Kiss Me, Katie! & Hug Me, Holly!

“Holy cow!” Ritchie yelled into Bryan’s ear. “Holy, ace, that was absolutely amazing!”

“Gee, guess you got it.”

“You’re wasting your talents taxiing the rich and famous in expensive airplanes, you should be doing stunts all the time.”

Ritchie Owens was a Hollywood producer. That’s what he told women, anyway. Mostly he did beer commercials. The stunt Bryan had just pulled off would be shown in an adventurous, exciting, quick-paced, filled with loud music ad spot designed to raise a man’s thirst.

Or so he supposed.

Bryan didn’t really care; it gave him an excuse to fly, and to fly with abandon, and that was all that mattered to him. “I don’t taxi people. I run a charter company.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Still a waste.”

Bryan didn’t bother to correct Ritchie. He didn’t feel any particular need to defend himself, not when he truly did love his work. In his opinion, he had everything he would ever need, and Ritchie, all four and a half feet of him, driven by the materialistic meter of success of the film industry, would never understand.

“God, that was fantastic.” Ritchie was clearly ecstatic. “The best I’ve ever seen! We’re gonna get tons of feedback from this one, ace. Tons. I feel it in my bones.”

Bryan remained silent as he easily circled and came in for his landing. The sun was at his back, the wind was with him. On top of the world, he took a deep breath, as always awed by the glory of being in the air.

No problems, no stress. Life was everything he wanted, everything he made out of it.

But inexplicably, that wasn’t the case today. And if he was being honest, something he always was to a fault- just ask any of his past girlfriends-he had to admit it had everything to do with last night.

The Christmas party.

And the surprise Christmas kiss.

It’d been a helluva great gift. Admittedly, the gift giver hadn’t meant to give him the kiss, but he’d tried to tell her he wasn’t who she thought he was, hadn’t he?

Well…maybe he hadn’t tried very hard.

Maybe he hadn’t managed to say anything except her name, but he was only human. And yeah, maybe a better man might have told her the truth right then and there, but he wasn’t out for any hero awards.

He just wanted the girl.

He’d been momentarily stunned into meathead status when Katie had touched her warm lips to his, not to mention dizzy as hell from those stupid Santa glasses he’d been wearing.

He still had a headache from them.

And anyway, what was a woman doing even thinking of kissing a guy as boring and predictable as Matt Osborne? It was a crime, in his humble opinion, a total crime.

Bryan completed his landing without incident, tied the plane down on his own even though there was a staff of linemen waiting to assist as there always was, and also a film crew who’d paid to use the tarmac for the morning. He tipped his head to stare at the sky.

“Already yearning to be back up there?”

He recognized the female voice and braced himself.

“We have a great staff, you know.” Holly, who’d come up behind him, managed to casually brush her long, lithe, very toned body against his. “Why do you always insist on doing everything yourself?”

Seemed silly to tell her the truth, when she didn’t care about the truth. What she cared about, what she’d cared about for the entire two weeks since she’d come to this place as the new office manager, was getting action.

Man action.

Apparently he was the man.

“Do you do all your own handling because you like to sweat?” Holly wondered, circling him until she was in front of him, smiling with all the innocence of a shark. “Or because you like the way all us silly females melt over you when you do?”

“Oh, definitely, it’s because I like to sweat.”

She laughed softly. “So big and tough.”

“You should see me after I wash the plane.”

His light sarcasm was a wasted effort. She merely smiled. “You’re so exciting, Bryan. How did you manage to keep all those tipsy women off you last night? It wouldn’t have anything to do with the…Santa costume?”

“I thought my being Santa was a secret.”

Holly arched a brow and let out a mysterious smile. “Whoever told you that?”

“You know who. You. I got your note that Matt would be late and couldn’t do it, so you needed me to do it, and to keep it quiet about it.”

“Oh, that note.” She purred and lowered her lashes. “I suppose I owe you now.”

Oh, boy. “No. Consider that a freebie.” Besides, he’d gotten his reward.

“A freebie?” Holly pursed her lips. “You wouldn’t, by any chance, have gotten…lucky with that costume last night, would you? Maybe lucky with a certain accountant who thought you were…oh, I don’t know, a certain vice president?”

Ah, now it made sense. He’d been set up. “You were responsible for that?”

“You’re giving me far too much credit,” she said serenely, studying her manicure. “And besides, everyone knows, Matt was supposed to be Santa.”

“Yes,” he said patiently. “But Matt wasn’t Santa. I was.”

“Right. So if a mistake was made-” she lifted her shoulders and sent him a guileless smile “-then…oops.”

“You told her Matt was in the costume, didn’t you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what, exactly?”

“Are you telling me you didn’t enjoy that kiss?”

“Okay, let’s do this another way. Does she or does she not now know the truth?”

“Not.” Holly grinned. “Are you kidding? Prim-and-proper accounting Katie kissing the wild, reckless, rowdy, untamable Bryan Morgan? She’d have a coronary. She definitely doesn’t like guys like you.”

“She’s not all that prim and proper.”

Holly bent at the waist and burst out laughing. “Do tell.”

Bryan gave up and started walking toward the first of three hangars that made up Wells, knowing he had exactly one hour to take care of his paperwork before chartering a flight that would keep him out of the airport for the rest of the day.

Without a doubt, he was going to have to put that kiss right out of his head. Yes, the little accountant kissed nice, so what? She didn’t like guys like him, so what? He didn’t care, not when there were plenty of other women in the sea.

That he hadn’t been looking was another matter entirely, he told himself. Between work and his loving but demanding family, he’d been busy, and hadn’t needed the additional complication. And he knew all too well, women were definitely a complication, no matter how sweet yet sexy their light, expressive whiskey eyes were.

With that in mind, he made it to the hallway outside the postage-stamp-size office he rented from Wells, when he heard a very familiar voice.

“Matt? Matt, I know you’re in there.”

Katie.

Katie back in her dull business suit with the too long skirt and the too full blazer so he couldn’t so much as catch a glimpse of that lush body he now knew she had, knocking on the closed door of Matt Osborne’s office.

She should look unappealing, but she didn’t, not at all. Instead, she looked…huggable.

Damn, what was that about?

He attributed it to knowing that she kissed like heaven, and smelled like it, too.

Then Matt opened his office door and smiled absently at her. “Yes?”