Kanton.
T HE FOLLOWING DAY, I woke with the feel of Noel’s limbs tangled with mine. The memories of us last night had my dick so hard again I could barely stand it, but I needed to think and not get sucked back into this beautiful woman’s allure.
I carefully eased away, escaping the confinement of her sheets, and quickly collected my clothes from last night. Once I left the room, I slowly closed the door and headed straight for the bathroom. The only shower was in Noel’s room, so I slipped back into my clothes, washed my face, and brushed my teeth before returning to the living room.
It was just after seven in the morning, which meant I had silence and time to think. Think about the way Noel’s mouth felt on mine, the way her soft hands brushed over my skin, the way her delicate fingers firmly wrapped about my dick just before her tongue glided across it.
The dream had nothing on the real thing. Not a damn thing. Damn!
I needed to clear my head, so I settled onto the sofa with my laptop, determined to do a little research, but this time, Brighton wasn’t my focus. I knew everything there was to know about the guy: his business preferences, his spending habits, and his determination to keep control of his family legacy.
The guy was basically in a last-ditch effort to keep this family’s hard work under control and managed by someone who shared their blood. If he failed to turn a considerable profit by the end of the first quarter, then the board, a conglomerate of six men who held shares in his company, would take over. Individually, they didn’t have enough to make any real difference, but if they stood together against Brighton, he would have no choice but to step down.
But Brighton and his family legacy would have to wait. Right now, I needed to call in a few favors to see if I could help Noel with her failing business. Although there wasn’t anyone threatening to step in and take over, she personally would lose everything if she didn’t secure the clients to support her financially.
The look in her eyes when she explained the issue was enough to have me ready to strong-arm a few people into some solid, lucrative contracts. I had access to a few very prestigious companies that could use her services. The problem was, I had no idea if she was even good at her job . . . nor did I care. I had to help. I was going to help because there was something about Noel’s smile that ignited a fierce motivation for me to ensure it was always there.
After a few hours of scouring my client manifest, primarily people who would be open to paying me a favor, I came up with a few who were finalizing growth and expansion plans. Companies like Centric Property Management, which was building condominiums in multiple states, and Griffin LLC, which owned construction companies with multimillion-dollar projects to build properties in Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas. They had design teams in place, but I might be able to convince them to work with Noel to handle the virtual staging for their properties. Nowadays, visuals were the key to selling. If you could give each buyer a customized experience to allow them to visualize themselves in the properties, it would be much easier to get their money.
Once I decided, I called the one person who could pull it all together for me.
“It’s very early, What happened to ‘enjoy your Christmas holiday’?”
I smiled at Shelby’s groggy voice and clipped tone, but I knew her well enough to be assured that she wasn’t annoyed by my early-morning call but more amused that I reached out, which meant that I needed something. I promised I wouldn’t. Shelby liked being right.
“You’re usually up with the sun, and considering that you sound like you’re still in bed, I’d say you are enjoying your time off.”
“I’ve been up for about an hour, but because of too much spiked eggnog, I can’t guarantee that my brain is functioning properly.”
“Spiked eggnog?” I questioned with a smirk. “You’re more of the cognac kind of girl.”
“I am, but Gordon’s sister is not.”
“His sister? I thought this was a romantic getaway. What did I miss?”
“I told you he’s going to propose. His parents and sister arrived last night. They’re spending Christmas here with us.”
“He proposed?”
“Not yet, but he’s going to.” She perked up, and I shook my head.
“Well, I won’t hold you, and I pray that things go as planned.”
“Trust me, they will.” She sounded so sure I decided not to argue.
“I need a favor . . .”
“You ready to evict your housemate? I already had Howard look into things, and you’d be totally justified to have her removed—”
“I’m not kicking Noel out of her apartment.”
“Technically, it’s your apartment until 11:00 a.m. on December 27th. According to Howard, the rental agreement is legal and binding. You can call the cops to have her removed . . .”
Howard, my lawyer?
Shelby wouldn’t be Shelby if she didn’t already have him on standby with this situation.
“Shelby, focus. That’s not why I’m calling.”
“Then why are you calling?”
