Merry and Bright (21 page)

Her profile was tight, grim. Unhappy. And suddenly he wanted to see her happy, even lost in laughter. Better yet, lost in passion, with him. He wanted her in his arms, his name on her lips.

“You like me, right?” she whispered.

Apparently more than he’d thought. “Yes.”

“Then why don’t you ever kiss me?”

Matt blinked. That hadn’t been what he’d expected, though, in truth, he didn’t know what he
had
expected. He knew she was talking to Ned, not to him, but he still stepped closer, so close that he could have bent his head and put his mouth to the nape of her neck. Her scent came to him, soft and lovely and incredibly sexy.

So sexy.

Her skin seemed to glow in the pale light. She tended to dress conservatively, and he supposed the cut of her black velvet dress was modest enough, but it molded and hugged her body, dipping both in the front and the back in a clean, sensual line.

“Ned?”

Christ
, he wanted her to stop saying some other man’s name. He wanted to hear
his
name.

She sighed then, a lost sound, a sorrowful sound, and unable to take it, he wrapped his fingers around her arm and turned her to face him. Before she could decipher the fact that he had a good four inches on Ned, he hauled her up against him and did as she’d asked. He kissed her.

3

C
ami sank immediately into the kiss. She couldn’t see a thing in the dark room, but she didn’t need to. Ned’s mouth was firm yet warm, and tasted yummy. Then his tongue touched hers, and a bolt of desire zinged her from her roots to her toes, hitting all the good spots in the middle.

Oh, did he know how to kiss. Thankfully. She’d been worried because not once had he swept her up in his arms like this, against his body, inhaling her as if she was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and she loved it. Loved also the obvious hunger and passion he had bottled up.

For her.

Not to mention the delicious hardness of his chest, his belly, his thighs . . . in between.
God.
She hadn’t been kissed like this since . . . she couldn’t remember.

It didn’t matter, she was being kissed now, and she couldn’t believe how amazing it felt. Her bones melted, along with her reservations about Ned being the right one for her, and she ran her hands up his chest, winding her arms around his neck to pull his head even closer to hers.

His hands moved, too, at first grazing up and down her back in a seductive motion that drew her in even closer, molding her body to his. Up and down, further each time, over the skin bared by her dress, until he cupped her bottom. The intimate touch shocked her, and aroused her beyond belief. He squeezed, the thin material of her dress and her new thong the only things separating his hand from her flesh. A brave departure for her, but she’d needed something drastic tonight, had needed to try something different. She’d loved the way she looked when she’d caught her reflection in the mirror. Sophisticated and glamorous—so unlike her usual self.

Now she was glad she’d dared, though his fingers on her, with so little barrier, felt shocking. One hand left her bottom, gliding back up her body to sink into her hair, dislodging a few carefully placed pins as he palmed her head, holding her in place while he decimated her with a kiss so deep and sensually charged, she could only whimper and let him take her where he would.

“Mmm,” rumbled from deep in his throat, the hand still on her bottom urging her closer, rocking the softest part of her to the hardest part of him. Oh, God, this felt good, so good. If she let herself think, she might have admitted it was difficult to reconcile this deep, wet, hot, shocking erotic connection with the mild-mannered Ned, the one who was so nice and kind he often let people walk all over him rather than face a disagreement or handle a contradiction.

But she didn’t think, because the rough growl that reverberated from deep in his throat made her weak. So did his sure and talented mouth, his steady and knowledgeable hands, both of which were driving her crazy. So did his mouth as it made its way to her jaw to nibble her throat. In fact, she had to clutch at him to remain standing. “You feel good.”

In an odd reaction, he went completely still for a beat, then pulled back and stared down at her, the mask covering the upper part of his face but not the heavy rise and fall of his chest as he breathed erratically.

That’s when it hit her. Ned wasn’t this tall. Or broad. Or built.

Then she caught the glittering of his eyes.

Not dark brown, but . . . steely, stormy gray.

Oh, my God.

