mutinous light was back in her blue eyes. “Nope. Not at all. Been there, done that. See no reason to ever do it again. Or even, really, date.”
Message sent, Nash thought, but not necessarily received.
He grinned, the man in him rising to the womanly challenge in her. He leaned back in his chair, his shoulders flexing against the rungs. “You’re going to live your whole life without sex?”
“I didn’t say that, exactly.”
Now they were getting somewhere! “Then...?”
Her flush deepened, as if she knew how ludicrous she sounded. “Why are you asking me this?”
Lazily, he looked her up and down, amazed at how gorgeous she was, under any circumstances. Aware she was waiting for an answer, he said, “I’m curious.”
She studied him coolly in return. “Okay, if you must know,” she said, clearly not understanding why this was so, “I could see myself having an affair—at least in theory—if I could keep it strictly as a bed-buddy, casual-sex type of thing.”
This was news. “Bed-buddy,” he repeated in shock.
She leveled another long, droll look. “You know. Someone you have sex with when the mood strikes, but don’t have any kind of romantic attachment to.”
Her matter-of-fact assertion sounded even more ludicrous the second time around.
“Or you could ‘hire’ a companion,” he quipped. “Someone like...say, me...who would ‘work for food’ under those circumstances.”
She shook her head at the merriment twinkling in his eyes. Knowing even without him saying so that he was already half-serious. “You’re so funny.”
He chuckled. “So are you.”
Again it took everything he had to resist touching her.
They locked eyes, drawing out the sensually charged moment.
“You don’t believe I could have a casual affair, do you?” Callie challenged. He stood and carried his dishes to the sink. “Not for one second. No.”
She rose, too, her motions as graceful as they were deliberate. “Why not?”
He watched her slide the plates into the dishwasher, then ease the door back into place with more than necessary gusto. “Because you might say you’ve let go of your romantic ideals, but those to-do lists you had out for me to see, of everything you want to do to celebrate Christmas, say otherwise.”
Callie swung toward him, her body nudging his in the process. “Those lists have nothing to do with how I feel. And everything to do with how I want my son to feel.”
He studied the conflicted expression on her face. “I don’t understand.”
“The truth is...I haven’t felt like celebrating Christmas since my husband died. But,” she added the all important caveat, “I have a child who needs to experience all the wonder and hope and joy that the holiday can bring, so I go through the motions. For him.”
“You don’t think he knows that’s what you’re doing?”
Callie released an exasperated breath. “He’s two and a half.”
“So?”
Another silence fell, this one fraught with tension. “So...he can’t even figure out what a daddy is. Yet.” Nash lounged against the counter, legs crossed at the ankle, his hands braced on either side of him. “Except that he knows he wants one and doesn’t have one.”
Her jaw took on the determined tilt he was beginning to know so well. “Brian will get over it.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“He is going to have to,” Callie insisted, looking Nash right in the eye, “because I am not going to marry again without love. And I’m not going to marry for purely romantic reasons, either.”
* * *
HER WORDS WERE TRUE. Nevertheless, Callie still wished with all her heart that she hadn’t said them. Hadn’t revealed nearly so much about herself to the man standing opposite her.
Nash looked shocked. “So you won’t marry again, period.”
His low, masculine voice sent a thrill through her. “Nope.” Determined to keep him at arm’s length, she continued, “Once you’ve had the best, anything that follows is bound to be second-rate, and who wants that, right?”
His chuckle was warm and seductive. Gazing down at her, as if she had just given him the opening he needed, he turned to face her, trapping her between the counter and his big hard body. “Not even for companionship and sex?” he taunted softly.
Pretending she couldn’t feel the sizzle of awareness sifting between them, she backed up as much as she could, which turned out to be about half an inch. “Why do you keep bringing the subject back around to sex?”
He remained close. Still not touching her, he shrugged. “Not sure.” His gaze traced the shape of her lips before returning evocatively to her eyes. “Just seems to be on my mind whenever I’m around you.”
Hers, too. She flattened her hand across his chest. “Well, stop thinking about it.” Her attempt to shove him aside failed.
He remained as unmovable as a two-ton boulder. Dipping his head, he kissed the back of her forearm. “Easier said than done.”
Her entire body leaped into flame. And he hadn’t so much as actually touched her yet. She lifted her hand away from the hard musculature of his broad chest and the slow, steady beat of his heart. “Listen to me, Nash Echols, I am not the woman for you.”
He flashed another thoughtful half smile, then lowered his head and slanted it across hers. “Actually, Callie,” he said, pausing to deliver a gentle, persuasive kiss, “you might be just what I need.” Hands still braced on the counter on either side of her, he kissed her again, even more provocatively this time. “And I might be just what you need,” Nash persisted, trailing kisses over the nape of her neck, across her collarbone. “Since you’re in the market for sex-with-no-strings-attached...”
Callie’s eyes shuttered closed, but she forced them open. Forced herself to look him in the eye. “I never actually said that.” Although she had been thinking it, at least whenever he was around.
His chuckle remained confident. “Speaking hypothetically is one step away from actually doing something. You know that.”
Fine. So maybe the idea of going without making love again—ever—was not only depressing, it was a tad unrealistic, too, given the signals her body had been transmitting the past few days.
But not about to give him the satisfaction of being right, she squared her shoulders. “I didn’t say I wanted the sex to be with you.”
He looked down at her old, loose chambray shirt—seeming to visually strip her naked, to see what was beneath. “Not verbally. Physically,” he looked