“I would like for you to set up a meeting with Calvin Davis and Marshall Clayton. Preferably sooner rather than later.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m doing a favor for a friend.”
“ Her ?”
“Yes, her . She owns a virtual interior design company, and I’d like to ask if they would be willing to take her on.”
“Kanton . . .”
“What?”
“Are you serious right now?”
“Very, is there a problem?”
“Hell yeah, there’s a problem. She’s there. You didn’t make her leave, so I can only assume what you two have been up to, but I’m guessing it has something to do with your newly found interest in helping this woman by pawning her off on your clients—”
I cringed at the thought. “I’m not pawning her off on them. I’m only suggesting she might be a good option—”
“Is she any good?”
Shit. I had no clue.
So I lied.
“Yes.”
“And I assume she has references . . .”
Noel said she had a few clients, just not enough, so surely, they’d be willing to offer a reference.
“Of course.”
“What’s her website? Let me take a look—”
Shit.
“You don’t need to do that; just set up the meetings, Shelby,” I mumbled, not wanting to dive into my motivation behind this. I was more driven by my feelings for Noel than what I knew to be her ability to do the job. I was indeed pawning her off on clients. Clients who trusted me to make proper decisions for their businesses. After all, I was the person who managed their finances and pulled them out of the red so that they were now thriving. Wasting money on a company such as Noel’s that couldn’t deliver went against everything I drilled into them. But I didn’t know that she wouldn’t deliver.
“Kanton, what you do in her personal life is none of my business, so if you’re stepping out of your norm to enjoy a little holiday nookie, I applaud you. It might do you some good to break the mold and explore something or someone new. But when the decisions you make in your personal life affect your professional affairs, it’s my job to step in. Your clients are what keep your name in high standing. Asking them to take on this woman just because she is gifted at making you come is not a thoughtful decision. Let me be the impartial voice to ensure you’re not making a mistake with this. What’s her company information?”
As much as I hated to admit it, Shelby was right, so I rattled off what she asked for. I was being irrational. I hadn’t taken the time to check. I believed in Noel, which meant I trusted her word.
“Design Dreams.”
I heard rustling in the background and then the cadence of Shelby’s nails pecking away at a keyboard. I listened, silently waiting.
“This is awful. You can’t be serious right now.”
My brows pinched, and I immediately opened my laptop.
“Her site is a mess. It’s cluttered, the fonts are terrible, too much color, overloaded with pictures, and to be honest, I have no damn clue what the hell this woman does. It looks like a Pinterest page on steroids.”
Shit.
As her page came into view, I cringed. Shelby was right. The page was awful. Very artsy and very colorful, much like Noel. It screamed of her personality, which had me smiling, but it was disastrous for branding a business.
But...
“Look at her designs, and they’re good, Shelby. Really fucking good.” I moved through images of three living rooms: modern, a farmhouse, and one which was a blend of both. There were also visuals of what looked like a study and two bedrooms.
“They’re good . . .”
“Better than good.”
Shelby sighed in annoyance. “I agree, but you and I both know that if any real prospective clients look at her site, they’ll laugh at you, thinking you’ve lost your mind. As good as these designs are, she’s not good with business, or at least not with presenting her business. This site is a disaster. I can’t single out how to contact her if I wanted to hire the woman.”
I glanced through the landing page and agreed, nodding with a painful realization. In the bottom corner was a list of hyperlinks, one of which said, “Contact Me.”
“She’s a creative. Maybe the business side needs a little work, but we can help with that.”
“Just so we’re clear on your plans, you’re offering to take her on as a client?”
“No, I’m helping as a friend. She can’t afford me, and I would never take her money.”
Shelby was quiet. Too damn quiet, which meant she was moving through the only possible scenario that made sense. She knew me better than anyone. This wasn’t my thing. I’d toss it to one of my team, but I would never have gotten personally invested in taking on a business like Noel’s.
“A friend ?” she eventually spoke.
“Yes.”
“Okay, then. Give me a few days. I’ll see how I can make her more presentable before I set up the meetings.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me just yet. I’m not sure I can do much with this.”
I nodded stiffly. “You love a good challenge. I have faith you’ll make this work, one way or another.”
“If this is your way of testing me to ensure I’m still on my shit, I assure you, I am. This wasn’t necessary.”
