Sex, Lies and Mistletoe

Caleb sauntered beside her, his long legs easily keeping up with her rushed steps.

Everyone in the store moved, too. Apparently, customers were positioning themselves for the best view into the café.

Tobias, however, followed them right through the beads.

“I’m so glad to see so many holiday shoppers,” Pandora called back through the beaded doorway of the café. “I know Cassiopeia will be thrilled when I tell her who was in buying merchandise today.”

That got them going. Customers scurried to shelves, displays and tables in search of something to keep the town woo-woo queen from cursing them. Or worse, not giving them a peek into their future the next time they asked.

“I’m sure Pandora won’t mind if we have a little chat before lunch,” Tobias said.

She shook her head no, and was about to offer to wait in the kitchen, when Caleb laid his hand on her arm again.

She froze. Her breath caught and her legs went weak at his touch. The guy wasn’t even looking at her and she was about to melt into a puddle at his feet. While his only use for her was to avoid talking to his daddy.

Yep, he was bad news.

Needing to unfog her brain, and unlust her body, she stepped away.

“I’m just passing through,” Caleb said, leaning casually against the wall. But the smirk he shot Pandora was amused, as if he knew exactly what kind of effect he had on her.

“How long until you passed through my front door?” Tobias challenged. “You were going to let me know you were in town, weren’t you?”

Silence. The hottie had that intense, brooding rebellious thing down pat. Without him saying a word, Pandora knew he hadn’t planned to see his father, would have preferred that dear ole dad didn’t even know he was in town and was thoroughly pissed to be put in the position of defending himself.

The air in the café was heavy with tension. So out of her element she wanted to turn heel and run all the way back to San Francisco, Pandora shifted from one foot to the other, forcing herself to stay in place.

“Today’s special is a hot and spicy double meatball sandwich and four-layer Foreplay Chocolate Cake for dessert,” she blurted out in her perkiest waitress voice.

It wasn’t until both men shot her identical looks of shocked amusement that she realized what she’d offered. Oh, hell. She wanted to smack her hand over her mouth in horror. Her lust for Caleb was bad enough, but for it to sneak out in front of his father?

“I mean, um, that’s the menu. Not an offer, you know? I wouldn’t do that. Hit on a customer, I mean. That’d be rude.”

Holy crap, Pandora thought. It was like taking her foot out of her mouth and shoving her ass in instead.

Thankfully, Caleb was sticking with his brooding silence. Wincing, she glanced at Tobias, who still looked amused. With an actual reason this time.

“I’ll let the two of you do lunch, then,” the older man decided. He glanced through the beaded doorway. Pandora followed his gaze and cringed. How’d the crowd get even bigger?

She couldn’t make Tobias go out there. They’d be on him like a pack of rabid dogs. And yes, she eyed the older man, noting the freakishly calm stance and lack of anger emanating off him, he could probably handle himself fine. Better than she could, that was for sure.

Still …

“Tobias, did you want to—”

Before she could finish the sentence, Caleb snapped to attention, straightening from the wall like a stiff board. Nice to know he could get stiff that fast; she almost smirked. Then she saw the intense anger in his eyes and swallowed.

What? Did he think she was going to invite his dad to stay?

“It’s a little crowded with shoppers in the store now,” she finished slowly, choosing her words as if they would guide her through a live minefield. “So, um, would you like to go out the back and cut across the alley to your own shop?”

Tobias rocked back on his heels, mimicking his son’s stance and considered the two of them. He glanced through the beads again and then arched a brow at Caleb.

Clueless, Pandora looked at the younger man, too, trying to figure out what the silent question was that had just been asked. But she couldn’t read a thing on either man’s face.

She wanted to scream. Even if it wasn’t a talent, she’d at least had a decent grasp of reading body language—bs, that was. Before Sean. Now? She might as well be blind.

She eyed the two men and their stoic faces and apparently relaxed stance. They came across as totally mellow strangers. And the hair on the back of her neck was standing up due to all the antagonism flying through the room.

It was frustrating the hell out of her.

“Thanks, Pandora,” Tobias accepted. Then he flashed her a charming smile. “And is there any chance I could get a piece of that cake to go? I was too full after lunch, but it’d be a nice snack later.”

Pandora bit her lip, not sure why she felt as if she needed to stick around and protect Caleb. The man obviously didn’t need little ole her standing in front of him.

But still …

“I’d appreciate it,” Tobias prodded.

Unable to do otherwise, Pandora nodded and hurried into the tiny kitchen at the far end of the sunroom. She cut a fat slab of cake and scooped it into a cardboard box, not bothering to lick the decadent ganache off her knuckle as she pressed the lid down and rushed back out.

Neither man had moved. From what she could tell, neither had said a word, either.

