Page 8 of Mistletoe Madness

Briefly, I took a moment to wonder if any man had ever looked as sexy as Nick did wearing a pair of faded, worn-in Levi’s and a tight black thermal henley shirt. There was nothing particularly attractive about the outfit itself, but therewassomething supremely attractive about the way he wore it.

At his core, Nick was a big old nerd. One who also happened to be drop-dead gorgeous—a fact I didn’t think he fully appreciated. But with his dark hair, blue eyes, and the horn-rimmed glasses he often wore when working, I sometimes fancied him my own personal Clark Kent. And like Clark’s superhero alter-ego, Nick had rescued me when no one else had bothered to try.

But even if he hadn’t looked the way he did, I still would have fallen for him. His chiseled six-pack abs and big, beautiful dick were the proverbial icing on the cake. Icing, I was slowly coming to accept, I’d never get a chance to sample.

Dropping down into a crouch, he rooted around in the space between the Christmas tree and the sofa, eventually pulling out a bottle he must have hidden there after I’d put the tree up. Slowly, he unwrapped the foil and then pulled out the cork. “How drunk are you right now?”

I completed a quick mental inventory of both my head and my body. My limbs were pleasantly loose, but I’d had no trouble walking from the kitchen to the living room just now, so I was still okay. “Drunk enough that I feel all warm and toasty, but not so drunk that I’ll have a hangover tomorrow.”

Without a word, Nick plopped down onto the opposite end of the sofa so that his feet rested near my hips, and raised the bottle to his lips. When he was finished drinking, he leaned forward and held the whiskey out between us. “Truth or Dare?”

I took the bottle from him and hefted it to my mouth, wincing as the booze burned a trail down my throat, straight to my stomach. I was more of a gin girl, to be honest. “What do you mean?”

“If they had stayed, and we were playing Truth or Dare like Beckett wanted to, which would you choose?” His posture was seemingly relaxed, but his eyes told a whole different story. Admittedly, I didn’t have the best vision—and itwassomewhat dark in here, what with the room lit only by the glow of the tree behind him—but his gaze was piercing.

Suddenly, I didn’t think we were talking about a friendly little game between friends and roommates.

I passed the bottle back, and he set it down on the floor next to him. “I choose dare,” I said, marveling that my voice hadn’t wavered since inside I was a riot of conflicting emotions.

His tongue darted out to lick a path over his bottom lip. I traced it with my eyes like a wild, starving animal. “In that case, I dare you to kiss me.”

6

I’d just swallowed down a mouthful of Jameson, but my mouth was suddenly parched—dry like the Sahara fucking Desert. For weeks, I’d fantasized about straddling Nick’s lap and kissing him as if my life depended on it, but now that I was faced with actually being able to do so, I couldn’t seem to move. I sat there, silently staring at him, as I tried to come to grips with the challenge he’d just laid at my feet.

Maybe the champagne, beer, and that quick shot of whiskey affected me more than I thought, because I could have sworn he’d just dared me to do the the one thing I’d been dreaming about ever since I walked in tonight and saw that Rudy had hung sprigs of mistletoe in several corners of the first floor of our house. Throughout the course of the night, several of their guests had made good use of those dark spaces; I’d wanted to be among them.

After what felt like an eternity but was probably only three seconds or so, I blinked rapidly and the fog cleared from my brain. “Kiss you?”

He crossed his arms over his middle, and rested his right elbow in his left palm. His other hand cradled his darkly stubbled jaw. “Never mind. It was a bad idea. I’m just—”

“It wasn’t a bad idea,” I rushed to say before he could take it all back. I might have been a bit slow on the uptake, but I wasn’t stupid. When the object of all your wildest fantasies gave you the opening you’d been secretly getting off to, you took it. “In fact, it might be the best damn idea I’ve ever heard.”

His lips titled up in a small, satisfied smile. “So what are you doing sitting all the way over there, then?”

“I …” I trailed off. The list of reasons I could give him for having not kissed him yet was a mile long, but none of the explanations seemed quite right. How did you admit to your roommate that you’d wanted him for weeks but were too chicken to actually do anything about it?

“You what, Mikyala?”

I blew out a long breath. “The truth is, I’m scared.”

He visibly blanched. “Of me?”

I shook my head slowly back and forth. “No. I’m scared oflosingyou.”

“Why would you lose me?” He dropped his hand away from his face and adjusted his position on the couch so he was sitting more upright. Less sexy and relaxed; more on high alert.

I sat up fully, too, and pulled my feet up underneath me. “Say Iwereto kiss you—”

“Yes, please. Do that.”

I smiled indulgently, but continued on undeterred. “I wouldn’t want you to have any regrets in the morning.”

His head jerked back in surprise. “Who said anything about regret?”

“Please, Nick. Be serious for a second here.” I pushed up and off the couch and started pacing the room. “You’re my roommate, and the closest friend I have these days. If it was bad, or worse, it was good, and it made things awkward between us later, we’d always wish we could go back to this moment and not kiss each other.”

He rose from his seat, and crossed the room to my side. Setting his hands to my biceps, he held me gently in place. His eyes flicked between mine with uncertainty. “Ask me what I would have picked.”

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