Chasing Christmas Eve

  “It says Princess on it.” The cold concrete floor was seeping up through his bare feet and he was shivering, but he stared at the sweatshirt dubiously.

  “Put it on,” Joe said. “Your nipples could cut glass.”

  Spence shot him a look that threatened death and Joe mercifully shut up. Not, Spence knew, because he actually feared death, but because Spence had stuff on the guy. He’d kept Joe’s secrets but he wasn’t feeling all that charitable at the moment.

  Elle waggled the pink sweatshirt.

  Swearing, Spence pulled the damn thing on. It was too short in the arms and bared a strip of his stomach, and he felt like an idiot, albeit a slightly warmer idiot. He needed to get back upstairs, because no matter what Colbie had to say, he’d been a real dick for walking out on her like that.

  But Elle stopped him. “What happened?” she asked quietly, for his ears only. “Do I have to kill her?”

  “Not discussing it.”

  But Elle was like a dog with a bone. She just crossed her arms and stared at him.

  He blew out a sigh. “She said she may have misled me about who she is and what she does.”

  Elle stared at him. “Dammit, Spence.”

  “Yeah, you were right—not something you’re going to hear every day, so don’t get used to it.”

  She refused to let him joke this away. “So you . . . bailed.”

  “Yeah.”

  “After you slept with her,” she said.

  “Actually, there was very little sleeping involved.”

  Elle shook her head. “Why can’t men think with two body parts at the same time? Is it in your blood? Is it just in the genes? What?”

  “Actually, it’s a combo,” Archer said from the table with his superhuman hearing. “Don’t blame us—we’re born this way.”

  Spence rolled his eyes and started to head out but Joe stood up.

  “Hey, man,” he said. “Take my spot. I’m going to bed.”

  “Because he’s losing,” Caleb said.

  Joe pointed at him. “Just for that, I’m staying.”

  Spence shook his head. He couldn’t stay. Although . . . by now Colbie was surely long gone from his apartment and the thought of going back up there to an empty place made him feel . . . colder. “I don’t have any money on me.”

  Elle sat back down at the table, in Archer’s lap, leaving her seat open for Spence. “I think I can spot you,” she said, pouring them all another round of what looked like Jameson.

  “We’re not supposed to play together,” Spence reminded her, reaching over and taking Joe’s shot, which went down nice and smooth. “We ruin it for the others.”

  Elle poured him another shot. “And?”

  And . . . Spence thought about what was waiting for him upstairs. An empty apartment and way too many mocking memories, both of which would make him sad. Not to mention the consequences of his actions and Colbie’s emotions over being deserted before she could tell him whatever it was she needed to tell him.

  But he wasn’t ready, and self-preservation kept him right where he was. Knowing that it was a complete dick move and utterly unable to save himself, he accepted the fact that he was a selfish asshole, tossed back shot number two, and blew out a breath. “Deal me in.”

  It was four in the morning by the time Spence got back upstairs, a little drunk and three hundred bucks richer. Either Elle had been off her game or she’d felt sorry for him. In either case, the money in his pocket weighed him down and made his pants sag.

  He didn’t really want to go home and face the apology he owed Colbie, or his empty bed. Nor did he want to think about her not being whom she’d represented herself as—because when he wasn’t drunk anymore, that one was really going to hurt.

  A lot.

  But right now, the Jameson had presented him with a nice cushy buffer. He walked into his place and then stopped short because it smelled amazing, like someone had just cooked up a mountain of bacon. He turned on the light in his living room and stared in shocked surprise as Colbie unfurled herself from his couch and stood, looking a bit unsure of herself. “Hey.”

  He held on to the doorjamb. “You . . . cooked?”

  “Just bacon. Found it in your freezer. I saved you some but then I got pissed and ate it.” She shook her head. “I really should’ve left after you did, but I wanted to talk to you and thought you’d be right back.”

  “Colbie—”

  “No.” She put a finger in his face, nearly taking out an eye. “You didn’t come right back and that’s when I realized. I was the mature one.” She let out a hollow laugh. “God, if only you knew how funny that was. I’m pissed off, Spence, and I’m going to spell it out for you because you’re just dense enough to not get it unless I do.”

  He opened his mouth and then closed it again but chances were, she was right.

  “You’ve been telling me it’s a good thing we only have three weeks together because you’re not capable of more, blah blah. I didn’t want to believe it but you proved it to me by leaving my bed after sex each night before I woke up.” She was hands on hips now, her hair practically crackling from the spark of her temper.

  And she wasn’t done.

