Page 80 of Nick and Noel's Christmas Playlist

Balancing the box on her hip, she banged on his door with her food bag in her hand.

When he opened it, Nick stood in the doorway wearing a pair of sweats, a T-shirt in his hands. His chest and abs were just as she remembered; chiseled from the granite of the gods. Pure perfection. Lickable.

When the heck had she become poetic about men’s torsos?

“Hey,” he said, gruffly, rubbing his eyes.

“Hi, did I catch you sleeping?”

“Yeah, took half the day to move in. The guys ditched me once the furniture got inside, so I carried up all the boxes on my own.”

At the mention of boxes, Noel tore her eyes away from his pecs and held the one in her hands out to him. “Well, here is one more left on my doorstep by mistake.”

Nick took it, using one hand to rummage through it. Noel’s gaze trailed over his sculpted forearm as the sinew twisted under the tan skin.

Get it together, girl. They are just arms. You have seen half-naked men before.

The familiar sound of a turbo engine broke through the fog of lust and she didn’t even look over the railing to check the parking lot. She pushed Nick back into his apartment and slammed the door, her back pressed against the white wood.

“What the— Noel! What’s wrong with you?”

“Shhhh! Turn the light off.” She ran over to his window, setting her food on one of the boxes strewn about the floor. She dropped the blinds and squatted down, peeking through discreetly.

“What is going on?”

Trip came up the stairs two at a time and disappeared to the right, no doubt heading for her apartment.

Nick hunkered down next to her. “What are you looking at—”

Even three doors down, an eruption of wall-shaking knocks shut him up.

“Noel! I can’t believe you’d fucking dine and ditch me! I come to you with my heart open, offering you the chance of a lifetime, and you run out on me? Take advantage of my generosity?”

Nick nudged her shoulder. “His heart open?”

“Not the way you are thinking,” she hissed. “He offered to buy me dinner because he wanted me to invest the money from my parents’ estate into his microbrewery.”

“Microbrewery,” Nick snorted. “Douche.”

“Exactly. So, after I listened to his pitch, I grabbed my dinner to go and bounced. On his tab.”

Nick grinned. “Clever girl.”

“I thought so.”

Trip kept knocking and cursing. “I know you’re here! I saw your car in the parking lot. You could have just said no, instead of being a fucking cowardly bitch.”

“Fuck this,” Nick said, standing straight. “I’m gonna knock his teeth in.”

Nick took a step toward the door, but Noel tackled him before he could get further. They landed on the floor with an oof, Noel plastered across Nick’s chest. She pushed herself up onto her arms, shaking her head.

“Just stay here, okay? He’ll go away.”

“I’m not going to sit in here listening to him call you names.”

Noel rolled her eyes. “I don’t care what he calls me. Besides, he’s not wrong. What I did was a bitch move, no matter how bad he deserved it.”

“Still, if he says one more thing…”

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