Chapter 8
"T hanks again for doing this, Travis." Keely put the key in her front door. "I'm still in awe that you survived it. I'd apologize on Grandma's behalf, but she would haunt me for eternity if I tried."
"I loved it." Travis' grin was a thing of beauty, and completely sincere. "I wish my grandma was that much fun. But there's not a lot of time for that when there's a family business to run."
"I'll bet."
Keely wanted to kiss him, but would he think she was saying goodnight? She was having too much fun to call it a night. Yet was she ready for what it could mean if she invited him in? She thought she was prepared to follow Grandma's advice...
Travis must have seen her uncertainty, because he wrapped his arms around her. "Don't second-guess yourself, Keely."
"I'm not. Am I?" She laughed. "Okay, that's exactly what I'm doing. I don't want you to leave just yet, but I'm a little nervous about asking you to stay. You're not the only rookie here."
He pressed a quick kiss to her lips. "There's no wrong choice."
"Really?"
"If I go home, I'll just text you and tell you what I wish we were doing if I were here..."
A surge of sassiness zipped through her, erasing all traces of hesitation. Keely pulled Travis into the house, closing the door behind them, her heart racing. Probably from the unexpected jolt of sass. Clearly that stuff wasn't easy to regulate.
"I've never had Santa in my house before," she said, taking off her coat. "Well, not that I've seen. There was that whole chimney-and-presents thing when I was a kid. But I was always conked out."
"It's nice to use the front door for a change."
She grinned at the wink he gave her, and the appreciative gaze that followed it. She held her hand out for his coat. "Hope you don't mind I didn't wear the sparkly dress. I was expecting to wrestle at least a couple of them to the ground before the night was over, but they were surprisingly well-behaved."
"You look great in everything, Keely. Beautiful."
She blushed. "Who would have guessed Santa was such a flatterer?"
"That's what your name means, too." He bit his lip. "I had some down time at work the other day and did an internet search."
Keely felt her insides melt at his sweet revelation that he'd been thinking about her. "I'll put the coats away. Feel free to take a tour."
Travis smiled as he took in the details of her cottage, the numerous bookshelves filled with cookbooks, the dining table filled with more cookbooks. Fortunately everything was clean. Not that she'd planned on having him over tonight, but it seemed like a good idea to be prepared—because she knew she'd want him to come over some night.
Travis opened one of the cookbooks and flipped through it. "You really do like cookies."
Keely smiled self-consciously. "They're like a portable form of comfort and joy. I thought about going to culinary school, but I'm holding off for now. Until I decide about starting my own business."
"How did you get started with baking cookies?"
"I used to wish I had a grandma who stayed home and baked cookies. Then I realized hearing about the trouble my grandma baked up was a lot more fascinating, and I could learn how to make my own cookies." She paused. "And with baking, you follow the rules and it almost always works out. I'm not the type who likes to wing it. At least not with food."
Or life.
"Makes perfect sense." Travis held her gaze, as if silently acknowledging he understood her confession. Then he strolled into the kitchen and his eyes widened at the setup any chef would love. "This is amazing. A lot of cookies must get made here."
She nodded. "Especially now. 'Tis the season for making cookies."
"Even sugar cookies with sludge-thick frosting?"
"It's been a while. I like to think I've developed a few more skills since then."
He smiled. "I volunteer to be a taste tester. Whenever you need one."
Before she could answer, she saw him do a double take at the cookie cutters displayed on one wall of the kitchen. He leaned in...and then his lips lifted in a grin as he turned her direction.
"Is that a cookie cutter in the shape of—"
Keely fought off a groan. How had she forgotten the penis cookie cutter? It's not like it got a lot of use, or any use actually, so it hadn't been on her radar when she'd cleaned house...
"It's actually part of a set, with graduated sizes. That's how this rude gift exchange started. Grandma gave me those one year and I had to reciprocate. Or retaliate. She really loved the glass-blown earrings with that same shape." She laughed. "Well, she did complain how they weren't life-sized. Same with the ice cube trays from another year."
Travis laughed again. "Now I understand why you were so intent on getting the gift for her this year."
"I had to branch out since we'd pretty much exhausted the original theme. I feel like I'm running out of gift possibilities though. I should probably just declare her the winner of this crazy contest."
"Not yet." He winked. "Our warehouse still has a lot of good stuff in it."
That made her feel warm and squishy inside, talking as if they would have other Christmases together. She brushed that aside. Most likely he was being charming, like he'd always been.
"I love this place," he said. "It's so you."
"I do try to be neat and orderly."
Travis laughed. "With a sassy streak that you can't keep hidden. Or, I guess I should say, I like when you reveal it."
It took all she had not to fan herself at his heated gaze. "Santa, why don't you make yourself more comfortable?" His eyebrows raised with interest, and she couldn't hold back a laugh. "You're still wearing your red suit."
