Her Naughty Holiday. Tiffany Reisz

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.