Chapter 12
Nash
That kiss was a mistake.
No.
It was a goddamn revelation.
Soft and demanding. Sweet and savage. She kissed like she meant it. Like she knew exactly what she wanted and dared me to meet her in the middle.
Hell if I didn’t want to.
But then Miriam showed up with her spiked cocoa and sugar cookies and a reminder of the real world—the one where Noel Hart is just passing through, and I’ve got no business letting a woman like her get under my skin. Unless…would she really stay an be my mail-order bride…forever?
I grab the kettle and refill her mug. She’s already on her second marshmallow mountain, buried under blankets, legs curled under her on the couch.
“Still mad about Miriam?” she asks, eyes not leaving the screen as Kevin McCallister slaps aftershave on his cheeks and screams.
“You kissed me under the mistletoe.”
She peeks up at me over her cocoa, eyes sparkling. “You didn’t hate the kiss.”
I grunt. “Didn’t say I did.”
“And you’re still watching Home Alone with me.”
“Didn’t say I liked that either.”
She grins, wicked. “Liar.”
I hand her the cocoa. Our fingers brush.
The air thickens again.
“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” I mutter.
Her smile falters just a little. “Who says I can’t?”
The way she says it… soft, but sure. Like she’s daring me to call her bluff.
I drop down beside her on the couch, close enough to feel her warmth, far enough that I don’t do something I’ll regret. Like kiss her again. Or haul her into my lap and find out if she tastes like cocoa and temptation everywhere else.
She shifts beside me, tucking her legs up, watching me more than the screen now.
“Were you planning on spending this Christmas alone?” she asks.
I nod.
“By choice?”
“By necessity.”
She sips. “That’s depressing.”
“It’s peaceful.”
She doesn’t speak right away. Just stares into the firelight like she’s chasing ghosts in the flames. “I used to dream about white Christmases when I lived in California. All the songs made it sound like magic.”
“And now?”
She looks at me, sleepy-eyed and soft. “Now I think the magic’s real.”
My chest tightens.
She doesn’t know it, but that’s the kind of thing that sticks. Burrows deep. Makes a man want things he shouldn’t want—like a life beyond this cabin. A future.
With her.
“You ever shut up, tinsel girl?” I ask, voice low.
She grins. “Only when someone kisses me stupid.”
I narrow my eyes. “You trying to get kissed again?”
She leans in. “Maybe.”
The snow howls outside. The wind slams against the glass. But all I hear is the silence between us.
And her breath.
And mine.
And the heartbeat that thuds hard in my chest like it already belongs to her.
I don’t kiss her again.
Not tonight.
Because if I do… I won’t stop.
And if I don’t stop, I’ll never let her go.