Page 9 of A Wrong Bed Christmas: Ignited\Where There's Smoke

Erik clapped him on the shoulder and climbed into the car. “Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge. I’ll call you when we get there.”

“Drive safe,” Layton said, waving.

The snow started to drift lazily from the sky, dissolving into tiny wet spots on his face almost instantly. He glanced at the sky. Hopefully, they made good time before the storm really started up again. Layton turned on his heel and returned to the house, where Alexis was already up and hopping around the kitchen.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing. What are you doing?”

“Preventing you from overdoing it. What happened to the movie marathon?”

“There’s plenty of time for that. I want to make some kettle corn. Want some?”

Kettle corn. How did she know it was his weakness? “You know how to make it?”

“I sure hope so, otherwise I’m about to make a huge mess for nothing.”

He chuckled. “Okay, wiseass, as much as I would love to scarf down some kettle corn, you are getting off that foot. I told you I didn’t think it was broken, but it’s certainly sprained and you need to elevate it with some ice.”

Alexis scowled, but he didn’t give her a chance to argue and simply scooped her into his arms, shocking her into stunned silence as he carried her to the living room. He deposited her on the sofa and then put a pillow under her foot. “You sit here while I get the ice.”

“Is now the appropriate time to admit that Emma was right and that I don’t sit still well?”

“I already had that figured out.”

“Story of my life. I’ve never been able to just sit around. Once I had the chicken pox and I drove my mother crazy because I couldn’t stop itching and squirming, which then made it worse. My mom says it was the longest two weeks of her life.”

Alexis’s story was telling. He held no illusions that Alexis would be an easy patient, but there was something about her that drew him, in spite of all the reasons he ought to keep his distance. Maybe it was the memory of those dream kisses or maybe it was the memory of that near-perfect ass. Ha! Neither memory was safe enough to entertain for longer than a heartbeat.

He returned with an icepack wrapped in a towel and gently draped it on Alexis’s ankle. “That ought to help, but you really have to keep off your foot if you want it to heal.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled. “Are you sure you want to hang around? There’s nothing exciting about watching paint dry.”

“Depends on the company.”

Alexis met his gaze and cocked her head to the side with a sweet, beguiling grin that he didn’t trust in the least but found extremely compelling. “Is that so? And are you saying that you would enjoy my company? The woman who nearly turned you from a rooster to a hen with one kick?”

“In spite of that...yeah.”

Were they flirting? It felt like flirting. And he liked it.

Hell, he’d always been a sucker for the girl who was just out of reach; she didn’t need to make it ten times more difficult by being sexy, too.

Erik’s advice rang in his head like a gong and he pulled back even though there was something captivating about Alexis—and he wasn’t just talking about the sweet rack she was sporting.

“You’re going to get me into trouble,” he said with a chuckle as he rose from his haunches. “You know your brother has it in his head that you’re this fragile thing who might break if handled too roughly.” He waited a heartbeat, then asked with a sly grin, “What do you think about that?”

She met his grin with a saucy one of her own. “I think I’m a big girl and I don’t need my brother to run interference for me.”

“That may be true, but I’m not the kind of guy who would go behind a buddy’s back to get at his sister. You know what I mean?”

“That’s admirable,” she admitted with grudging respect.

“And why does it feel the opposite when you say it like that?”

She laughed and the sound tickled his bones like fingertips dancing down his vertebrae. “I told you, you don’t have to stay. I’ll be fine.”

“I gave your brother my word. I’m not going anywhere.”

There was the slightest, most minute, almost indiscernible hitch in her breath, and that sexy little sound almost caused an immediate erection to tent his jeans. Ah hell, this was going to be the hardest test of his life. For crying out loud, they’d only just met, but there was electricity bouncing between them that was hard to ignore, and if she didn’t stop looking at him as if he were the choicest cut of beef, he was going to have a helluva time keeping to his word.

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