Page 5 of Single Dad's Christmas Cookie

This man was smiling at me, and he had the most amazing sculpted features. A beautiful smile, and his voice was like the purr of a leopard. I just wanted to crawl up into his lap and lick his jawline.

“What do you say we get out of here?” he asked.

My glass hit the bar a little too hard as I practically dropped it.

“That’s the first acceptable plan I’ve heard all day.” Then my voice got stuck.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded. “I can’t take you back to my place,” I admitted. I hadn’t cleaned in a while, and the place was entirely too small. He’d take one look at the single, fold-out futon I used as a bed and laugh as he ran away.

“No worries.” He glanced at the watch on his wrist. “We are in a hotel.”

My jaw dropped open ever so slightly. I hadn’t thought about that.

“We are, aren’t we?” I purred.

He was as smart as he was handsome.

“Why don’t we take this conversation upstairs?”

And by conversation, I really hoped he didn’t mean that we were going to keep talking, because I didn’t have a care in the world about anything he could say to me other than ‘Take your clothes off.’

Which is what I really wanted him to say to me.

My brain was getting a little bit fuzzy around the edges with my drink. I was fully aware of the situation. He wasn’t coercing me into anything I didn’t want because what I wanted for Christmas was a little bit of joy and a little bit of happiness.

Right now, I was feeling all the disappointment and all the anger and all the resentment. To have someone who looked like him smile with a little bit of lust, a little bit of danger, and a lot of promise was something I desperately needed. I wanted all of it.

It took everything in me not to grab his arm and drag him off to the bank of elevators, other than the fact that I didn’t have a room and I couldn’t afford one in this place.

“Are you staying here?” I managed to ask.

“I will be in a minute,” he said.

He flicked his wrist at the bartender in some silent form of sign language that I never understood. As he signed the tab, I slid off my chair. When he was ready, he stood and placed his hand on the small of my back. I felt the heat from his palm through the thick velvet of my dress as if my dress weren’t there.

We strolled to the front desk. My cheeks should have been burning with embarrassment. This felt gratuitously obvious as to what our plans were. Bryan didn’t seem to care, and bless the desk clerk, they completely ignored the obvious. Neither of us had luggage. We had clearly walked out of the bar and straight to the check-in counter.

Moments later, Bryan was tucking a card key into the breast pocket of his suit jacket. His hand was on my back, a little bit lower than the small of my back this time, resting on that area that wasn’t really hip but definitely the top of my butt.

We didn’t say anything in the elevator on the ride up to the fourth floor. He found our room and opened the door. I strode straight past him and sat on the edge of the bed. I didn’t see any reason for us to waste any time. I leaned over and pulled my shoes off, one at a time.

“Are you wearing stockings?” he asked in a low grumble.

My dress was not formal full length, but it was long enough to hit mid-calf. Overall, I felt it was a little too matronly looking on me. I had called my mother in a panic saying I needed a formal winter dress. This green velvet monstrosity is what she had sent. I was fairly certain it came out of the back of her closet, and she would have thought it was quite lovely. The school librarian had mentioned she liked my vintage style. The dress had puffy sleeves, but no sexy slit.

I reached down and lifted the hem of my dress, exposing my leg all the way to my upper thigh, where the top of my stocking was exposed. My dress may have been a little old-fashioned and matronly, but I was not. I wanted to at least feel pretty, so I wore the fancy underwear that I never got a chance to show David. He didn’t deserve it, anyway.

Now this man was going to get an eyeful of me in thin lace and satin undies.

“Leave the stockings on,” he said as he loosened his necktie and dropped it to the floor as he stalked toward me.

His suit jacket went next, and then his shirt came off. Holy crap, the man was jacked. He had muscles and definition… He pushed his mouth against mine. His lips gloriously shut my brain off. He pushed me back against the mattress, and his hand skimmed up my leg and toyed with the tops of the stockings before he gripped the exposed skin of my hip.

I may have gasped, but there was no sound made, because he was too busy consuming my kisses and I was in heaven. It didn’t matter that there was no conversation because I wasn’t here to talk. It didn’t matter that there was not going to be a tomorrow with us because the here and the now, and the…

“Oh, my God,” I gasped as his fingers found the thin bit of lace that was my panties.

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