  “I thought that what I had to tell you might change things,” she said. “Might show you that if I of all people could open up to you, then maybe you could open up right back, but then you ran away for a couple of hours.” She looked at his pink sweatshirt. “I’m not even going to ask where you’ve been for hours getting drunk while I was waiting on a grown-up conversation. I’m just going to tell you my truth whether you want to hear it or not.”

  He put his hands in his pockets rather than reach for her, which was exactly what he wanted to do seeing her all soft and sleepy—even as his stomach clenched over what was coming next.

  “First,” she said, “I’ll apologize for not telling you sooner. But I thought we were both on the same page with our limited time restraint. And then when I realized I was aching for more and had to tell you the truth about me, I mistakenly thought it might change things, but now I see that you were honest with me—you really aren’t capable of more.” She took a deep breath. “Have you heard of the Storm Fever series?”

  He blinked at the quick subject change, his thought processes more than a little impeded by the alcohol. “Uh . . . the movie doesn’t come out until next week.”

  “I know. I’ve already seen the movie. I got a special preview a month ago.” She paused, and he couldn’t figure out why they were talking about this when—

  “I wrote the books,” she said. “I’m CE Crown.”

  His brain was having trouble connecting the dots. “You’re not Colbie Albright?”

  “I am. But I write under the pseudonym CE Crown.”

  He paused. This wasn’t what he’d expected, although he couldn’t have said what he did expect.

  She was watching his reaction very carefully. Only he wasn’t sure what his reaction was supposed to be. Hell, he wasn’t sure of anything at the moment, other than he was wearing a way-too-small pink sweatshirt that pronounced him a princess.

  “I came to San Francisco because I’ve been having trouble writing,” she said. “I was hoping to pull myself out of my rut.” She gave a small smile. “Which did happen.” She paused, looking even more unsure of herself now as she met his gaze. “I didn’t intend to tell anyone who I was. It’s not this huge secret or anything, I just wanted to get away from my crazy life and all the responsibility for a bit and find the joy in writing again. But I just . . . It didn’t feel right not telling you anymore. After the past two weeks with you, I wanted you to know the truth. Especially after we . . .” She looked toward the bedroom. “You know.”

  Struck dumb by her news, which was nothing even close to what he might have imagined, he nodded inanely.

  “So.” She clasped her hands together. “Now you know my big, dark secret.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah,” she mirrored back softly, and t
hen headed for the door. She lifted her gaze to his and searched his eyes once more. There were more questions there, questions she clearly wanted to ask, but after a long hesitation she didn’t. “I was feeling really bad for misleading you,” she said instead. “But I’m not feeling bad anymore. Especially since the truth is that I wanted you to know me as myself, as Colbie Albright, not CE Crown. That’s all anyone sees these days when they look at me. But CE Crown isn’t real. I’m real.”

  At that, his chest suddenly felt too tight and it wasn’t the damn sweatshirt. “Colbie, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry I vanished on you.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.” Her eyes were shiny bright when she turned away and walked out the door.

  It took him a beat to acknowledge that either he was having a heart attack or the sweatshirt was just that tight. “You really are an idiot,” he told himself and started to go after her. But then he caught sight of himself in the foyer mirror and stopped short.

  Wow. Not only was the sweatshirt pink with Princess on it, it was bedazzled. And here he’d thought it couldn’t get worse. He ripped it off over his head, tossed it aside, and then headed out. He took the stairs to the third floor and knocked on Colbie’s door.

  No answer. He knew it was late. No, scratch that, it was early, very early, but he knocked again anyway, slightly harder.

  Mrs. Winslow from 3D stuck her head out her door. She took in the sight of Spence standing there in just his Levi’s and nothing else and put a hand to her heart. “Oh my saints alive.”

  “I’m sorry,” Spence said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  Mrs. Winslow tilted her head up to the ceiling. “Nice work,” she whispered.

  Spence sighed and turned back to Colbie’s door.

  “Even better from the back,” Mrs. Winslow said.

  Spence closed his eyes and thunked his head on Colbie’s door. “Go back to bed, Mrs. Winslow.”

  He heard her door shut. But what he didn’t hear was Colbie opening hers. He could feel her though, just on the other side of the wood. “Look,” he said. “Clearly I was telling you the truth when I said I was bad with women. I don’t know jack about making them happy or keeping them.”

  Nothing.

  “Colbie, open up so I can apologize properly. You deserve that much at least.”

  More nothing.

  He decided to try to appeal to her warm, nurturing side, hoping she wouldn’t be able to resist. “My feet are cold,” he said.

  And bingo, she opened the door to reveal two females staring at him, one human, one feline. He quickly stepped into the human one, nudging her back so he could get inside.

  “Maybe I didn’t want to let you in,” Colbie said a little pissily.

