Unwrapping Holly(14)

But there was no relaxing for Holly. She tensed again, her face buried in his neck. “I can’t believe I . . . I . . .” Abruptly, she pushed away from him, cut her gaze to his chest, and tried to pull her dress together. “I have to go.”

No fucking way was he about to let her dart away, not without a fight. “Stop, Holly,” he ordered. “Stop doing this to yourself. Watching you come like that was amazing. All it did was make me want you more.” He touched her cheek. “No limits, remember?”

She studied him, assessing his words, and slowly her expression softened. But just when he thought he had her interest again, voices sounded in the distance. Instantly, she flew into motion, scrambling off his lap, and fumbling with her dress.

“No one is parked close enough to—”

A knock pounded on the bed of the truck, a warning that someone was approaching.

“Fuck!” The word ripped from his throat because he knew who was knocking. Jacob!

“Oh my God,” Holly bit out between her teeth, tugging on her coat. “I can’t believe I let this happen.”

She slid across the seat and shoved open the door. Cole reached for her, but she managed to evade his grasp, and jumped out of the truck.

“Thanks,” she said, wind and snow whipping wildly around her. “Or whatever I’m supposed to say under these circumstances.” She shoved the door shut.

Cole pounded the steering wheel, and then realized he didn’t even know her full name. He jerked his door open, and ice pelted down on his skin, snow instantly clinging to his shirt.

“Holly! ” he called, noting she was already halfway to The Tavern. He started to pursue, but he drew up short when he realized it wasn’t Jacob standing there, hands in a leather bomber jacket, but Abe, with his truck running a few feet away, as if he was in a hurry.

“Sorry, man,” Abe offered, motioning to Holly. He wasn’t an instigator, not one to show up unannounced, without Jacob by his side, prodding him. “But Jacob broke his damned leg.”

“What? How?”

“Some bastard hit his wife, so Jacob intervened. Managed to land a foot on some ice in the process.”

Ouch. “How bad?”

“Bad,” Abe said. “Real bad. Thought you’d want to follow us to the hospital.”

There was no question—he was following. He might want to beat Jacob’s ass now and then, but Jacob was his baby brother. Cole shook his head. Before he turned back to his truck, Cole quirked a brow. “Did he at least pop the bastard a good one before he went down?”

Abe laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “Popped him a nice shiner. But you know Jacob. He’s looking at possible surgery, and he’s worried about the woman having repercussions from his actions. He’s pretty freaked out.”

“That’s our boy,” Cole said, referring to the way Jacob was always fighting for the underdog. More than once, it had gotten him in trouble but always with good intentions. And no real man hit a woman. “Tell him I’ll call the sheriff.”

Abe nodded and Cole slid into his truck and yanked the door shut. Instantly, the sweet scent of her flared his nostrils. Holly. Regret ground through his nerve endings, pulsed in his cock. Turned out, he’d become a one-night stand after all. One that had finished with far too little of a good thing. And he couldn’t be happy about that. No matter how fantasy-worthy this truck had now become.





Chapter Four



Three days after her hot interlude with a sexy stranger, Holly sat at Betty’s Diner, her laptop in front of her. Surprisingly, she’d managed to put words on a few pages. Her cottage writing escape had become home of the “ruby wish” and subsequent fantasy man, thus a distraction. Which pretty much defeated the purpose of coming home for the holidays this early.

She couldn’t seem to get anything done there for replaying that night with Cole. The kissing, the touching, how he removed her dress. She plopped her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. God. The dress. And then the rash escape out of complete mortification that, once she’d recovered from her embarrassment, left her wondering what might have happened had she stayed.

“Get you more hot cocoa before I leave for the night, sweetie?” Holly glanced up at Jean, the fiftysomething waitress who’d worked at the diner since Holly was a teen. “No, thanks, Jean.”

“How’s the next best seller coming?” she asked. “You sure been working hard. And here I thought you got to sit in you pj’s and eat bonbons.”

Holly grinned at that. “I admit to working in my share of sleepwear, but I’ve yet to eat a bonbon. Though I’ve heard they’re quite yummy.” She made a mental note to tell her mom to cool the bragging, and hug her for being proud enough to do it. Mom had made sure everyone she’d ever met in this lifetime knew when Holly had made the USA Today list.