AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Ah, damn, and here I thought we were finally going to hear what brought him here and what causes those flashes of loneliness and hurt I see in his eyes more often than not,” Cathy complained as he walked off.
“As long as you don’t treat this moment as a door to keep prodding the man to open up about his life. You know he is a very private person and made it clear from day one, he preferred to keep it that way,” Samuel, Cathy’s husband, warned in a serious tone. He was all too aware of how pushy his wife could be.
“He’s the one who opened the door, my love. All I did was prod it a little further with my toe,” Cathy defended herself, but Clarissa didn’t miss the determination glistening in her eyes. Once her older sister had her mind set on something, nothing would stop her until she achieved her goal.
Unfortunately for Rick, his life story had just been placed on the top of her to-do-list.
“I agree with Samuel, Cathy. Leave the man be.”
“Very well,” she said sourly, then smiled brightly. “But there’s nothing stopping you from trying to find out his story, especially since you’ll be working very closely with him the day before Christmas Eve.”
“What are you talking about?” A sense of doom enveloped Clarissa.
“Your sister didn’t tell you?” Rick said as he rejoined the table. He shifted into the booth beside her so close, the length of his hard thigh pressed against hers. Clarissa froze as his large hand gently caressed her inner thigh under the table. “She volunteered your services to help me bake a hundred dozen gingerbread man and woman cookies for homeless families. We’ll be distributing them on Christmas Eve.”
“You volunteered my services?” Clarissa’s icy glare pierced through her sister. “Without discussing it with me? AND knowing how I feel about gingerbread cookies?”
“Well, you always say you’d like to be more a part of the community during your visits,” Cathy defended herself. “This is the perfect way to do just that. Besides, once you taste Rick’s King Ricardo III’s gingerbread cookies, you’ll swoon and forever change your view. Mark my words, little sis.”
“I am not a baker in any shape or form, and you know it,” Clarissa berated her. “All I’ll be doing is slowing down the entire process. A hundred dozen gingerbread cookies, for heaven’s sake! I’ll be drowned in despair by the time we finish twenty! No, I’m sorry, Rick, but Cathy should’ve known better. There’s just no way I can help you bake those… those…”
“Atrocious cookies, I believe you called them earlier,” he provided helpfully.
“Exactly. I’m sorry. It just can’t be done.”
“Hmm, in this, I believe, time will tell.”
“Time has nothing to do with it, Chef Butler. The owner of this body and hands who has been volunteered,”—a sweltering glare hit her sister—“already said it. It’s not happening.”
“Perhaps it’s the best opportunity to face a new challenge in life, Clarissa,” Rick said as he bit into a lavishly buttered roll. “Seize the day. Take the bull by the horns… and take a bite of my gingerbread cookies.”
“No, thank you. As I’ve said on more than one occasion, I can’t stand them, and nothing is going to change my mind.”
“We shall see, little one. We shall see.”
Chapter Seven
Gateway Inn …
“Thank you for a lovely dinner and for bringing me home. Have a good night,” Clarissa said as she got out of his truck with a brief smile in Rick’s general direction.
She had been avoiding his eyes most of the evening, between doing her best to avoid his caressing hand on her leg. The man was irritatingly insistent. What bothered her the most was how much she enjoyed his attention. Her body was trembling with the lust he had slowly managed to spark to life within her loins throughout dinner.
Now, it was time to end it.
Indulging the growing desire inside her with a man she didn’t know wasn’t on the cards. Not during this trip. She came here to unwind, to destress, not add to it by having a torrid affair with the new local hero of the town.
She was so intent on getting to her room before she fell apart from sheer unexpurgated lust, she didn’t notice Rick parking the truck and sprinting after her. When she unlocked the door, he was there and walked in after her.
“What are you doing here, Rick?” Her stomach knotted tightly. It was becoming exceedingly difficult to keep her hands off him.
“I’m getting tired of repeating myself. I told you to call me Daddy when we’re alone.”
“And I told you I’m not into all that stuff.”
“Prove it.”
“I have no desire to prove anything. I am not your little one, and you’re not my Daddy. Got that?”
