Hot Christmas Kisses. Joss Wood

whipped. If Matt wasn’t the subject of the conversation, he’d find Noah’s dilemma amusing. “The twins are worried because she hasn’t been the same this past year. She’s been quieter, more reserved, less...happy,” Noah told him.

      Matt filled in the blanks. “And they are blaming me for that?”

      “Not so much blaming as looking for an explanation. DJ isn’t talking, so my fiancée, damn her, asked me to ask you. Man, I sound like a teenager.”

      “So you didn’t just accost me to have a beer?”

      “The beer was an added incentive,” Noah said, obviously uncomfortable. “Look, forget it, Matt. It’s not my or Jules’s business and I feel like a dick raising the subject.”

      Matt wanted to be annoyed but he wasn’t. He’d always envied the friendship Dylan-Jane and the twins shared. They were a tight unit and would go to war for each other. He’d been self-sufficient for as long as he could remember, and his busy career didn’t allow time for close friendships. It certainly didn’t allow time for a relationship.

      Matt carefully picked his words. “DJ and I have an understanding. Neither of us are looking for something permanent. I’m sorry if she’s had a tough year but I don’t think it’s related to me. We were very clear about our expectations and we agreed there would be no hard feelings if life, or other people, got in the way of us seeing each other.”

      “Other people? Are you seeing someone else?”

      Was Noah kidding? It had been a hell of a year and he hadn’t needed the added aggravation of dating someone new. He’d had a slew of tough cases and he’d been sideswiped by explosive news and saddened by an ex’s untimely death. And he was now required to make life-changing decisions for his once brilliant grandfather.

      Starting something new with someone new when he was feeling emotionally battered wasn’t the solution to anything. As a teenager he’d learned the hard lesson that emotion and need were a dangerous combination.

      He’d fallen in love at sixteen and he’d walked around drunk on emotion. His ex, Gemma, and he had made their plans: they’d graduate, go to college, get married, have kids...and they’d feel like this forever. She was the one, his everything...

      At seventeen she’d informed him she was pregnant. A part of him had been ecstatic at the news of them having a baby—this would be the family he’d never really had, his to protect, his to love. His. All his...

      After ten days of secret planning, and heart-to-heart discussions, Gemma flipped on him, telling him she’d miscarried and was moving across town and changing schools.

      She didn’t love him, she never really had...

      He’d vowed then that love was a myth, that it was a manipulative tactic, that it didn’t really exist. His parents, his grandparents, Gemma—they all proved his point. At seventeen, he’d dismissed love and forever as a fabrication and nothing since had changed his mind.

      He now believed in sex, and having lots of it safely, but love? Not a chance.

      And sex, in his mind, meant DJ.

      DJ didn’t want anything permanent, either. Just like him, she was allergic to commitment. They spent just enough time together to enjoy each other but not enough to become close. It was the perfect setup...

      Or it had been.

      He was back in Boston, in her city, and he saw no reason not to meet. It had been too long since he’d held her, since he’d tasted her skin, inhaled her fruity scent, heard her laugh. DJ, fun-loving, exuberant and sensuous, was exactly the medicine he needed. She’d be a distraction from thinking about how to handle the bombshell news he still hadn’t wrapped his head around.

      Matt looked at Noah. “I really don’t know what’s going on in DJ’s life, but I doubt it has anything to do with me.”

      Noah drained his beer. “Are you going to see her while you’re in Boston?”

      Of course he was. “Yeah.”

      “Then I’ve been told to tell you that if you hurt her, they’ll stab you with a broken beer bottle.”

      Matt rolled his eyes. DJ’s friends were fierce. “Understood. But, as I said, we have a solid understanding.”

      Noah lifted his hands. “Just the messenger here.” He pulled some cash out of his wallet and ignored Matt’s offer to contribute. “If you don’t want to spend the next month or so in a hotel, you’re welcome to use the carriage house at Lockwood House. When we are home, Jules and I live in the main house.”

      Noah’s property was, if Matt remembered correctly, the cornerstone of a very upmarket, expensive golfing community north of Boston. It was a generous offer and Matt appreciated it. “Thank you. That would be great.”

      “It was Jules’s idea. That way she can keep an eye on you.” Noah smiled. “And you do know that our house is directly opposite where Darby, DJ and Levi Brogan live? The same Levi Brogan who is superprotective and has no idea that you’ve been sleeping with the woman he loves like a sister for the last five-plus years?”

       Oh, crap.

      “It’s going to be fun watching you tap-dance around him,” Noah said before he clapped Matt on the shoulder and walked out of the bar.

      Matt looked down at his phone and automatically stabbed his finger on the gallery icon. He flicked through the images of Dylan-Jane, memories sliding over him, and stopped when he came to a topless photo he’d snapped of her lying on the sand on a private beach in St. Barts. She was facing the sea but had turned her head back to look at him and the camera, her sable hair skimming the sand. She was all golden gorgeousness—flashing dark eyes, flushed cheeks, rosy nipples on her perky, tanned breasts.

      Unable to resist her, he’d picked her up and carried her to the water, where they’d had amazing sea sex.

      He had lots of great memories of DJ but, hell, making love to her in the sea and later on the sand was one of his favorites.

      He desperately wanted to make more memories...

      Shaking his head, Matt pulled up his last chat with DJ and quickly skimmed over the words they’d exchanged over the past week. He’d told her that he’d be in Boston the following week and asked if they could meet. DJ had sent him a surprised-face emoji as a reply...

      Matt frowned. A surprised face wasn’t a yes...

      Neither was it a no...

      What it was, was a strange way for DJ to respond.

      She’d always been up-front and honest about telling him her plans, whether she could meet him or not. They didn’t play games, didn’t lie. They either wanted to be together, for a day or three or four, or they didn’t. They could either make time for each other, or they couldn’t. This year they hadn’t managed to meet and that was just the way life went. He presumed she was busy managing her rapidly expanding design firm and he’d had his all-consuming work and the additional personal dramas to deal with...

      But could she be dating someone else?

      Matt’s stomach tightened and he told himself to get a grip. He had no right to be jealous. They’d both agreed they couldn’t expect to be monogamous when they were so far apart. He had been for the past year but that was more through circumstances than choice. They’d agreed to be honest with each other, to tell each other if someone else was on the scene. He hadn’t had a text or phone call or email from DJ saying that. In fact, since late March, she hadn’t reached out to him once. Previously, he’d received the odd email from her, funny memes that made him laugh, silly selfies she took.

      Matt frowned, remembering that her friends were worried about her, that they thought something was wrong. Was she sick? Busy? Annoyed?

      Or, worse, done with him, with what they had?

      His phone beeped again