Page 47 of Christmas Kisses

Iwait for Danny to enter his apartment at the end of the hallway before I dump the box of sex toys at my feet and rummage through my purse for my keys. They’re a bastard to find since they now only house two keys—one for the lockbox in the foyer where I place my room-share key and another for my apartment door.

I sold my car last year to fund the legal fight Danny tiptoed around. It has cost me more than I can afford, but I’m not solely fighting for me. It is also for the residents who lived in this building before it became the preferred zip code of the famous.

I don’t blame people like Presley and Willow for wanting to reside here. I’d just rather the giant corporation who funded this building’s improvements not forget about the little guys who paid the mortgage decades before the foundation of his company.

“Come on.”

I grunt like my key weighs a ton before reentering it into a lock that looks shiner than it did hours ago. I can’t have the wrong key. The lockbox key is half the size of my front door key and clutched in my palm.

“Why aren’t you working?”

No matter how hard I twist the key, the lock fails to unlock.

I’m close to snapping the key when my door finally pops open. I didn’t hear the lock disengage, but I’m so relieved that I barge into the foyer, almost knocking over the half-naked man answering my door.

Dear lord, did someone go to Vegas and borrow one of the Thunder from Down Under men?

Burnt-orange hair, a sexy, pouty mouth shown off by the slight downward tilt of his chunky lips, a scruffy I-want-to-go-for-a-ride beard, and eyes that scream innocence.

If only his body knew the word.

It couldn’t be more corrupt if it tried.

Since a small white towel offers little coverage for the tattooed skin of his pectoral muscles and the impressive bumps in his abs, I have no trouble conjuring up a word to describe him.

Wicked.

Naughty.

If Jack Teller and Henry Cavill had a baby, this man would be it.

I am ten seconds from a hot flush, and I’m far from perimenopause age.

“Um. I…” I wipe the spit from my lips before trying again. “Did Aunt Bec send my Christmas present early?”

I hook my thumb to my open front door while silently praying for him to say yes. I’ll be devastated if he is one of the backpackers I often rent my spare room to. I have a no-touch rule with lodgers since one at the beginning of my tiptoe into landlord territory misunderstood a one-night stand as a permanent invitation to my bed.

I wouldn’t have minded if he wasn’t an atrocious lay. He couldn’t find my clit with a map and a compass, and even whenI led him directly to it, he fumbled so much it wilted along with my excitement.

“And aren’t you meant to remove your clothesafterI invite you in?” When he appears stumped, I drag my box into the foyer of my apartment before entering the living room. “I don’t mind that you’ve mixed things up. The removal of clothes is the most infuriating part of a strippergram. I have no patience. None. Zilch. Zip. So if you want to start in a towel, I’m all for it.”

Holy hell. Men deserving of their own subentry note under “sexy” in a dictionary blush?

Who would have known?

“You think I’m a stripper?”

I was hoping he was a gift from my aunt Rebecca, but his accent is throwing me off.

Perhaps that’s the issue?

Maybe strippers are called something else in the UK?

I lower my brows before asking, “What do they call strippers in the UK?”

His accent is hotter when he is riled. “I’m reasonably sure the same thing you call them here.”

He steps closer, making it an effort to keep my eyes on his face. He has those chunky rugby thighs I’m obsessed with. I don’t watch rugby because I’m a fan of sports. It is to add the players’ thighs to my memory bank for future use. It is off season. Hence me needing more than one battery-operated sex toy to get off.

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