Christmas Kisses

2. Angel

2

ANGEL

I wait for Danny to enter his apartment at the end of the hallway before I dump the box of sex toys at my feet and rummage through my purse for my keys. They’re a bastard to find since they now only house two keys—one for the lockbox in the foyer where I place my room-share key and another for my apartment door.

I sold my car last year to fund the legal fight Danny tiptoed around. It has cost me more than I can afford, but I’m not solely fighting for me. It is also for the residents who lived in this building before it became the preferred zip code of the famous.

I don’t blame people like Presley and Willow for wanting to reside here. I’d just rather the giant corporation who funded this building’s improvements not forget about the little guys who paid the mortgage decades before the foundation of his company.

“Come on.”

I grunt like my key weighs a ton before reentering it into a lock that looks shiner than it did hours ago. I can’t have the wrong key. The lockbox key is half the size of my front door key and clutched in my palm.

“Why aren’t you working?”

No matter how hard I twist the key, the lock fails to unlock.

I’m close to snapping the key when my door finally pops open. I didn’t hear the lock disengage, but I’m so relieved that I barge into the foyer, almost knocking over the half-naked man answering my door.

Dear lord, did someone go to Vegas and borrow one of the Thunder from Down Under men?

Burnt-orange hair, a sexy, pouty mouth shown off by the slight downward tilt of his chunky lips, a scruffy I-want-to-go-for-a-ride beard, and eyes that scream innocence.

If only his body knew the word.

It couldn’t be more corrupt if it tried.

Since a small white towel offers little coverage for the tattooed skin of his pectoral muscles and the impressive bumps in his abs, I have no trouble conjuring up a word to describe him.

Wicked.

Naughty.

If Jack Teller and Henry Cavill had a baby, this man would be it.

I am ten seconds from a hot flush, and I’m far from perimenopause age.

“Um. I…” I wipe the spit from my lips before trying again. “Did Aunt Bec send my Christmas present early?”

I hook my thumb to my open front door while silently praying for him to say yes. I’ll be devastated if he is one of the backpackers I often rent my spare room to. I have a no-touch rule with lodgers since one at the beginning of my tiptoe into landlord territory misunderstood a one-night stand as a permanent invitation to my bed.

I wouldn’t have minded if he wasn’t an atrocious lay. He couldn’t find my clit with a map and a compass, and even when I led him directly to it, he fumbled so much it wilted along with my excitement.

“And aren’t you meant to remove your clothes after I invite you in?” When he appears stumped, I drag my box into the foyer of my apartment before entering the living room. “I don’t mind that you’ve mixed things up. The removal of clothes is the most infuriating part of a strippergram. I have no patience. None. Zilch. Zip. So if you want to start in a towel, I’m all for it.”

Holy hell. Men deserving of their own subentry note under “sexy” in a dictionary blush?

Who would have known?

“You think I’m a stripper?”

I was hoping he was a gift from my aunt Rebecca, but his accent is throwing me off.

Perhaps that’s the issue?

Maybe strippers are called something else in the UK?

I lower my brows before asking, “What do they call strippers in the UK?”

His accent is hotter when he is riled. “I’m reasonably sure the same thing you call them here.”

He steps closer, making it an effort to keep my eyes on his face. He has those chunky rugby thighs I’m obsessed with. I don’t watch rugby because I’m a fan of sports. It is to add the players’ thighs to my memory bank for future use. It is off season. Hence me needing more than one battery-operated sex toy to get off.

“I’m just confused as to why you seem to think I am one.”

“Aunt Bec,” I huff out with a laugh as if that is the answer to everything. “She’s a little… randy .” My impersonation of his accent during my last word is appalling.

“Clearly if you believe she is responsible for this…” He waves his hand around my apartment in the same manner I used to articulate “randy” before dragging it down his barely-covered body. It is a fight to remove my eyes from his rock-hard abs when he continues. “Though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little in love with your aunt.”

Laughing, I slouch back on my couch and then fold my arms over my chest. “Last birthday, she set me up on four blind dates… at the same time . She had taken a liking to reverse harem books over the summer and thought I should experience it since I’m her only single niece.”

I grit my teeth. I’m meant to be waving an I’m-not-interested flag, not announcing my single status.