“Here you go,” she said, staying by the kitchen and its door to the alley, instead of taking the cake over to Tobias. “I hope you enjoy it. It’s my favorite recipe.”

Tobias gave his son a nod, then strode toward Pandora. A goodbye? Or acknowledgment that Caleb had won this round? Pandora wasn’t sure which.

Caleb, of course, just stood there. Did nothing rile the guy?

“I do appreciate your hospitality,” Tobias said as he reached her. “For the cake, and for making my son feel welcome. I’m sure one bite of your delicious offerings and he’ll be ready to stay in Black Oak and enjoy himself for a while.”

“Um, you’re welcome?” Pandora murmured. She wanted to point out that as delicious as chocolate was, it wasn’t magic cake. He was asking for an awful lot from a lunch that she wasn’t even sure Caleb would eat.

Without another word to her, or to his son, Tobias gave a jaunty wave and headed out the back door. Pandora plaited her fingers together, staring in the direction Tobias had gone until she heard the door close. She shifted her gaze to the café tables then, noting that half needed tidying.

Her gaze landed everywhere but on Caleb.

Murmurs rose from the store. She turned, grateful that something might demand her attention.

Then she winced. She could almost feel the barbs of fury shooting at her from the disappointed crowd. They’d obviously thought the show would move into the store, where they could get a better view. They’d probably positioned themselves to best greet, and grill, Tobias as he left the café. And she’d ruined it.

But she didn’t hear the chimes over the front door ring at all, which meant they were still circling, waiting for fresh meat. Or in this case, a hunk named Caleb.

They could just keep waiting. And, hopefully, purchasing. After all, she was apparently giving away cake back here.

Speaking of …

“Would you like something to eat?” she asked, finally looking directly at Caleb.

Under his slash of black brows, his eyes were intense as he inspected her. His expression didn’t change as his gaze traveled from her face, then skimmed down her body in a way that made her wish she was wearing one of those loose, New Agey dresses Fifi and Cassiopeia wore.

Or that she was naked.

Either one would be better than this feeling that there wasn’t a chance in hell she could measure up to the sexual challenge Caleb presented.

A sexual challenge she wasn’t even positive he was issuing. For all she knew, the guy gave that same hot but unreadable look to his mail lady when she asked him to sign for delivery.

Her body on fire, her mind a mess of tangled thoughts, she gave in to the desire to run.

“I’ll be right back,” she muttered as she hurried back to the small kitchen again. This time, instead of hacking through the cake and throwing it in a container, she carefully selected a plate, cut a precise slice and centered it on the cobalt glass plate. She retrieved a can of whipped cream and sprayed a sweet little rosette of white on top of the chocolate.

This was crazy. It wasn’t as though the guy was going to ask her on a date. He was here to … What? Shop for Christmas gifts? Score an aphrodisiac-laced lunch?

Pandora groaned. Oh, wouldn’t that be sweet? Insane, impossible and inconceivable—but so sweet to have sex with a man like Caleb Black. A man who, with just one look, could make her body go lax, her legs quiver and her nipples beg in pouty supplication.

But Caleb Black was the kind of guy who went for powerful women. A woman who could hold her own, who would demand he fulfill her every fantasy and in doing so, would show him things he hadn’t even dreamed of yet.

In other words, totally not Pandora.

Except … she wanted him for herself.

She grabbed two forks, setting one neatly on the plate. With the other she stabbed a huge chunk from the cake still on the serving dish. Shoving it in her mouth, she closed her eyes and, with a sigh, let the chocolate work its way through her system. Calming, centering, soothing.

God, she loved chocolate.

More than sex, she insisted to herself. Which was a lie, of course, but with a little work she might start believing it. After all, chocolate’s only threat was to her hips.

Swallowing hard as she imagined what kind of threat Caleb might pose to her body, she scooped up the plate and forced herself to return to the café.

“You look like that visit barely registered on your stress meter, but mine is off the charts. Nothing pulls me out of the dumps like chocolate, so I figured you might want some,” she said with a sheepish smile as she set the cake on a nearby table. Glancing through the beads at the nosy crowd, she sighed, then sat opposite the plate and waited.

“Why’s it empty in here?” he asked, his voice as surly as his scowl. But hey, words were words. Who was she to quibble over tone?

“The café closes at two. We still have shoppers in the store, but Fifi is helping them. People know we’re closed. They won’t come back here,” she assured him. “It’s not much, but at least it’s a tiny semblance of privacy.”

He gave her a look, those gold eyes dark. She could see the anger in them now, as clearly as she could see it in the set of his chin and his clenched fists. But now she could see hurt, too, in the way he hunched his shoulders, the droop of his lips.

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