Chapter 7 #3
“Sure.” She followed him down the hall, watching as he put on his shoes.
Without meaning to, he conjured mistletoe above her front door—just a sprig of green leaves with white berries innocently hanging there. When she opened the door, she noticed it.
“Uh, how’d that get here?” she asked, standing directly under it. “Probably Mrs. French next door. She’s convinced I need to be dating.”
“Why?”
“So I’ll have someone to share my life with,” Cora said. “You’d like her. Maybe she knows a woman who wants to get married quick.”
“Maybe she already knows one who wants to get kissed,” Nick said, realizing the wife thing seemed so much less important right now than Cora’s happiness.
“Who said they had to be linked? I like kisses,” she said, tipping her head to the side. The chill of the evening wrapped around them as a soft wind blew. Her hair stirred and Nick stepped closer to her.
“I like them too,” he admitted. Given that all he’d been able to think about was what she’d taste like, it made sense that he’d conjured the mistletoe.
He was consumed with the thought of kissing her, tasting her, finding out whether she’d be as addictive as peppermint was.
Would Cora become his new favorite flavor?
He was so close now that each exhalation of her breath brushed over his beard and he could feel the heat of it against his lips. Her eyes fluttered closed as she leaned toward him.
He leaned away. If he kissed her, things would change. His control was already hanging by a thread. There would be no more wondering; there would only be knowing. Knowing her taste. Knowing how her tongue felt against his. Knowing how the soft curve of her upper thigh felt against his palm.
He took a deep breath and her eyes opened.
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and looked him dead in the eye …
and he forgot about the ticking clock of responsibility.
Forgot about all the things he had to do as her breasts brushed against his chest. Forgot about Black Lumen and the dark knots in the Yearweave and her name on the Naughty List as she came up on her tiptoes and planted her mouth on his.
This was all about what he wanted to do. Not Santa Claus but Nick Bari. The embrace was aggressive for a split second before the kiss softened. Her mouth opened against his and he sucked her lower lip into his mouth as his tongue plunged deeper inside.
She tasted better than he could have imagined.
It was so good. She was so good. She brushed her finger against his neck, up to his ear, and toyed with his lobe as he pulled her more fully against him.
His arm slid around her waist while the other hand rested on her hip—and yet he wanted so much more.
That hunger that he’d been denying, that he felt was a gnawing ache in him …
he couldn’t walk away now. He angled his head to deepen the kiss and at the same time he lifted her off her feet.
Just as in his imagination, she wrapped one leg around his ass, and spark inside him flamed into life.
Her hands pushed up into his hair, holding his head as if she were afraid he was going to break the kiss.
He couldn’t. Nothing could make him do that.
His blood felt hot and heavy in his veins and his dick hardened.
He walked them both back inside her house and closed the door with his foot.
He leaned back against it for support, cupping her butt with his hands and lifting her higher so he could push his erection against her.
She moaned and pulled her head back, resting her forehead against his.
“Nick…”
Just his name on her lips made his dick jump in his pants.
In his arms, and wrapped around his body, she felt softer and sweeter than ever before.
This woman had him tied in knots. The kind of knots that could unravel his night, his career, and his entire world if he wasn’t careful.
It was supposed to be a kiss under the mistletoe.
Just one kiss.
He’d let it become more.
Let? Ha! He’d had no control over this situation from the moment he’d walked into her house. Her sadness, her spirit, her legs… He’d been unable to resist the powerfully sensual cocktail that was Cora.
“That didn’t hurt, did it?” she teased.
“Not at all,” he said, putting her back on her feet.
“I’m sensing a but.”
“We have to work together and there’s a lot going on right now.”
She stepped back, licking her lips as she did so.
He almost gave in and kissed her again but he knew that if he slept with her now, he would never know the real woman, the one beneath the superficial image she wore like a shield.
Glancing out of a window beside her front door, he noticed the snow had stopped falling.
His eye was caught by a shadow that looked out of place under the tree near the sidewalk.
It was Pete.
Pete stood in the shadows watching, waiting, ready to take Cora.
It was a potent reminder that the kiss Nick craved might cost not just him, but everyone, the kind of Christmas they deserved.