It Must Have Been the Mistletoe... by Kate Hoffmann Page A

bored.
    Excellent.
    The lightning bolt to her libido and alarming dreams aside, she couldn’t say she was overjoyed to see him either. According to her little sister, Rita, he’d once made a play for her and hadn’t reacted kindly when she’d rebuffed him. Layla had been disappointed on two counts, the first being that he’d preferred her sister, and the second that he’d behaved like a boor. Honestly, the latter was actually more of a letdown. Rita was pretty. Layla wasn’t surprised that he’d liked her. But she’d never taken him for an arrogant ass.
    What was he doing here? she wondered. What did he have to do with Clint Walker’s operation? Better still, how much time was she going to have to spend with him over the next few days?
    Because every second put her that much closer to self-combustion, and the longing that suddenly welled inside of her made her desperately want to turn her dreams into reality.
    Particularly the gloriously naked ones.
    Desire was a pain in the ass.

2
    W ELL, HELL , B RYANT THOUGHT as the object of his fascination deplaned and made her way toward him. So much for hoping she’d gained weight and grown scales since the last time he’d seen her.
    She was still hot.
    He still wanted her.
    Damn.
    Layla wasn’t pretty in the traditional blond-haired, big-boobed 36-24-36 variety, but she had something much more potent and irritatingly less definable. He’d noticed it the first time he’d ever clapped eyes on her—that sensual otherness—and, while he’d managed to put her out of his head for the most part, there were times when her image would simply leap into his mind and rattle his cage all over again.
    Bryant didn’t associate with women who could rattle his cage, which was why he’d forced himself to steer clear of her. He grimly suspected the woman walking toward him could blow his cage to smithereens if he let her get too close.
    After watching his father fall in and out of love with more regularity than a revolving door and witnessing the subsequent euphoria and misery that came along with it, Bryant had sworn he’d never let that happen to him. Love was too mercurial, toounpredictable and, ultimately, too much trouble. He liked his sex straight up with no strings, and any woman who struck an emotional note of any kind was culled posthaste.
    Just looking at Layla made his chest tighten uncomfortably, made his skin prickle along the nape of his neck.
    In that instant he knew a moment of terrifying inevitability—knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he would have her before the tour was out and he’d never be the same.
    She’d ruin him.
    â€œLayla,” he said, inclining his head, because a greeting of some sort was expected and he was nothing if not a gentleman.
    Her dark green gaze was amusingly guarded. “Bryant. I didn’t realize you worked with Clint’s crew.”
    And from the tone of her voice, she wasn’t all that happy about it either.
    He smiled, pleased to see that he wasn’t the only one uncomfortable. “I’m head of security when he’s touring,” he explained, taking her bag.
    She grunted and he felt her gaze drift over his shoulders, down his back, and settle on his ass.
    His grin widened.
    â€œWhy do I suspect there’s a story in that?” she asked, her mere voice music to his ears. It was husky but sweet. “I don’t remember you being in the security field when I met you the first time.”
    He hadn’t been the first time, or the second or third, for that matter. He’d marveled over it before, but it was really bizarre the way they seemed to run into each other from time to time. Friends of friends, but never quite directly linked to any one source, as though they were being cast about in some giant cosmic pinball machine.
    â€œThere’s a bit of a tale,” he told her, a grin twitching on his lips. He stowed