebecca moved her head to one side, pseudoflirtatiously, and held out her hand. “I’m Rebecca Neumann.”

* * *

Cory looked at the outstretched hand. Perfectly silky white skin, polished nails that looked embarrassingly clean. He saw the nervous blink in her eyes, and saw a couple of hours of great sex flying out the window. Now was the time for sanity to return and he’d be stuck driving all the way to Canada with a hard-on because of some damned cheerleader fantasy.

“Cory,” he said, taking her hand.

Her eyes blinked again.

“Cory?”

“Yeah.”

“Cory Bell?” she asked, her voice rising a couple of octaves.