Not Ned. Not Ned, but—Reaching up, way up, she grabbed his mask. She wasn’t tall enough to yank it off over his head, so she pulled it down and stared into those glittering eyes.
“You.”

“Me,” Matt agreed utterly without repentance or apology.

Stepping back in horrified, humiliated shock, she came up against the window just as his mask, caught by its elastic string, slapped him in the chin.

Without a word, he ripped the thing off and stepped toward her.

“Don’t,” she choked out, her every nerve ending still pulsing with hopeful pleasure. She lifted a hand to hold him off, but he just took her fingers in his and came up against her, trapping her between the window and his body.

The window was icy cold. But not Matt. Nope, his hard body radiated heat and strength as he cupped her jaw until she was looking him right in the eyes. “Well,
that
took me by surprise,” he murmured.

“What are you talking about? You knew exactly who you were kissing!”

“Yeah, but I didn’t expect to be leveled flat by it.”

“You expect me to believe that
you
were laid flat?
You,
the man who’s kissed every single woman in a hundred-mile radius?” God, she was a fool. She’d known better, a small part of her had known from the moment he’d touched his mouth to hers—Ned would never have taken her like that, kissing hard and deep and unapologetically fierce—but her body had surged with such heat and need, and a desire so strong, she was still shaking from it.

And yet, the pathetic truth was, Matt had just been playing with her. It burned, she could admit, and burned deeply. All her life, she’d been the outcast. She’d been a chunky, nonathletic, clumsy kid in a house full of lean, coordinated, beautiful people. She hadn’t improved much as a teenager, and though her frenetic exercise and dieting had finally worked, leaving her much fitter now, the stigma had never left her. Inside, she was still the left-out, laughed-at, fat kid, the girl who was the object of a wager among the boys of the varsity basketball team—the winner was to be the first boy who could get a pair of her “granny panties” to hang as a prize in their locker room—the woman who even now men tended to keep their distance from.

The remembered humiliation still burned.

She heard the footsteps coming and turned toward the doorway just as another man appeared, also in a tux. Mask in hand.

Ned.

And in that flash, from a distance of twenty-five feet or more, Cami wondered how she could have ever mistaken the two men. Ned wasn’t as tall or built as Matt, instead a comfortable height for looking straight into his eyes, a nonthreatening bulk that brought to mind a scholar rather than a tough boxer or basketball player, as Matt’s physique did.

And that wasn’t the only difference between them.

There was the fact that the nice, kind, sweet Ned would never have taken advantage of a dark night and a mask, kissing a woman simply because the opportunity presented itself.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, and moved into the room, eyeing Matt inquisitively. “Tarino.”

“Kitridge.” Matt turned back to Cami. “Enjoy the ball.”

Enjoy the ball?
She’d enjoy kicking his butt, that’s what she’d enjoy, but before she could tell him, he was gone.

When they were alone, Ned smiled curiously at her but, true to form, didn’t ask. There was no reason why that should annoy the hell out of her, but it did. Her dress was wrinkled across the front where she’d been mashed against Matt, her hair was half up and half down thanks to his busy fingers, her mouth was still wet from his.

And Ned didn’t appear to think anything of it. Frustrated, she grabbed her mask from the window seat and went to move past him, noticing that his tux was wrinkled, too—sort of endearing, really—and that his shoes—

Oh, my God.

His shoes were still black leather, identical to the ones Matt had worn, and still identical to the ones in the bathroom stall from earlier. Lifting her gaze to Ned’s face, she was further disconcerted to find him blushing slightly. His usually perfectly groomed hair was standing up on end, and he still wasn’t meeting her eyes. “You’re late,” she said slowly. “But you’re never late. You’re wrinkled, but you’re never wrinkled. You’re blushing, your hair is a mess . . .” She stared into his guilty eyes. “It
was
you in the bathroom. You’ve been making out with someone else.”

Ned shifted from one foot to the other, jamming his hands into his pockets. “Technically, it’s not someone
else
, if you and I have never made out.”

“But . . .” No, she refused to ask why not her, why it was never her.