  “Yeah, well, right back at ya, honey.”

  Chapter 21

  #Balls

  Colbie didn’t give herself a pep talk about staying mad, because she was so mad she thought the pep talk wouldn’t be necessary.

  But she wasn’t prepared for the sight of the six-foot way-too-good-looking Spence Baldwin standing in front of her wearing only a pair of dangerously low-slung Levi’s and an even more dangerous smile.

  “You’re cold because you’re not wearing a shirt or socks,” she said, pointing out the obvious. And then she paused, her head kicking up a notch as she took him in from head to bare sexy toes and back again, lingering on the parts of him she now knew intimately . . . “Or underwear,” she added.

  He blinked at that, slow as an owl, reminding her that he was tanked. But even so, his usual calm and easy control was still in play, with or without his usual reflexes.

  “How do you know I’m not wearing underwear?” he asked.

  Mostly because the jeans were so low that if he took so much as a halfway-deep breath, he’d lose them altogether, no matter how lovingly and intimately they cupped him. All she could see were muscles and skin, along with those sexy vee muscles that made women stupid. No cotton or knit undies peeking out from his waistband, nothing but Spence. “God-given talent,” she murmured.

  He smiled at her, an open, warm smile that caught her off guard. She rolled her eyes, but it was to her shock that she found herself having to fight a return smile. “Why are your pants half falling down?”

  “Because I’m the current Pacific Pier Building poker champion.”

  “Hmm.” She cocked her head. “So on a scale of sober to several pot brownies, just how intoxicated are you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Which of the three of you are asking?”

  A part of her softened and wanted to laugh but the rest of her, still hurt, held it together.

  He looked at her for a long moment. “I’m sorry, Colbie. I heard you say you weren’t who you’d claimed to be and . . .” He shook his head. “I’d just had that call from Brandon and I lost it. I wasn’t thinking and I should’ve listened to you before leaving like that. I just needed a minute and then that minute turned into a poker game because I’d convinced myself I’d fucked up and you’d be long gone.”

  “I should have been.”

  “I’m glad you weren’t,” he said. “Because I think you’re amazing. What you do, what you’ve accomplished . . . truly amazing.”

  She let out a tiny smile. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” He took her hand and slowly reeled her in.

  She fought him for about a second and then let her hands come up to his chest like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  “Admit it,” he said. “The Princess sweatshirt was hot, right?”

  She fought a laugh and lost.

  “Right. And you thought I was sexy as hell in it.”

  “I think you’re something,” she said. “Not sure what though.”

  “Maybe we should figure it out from a horizontal position.” His voice was the same one he used to whisper naughty nothings in her ear when he was busy taking her straight to heaven and back.

  She’d like nothing more than a repeat, but they had problems. One, he hadn’t trusted her. And two, if she was being honest, she hadn’t trusted him either. She’d been wrong, she knew that now. She could trust him with anything.

  Except for maybe the one thing she wanted to trust him with—her heart. “We don’t tend to talk when we’re horizontal,” she reminded him.

  He smiled a mischievous, wicked smile. And that’s when she realized it was too late to protect her heart, because he already had it.

  So you should just enjoy what time you have left, a little voice inside her head said.

  But she was still confused. On the one hand, she knew he liked her. A lot. And not for the fame or the money she represented but for her.

  On the other hand, something shockingly amazing had happened to her in his bed earlier, and then only a few hours later, whatever that shockingly amazing thing had been, it’d been over.

  And that made her . . . Well, she didn’t know exactly. But sad topped the list.

  Not that it mattered. Whatever he made her feel—a complicated mix at best—she was writing again, and that was the whole purpose of being here. Not to fall for a guy who lived three thousand miles away who was already in a relationship—with his job.

  She’d left his place with the intention of forgetting him and going to write. She’d already put out more pages in the two weeks she’d been here than she’d written in months, and that felt amazing—even if she’d taken her new book in a direction she hadn’t seen coming. It would fulfill her, she told herself.

  It had to.

  But now she stood there in front of the incredibly sexy man who’d helped her out of her crisis, and he looked like the best diversion she’d ever seen. And he was giving her the sexy, half-lidded bedroom eyes, a look so hot it singed her skin and gave her thoughts. Dirty thoughts. Especially since she knew now that he could back up that look with actions.

  And oh good Lord, his actions . . .

  He took her hand, using it to tug her into him. The minute her hands landed onto his
hot bare chest, she knew she was sunk, that she was taking him to her bed. “I don’t know why I try to resist,” she murmured.

  “Me either.” He added an eyebrow waggle that made her laugh and then they were tumbling to her bed.

  And then, not two seconds later, he was out cold.