Reading Online Novel

Her Naughty Holiday(9)



“I’ll go change in the bathroom. If that’s okay,” she said.

“Your pony, your saddle. You change where you want. I’ll be right here.” He patted the bed.

She walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind her. She went to lay Erick’s T-shirt on the bathroom counter but she paused and lifted it to her nose. Cedar. Cedar and soap. She would happily smell that all night. Maybe she could, too, if she didn’t screw this up.

“Clover?” Erick called out, and she almost dropped the shirt on the floor.

“Yes?”

“You mind if I open the window a little? I like night air.”

She smiled and pressed the shirt to her chest.

“Me, too,” she said. “Go for it.”

“Plus if you’re cold you’ll have to come to me for body heat,” he said, and she quietly laughed to herself. This was flirting. Good flirting. The man could really flirt. So could she, couldn’t she?

“Or I could just get the extra blankets out of the closet,” she called back through the door. Her robe was gone and now the gown.

“Where’s the linen closet?” he replied as she pulled his T-shirt on over her head.

“In the hall. Why?”

“I’m just going to go throw all your blankets out in the backyard. Be right back.”

She didn’t believe him until she felt his footsteps on the floor and heard a door opening and closing.

“Oh, don’t you dare,” she said as she walked out of the bathroom to find Erick nowhere near her linen closet. He was on her bed. No. Not on. In her bed. He was in her bed and his pants weren’t. She knew his pants weren’t in the bed because they were on the floor at her feet.

“Kidding,” he said.

“I knew you were.”

“Good. Very good. Great even.”

“That I knew you were kidding?”

“That you’re standing in the middle of the bedroom in your underwear,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess I am.” She looked down at bare legs, her bare feet and the T-shirt barely covering anything past her hips. “You feeling better about world events yet?”

“Life is good. Very good. Could be better.”

“How so?”

“If instead of there...” He pointed at her feet on the floor. “You were here.” He tapped the pillow next to him.

“Well... I wouldn’t want you to lose your sunny outlook on life,” she said. He looked so inviting in her bed, warm and strong and male and everything she’d wanted for a long time. She slipped in next to him and lay on her back, her head on the pillow.

“Comfortable?” he asked as he rolled onto his side and propped himself up on one arm.

“Very.” She turned her head to look at him and found his face only inches from hers.

“Are you?”

“I am,” she said. “Your shirt’s nice.”

“Cotton. Preshrunk. I go for the fancy shit.”

“I might keep it.”

“I’d like that.” He raised his hand to her face and traced her lips with his fingertips. “Although if you decided at some point tonight that you hated it and wanted to burn it, I wouldn’t complain about that, either.”

“I don’t think that’s likely.”

“No?”

“Why burn it? I’d use it for washing my car.”

He nodded, grinning his cocky half grin. “Good idea.”

“Harrison Ford.”

“What? Where?” Erick glanced around the room.

“No, you. I was trying to figure out earlier who you reminded me of. You look like a young Harrison Ford. But with a beard.”

He lowered his head so that their lips were barely an inch apart and whispered two words to her.

“I know.”





4

CLOVER STARTED TO laugh but his kiss put a stop to that nonsense. At first the kiss was gentle, nothing but his mouth moving over hers as he explored her top lip with his lips and her bottom lip with his teeth. She felt ridiculous just lying there with her hands gripping the sheets at her sides, so she forced her fingers to uncurl and placed her hands on his shoulders and back. He had such warm, smooth skin that once she touched him with her bare hands she couldn’t stop. His tongue slipped between her teeth and she slid her palms down his long back and up again. The knots of nervousness that had knit up her entire body since Erick rang her doorbell slowly started to loosen. She should do this more often. Like...every night of her life.

Erick pressed closer to her. She felt his long, hairy legs against her not-quite-as-long and thankfully much-less-hairy ones. She ran her bare foot up the back of his calf as he kissed her along her jawline and all the way down to her neck.

“You feel good,” he said into her ear.