“I’m so sorry.” His voice was rough with the apology she hadn’t gotten from Matt. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Wait.” She couldn’t think. Funny how her brain could work on an entire city plan, formulating for population and roads and more, and yet now, here, she couldn’t process a thought. This wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
He
was the office geek.
She
was the prize here!

“Cami,
Jesus.
” He squirmed. “I don’t know what to say. It’s just that you . . .” He lifted a shoulder. “You scare me.”

“What?”

“And Belinda—”

“Belinda. Belinda Roberts?” The daughter of the ex-mayor and a city mail clerk? Who was still in college and giggled when a guy so much as looked at her?

“She’s sweet and caring,” Ned said defensively.

Which, apparently, Cami was not.

“She makes me cookies,” he said. “Oatmeal raisin, because of my cholesterol.”

Cami could have done that. Probably. If she’d even known he had cholesterol issues.

And if she’d known how to work her oven.

“She doesn’t argue or disagree with me at work,” Ned said. “Or make me feel as if my ideas are stupid.”

“I don’t—” But she did. She couldn’t help it. Many of his ideas
were
stupid. And she had little to no tolerance for stupidity.

“I’m really sorry,” he said again, softly, with surprising thoughtfulness. “I really didn’t intend for you to find out like this. I wanted to come here and talk to you like adults.”

“Right,” she said. “Because
adult
is screwing the file clerk in the women’s bathroom.”

“Again, very sorry.” He looked desperate for a change of subject. “I intended to tell you tonight, but then I found you in here with Matt. What did he want anyway?”

“Uh . . .”
Ms. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.
“Nothing.” If
nothing
meant the hottest, wildest kiss she’d ever experienced.

“Okay, then. Well . . .” More shuffling, this time accompanied by a longing look at the door. “I hope this isn’t going to be awkward.”

She just laughed.

Ned’s flush lit up the dark. “You look really great tonight. Your dress—”

“You can go now, Ned.”

“Thank you.” In a cowardly blink he was gone.

Men.
Cami kicked a file cabinet closed as she left.

It turned out Cami was grateful for the masked part of the ball after all—who’d have thought—because it allowed her to stay virtually “hidden” for the hour she forced herself to stay and smile and make nice. Trying to forget the kiss, she danced with Adam and Ed from her department, and she danced with eager-beaver Russ from the Permit Department, though surely her feet would never recover. She danced with a few others as well, mostly because it meant less talking.

And then she made her escape, leaving the festivities that had been meant to boost everyone’s low morale. She drove home reliving the mortifying portion of the evening. In her quiet condo, she decided to grow from the experience. And then she buried herself in the work she’d brought home because, as it turned out, work was all she had.

The next morning, she went into her office early, and to protect herself, she put a sign on her door that said
STAY
OUT
OR
DIE
.

But apparently the new mayor couldn’t read because half an hour later, Matt stuck his head in, wearing one of those wicked smiles that had always annoyed her in the past but that now inexplicably scraped at a spot low in her belly.

“Hey,” he said. “Busy?”

Just looking at him reminded her of last night. Of his bone-melting, heart-stopping kiss. Of how he’d held her as if he could do nothing else. How he’d gotten hard and rocked her hips to his. She’d dreamed about that part in particular, damn it, and remembering brought the heat to her face. She shouldn’t be picturing the mayor with a hard-on. She especially shouldn’t get hard nipples at picturing the mayor with a hard-on. “If I say yes, I’m busy, will you go far, far away?”

His grin spread.

Good God, could the guy be any more gorgeous? Or annoying? Or sexier? Now it wasn’t just her nipples going happy, but things were happening between her thighs, too. “Didn’t you read the sign?”

“Yes.” He pulled a pen out of his pocket. Clicked it on. Eyed her with a mischievous lecherousness.

“Don’t even think about it,” she warned, gritting her teeth when he underlined the
STAY
OUT
part. Then shut the door—with him on the wrong side.

He smiled.

She did not. But she wanted to, damn him, so she got up, walked around her desk, and reopened the door, silently inviting him to leave.

“Ah,” he said. “Someone forgot to eat her Wheaties this morning.”