Page 34 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

Hot.

Templeton’s mouth worked a dark and wicked magic, moving over hers with a lazy insistence that made Kate crumble.

Then melt. Everywhere.

Her head shorted out. That was the only explanation.

She was malfunctioning, clearly. That was why she was too hot all over again, flushed to the breaking point the way she’d been when he’d mentioned her dreams, except this—

This was so much worse.

Better, something gleeful and deeply feminine inside contradicted her.

He wasn’t hesitant. He wasn’t particularly careful. If he had a single inhibition, it wasn’t apparent in the way he kissed.

Templeton Cross kissed her as if he already knew the fastest way to get her naked. He kissed her as if he planned to be inside her, and soon. He kissed her slowly,thoroughly, and with so much heat and fire that Kate didn’t understand how they didn’t both ignite where they sat.

He cupped her face in one big hand, holding her there with that same lazy ease, as if he was in no rush. As if he could sit there, tasting her like this, forever.

And Kate had been kissed before. The few times she’d attempted to have a relationship had involved all kinds of kissing, none of which she could remember now if her life depended on it. It all seemed so pale and fumbling in comparison. Tentative and forgettable.

But Templeton kissed the way he laughed. Big. Huge.

He took her over, crowding out everything else, until she thought that if she let go—surrendered—it might be possible to simply tip herself over into the kiss itself. And the more he kissed her, the more she found it hard to remember why that was probably a bad idea.

Meanwhile, sensations stormed through her, lighting up parts of her body she’d long since accepted didn’t work. Not the way everyone else’s did. As her last almost-boyfriend had been certain to tell her.

Templeton kissed her until she forgot her deficiencies. Until she forgot why it was so unwise to meet every slow, lazy thing he did with his mouth with her own.

Until she found herself pressing forward, demanding more, almost moaning with need—

But Kate didn’t need anything. Or anyone.

That was the defining truth of her life, ever since she’d gotten away from her family.

The wordneedwashed over her like an ice-cold shower, and she wrenched herself away from him, expecting there to be some resistance—

But there wasn’t. Templeton let her go instantly, which made her flush all over again, because if he hadn’t been holding her, and making that happen, that meant she’d been doing it herself.

“Have you lost your mind?” Kate demanded, her voice soft with rage. Horror. And all the rest of thosejangly things that flashed around inside of her, so hard and bright she was half-afraid that her bones would break from the effort of keeping it all in.

“I don’t think so,” Templeton rumbled, all that laughter in his voice. “Though I expect I’d be the last to know if I had, right?”

“You put your mouth on an investigator—”

“I didn’t simply put my mouth on you, Kate.” And again, there was so much laughter in his voice and in his gaze that she almost felt as if she could hear it—or, more alarming by far, it was ricocheting aroundinsideof her. “I got all up in there. Because I like kisses that matter. That require attention and commitment. Tongue, teeth, a moan or two. That’s how I am.”

Kate squeezed her eyes shut to block him out, but that made things worse. Because then she could do nothing butfeelall that noise and nonsense inside her.

Her eyes snapped open again. She tried to focus and found herself frowning. “Stepping back from the appalling inappropriateness of this situation, you must realize that you’ve compromised this investigation.”

“You’re on leave,” he reminded her, settling into that relaxed lounge that drove her mad, because he was too big. He should have looked awkward. Stuffed in like a sardine in a can. And he... didn’t. “I didn’t compromise any ongoing investigation, because you’re not part of the investigation, and even if you were, you’re not investigating me. And if it was that inappropriate, you probably shouldn’t have kissed me back.”

She wanted to put her hands to her mouth to see if she could press all that sensation away somehow. Or make her mouth feel like hers again. She wanted to dosomethingabout the taste of him, like some kind of terrible whiskey on her tongue, intoxicating and wild. But that would give it all away, and Kate had already given far too much away.

“We’re done here,” she told him frostily.

She wrenched herself back around to face her steering wheel and threw the car into reverse. But then froze when his big hand appeared in her vision and wrapped around the steering wheel, too.

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