Hot Christmas Kisses. Joss Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ the year before

      In a rural part of Devon, three thousand miles from her home in Boston, Massachusetts, DJ Winston smoothed her hands over the maroon-and-silver dress and turned to face her computer screen.

      Her two best friends, twins Darby and Jules Brogan, lounged on Jules’s couch in her office back in Massachusetts, coffee cups on the table in front of them. As was their custom, they’d shortly be closing their business for the Christmas break, ending the year by treating their staff to lunch.

      “Send everybody my love and tell them I hope they have a lovely minivacation.”

      DJ ignored Darby rolling her eyes at DJ’s inability to wish anyone a merry Christmas. She tried, she really did, but the words always got stuck in her throat. Merry Christmas! Happy holidays! Ho, ho, ho...nope, she couldn’t do it. She could talk interest rates and contract terms, equity and cash flow, but she stuttered and stammered her way through December. The festive—hah!—season made her feel like she was eight again, alone, frightened and wondering why neither of her parents loved her.

      DJ knew the twins would like to discuss her antipathy toward Christmas, but it was, like so many other subjects, off-limits.

      DJ adored the twins, but she believed in keeping some distance between her and the people she loved. Distance was her safety net, her belay rope, her life vest. Distance was how she’d always protected herself. And since it had worked for her as a child and as a teen, what was the point of changing her strategy now?

      Darby cocked her head to one side. “That dress looks fantastic with your dark hair and eyes, DJ.”

      Jules nodded her agreement. “Vibrant colors suit you. But with your height and build, anything looks good on you, you know that.”

      She didn’t, though.

      While the twins saw her as attractive, she still saw herself as the gangly, dark-haired teenager who embarrassed her blond, blue-eyed mother. DJ was smart enough, Fenella reluctantly admitted, but she was too tall, too lanky, with not enough charm. So Fenella said when she was in a good mood.

      DJ tried not to remember the words Fenella let fly when she was angry.

      “What shoes are you wearing?” Darby asked.

      “My Jimmy Choos, the ones you made me buy last week.” DJ nodded to the sexy silver shoes on the bed.

      “So...” Darby drawled. “When is Matt arriving?”

      DJ released an irritated sigh. “He’s not.”

      “He stood you up? Nice Christmas present.” Jules was sarcasm personified.

      DJ sighed. Darby and Jules didn’t understand that her and Matt Edwards’s ad hoc arrangement worked for them, as it had for the past six years. Depending on their schedules, she and Matt met for a night or a weekend. That was when DJ stepped out of her life, pushing aside numbers and profit margins, cash-flow issues and cost projections. When she was with Matt, she allowed herself the freedom to be another version of herself—fun-loving, exuberant and sensuous.

      Neither she nor Matt had any expectations, and DJ was very conscious of the fact that, despite making this unusual situation last for many years, their arrangement was a temporary thing.

      They had no ties to each other, nothing to bind them except for the expectation of good sex, a few laughs and a relaxing time spent in undemanding company. She didn’t need more. A partner, boyfriend or permanent lover wasn’t something she wanted for herself; after being abandoned by her father and rejected by Fenella, DJ wasn’t prepared to hand over her battered heart to another human to kick around. She was keeping possession of that fragile organ.

      Spontaneous weekends spent with Matt worked well for her, but yesterday he’d blown her off, saying that he, despite it being Christmas, needed to stay in the Netherlands, to consult with a client who was in a world of hurt. Because Matt was a fantastically successful human-rights lawyer, hurt could mean his client was a political refugee ducking prison time, or a tribe of aboriginal people who’d been kicked off their ancestral land and were facing the imminent loss of their culture and way of life.

      The fact that his on-and-off lover needed to escape Christmas and was horny as hell didn’t nudge the needle of his what-international-laws-did-this-violate? scale.

      DJ had considered missing her friend’s wedding but that meant doing Christmas in Boston. Ugh. Attending this Christmas Eve wedding was the lesser of two evils.

      Her friends on the screen were still waiting for her response. Right, they’d been discussing Matt’s nonarrival. “We have an understanding that work always comes first. He’s tied up doing something terribly important.”

      What he wasn’t doing was her.

      DJ pulled a face, glanced at the corner clock on her laptop screen and sighed. “I’d better slap on some makeup or else I’m going to be late for the church service.”

      Darby frowned and waved at DJ’s dress. “Take that off first. You do not want to get makeup on that dress.”

      Good point. Friends since kindergarten, she was superbly comfortable disrobing in front of them. Allowing them to see her messed-up inner world was what she found difficult. DJ gently pulled the dress over her head and laid it on the bed.

      Jules whistled. “Push-up bra, tiny thong, heels. Edwards has no idea what he’s missing out on.”

      “I agree.”

      That voice.

      DJ whipped her head up and looked toward the doorway. Her heart, stupid thing, did cartwheels in her chest.

      Matt, a shoulder pressed to the doorframe, looked as effortlessly sexy as he always did. A tall blond with deep green eyes and a surfer’s tan, he had the face and body to advertise sun, sea and sex. He didn’t look like what he was: a brilliant international lawyer with a steel-trap mind.

      The moisture in DJ’s mouth disappeared and it took all her willpower not to run to him and start removing his clothes. She desperately wanted to slide the cream linen jacket down his arms and rip apart his navy button-down shirt. The leather belt would be next, and she’d soon have the buttons of his designer jeans undone. In her hand he’d be hot and hard...

      It had always been this way. Matt just had to look at her with those incredibly green eyes and she went from cool and collected to crazy in ten seconds flat. She didn’t love him—hell, she barely knew him—but, damn, she craved his mouth, his hands on all her long neglected and secret places.

       Okay, try to hold it together. For God’s sake, be cool.

      “I thought you couldn’t make it,” DJ said, wincing at the happy note in her voice. Yeah, opposite of cool, Winston.

      She glanced at her dress lying on the bed, considered slipping it on and then shrugged. Why bother? Matt had seen everything she had, more than once.

      Matt stepped into the room, walking with a grace not many big men possessed. “My client was delayed.”

      Matt crossed the room to her and his hand lifted to cradle her face, his thumb brushing across her lower lip. He looked СКАЧАТЬ