"Right. Luckily I have my non-Santa clothes with me."
She pointed to the bathroom. "Feel free to change in there. And when you're done..."
"Yeah?"
"I'll have some milk and cookies waiting for you."
He grinned and then let loose a hearty "ho, ho, ho" before going to get rid of the costume.
***
T HEY WERE ON HER COUCH , a nice, soft, pillowy thing. Travis had his arm around Keely's shoulder, and he pulled her a little closer so he could kiss her.
He'd sensed her nervousness earlier and didn't want to add to it, so he had no plans to rush. He was just glad she'd asked him to stay. For however long it ended up being.
"We never finished our discussion about kissing," he reminded her.
She kissed him back. "It was supposed to be a demonstration."
"Since we're sitting on this ultimate make-out couch, let's get the demonstration started."
"Wait. Why is this the ultimate make-out couch?"
"It's designed so you don't want to leave, and even makes it hard to, with all these cushy pillows surrounding you. Like it knows making out is something that requires a lot of unhurried moments, and it's trying to accommodate that in every way possible."
She laughed. "I had no idea. Of course, it hasn't had any make-out experience, so how could I know?"
"None? We'll be the first?"
He didn't want to admit how much he liked that.
"Looks like." Keely brushed her lips against his again, making his body stir in lots of places. "This is such a fun Christmas. So much better than last year."
He brushed her hair away from her face. "I agree."
"What makes this one better for you?"
Travis hesitated, nibbling on his lip, until he realized he'd rather nibble on Keely's. She kissed him leisurely, playfully, and then leaned back, waiting for an answer.
"You weren't part of my Christmas last year, for one thing."
"Same here," she said. "And?"
He heaved a sigh. "Last year I had a blowout with my dad, when I told him I wasn't going to be with the business forever. He didn't want to hear that."
Keely wrapped her arms around him, her head against his chest. "That must have been rough. Are things okay now?"
He shrugged. "A little bit. I think it surprised him when I started school last summer. But now he knows I'm serious about it."
"So you do the customer service thing during the day and go to school at night?"
Travis nodded. "I don't want to load up with student loans, and I'm hoping I can help my dad get used to the idea of me not being there in the future. It takes longer going at night, though, so it'll be another three years before I finish."
She lifted her head from his chest. "I guess I better be on my best behavior. I've got lawyer Santa keeping his eye on me."
He waggled his eyebrows. "How could he possibly resist?"
"Oooh, naughty Santa has entered the chat."
That earned her another kiss.
"So what made your Christmas last year not as good as this one?" he asked.
"I got dumped by my ex-boyfriend. Two weeks before Christmas."
"Ouch. His name wasn't Wyatt, was it?"
She laughed. "No. Is that something he would do?"
"Absolutely. He should apply for a trademark."
"Funny how you two share DNA but aren't anything alike," Keely said.
"It would actually make my life easier if he was more like me. Dad could let Wyatt run the business, but the way things are now..."
"It sounds tiring." She nuzzled his neck. "And yet somehow you manage to sound so helpful and cheery when you're on the phone with customers like me."
"It's easy to be helpful and cheery when I'm on the phone with a customer like you." He kissed the top of her head. "In fact, I don't know how I kept my cool when you said you'd buy me coffee one day. I was already half in love with your soft sexy voice."
"I was half in love with your sexy voice! That's why I babbled on about buying you coffee someday. I nearly fainted when you took me up on it."
He laughed, squeezing her a little tighter. "Wyatt saw me after we hung up and was pestering me to tell him why I was grinning. I wasn't about to tell him what I was imagining."
She turned so she was looking directly at him. "But you have to tell me."
He shook his head, slightly embarrassed. "Nah."
"Don't make me kiss you until you finally tell me."
Travis wrapped her in his arms and tumbled her onto her back. "Kiss away, beautiful."
***
K EELY PULLED HIS HEAD towards her for a kiss, intending it to be something slow and sexy and toe-curling. Tempting him to spill his secrets. It was all of those things.
But it also made her move against him, feeling his hard body, his arousal, and then she was moaning at how delicious he felt.
"Okay, I give," he panted. "I was thinking about you singing 'Santa, Baby' to me in that sexy voice of yours."
"I love it. You know I can't sing, though, right?"
"There's singing." He grinned. "And then there's singing."
That made her blush. If she wasn't good at one kind of singing, how could she be sure about the other?
One thing she was sure of – it was insane to let the Ghost of Dick-Ex Past make her doubt herself.
Instead she'd call on her spirit patron, the Ghost of Christmas Sass, and completely embrace this delicious moment with the sexiest man in the world, ripping through all the caution signs she usually hid behind.
She kissed Travis softly, relishing how he responded with sweetly tender kisses. Even better than that response was when she murmured in her most seductive voice, "Santa, baby."