Chasing Christmas Eve Read online

  shitty hand that life had dealt him.

  And he’d do it again if he had to.

  The bathroom door opened, and even better than his fantasy, Colbie emerged from a cloud of steam, her willowy body wrapped in one of his towels, her exposed skin gleaming and dewy damp. Her hair had been piled on top of her head, but wavy strands had escaped, clinging to her neck and shoulders.

  He couldn’t tear his gaze off of her. There was just something so uncalculated about her, so . . . natural and easy. She was like a beacon to him, which was both crazy and more than a little terrifying.

  Clearly not seeing him against the wall, she moved with an effortless grace to the suitcase she’d left at the door. Bending low enough to give him a near heart attack, she rifled through her things, mumbling to herself that she should’ve researched more about how to be a normal person instead of how to kill someone with an everyday object.

  “Do you kill a lot of people, then?” Spence asked.

  “Motherforker!” she said with a startled squeak of surprise, whirling to face him, almost losing her grip on the towel.

  Five days a week, Spence worked out hard in this gym. Mostly to outrun his demons, but the upside was he could run miles without losing his breath. But he lost his breath now.

  And that wasn’t his body’s only reaction.

  Chapter 4

  #ShiitakeMushrooms

  At the unexpected sight of Spence, Colbie startled hard. How was it that he was the one who needed glasses and yet she’d not seen him standing against the window? “No, I don’t kill a lot of people,” she said cautiously because she was wearing only a towel in front of a strange man. “But I’m happy to make an exception.”

  He laughed, a rough rumble that was more than a little contagious but she controlled herself because, hello, she was once again dripping wet before the man who seemed to make her knees forget to hold her up.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said and pushed off the wall to come close.

  She froze, but he held up his hands like, I come in peace, and crouched at her feet to scoop up the clothes she hadn’t realized she’d dropped.

  Leggings, a long forgiving tee, and the peach silk bra-and-panty set that hadn’t gotten so much as a blink from the TSA guy.

  But it got one out of Spence. He also swallowed hard as she snatched them back from him.

  “Hold on,” he said and caught her arm, pulling it toward him to look at her bleeding elbow.

  “Sit,” he said and gently pushed her down to a weight bench. He vanished into the bathroom and came back out with a first aid kit.

  It took him less than two minutes to clean and bandage the scrape. Then, easily balanced at her side on the balls of his feet, he did the same for both her knees, which she hadn’t noticed were also scraped up.

  “You must’ve hit the brick coping as you fell in the fountain,” he said and let his thumb slide over the skin just above one bandaged knee.

  She shivered, and not from the cold either. “Not going to kiss it better?” she heard herself ask before biting her tongue for running away with her good sense.

  She’d raised her younger twin brothers. Scrappy, roughhouse wild animals, the both of them, so there’d been plenty of injuries she’d kissed over the years.

  But no one had ever kissed hers. Not surprising, since most of her injuries tended to be on the inside, where they didn’t show. Still, she was horrified she’d said anything at all. “I didn’t mean—” She broke off, frozen like a deer in the headlights as Spence slowly lowered his head, brushing his lips over the Band-Aid on her elbow, then her knees.

  When he lifted his head, he pushed his glasses higher on his nose, those whiskey eyes warm and amused behind his lenses. “Better?”

  Shockingly better. Since she didn’t quite trust her voice at the moment, she gave a jerky nod and took her clothes back into the bathroom. She shut the door and then leaned against it, letting out a slow, deliberate breath. Holy cow, she was out of her league. He was somehow both cute and hot, and those glasses . . .

  He hadn’t touched her other than the first aid and then those sweet kisses on her scrapes—which she’d asked for—and yet she felt more trembly than she had when she’d been freezing.

  Clearly she’d gone too long without a social orgasm.

  She dressed quickly and glanced at herself in the bathroom. In spite of herself, she looked . . . well, flushed. And her eyes were sparkling. And something else—she was smiling. What was wrong with her? She’d had a very long day but still she felt . . . invigorated.

  From the other side of the door came a single knock. An alpha man sort of knock, one that suggested curiosity and a slight impatience. “Almost ready?”

  “For what?” she asked, still staring at herself in the mirror.

  “First aid, take two.”

  Oh boy. She stepped out of the bathroom. “Listen, I think maybe I gave you the wrong idea—” She broke off because Spence was at the door to the gym now, holding it open for her.

  “Leave your stuff except for your phone,” he said. “We’ll come back for it.”

  You wanted adventure, she reminded herself. And if they were leaving here, it meant he didn’t have nefarious intentions. At least not at the moment.

  She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed.

  As if maybe he could read her mind, his lips quirked in a barely there smile as he led her back down to the ground floor. Night had fallen as they walked through thick fog across the beautifully lit cobblestoned courtyard. Past a coffee shop, pet shop, tattoo parlor, furniture shop, and straight into a pub named O’Riley’s.

  The place was cute. The tables were made from whiskey barrels and the bar itself had been crafted out of what looked like repurposed longhouse-style doors. The hanging brass lantern lights and stained glass fixtures, along with the horse-chewed old-fence baseboards, finished the look that said antique charm and cozy, friendly warmth.

  She immediately felt right at home. Music drifted from invisible speakers, casting a jovial mood, but not so loud as to make conversation difficult. Spence had her by the hand and tugged her through a surprisingly large crowd straight to the bar, where at the far right were two open barstools.

  Spence nodded to the guy behind the bar as they took a seat.

  “Good timing,” the guy said. “Archer’s in the back being Archer. I need you to go kick his ass in pool to put him in his place.”

  Clearly there was a familiarity between these two, an ease and connection that spoke of either brothers or a longtime friendship.

  “Later,” Spence told him. “I need my usual, with two sides: a bag of ice and another of uncooked rice.”

  The guy, good-looking and wearing a T-shirt that read I Am O’Riley, smirked. “You threw your phone out the window again, didn’t you?”

  Spence ignored this, gesturing to Colbie. “Colbie, this is Finn O’Riley.”

  Finn smiled. “Nice to meet you.”

  “She’s in the city for the first time,” Spence said. “And thanks to me, Daisy Duke dumped her in the fountain. We need food to refuel, ice for her elbow, and rice for her phone to hopefully redeem us in her eyes.”

  “Tall order,” Finn said and pulled out his vibrating phone to read a text. “Huh,” he said and gave Spence a funny look. “So, uh, there’s a 9–1–1.”

  Spence shook his head. “Let me guess. Elle.”

  Finn nodded. “Wants me to rescue you.”

  Colbie tried not to take umbrage at that and failed, but Spence just laughed.

  “Tell her she needs to get a grip,” he said.

  “Do I look crazy?” Finn asked and slid his phone into his pocket. “Besides, we both know she’s paranoid for you for good reason after all that media crap.”

  Spence lifted a shoulder but didn’t comment.

  “Food, ice, and rice, coming up,” Finn said and vanished into the back.

  Colbie looked at Spence. “Are you sure you’re not in a r