Unwrapped Read Free Page A

and I’m still there. Guess they’ll be carving the turkey without me tonight.”
    “I live in Cincinnati too. In Clifton.”
    “I’m in Hyde Park. We’re practically neighbors.” Though they weren’t exactly the same kind of zip code. Not surprisingly, Blue lived in a city neighborhood where a lot of college kids and coffee shops were. Christian lived in an upper middle-class family area, with some young professionals thrown in. It was safe and he was close to work, but sometimes he glanced around at all the strollers and wondered if he was missing out on the nightlife of a hipper neighborhood. Then he realized what he really wanted was a family, not the opportunity to hit the bars every night.
    “Is your family going to worry?”
    “Definitely. My mom is probably freaking out already. Hopefully I can call her when we get to a gas station. She panics, but hell, that’s what moms do, right?”
    “Not mine.”
    The tone was so matter of fact that Christian risked taking his eyes off the road and glanced over at her. Blue didn’t look upset, just resigned. “What do you mean?”
    “My mom doesn’t worry about anything. She prides herself on being zen.”
    “Is she going on the cruise with you?”
    Blue snorted. “Oh, please. I had to endure a lecture on the frivolity and social irresponsibility of cruise ships. My mother is actually in South America with an indigenous tribe. She wanted me to go, but eating bugs isn’t my idea of a good time.”
    Yikes. “And I thought eggnog was disgusting.”
    Blue laughed. “Yeah, well, all I wanted was a mai tai or two but it’s starting to look doubtful.”
    “Cookies. That’s what I want. My sister bakes these cookies that are basically just sugar and lard. I can eat about a hundred in two days.”
    “Somehow I don’t think you’re exaggerating,” she told him in a teasing tone of voice.
    “You calling me fat?” Christian grinned as he eased down the exit ramp and stopped at the light and turned to look at her.
    Her eyes rolled up and down the length of him. “Hardly.”
    Oh, he knew that tone.
    And he liked it.
    “It’s my one weakness,” he told her, his whole body registering the fact that despite the cold outside it was suddenly very hot inside his car.
    “The only one?” she asked, her tongue slipping out to wet her lips.
    Christian wanted to groan. There was something about the way she held his gaze, the way she moved, so sensual and erotic, yet there was nothing in-your-face or tacky about her. It was like she just had an inherent sexuality and he found that really smoking hot.
    “No. I can definitely think of one more.”
    And if he could get it, he wouldn’t even miss the cookies.

Chapter Three
    B lue was flirting. She was stranded in the middle of nowhere Kentucky with a broken down car and a cruise ship pulling out of port the next day most likely without her and she was flirting with Christian, her knight in a white SUV.
    She supposed she could tell herself it was her amazingly sunny disposition finding the silver lining, but the truth was it wasn’t her cheerful self calling the shots right now, but her undersexed one. It had been months since she had dated and Christian was cute with a capital C. He had dimples and a grin that made her want to grab his cheeks and kiss the hell out of him. He was sweet and funny and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt there were some serious muscles hiding beneath his many layers of clothing.
    So she was flirting. What of it? She deserved to after nearly dying in this bitch of a snowstorm.
    “What weakness is that? Fast cars or loose women?”
    Christian pulled into a gas station right off the exit. “Neither. I like beautiful women, not loose ones.”
    At the moment, Blue thought she was probably out of the running then, because she felt pretty damn easy sharing this small space with him.
    “Beautiful women like you.”
    She almost blurted out a very middle school, ‘you think I’m beautiful?’ but