“I think it’s your sheep snoring,” Sammy guessed.
He made a whistling noise like a bomb falling until his palm hit the table, startling two cats, a duck, and a sheep. “That’s your profit margin plummeting.”
“You don’t have to be so dramatic about it,” she complained. Accountants didn’t seem to be an empathetic lot.
“Your time would have been better spent applying for these grants. If you get just one of them, you’ll be bringing in far more money than if you’d sold every one of these crooked circles for two hundred dollars apiece.”
“If your intent is to make me feel like an idiot, it’s working.”
“Good,” he said. “You’re not an idiot, by the way. You’re just making idiotic decisions.”
She threw a jingle bell at him. It hit his forehead and bounced off. McClane scrambled out of his ribbon nest and pounced on it. Holly’s glittery tail twitched as she watched.
“You’re a mean accountant,” Sammy announced.
“I’m telling you what you need to hear in a way that it’s going to sink in. You don’t need a hand holder. You need an ass kicker. If you want to be successful in this endeavor, you need to forget everyone else’s problems and focus on helping yourself.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that?”
“Because you’re pathologically helpful. Instead of filling out grant applications that you have an excellent chance of getting, you volunteered to make and sell fifty wreaths, babysit a flock of deranged chickens, find a home for a stray sheep, and drive a hungover stranger around town for a day.”
“Do you really think I have a shot at a grant?” she asked him, watching him closely.
“I do. And I find the fact that you’d waste time worrying about that annoying.”
She found herself oddly comforted.
“Of course, if your business plan and financials are a wreck, that’s an obstacle,” he continued, ruining her temporary sense of comfort. “But the idea? The solution you’re providing and the way you’ll execute it? You deserve this money.”
She looked down at her sparkly, sticky hands. At her half-finished, half-decorated house. At the man who wasn’t actively trying to seduce her into a one-night stand. What the hell was wrong with her?
“I mean seriously. What the hell is wrong with you, Sam?”
“A whole lot of things apparently.” Leading with the fact that she’d let a stack of papers intimidate her into backing down. Her attempt to avoid rejection meant she’d set back any hopes of getting the sanctuary on its feet by at least another year.
He reached out and took her hand. “Whatever you think you’re proving by being the first in line to volunteer or the one to never say no isn’t worth never getting what you want. Sometimes you have to say no to everyone else so you can say yes to what’s important to you.”
She blew out a breath. “Wow. You’re good at this. I feel ashamed yet motivated to do something about it.”
He squeezed her hand. “They don’t call me the client whisperer for nothing.”
He’d just chastised her, but one hand-hold and visions of booty calls danced in her head again.
“It’s after eleven. Way past your bedtime,” he said. He tossed his finished wreath onto the floor like a Frisbee. Willis the duck waddled over and climbed into it like a nest.
“So what do I do?”
Ryan stood. “You’re going to go to bed and get some sleep.”
The booty call gods were cruel.
Disappointed, dejected, and downtrodden, she followed him to the door. She clutched a roll of black velvet ribbon as an anchor. He shrugged into his coat and whistled for Stan. The sheep lazily trotted over, a cat on his heels. Ryan turned to face her. She stared down at their feet, not wanting to say goodbye to him yet again. Not wanting to be left alone to face the mess she’d created.
Then he was nudging her chin up. “Look at me, Sam.” His voice had a rough edge to it that made her blood turn to liquid gold. He hissed in a breath when she did as he asked. “Don’t look so sad. I don’t like it.”
She forced a hideous fake smile, and he laughed softly, still holding her chin in his hand. “I’ll be back in the morning, early,” he said.
She blinked. “Why?”
“Because you’re going to call in reinforcements for the wreaths, and you and I are going to fill out those grant applications.”
She grabbed him by the arms. “Are you serious? It’s a lot of paperwork,” she warned.
“Yes. We’ll get it figured out. And we’ll get it all done.”
“What about Carson’s thing? And your secret feud with Rainbow?”
“That’s for me to worry about. Not you. Have the coffee going.”
Without thinking, she threw her arms around him and held on tight. He went still against her and then slowly slid his arms around her. She pressed her face to his chest. His solid, comforting chest. There, wrapped in his arms, she felt safe and warm and not alone.
She peered up at him. “You’re great at your job. Your firm is incredibly stupid not to see that.”
“Thank you, Sam,” he said gruffly. He tucked her hair behind her ear, letting his fingers linger on her neck. Her skin heated at each point of contact.
She couldn’t look away from his eyes. They’d gone silver on her.
Don’t think about kissing him.
Crap. Too late.
“Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“I know I just told you to start saying no to everyone, but…”
“But?” she prompted him, feeling lightheaded.
“But I need you to have one more ‘yes’ in you.”
She couldn’t catch her breath. Her senses were full of Ryan.
Stan the sheep got bored and wandered back to his place in front of the fire.
“What’s the question?” she whispered. If he asked her to pick up his dry cleaning or sheepsit, she would die on the spot. Then she’d come back to life just to throw him and his sheep out of her house.
“Can I kiss you goodnight?”
23
She nodded slowly. The answer he needed to his question.
“How do you like to be kissed, Sammy?” Ryan’s voice was quiet, but the words felt like gravel in his throat.
The black ribbon slipped from her fingers, hitting the floor and unraveling as it rolled toward the wall.
She sighed into the space between their mouths. “I-I don’t know. I liked how you kissed me before.”
He slid his hands down her arms to her wrists, tugging her forward. When her toes brushed his shoes, she still wasn’t close enough to his liking. So he lifted her to stand on top of his feet.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Research.” And then his mouth was dipping to hers. Her lips, soft and full, yielded to his immediately. The seam between them widened as he traced the tip of his tongue over it. And then she was opening for him, surrendering to him.
He groaned as her tongue met his. The kiss was sweeter, headier than he could have imagined. He intended to pace himself. To sample, not devour. But she tasted like so many forbidden things, and he couldn’t get enough. The stroke of his tongue against hers was possessive, aggressive. She let out another breathy sigh that did strange things to his pulse.