Page 65 of Not Your Average Vixen
Two.
Unable to stop, he cupped her cheek in his hand.
One.
His heart took over, and he pressed his lips to hers. For a fraction of a second, he’d feared that she’d pull away. But relief flooded his system when she hummed a sweet, sated sound as he deepened the kiss. The pop of the flash and the mechanical whirr of the booth printing their pictures buzzed in the background. This was risky. No, not risky. It was damned stupid to lock lips with Bridget Dasher, but he couldn’t resist. Her cinnamon vanilla scent entranced him into a dreamlike holiday haze. It transported him. It altered him. Warm and soothing, her kisses tasted like sunshine and s’mores. She stroked his cheek, then pulled back slowly and stared into his eyes.
“Soren,” she whispered. The silly, playfulness in her tone was gone and replaced with an air of haunting seriousness.
“Yes.”
She glanced away. “Do I seem stuck to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, stuck in my life.”
“I don’t know much about your life,” he replied, hating that he wished he did.
She nodded, then reached down and removed the photo strip from the tray.
“When you kiss me, it feels like you know everything,” she remarked softly as she stared at the pictures.
“You’re tired, Bridget. That’s all.”
But it wasn’t. Not even close.
“Garrett said that I’m stuck—that I’m not living a real life. But I made a promise and promises matter. You believe that, don’t you?”
He thought of his parents and all their empty promises, then caressed her cheek, reveling in her honesty.
“They should matter.”
She handed him the photo strip. “Can you hold on to this? I feel a little woozy.”
He folded it carefully, making sure not to crease any of the photos, then slid it into his wallet.
She stared up at the ceiling of the booth. “I just don’t think he saw me. He’d look at me, of course, but maybe there wasn’t anything to see. The Abbotts, they see you, don’t they, Soren?”
This got deep quick.
“We should go, Bridget.”
They did see him, but so did she.
She just didn’t know it.
And he couldn’t let her know, not now. Not ever. Because if things went the way he wanted, after this time in Kringle, he’d never see her again.
And, despite the knot in his stomach at the thought of that prospect, he needed to start acting like it.
9
Bridget
Bridget pulled the pillow over her eyes and groaned. Her head pounded. Her mouth tasted like she’d binged on straw and powdered sugar like some kind of Candy Land farm animal. Blindly, she reached over to the side table to grab her phone to check the time when her wrist bumped a plate.
But she didn’t have a plate on her bedside table—at home.
