Page 35 of Baby It's Cold Outside

She laughed again, the memory of the hot sex making her cheeks flush. “Will you please stop!”

He levered himself up, nibbling kisses along her collarbone, while his hand cupped a swollen breast. “No can do,” he said, his voice husky with arousal. “But I tell you what, I’ll let you call me Daddy this time.”

She was still smiling when he sent her flying over the edge.

Chapter Nine

“Hey, Sleepy, it’s time to wake up,” Ryder whispered, nobly resisting the urge to nibble on the tempting earlobe next to his lips, which was infused with the addictive scent of cinnamon.

He sat back on the bed and gazed at Katherine’s face, soft and seductive in sleep despite the harsh fluorescent lights that had come on when the power was restored.

He’d exhausted her. They’d exhausted each other. During a night that had held so many surprises, he’d been wide awake for the past hour—trying to figure out what to do. He didn’t want this to end here. That much was for sure.

Last night, he’d discovered that beneath Katherine Braithwaite’s prim and proper English exterior was a smart, sensitive, and incredibly sexy woman he wanted to continue seeing. But he’d been puzzling over the practicalities while he got dressed and packed up the stuff from the night they’d spent together. And whatever way you looked at it, he couldn’t offer her anything other than a long-distance, half-assed relationship. Now that he knew what she’d dealt with as a child, from a mother who had been anything but reliable, and knowing how important her routine and her job were to her, he knew she needed and deserved much more than that.

His life was complicated enough—h

e was already struggling to juggle his commitments to a growing daughter and a career that took him to far-flung parts of the globe at a moment’s notice. He couldn’t even offer to see Kate in the next couple of weeks, because he was bringing Gully back to stay with him in New York after spending the night in Ithaca. And then he had a trip to Disneyland lined up for them both over New Year’s.

And that was only the start of the problem. His commissioning editor at the press association where he worked was already making noises about him doing a story on the deforestation of the Amazon rain forest at the end of January. It would be a hard, grueling assignment, lasting at least a month, maybe longer. It was a story he would have relished doing five years ago. Right now he wasn’t relishing the idea so much.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that he would have to leave Gully again so soon, how the hell could he consider starting a new relationship in the little personal time he had?

He touched Katherine’s cheek, the petal-soft skin beneath his fingertip and the frown line that appeared between her brows making every part of him ache. Damn, he was going to have to let her go. And it hurt more than he would ever have imagined. She’d come to mean more to him in the space of a single night than any woman had in way too long to remember.

“Katherine, honey, wake up.” He gave her bare shoulder a gentle shake. “The security cameras came back on a couple of minutes ago,” he continued in a firm voice. “You need to get dressed before you end up butt-naked on YouTube.”

He grinned as her eyelids fluttered open. That had gotten through.

“What?” she said groggily, the sheet dropping.

He tucked it back around her shoulder. “Here, I’ve got your PJs,” he said, slipping them to her. “You better put them on under the sheet. We don’t want to give the security guys too much of a thrill.”

Her eyes snapped wide open as she went from semi-sleep to full-shock mode in the space of a single second, then flinched as the bright lights made her eyes water.

“Bloody hell,” she croaked, grasping the sheet and whipping it over her head. “For Pete’s sake,” came the muffled, indignant squeak from beneath. “Don’t just sit there, shield me or something.”

He started to laugh, despite the ache still clutching at his heart. And continued to laugh as she swore ripely and the sheet billowed and bobbed while she scrambled into her clothes.

“You know those cameras are wired for sound, right?” he teased.

“I’ll get you for this, Sinclair,” she hissed, before emerging at last, her soft brown hair in disarray, but her pajamas securely on—even if the buttons were all over the place.

“Hey, Grumpy, there you are.” He got off the bed and held out his hand to her.

She took it but sent him a furious scowl. “Get lost, Dopey.”

He saluted the security cameras as she climbed down. “Sorry guys, the show’s over.”

“Oh, shut up,” she muttered as she stomped off toward the stairwell.

He followed, the chuckles dying as he realized how much he was going to miss Katherine Braithwaite—especially the chance to tease her in the morning, when she was all cute and rumpled and out of sorts.

…

Kate had regained her temper by the time she’d changed back into her dress and boots and coat. The snow was still falling in fat flakes outside her office window, but she didn’t suspect there would be any problem getting home now from the small sounds of activity she could already hear in the store beyond.

Ryder stood with his butt propped against her desk and his arms crossed over his chest, the wicker basket full of the debris from their wild night at his feet.

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