Same Time, Next Christmas. Christine Rimmer

      She groaned. “The next guy? Like there’ve been a hundred of them?”

      He sat very still. She could practically see the wheels turning inside his big head. “Wait. I think that came out wrong.”

      “No, it didn’t. Not at all. I’m just messing with you.”

      “You’re probably thinking I’m a jerk just like Stan.” He looked so worried about that. She wanted to grab him and hug him and tell him everything was fine—and that was at least the second time tonight she’d considered putting her hands on him for other than purely medical reasons.

      It had to stop.

      “No,” she said. “I honestly don’t think you’re a jerk—and look, Matthias, I’ve been meaning to ask you...”

      Matthias felt like a jerk, whether or not Sabra considered him one. He’d been having a great time with her, like they’d known each other forever.

      Until he went and put his foot in it. As a rule, he was careful around women. He wasn’t ready for anything serious, so he watched himself, made sure he didn’t give off the wrong signals.

      But Sabra. Well, already she was kind of getting under his skin. There was so damn much to admire about her—and she was fun. And hot.

      But they’d agreed that the man/woman thing wasn’t happening. He was friend-zoned and he could live with that. Anything more, well...

      It would be too easy to fall for her. And he didn’t want to fall for anyone. Not yet. Maybe never. The last year or so, he’d finally started to feel like his life was back on track. True, getting something going with a woman could turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to him.

      But it might send him spinning off the rails.

      He just wasn’t ready to find out which.

      “Do you maybe have some sweats I could wear?” she asked. “Something soft to sleep in would be great...”

      She was going to bed now? It wasn’t much past nine.

      No doubt about it. He’d definitely screwed up.

      “Uh, sure,” he said, and tried not to let his disappointment show. “Take anything you want from whatever’s upstairs.”

      “I was thinking I might even have a bath, if that’s all right with you?”

      “Now?”

      “Well, I mean, no time like the present, right?”

      “Absolutely. Go ahead.”

      She got up. “Can I get you anything before I—”

      “No. Really. I’m good.”

      She took off up the stairs. Not five minutes later, she came running back down with an armful of his clothes and disappeared into the bathroom.

      He sat there and stared at the tree and tried not to imagine what she was doing behind that shut door. Really, he must be getting better fast—he had the erection to prove it.

       Friend-zoned, you idiot. And that’s how you want it.

      He needed to take his mind off his exceptionally clear mental image of Sabra, naked in the tub, her almost-black hair piled up on her head, random strands curling in the steam rising from the water, clinging to the silky skin of her neck as she raised one of those gorgeous long legs of hers and braced her foot on the side of the tub.

      Lazily, humming a holiday tune under her breath, she would begin to work up a lather. Soap bubbles would dribble slowly along her inner thigh...

      Matt swore, a graphic string of bad words.

      And then he grabbed his cane and shot to his feet, only swaying a little as his bad leg took his weight—yeah, he’d promised her he would stay on the sofa unless he had a good reason to get up.

      Well, clearing his mind of certain way-too-tempting images was a good enough reason for him.

      He limped over to the bookcase. She’d set the box of books he’d brought from home right there in the corner on the floor.

      Might as well shelve them. He got to work, his leg complaining a little when he bent down to grab the next volume. But it wasn’t that painful and it kept his mind from wandering to places it had no business going.

      He was three-quarters of the way through the box when the bathroom door opened.

      “Matthias. What the— You promised you’d stay off your feet.”

      Yep. He could already smell the steaminess from across the room—soap and wet and heat and woman.

      “Matthias?”

      Slowly, so as not to make a fool of himself lurching on his bad leg and proving how right she was that he shouldn’t be on his feet, he turned to her.