Page 104 of Not Your Average Vixen
He glanced around the kitchen. “Where are the cones and the balls?”
She barked out a laugh. “There will be no cones or balls until we get something straight.”
“What’s that?” he asked, as if he couldn’t care in the least.
“I don’t understand what’s going on with you, Soren. Do you hate me, or do you like me?”
He rubbed his hands down his face. “Bridget, stop.”
She paced the length of the kitchen. “No, I’m tired of this. I’m sick of the back and forth. I’m exhausted from trying to decipher if you truly are an awful person or if there’s more to you.”
“More to me?” he repeated, condescension coating the words.
“Yes, there are times I think that maybe…”
“Let me stop you there,Birdie,” he interjected. “You want to know what’s going on? I hate that I can’t hate you. How about that!”
“That makes no sense,” she replied, turning away from him when two strong hands gripped her hips, spun her around, and pressed her back to the wall.
Soren cupped her cheek in his hand as his chest heaved, and lust and anguish burned in his eyes. “How about this for making sense,Bridget Dasher. My entire life made sense before you and your sister ruined the only part that mattered.”
She clutched his biceps as his body pressed against hers, pinning her in place. But she didn’t try to move—didn’t attempt to escape. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t like his hard angles cutting into her soft curves.
She steadied herself. “My sister has been nothing but kind to you, and I—”
He leaned in. “And you, with those damned hauntingly beautiful eyes that draw me in. And those perfect lips that make me want to kiss you and never stop are making me crazy. You smell like cookies and sunshine and lazy Sunday mornings. I don’t know what a worse punishment would be—knowing what it’s like to hold you close and make your body tremble with desire or never knowing. Never touching you. Never kissing you. Never knowing what it feels like to fucking feel anything.”
She inhaled a sharp breath. “What happened, Soren? What changed? You’re different—something is different. I’ve never seen you look so lost.”
His gaze hardened. “I had everything under control until you. You turned my world upside down. Now, I can’t go a damn hour, let alone a minute without thinking of you.”
“Is that so terrible?” she whispered, her body trembling.
He ran his thumb across her bottom lip and tilted her chin up. “It’s excruciating.”
His lips grazed the corner of her mouth. But before they lost themselves, a little voice cut through the lust-charged haze.
“Uncle Scooter?”
In the space of a breath, she and Soren pulled apart.
“What is it, Carly? Did you have a bad dream?” he asked, doing his best to recover, but the slight shake to his voice gave away that he was just as stunned by their overpowering attraction as she was.
The little girl rubbed her eyes. “No, Cole’s gone.”
“Could he have gone to the bathroom?” Soren asked, his voice still a tight rasp.
“No, he’s not there, Uncle Scooter. I think he went to look for a Christmas fairy.”
A Christmas fairy?
Bridget stiffened as an ominous chill prickled down her spine.
“Now?” she asked, her voice going up an octave.
The temperature had to be well below freezing, and a blustery wind blew swirling pellets of snow against the window.
“His coat and boots are gone, Birdie,” Carly replied.
