“Just now. I recognized your butt when I pulled in the driveway.”

She frowned. “Leo didn’t mention you were coming.” The last time she’d seen him, he’d kissed her, and the memory brought a flush to her frozen face.

“He didn’t know until I landed about an hour ago.” His breath left his lungs in white wisps, and he took one bare hand from the pocket of his coat and reached toward her.

She pulled back and wrapped her gloved hand around his wrist. “What are you doing?”

His smile creased the corners of his green eyes. “What do you think I was going to do?”

Her chest got tight when she recalled with startling clarity what he’d done to her at his father’s birthday party. More than what he’d done, she remembered her response. And the disturbing thing was, she wanted to feel that way again. She wanted what every woman wanted, to feel desire and be desired. “With you, I never know.”

He picked a twig from her hair and showed it to her. “Your cheeks are red.”

“That’s because it’s below freezing out here,” she said, and blamed it on the weather. She removed her hand from his wrist and took a step back. Needing a man to make her feel good about herself was the old Clare, she told herself. The newer and wiser Clare had learned that she didn’t need a man to feel okay. “Why don’t you do something useful and call my cell number.”

“Why?”

She pointed behind her. “Because I dropped it in there.”

He chuckled and reached for the BlackBerry hooked to his belt. “What’s the number?”

She gave it to him, and within a few moments “Don’t Phunk With My Heart” played from within the tall shrub.

“Your ring is the Black Eyed Peas?”

Clare shrugged and dove into the shrub once more. “It’s my new motto.” She pushed several branches apart and caught a glimpse of the phone.

“Does that mean you’re over the gay boyfriend?”

“Yes.” She didn’t love Lonny anymore. She stretched her arm as far as possible and grabbed the phone. “Got it,” she whispered, and backed out of the shrub. She turned and the front of her coat brushed Sebastian’s. He grabbed the tops of her arms to keep her from falling. Her gaze moved up the zipper of his coat to his throat and chin, past his lips to his eyes, staring down into hers.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked. Instead of letting go, his grasp tightened and he pulled her onto the balls of her feet, bringing her face closer to his. “Besides losing your phone.”

“Christmas lights.” She could have stepped back, pulled away.

His gaze moved to her mouth. “It’s colder than a well digger’s ass out here.”

Yeah, she could have stepped back, but she didn’t. “Have you ever felt a well digger’s ass?”

He shook his head.

“Then how do you know how cold it is? And why his ass as opposed to his elbow?”

“It’s just an expression. It isn’t…” His voice trailed off with the white puffs of his breath. He looked up into her eyes and drew his brows together. “You always did take everything too literally.” He let go of her arms and pointed to the string of lights. “Need help?”

“From you?”

“Is there anyone else around?”

Her toes were frozen and her thumbs were turning numb. With help, she wouldn’t have to waste time climbing up and down the ladder and moving it around. She could be in the house warming up in about ten minutes instead of half an hour. “What’s the ulterior motive?”

He chuckled and climbed up the ladder. “I hadn’t thought of one.” He grabbed the string of lights and wrapped it around the top of the shrub. His reach was so long, he didn’t have to climb down and move the ladder. “But I will.”

And fifteen minutes later he did.

“This is my favorite,” Sebastian said as he handed Clare a cup of cocoa. He’d had to sweet-talk her into coming with him into the carriage house, and he wondered why he’d bothered. It wasn’t like he was hard up for female company. “I like the crunchy little marshmallows.” She took a drink of the cocoa and looked up at him through her light blue eyes, and he knew why he’d bothered talking her out of her coat and wrestling it from her grasp. He didn’t necessarily like it, but there was no denying that he’d thought a lot about her in the past few months. He took a drink from his cup. For reasons he could not even begin to explain to himself, he could not get Clare Wingate out of his head.

“This is pretty good,” she said as she lowered her cup. He watched her as she licked chocolate from her top lip, and he felt it in his groin. “Are you here for Christmas?”

He wanted Clare, and not as a friend. Sure, he liked her well enough, but standing so close to her, he wanted to lick chocolate off her mouth. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I was in Denver this morning and I called Dad. He started hacking and wheezing and I switched my flight from Seattle to Boise.”

“He has a cold.”

