Free A Yowling Yuletide by Celeste Hall Page A

revealed a
tiny, almost spritely figure underneath.
    He realized she couldn't be taller than five
foot nothing and probably weighed as much as that coat she'd been
wearing.
    "Hi, I'm Miranda. The temp agency sent me,"
the redhead beamed, offering her free hand across the desk towards
him. "I'll be filling in for your receptionist."
    Despite his battered ego and crushed heart,
he still felt his pulse speed up and muscles tense as if his body
were preparing for a race.
    Oh lord , Matt thought. This was going to end badly. He could already
tell.

You're a Mean One, Mr.
Grinch
     
    By noon, Matt was struggling to remember all
of the reasons why he hated women and would never date again. He
was doing his best to remain completely professional with the
woman, but she was making the job nearly impossible.
    Now, as he scowled down at her, she looked
up at him with dancing eyes and smiled.
    “ Am I doing this right?”
She asked, amusement curling the edges of her beautiful mouth as
she leaned back to give him a better view of the computer. But it
also gave him a spectacular view down her low cut blouse, which he
found to be almost irresistible.
    “ You’re doing fine,” he
growled trying to keep his gaze focused upon the work at hand,
rather than the exquisite, feminine curves she was
revealing.
    From where he stood, bent over with his
palms braced against the desk so that he could monitor her
progress, the sweet citrus scent of her shampoo would soon kill
him, if the soft warmth radiating up from her body didn’t get him
first.
    Her golden eyes flitted quickly over his
face, and he knew she must be struggling to understand his foul
mood. But he wasn’t about to explain that he was just one reckless
moment away from dragging her up out of that chair and kissing her
until neither of them could think straight.
    He’d never had such an overwhelming, almost
violent, attraction to a woman before. Not even Tanya, despite all
of the years that he’d fawned over her.
    She licked her lips nervously and he found
himself captivated by the motion. Combined with the open curiosity
in her eyes, it was enough to make every muscle in his stomach
harden to the point of pain.
    It almost looked as if she wanted him to
kiss her, in spite of how he’d treated her all morning. But he must
be mistaken. His ability to understand women was seriously flawed,
just look at how easily Tanya had played him.
    “ Keep going,” he ordered
tersely, dragging his gaze away to look at the couple that had just
walked in the door. The moment he saw who it was, his hands curled
into fists and he felt a muscle in his jaw pop in protest of
brutally clenched teeth.
    “ We’re just here to pick
up my last paycheck,” Rachel assured him, with a discreet attempt
to keep herself between Matt and the tall blue eyed man behind her.
She knew that her brother still held a grudge against Tyson and
she’d done a fairly good job of keeping them apart over the past
month.
    So why had she brought him here? Matt was
instantly suspicious.
    Then he saw the way that Tyson and Miranda
were staring at each other, as if they were lovers long separated
and eager to reunite. Although he’d only just met the girl, and had
no right to claim her, a possessive jealously flared up hot and
fierce inside him.
    He actually considered telling Miranda to go
wait in his office until Tyson was gone, but that would have
confirmed what the girl must already suspect. That he had
absolutely gone crazy.
    So he clenched his teeth and turned his back
on the others. The checks were stored in a locked drawer in his
desk. Although he trusted his sister not to investigate any of the
confidential and potentially volatile papers also secured in that
drawer, it was against company policy for anyone but him to open
it.
    As he headed down the hall to his office, he
heard the soft murmur of voices behind him and felt a silent snarl
curl his lips. He didn’t even want to consider what they might be
talking