I chuckled. “I don’t need to test you, Shelby. I hired you because I know what your abilities are.”
“Even I have my limits. Give me a few days, but it’s Christmas, so I’ll do what I can. This may have to wait until the first of the year.”
I understood but hoped for the best.
“Got it.”
After I ended the call, I stared blankly at the newly decorated living room. Not only had I been bullied into decorating a tree, but I had also provided the manual labor that hung garlands and twinkly lights across the back of the bar that lined the kitchen and around the fireplace mantle.
With the sun beaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows, it didn’t give the same magical feel as last night, but it presented an aura that screamed “ Happy, cheerful Christmas .”
Magical?
I grunted at the thought. When had I ever considered anything about Christmas to be magical?
Since you experienced her . . .
My head swung slowly toward the back of the apartment where Noel was sleeping, and my dick swelled with the need to want to climb back in bed to join her. But not to sleep. To settle between her legs and thoroughly enjoy every inch of her body the way I had last night, but before I could fall too deeply into the memory of that visual, I had a new one.
Noel came down the short hallway from her bedroom, stopping at the perimeter of the living room, wearing black spandex shorts, an oversized cream T-shirt that had a big red circle dead center, which, I realized, was supposed to be Rudolph’s nose based on the antler ears that topped her head sitting just before the messy chaos of hair that she twisted into a bun.
This woman was so damn perfect in all her quirky weirdness that I couldn’t help the smile that eased onto my face just before I greeted her.
“Rough night?”
Her smooth brown skin hid the blush of red that I was positive crawled up her neck and crept onto her cheeks, but it wasn’t like Noel to not have a witty comeback.
“Very. I shared my bed with a snorer and barely got any rest until he snuck out of my bed this morning.”
I chuckled as she dipped into the kitchen and began removing things. Curiosity got the best of me, or maybe it was the void I felt from missing those pretty brown eyes and a sea of smooth, rich skin. It also could have been the way her perky breasts pushed against the fabric of her tee or the way her soft hips stretched out the spandex shorts, but either way, I was off the sofa and entering the kitchen to see what Noel was up to.
I noticed a glass bowl on the counter next to a carton of eggs, a loaf of bread, and a milk carton.
“French toast?” I questioned when she turned to me and offered a smile and a soft nod.
“Dinner last night and breakfast this morning. I’m starting to think you’re setting me up.”
She turned away from me to open a cabinet where she retrieved a measuring glass and a large mixing spoon from a nearby drawer.
“Setting you up how?”
“They say you shouldn’t feed strays, or they’ll never leave.”
Noel laughed, rolling her eyes before turning toward the sink to wash her hands. When she dried them on a hand towel she tossed on the counter, she pointed at me with one of the eggs she lifted. “You’re not a stray. You’re my houseguest until the 27th, and I’d be willing to bet it would take more than a few meals to keep you here.”
I crossed the kitchen, stepping behind Noel, boxing her in as I placed my hands on the counter and lowered my face to the side of hers. I felt a shiver travel through her body when I kissed her temple. “I elevated from Scrooge to houseguest?”
“You did decorate a tree last night.”
I kissed a trail down her neck, leaning my body into hers. “I did, didn’t I?”
“You did.” Her breathing was labored, and my dick twitched as it swelled against her.
“And you thanked me very nicely for my services, if I recall.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
“You did.” I smiled, planting a kiss on the back of her neck. “The hospitality is great, but the host is even better.” I pulled back. “Do you need me to keep you company while you cook?”
“Uhhh.” She stumbled over the word, shaking off the flush she felt from my having been so close. “No, not really.”
“Great. I’m going to jump into the shower and change then.”
“That’s good because we have a busy day ahead of us.”
I turned back toward the kitchen to find Noel cracking an egg on the edge of a glass bowl. The thought of her in my kitchen or her cooking for me daily was not a visual I would turn my nose up at.
“We had a busy day yesterday.”
“And I promised you a true Christmas experience you can’t get from one day. Now, go . . .” She flicked her wrist, shooing me away and where I would typically argue about the idea of being fully submerged in all things Christmas . . . I was actually looking forward to whatever Noel had planned for me.