His attraction to her was purely physical. That was all. He wanted her body. Too bad she wasn’t the sort of woman who might be up for some mutual using. “He sounded like he couldn’t catch his breath,” he said, and didn’t even want to think about how much that had scared the shit out of him. He’d immediately called the airline and changed destinations. During the nearly two hours it took him to get to Boise, he’d imagined different scenarios. Each one worse than the last. By the time he landed, he had a lump in his stomach and several coffins picked out in his head. That just wasn’t like him. “But I guess I overreacted, because when I called him from the Boise airport, he was polishing silver in your mother’s kitchen and bitching about being cooped up in the house like a baby. He sounded irritated that I was checking up on him.”

The corners of her full lips tilted up and she leaned one hip into the counter. “I think it’s nice that you’re concerned. Does he know you’re here?”

“I haven’t gone to the big house yet. I got distracted by the sight of your butt sticking out of the shrub,” he said, rather than admit he felt foolish. Like a paranoid old woman. “I’m sure he’s seen the rental car and will be here when he’s through.”

“What were you doing in Denver?”

“I spoke last night in Boulder, at the University of Colorado.”

One brow moved up her smooth forehead as she blew a breath into her cup. “About?”

“The role of journalism in wartime.”

One side of her hair fell across her cheek. “Sounds interesting,” she said, and took a drink.

“Riveting.” He pushed her hair behind her ear, and she didn’t jump out of her skin nor grab his wrist this time. “I’ve decided on my ulterior motive.” He dropped his hand.

She tilted her head to the side and set her cup on the counter next to his. A frown pulled at the corners of her porn-star mouth.

“Don’t worry. All you have to do is come with me to find a Christmas gift for my father.”

“You forget what happened when you wanted a birthday gift for Leo.”

“I didn’t forget. It took me a good fifteen minutes to cut all that pink crap off the fishing pole.”

Her scowl turned into a pleased smile. “I guess you learned your lesson.”

“What lesson is that?”

“Not to mess with me.”

Now it was his turn to smile. “Clare, you like it when I mess with you.”

“What have you been smoking?”

Instead of answering, he took a step forward and closed the distance between them. “The last time I messed with you, you kissed me like you didn’t want me to stop.”

She tilted her head back and looked up at him. “You kissed me. I didn’t kiss you.”

“You practically sucked the air out of my lungs.”

“That isn’t how I remember it.”

He slid his palms up the arms of her thick, bumpy sweater. “Liar.”

A furrow appeared between her brows, and she leaned back a little. “I was raised not to lie.”

“Honey, I’m sure you do a lot of things your mama raised you not to do.” His hands slid to the middle of her back and he brought her closer. “Everyone thinks you’re nice. Sweet. Such a good girl.”

She put her hands on his chest and swallowed. Through the blue wool of his shirt, the soft pressure of her touch heated his skin and warmed the pit of his stomach. “I try to be a nice person.”

Sebastian chuckled and plowed his finger through her soft hair. He held the back of her head in one of his hands. “I like it when you don’t try so hard.” He looked into her eyes and saw the desire she tried so hard to hide from him. “When you let the real Clare out to play.”

“I don’t think…” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “Sebastian, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Open up,” he said as he brushed his lips across hers. “And I’ll change your mind.” Just once. Just for a minute or two. Just to make sure he wasn’t mistaken about the last time he’d kissed her. Just to make sure he hadn’t exaggerated that kiss in his own mind to fulfill his X-rated fantasies.

He started slow. Teasing and coaxing. The tip of his tongue touched the seam of her full lips, and he placed soft kisses at the corners. She stood perfectly still. Stiff, except for her fingers curling into the front of his shirt. “Come on, Clare. You know you want to,” he whispered just above her mouth.

Her lips parted and she sucked in a breath, his breath, deep into her lungs. He took full advantage and his tongue touched the inside of her hot, moist mouth. She tasted like chocolate and like the desire she was trying to deny herself. Then she turned her head to one side and melted into his chest. Her hands slid up to his shoulders and the sides of his neck. Sebastian turned the heat up a bit and applied a little more pressure. She responded with a sweet moan that spread heat across his flesh and gripped his lower belly in a white hot fist. But just as the kiss was starting to get real good, the front door of the house opened and closed and Clare practically jumped out of her skin. She took a few steps back and Sebastian’s hands fell to his sides. Her eyes were wide and her breathing uneven.