I watch him closely while murmuring, “She said something about four holes being filled at once.” He looks confused, prompting me to say, “I’m still trying to work out where my fourth hole is.”

He smirks, and it makes the conditions in the living room unbearable. I love Aunt Rebecca, but she can be a pain. Principles have no part in her life plan. That’s why she left me to fight this battle on my own. I could be sipping champagne on her latest husband’s mega yacht if my father hadn’t drummed values into me at a young age.

My thoughts are returned to the present when the half-naked man in my apartment says, “Isn’t the fourth hole your ear?”

“I thought the same,” I reply. “But wouldn’t that make it five holes?” I point to my mouth, my pussy, my ass, and then both my ears, tripling his delicious red hue. “That’s five.”

He twists his lips as if he’s never considered that before he inches closer, making the flame burning me from the inside out even hotter. This man is so sexy that I’m on the cusp of being incinerated. “I guess you are right.” A trickle of disappointment treks through my veins when he says, “Perhaps we can discuss it further during dinner?”

His reply exposes he’s my new houseguest, which makes me even more wishful that he was a man who talked with his hands. The number of moves his mouth does as he expresses himself has me picturing its skill in far less amicable positions. I promised no more naked downward dog yoga poses with paying guests after Aunt Bec had to fly halfway across the globe to kick out the last dud.

“We can eat out or order in.”

After sighing away my disappointment, I say, “You’ll never get a reservation this close to Christmas, so my vote is in.”

Nodding, he twists to face a phone on the kitchen counter. I yank my phone out of my pocket. I don’t recall an email from my Airbnb hostess account, but my service has been on the fritz since I reached forty-five thousand unopened emails. It desperately needs a cleanout—just like the cobwebs between my legs.

My eyes shoot up from the “No new emails found” message at the bottom of my inbox when my new houseguest says, “I’m happy for us to eat here, but if you’d rather we do that at your apartment, that’s fine as well.”

“ My apartment?” When he nods, I laugh. “This is my apartment. I don’t know what you thought you were signing up for, but the advertisement clearly states a room in a shared apartment.”

He spins to face me so fast that he almost loses his towel.

Only almost.

Bah humbug!

“What do you mean? What advertisement?”

And here I was thinking Englishmen were smart.

I give him a look as if I am sorry he has all the brawn and only a little bit of brain. I’m not, but I’m a seasoned actor, so he will never know. “The Airbnb ad.”

He still looks stumped. “I’ve never used Airbnb in my life.”

Confusion echoes in my tone. “Then what are you doing here? I barely have time for Airbnb’s app, so I haven’t advertised my room to rent anywhere else.”

“I’m here because this is my apartment.” He speaks slowly as if I am dumb, and it ensures I have no trouble hearing the pure honesty in his tone.

After trudging across my living room floor, I pull open my door and thrust my hand at the 17B brass lettering on the door. “Apartment 17B.” I yank my driver’s license out of my purse before highlighting the address next to the dreaded ill-timed, not-allowed-to-smile photograph. “17B.”

“Um.” His skin is already pasty, but it whitens more when he moves for a wad of papers next to his phone. “17B,” he mimics while dragging his finger across the address cited on a recently approved tenancy agreement.

“What the hell?” I snatch the document out of his hand so ruefully that ripping shreds through my ears. “This can’t be right,” I gabber out after scanning the document’s first page. “This is my apartment. I’ve lived here for years.” It is actually decades. I just don’t want him to mistake my inability not to frown as old-age wrinkles.

“That’s not what the building supervisor said while showing me through my apartment.” His arrogance lowers a smidge before he mutters, “And while changing the locks.” A serious expression crosses his face. “Were you given an eviction notice?”

“Yes, but they don’t count.” When he scoffs, I talk faster. “We have court orders”—I droop like a picked flower on a summer’s day when he arches a brow—“in the process of being lodged.” When my backflip loses me his trust, I say, “I’ll prove it.”

My stomach gurgles when my attempt to contact my lawyer is thwarted by a voicemail message. Their office is closed until the new year, and I don’t have a leg to stand on since I forwarded all the documents about my wrongful eviction to my lawyer last week.