Page 58 of Puppy Christmas

Chapter 12

Lila wasn’t sure what woke her.

She sat up, her sheet clutched to her chest as she made a quick survey of her surroundings. The house wasn’t on fire, no nighttime intruder was creeping in through her window, and no puppies seemed to be howling from the kennel. In fact, if it weren’t for her heart pounding like a bass drum in her chest, she might have thought this was nothing but a dream.

Her phone buzzed from the side table, clattering against the wood-grain surface. That sound caused both her body and her heart to jump once again, reinforcing the idea that she was very much awake—and probably would be for hours.

“What the—” she muttered as she scrambled to grab the phone and peer at the screen. “Who’s calling me in the dead of night?”

The call wasn’t, as she’d at first feared, from her parents. She didn’t recognize the number, but as she glanced at the clock to find that the time read exactly 12:15, she had a good idea who might be at the other end.

“Hello, Ford,” she said, ignoring the thump of her heart, which beat more from anticipation than fright this time. “Did the first nighttime alarm go well?”

“It worked like a charm, as I’m sure you already know. Jeeves woke up. He woke Emily up. She woke me up. I, unfortunately, seem to be the only one who didn’t immediately fall back asleep.”

Lila smiled into the handset, but she kept her voice coolly polite as she responded, “And you felt it incumbent upon yourself to make sure I suffered along with you?”

“Yes,d-a-m-m-i-t. If I’m going to have to lie here until the next alarm, staring at the ceiling and wishing you were in this bed with me, then the least you can do is talk to me in your phone-sex-operator voice.”

She was so startled she almost dropped her cell phone. She clutched it in suddenly shaking fingers, her knees sliding up under the sheets to rest against her chest. “I’m sorry—what did you just say?”

“You heard me,” he growled. His voice was rough with what she assumed was sleepiness. “You can start by telling me what you’re wearing.”

“You can’t just call me up in the middle of the night and demand to be told a story,” she countered, though without much heat. Being awakened by a grumpy man who wanted to hear about her monogrammed pajama set was a new experience for her, but it wasn’t an unpleasant one. “Youtell me whatyou’rewearing.”

“Flannel pants,” he said curtly. “The same ones you’ve seen me in twelve thousand times already.”

She clutched her knees more tightly against her chest. She might not be the most imaginative woman in the world, but she could clearly picture Ford at that exact moment. He was in those weirdly attractive black-and-red-checked pants, his chest bare, his hair tousled. With any luck, he’d have the rough growth of his beard already coming in, his blue eyes darker than usual with desire.

Unable to help herself, she emitted a small sigh.

“I do have other pajamas,” he added somewhat defensively. “But these are comfortable, and they keep me warm when I have to go outside five times a night.”

“Jeeves shouldn’t need to go out that much. Are you sure you’re not overwatering him?”

He growled once again. “I didn’t call to talk to you about thatd-a-m-ndog. What are you wearing?”

She extended her legs out in front of her and examined the pink floral shorts and matching top. There was no way to describe them with anything but terms like prim, proper, and prudish, so she changed the subject. “My mom says she’s free to babysit on Saturday, if that works for you. I thought we might go—”

“Lila Vasquez, I swear on everything I know and love, if you don’t tell me about the wisps of satin and lace currently adorning that gorgeous body of yours, I’m going to drive over there and examine them for myself.”

She chuckled and sank into her pillows, unable to prevent a pool of longing from spreading warmly down her belly. Wisps of satin and lace would have been a much better choice in this situation, but there was no way she could have guessed that her night would end up like this. Men didn’t normally call her and demand to be aroused by nothing more than the sound of her voice.

At least, they didn’t used to. Clearly, her life had been a sheltered one up until now.

“You’re kind of a grouch in the middle of the night,” she accused. “Is my voice really like a phone-sex operator’s? I always thought those jobs were given to sixty-year-old chain smokers.”

“That isnotthe image I want in my head right now, thank you very much.”

“Well, it’s the image you’re getting, so stop complaining. She can be a bosomy chain smoker, if that helps.”

His low laugh did nothing to abate the spike of pleasure that was working its way up from her belly toward the rest of her body—particularly her own bosomy areas. She’d been acutely aware of those parts for days, of pleasure and anticipation tingling in every nerve.

“If that’s all you’re going to give me, I’ll take it,” he said. “You could recite the alphabet to me, and I’d be hard by the time you reachedF. Tell me all about this chain smoker. What’sshewearing?”

“Leather pants,” Lila said promptly. She wouldn’t normally play along with such a ridiculous demand, but these particular ridiculous demands were doing strange things to her insides. She needed the distraction. “They’re a relic of her youth. She used to be part of a motorcycle gang.”

His growl this time contained less grumbling and more interest. “I like where this is heading. Proceed.”