Heating up the Holidays

6

THE MOMENT Dustin was out of sight, Cristina sagged to a kitchen chair. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, patting her knee. “You are.”

Sam nodded.

Blake lifted a shoulder in silent agreement.

Cristina looked at Aidan and Zach, two of the most logical men she knew, hoping…but they also nodded.

It was unanimous. She was an idiot.

“I know you don’t like to clutter your plate with relationships,” Blake said tactfully. “Because you have to be free for…What is it exactly that you have to be free for?”

“Well…” Everyone waited for her sage, intelligent response. “I have to be free for…” Jeez. She suddenly had no idea. It’d started out because she’d spent so many years watching her mother never be free, always trapped in a bad relationship with one man or another, over and over again.

Trapping Cristina, as well, so she’d learned to gather her mistrust close to her like a cape. Once she’d gotten out on her own, she’d gone the opposite route, always staying on her own. She was, after all, nothing if not a creature of her own habits. But that all seemed short-sighted and a bit pathetic now. “I don’t know,” she admitted, and thunked her head to the table. “I guess I don’t know how to do things differently.”

“You can fix this,” Blake said so calmly, she raised her head.

He nodded.

The others nodded, too.

“All you have to do is stop running scared,” he said gently, rubbing her back.

“Whoa. I’m not scared.”

Five patient but amused faces just looked at her.

Okay, so she was scared. Oh, damn. “But what if I mess it up?”

“Well, you probably will,” Zach said.

“Gee, thanks.”

“No, everyone does once or twice, at least.”

“You can still turn this around,” Blake promised. “If you want it bad enough.”

She looked at the door through which Dustin, her mild-mannered best friend by day-big, bad, confident, sexy lover by night-had vanished. There’d been something different in his eyes just now.

Distance.

Her fault. He thought he’d been ditched. She knew that now. She’d pretended to want distance, but that wasn’t really what she wanted at all. She knew that now. “I want it bad enough,” she whispered. “What do I do?”

“You could tell him you love him,” Blake said.

“What?” She nearly choked. “I’m not-I can’t-I can’t say that-I mean, it’s not… that.” She grabbed Blake by the lapels. “There has to be something else.”

“Well, for one thing, you relax,” Aidan said as Blake pried her hands off him. “Ask him out. Show him you’re in this. Plan something fun. Take him jet-skiing, or something he wouldn’t do for himself. You know, show him you know what he likes.”

“Feed him,” Zach suggested, patting his belly. “Food always works.”

“You don’t have to cook it,” Aidan said quickly. “In fact, you shouldn’t cook it. Go out to a restaurant, or make a picnic.”

“But if you do the picnic,” Eddie interjected. “Make sure it’s not silly little finger food. Bring real food.”

“And try smiling,” Zach said. “You have a great smile, on the rare occasions you use it. He’ll be so stunned, you’ll have time to spit out the fact that yes, you’re an idiot, but you’re working on it.”

“It would help if you took off all your clothes first,” Eddie said.

“Guys like that,” Sam agreed.

“You could practice here,” Eddie suggested, nearly falling over when Sam shoved him.

Blake was shaking his head. “Just tell him you love him.”

No. No, she liked the other ideas much better. She’d just ask him out, that’s what she’d do. Plan that picnic. Smile. Bring food. Maybe wear some sexy outfit and let things take their course. She’d show him how much he meant to her.

Yeah. She was going to turn this around. Time was on her side.

DUSTIN’S UNIT was run ragged for the rest of the day, one call after another. So it was inevitable that one of his calls would bump up against one of Cristina’s. He’d been brooding all damn day, and braced for the awkwardness of seeing her, given that she kept sleeping with him and then breaking his heart. But if she felt weird, she didn’t let on. In fact, she smiled at him.

Dazzled the brood right out of him.

She was working a small fire caused by a toaster while Dustin treated the young woman who’d attempted to put it out by herself only to fall on her butt, knocking the air out of her.

“I can’t be in a cast for Christmas,” she wailed, holding her bottom in both hands. “Not this year.”

“I don’t think they cast your ass,” Cristina said helpfully from where she stood near the toaster. She winked at Dustin.

Winked.

“I can’t have any bandages, either, my boyfriend’s coming to town.” The woman tried to get up and gasped in pain. “Ouch, ouch, ouch…Do you think it’s broken?” As she asked this question, she turned and yanked down her pants, revealing a quite perfect tightly toned ass. “Anything?”

Dustin stared at it, then lifted his gaze to find Cristina looking at him, eyes amused, brows raised. Oddly enough, given that he’d been pouting all morning, the air crackled between them. “I don’t think it’s broken.” He cleared his throat. “You look…fine.”

“Fine,” Cristina mouthed, and rolled her eyes.

Afterward, outside, she sidled up to him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he said, and to keep that crackle at bay, he went light. “Need me to look and see if your ass is broken?”

She flashed a smile and almost blinded him. “You just want to see my ass.”

True enough. After all, it was world-class.

“Little tip, ace.” She patted his chest, voluntarily touching him outside of sex. “Next time a woman pulls her pants down for you, find a better description than fine.”

“I’ll work on my adjectives,” he said, hoping despite himself that it was her ass he saw next.

“Um, Dustin? You want to have a picnic sometime?”

He stared at her. “Huh?”

“You have a hearing problem? I asked if you wanted to have a picnic.”

“Like a date picnic?”

“Yeah. A date picnic.”

“A date,” he repeated. He wouldn’t have been more shocked if she’d asked him to marry her.

“Well, if it’s that stupid-” She started to turn away but he grabbed her hand and pulled her back around.

“I’m sorry. You surprised me, that’s all. I’ve asked you out before and been shut down.”

“You know what? Forget it. Forget I said anything about anything.”

“Cristina…” He shook his head. “You drive me crazy.”

“I realize I tend to have that effect on people.” Again she tried to pull away and again he held her.

She looked at his hand and then up into his eyes. Something was happening between them, the same odd phenomenon that always happened between them, and it was heat, pure heat.

“Mostly it’s in a good way,” he said a little thickly. “The driving-me-crazy part.”

“Mostly?” Her voice was husky, too.