“I do feel good,” she said.

“You feel good to me.”

“I knew what you meant.” She smiled up at him. “Just saying, I’m feeling better.”

“Good.” He smiled down at her. “I want to make you feel good. You look really sexy in my shirt and on your back.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m feeling sexy...ish.”

“Let’s try this.” He gently lifted her head and pulled her ponytail holder out of her hair. She’d meant to do that earlier in the bathroom and had forgotten. He tossed the elastic onto the nightstand and ran his fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp lightly and smoothing her hair down her back.

“Very nice,” he said. “First time I’ve ever seen you with your hair down.”

“I’d hate to get it caught in a wood chipper,” she said.

“I like that you wear it up all the time. Makes seeing it down much more interesting.”

“My hair is interesting?”

“You are interesting,” he said. “Very, very interesting. I’m going to figure you out.”

“Not much to figure out.”

“Oh, there has to be something mysterious here. How could a woman who is so beautiful have no idea how beautiful she is? I’ll think about that tomorrow. Right now I’m thinking about this.”

He kissed her and she opened up for him without hesitation. She loved the way he kissed her. It was sensual, yes. Sensual and warm and slow. But tender, too. She hadn’t expected the tenderness in his kiss. Or maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe she was feeling all the tenderness. He had called her beautiful and sexy and those words were like aloe on a sunburn, instantly taking the sting out of a throbbing wound.

Clover tensed as Erick shifted his body so that he was half on the bed and half on top of her. She could feel his erection pressing against her thigh through the black boxer briefs he wore. She tried to ignore it as he kept kissing her but it was so hard and insistent and right there. Her heart beat wildly in her chest, in her neck, in her throat. She had forgotten how intense kissing could be, how terrifying in the best sort of way. She felt panicky, aroused, excited, eager, but didn’t know how to tell Erick that in words. She let her body do the talking. She carefully moved her thigh, letting it graze against the hardness pressed against her.

“Minx,” he said, and laughed softly. “I was hoping you hadn’t noticed that.”

“Hard not to notice it,” she said against his lips. “Very, very hard...”

She raised her head to kiss him again and he stopped her with a question.

“Do you want to touch me?” he asked.

“I am touching you.” Her hands were on his shoulders. He lowered his chin and narrowed his eyes. “Oh...you want me to touch it.”

“No. I asked if you wanted to touch me. I didn’t say you could. I’m asking if you want to. So... Clover Greene, do you want to touch me?”

“I do,” she said. “But—”

“You can also touch my butt, yes.”

She giggled and the sound surprised her. She sounded so young, so nervous.

“How is it you’re only eight years older than me?” she asked.

“Well, you were born in 1985 and I was born in 197—”

“I feel like a kid around you. That’s what I’m saying. And you know it.”

“You have a kid at twenty-one, you grow up fast. When did you start your company?”

“Five years ago.”

“I started mine sixteen years ago. Why did you start yours?”

“My grandparents sold their old vacation house and split the money with the grandkids. It was enough to start the nursery. You?”

“I had a one-year-old daughter, a wife with a drinking problem and we lived in a trailer with no heat. It was either work my ass off or freeze my ass off.”

“I...I didn’t know that about your ex. I’m sorry. Ruthie never told me.”

“Ruthie’s mom sobered up a long time ago. Ruthie doesn’t know how bad it was. She doesn’t need to know.”

“You had to grow up faster than I did,” she said. “I guess that’s why you seem so together.”

“Hey, I had to work and make money. Had no choice,” he said. “You had a choice. How much did your grandparents give you?”

“A hundred thousand dollars.”

He whistled. “How many people get a windfall like that and start a business with it? Maybe one out of a hundred? One out of a thousand? Everyone else would have spent it on cars or a house or socked it away for retirement. Instead you built a business with it, a business you work at twelve hours a day and seven days a week. You didn’t have to work as hard as you did, but you did it, anyway. That’s much more impressive than working because you have to.”