Page 116 of All I Want For Christmas

Savannah wet her lips and he made himself tear his gaze from them and meet her eyes.

“I don’t want to be alone with Mark,” she said. “So, if you don’t mind staying around for things like the tour of the property and dinner and things like that, I’d appreciate it. I’ll pay for your room and your plane ticket and everything.”

He felt relief rush through him. “I’ll definitely stay,” he said. “But you don’t have to pay.”

“Of course, I do,” she said with a little frown. “You wouldn’t be staying at the inn orflyingto North Carolina if it wasn’t for this.”

Theo thought about his next move and next words for about one second. Part of his brain tried to tell him it was a bad idea, but turned out, he was getting better and better at shutting off the practical part of his brain.

“We don’t need a second room though,” he said. “We’ll need to be in the same one.”

Her eyes went wide.

“I mean, if you want Mark to back off, you’ll want to sell him on the idea that you’re taken.” He took a step forward. “And if I’m traveling with my girlfriend, we’re definitely sharing a bed.”

She swallowed hard. “You don’t have to play my boyfriend. I just need youaroundso he can’t get me alone.”

Theo wanted to getMarkalone. He needed to make Mark understand a couple of things about how he treated women. Savannah in particular, but all women.

“So what’s our story? I’m your friend and we’re on our way to my parents’ house for Christmas after this stop?” Obviously they could go with that. That was kind of the truth. “Or I’m your brother? Cousin? Intern?”

She rolled her eyes. “I suppose we could do the friend thing…” Then she sighed. “Yeah, I guess boyfriend is the easiest. It’s to the point and doesn’t need a big backstory or explanation of why I’m spending the holiday with your family if I’m just afriend.” She nodded. “A boyfriend should keep Mark focused on business only.”

“It will definitely make it easier to explain why your nipples get hard whenever I’m around.”

It was kind of a dick move, but his eyes dropped to her chest. Where her nipples had been prominent this entire time.

She didn’t move to cover them. Theo fought a smile. He loved her fuck-off energy so damned much.Thiswas how to get them back on the right foot.

“So now we’re to the real reason why you agreed to this,” she said.

Theo gave her a slow grin. He knew exactly what she was thinking. “What would that be?”

“Another chance to get me into bed.”

“You think I need to go toNorth Carolinafor that?” he asked, his grin growing.

She was getting that haughty, sassy starch in her spine. He loved when she straightened up like that, lifted her chin, and her eyes shot sparks.

Her arms dropped to her sides, and she took a step closer to him. Now they were toe to toe. “You think you could do that right here, I suppose?” she asked.

“Happened before,” he said.

“Hasn’t happened since.”

“I haven’t given it one ounce of effort.”

Her eyes narrowed and Theo was pretty sure that, for just a second at least, she was wondering why that was.

He’d been giving her space. He wanted her to miss him too. As stupid as that was.

But yeah, right now, looking into her gorgeous blue eyes, andveryaware of her hard nipples, he was wondering why he hadn’t been pursuing her. She’d had time to cool off and think over how they’d parted. He should have pushed her to talk to him.

“You think if you gave it evenone ounceof effort,I wouldn’t be able to resist?” she finally asked.

He leaned in until their noses were almost touching. “City Girl, your sweet pussy remembers exactly what I can do to it and it’s wet right now thinking about it.” He lifted a hand and dragged a finger down her cheek. “And no matter what that brilliant brain of yours is telling you, your body wants my hands back on it so bad that I think it would take me ahalf an ounceof effort to get you begging for my cock again.”

There,thatwould piss her off, put some fire in her and, most importantly, make her agree to this trip—and the shared bedroom—because she would want to prove him wrong.

---