Free Lovers by Christmas: by Angelita Gill Page B

take my eyes off you since.”
    She lifted one brow. “Is that what you tell all the girls?”
    “I don’t talk to girls.” He drank more of the Hemingway. “I talk to women. You’re the first woman to walk in this place in a long time.”
    Her stomach flipped. The man had game. “That’s quite the compliment.”
    He didn’t seem take any triumph in knowing that. “I was just being honest. Tell me. Do you like the holidays or are you hoping they pass as fast as they can?”
    She considered her answer. “A bit of both.”
    “Me too. Can I ask why?”
    “It…emphasizes what I’m missing.” She shifted her gaze. “What I lost. I won’t ever have something like that again.”
    “Or what you could have, in my case,” he said. “Christmas is for families, isn’t it? I don’t have one of those. I spent a lot of time working on my career that starting one sort of passed me by.”
    “You’re a man. You could have a family anytime, virtually at any age. Why do you talk like it’s too late?”
    “Why did you?”
    A rush of heat swept over her, but she chose not to answer, and neither it seemed, would he. Was he purposely peeling back her layers or was this just a game? Either way, she didn’t know if she wanted this to go any further. Attempting to scare him off, she said, “Whatever you’re looking for, you won’t find it in me.”
    “Why do I have to be looking for something?” he drawled.
    “Why else would you come all the way over here to buy me a drink?”
    His brow lowered for a moment. “You’re too cynical for your age, you know.”
    “Life isn’t about age, it’s about experiences.”
    “You’re only saying that because you lost someone.”
    Kenner’s sharp perception picked up on her loss of a loved one. Suddenly, she felt she could open up to this stranger a little bit. Or maybe it was the alcohol telling her that. “He died two years ago. Weak heart. He was a photographer, a huge soccer fan, made the perfect grilled cheese sandwich…and I loved him.”
    Kenner said nothing, and she dropped her gaze, swallowing the emotion that’d built in her throat. He crooked a knuckle and brushed her chin, encouraging her to look up. She did.
    “What was his name?” he asked.
    She exhaled on a relieved breath. “Ben.” It’d been so long since she said his name out loud. Long enough for her to feel good when she said it, instead of bursting into tears. Even Simon didn’t bring Ben up anymore, and he used to talk about him often. But speaking of the dead often made people uncomfortable, especially if they’d processed the death faster than she did.
    “Ben is a lucky man,” he said after a minute.
    “Was.”
    “Is.” He tucked a hand in his pants pocket and drank more Hemingway. “He still has your heart.”
    Of course he did. No one had claimed it since. A part of her heart would always belong to Ben, but he was gone, and he told her to love again. She wanted to love again. “I told you you wouldn’t find what you’re looking for in me.”
    His eyes bore into hers, then he dragged it away toward the stage. “It’s not your heart I’ve been staring at.”
    Everything about him screamed sex. It poured off him like radio waves, and somehow made her want it. No. It wasn’t her heart he was after. He’d been staring at her body and through to her soul. He was so casual about it too, as if she was an open book to him. She’d already shared something very personal about herself, without him asking, and now sought to put the spotlight on him. To even the playing field.
    “You don’t fool me, Kenner.”
    That caught him off guard. “What do you mean?”
    “This—man of dark mystery act you’ve got going on. Other women might swoon over it, but I don’t.”
    “I don’t act.”
    “But you have a persona do you not?” She deliberately raked him from toe to head. “By the cut of your pants and shirt, I’d say you are a very particular man. Precise. Just like your expensive