Page 56 of The Virtues of Christmas
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The heavenly choruses that had appeared to the shepherds in Bethlehem might have inspired the same upwelling of joy Patience experienced under the mistletoe with Mr. MacHugh.
She’d braced herself for an admonitory lecture of a kiss, having every intention of lecturing Mr. MacHugh right back. Instead of that figurative lump of coal, Mr. MacHugh’s kiss was full of sweetness, tenderness, and delicacy.
He offered her a cinnamon biscuit of a kiss—he even tasted of cinnamon—offer being the operative verb. His attentions were beguilingly gentle and his palms cupping Patience’s cheeks warm and cherishing.
“I don’t know how—” She didn’t know how to kiss, where to put her hands,what to do, and her ignorance was a terrible burden.
Mr. MacHugh solved those dilemmas by putting Patience’s hands at his neck and stepping closer.
“There’s no wrong way to kiss, Patience. A kiss doesn’t have to be constructed with consistent tenses and agreement of gender, number and case. Kissing is for moments beyond words.”
Mr. MacHugh gave her a treasure trove of such moments when he stroked the backs of his fingers against her cheek, when he cradled her head against his palm, when he traced his tongue over the seam of her lips.
She retaliated—reciprocated, rather—and his lips parted.
Oh, gracious. Oh, Happy Christmas, Happy New Year. Where to put a comma—a most excellent premise for a discussion—had nothing,nothingon the complexities of how to turn a kiss into a conversation.
Patience shifted and accidently trod on Mr. MacHugh’s toes. She stepped back, horrified to have put an end to such a rare delight, and found Mr. MacHugh beaming down at her in the dim foyer. He held out his hand, an invitation, and the festivities recommenced next to the unlit sconce.
Mr. MacHugh braced his back against the wall, and Patience bundled in for another round of affection, exploration, and—heavenly choruses in the happiest of keys—arousal.
This was what it felt like to be intimately interested in a man, to desirehim,not the secure future his proposal offered, not the protection of his name, or the dream of children to love, buthim.
Patience smoothed her hand over broad shoulders and a muscular back, then sank her fingers into thick, dark hair. Mr. MacHugh’s flavor was spicy, sweet holiday treat, his textures were varied—silky hair, whiskery cheeks, lean angles, soft lips, hard…
Patience had inspired Mr. MacHugh to arousal as well, to the heat in the blood, the catch in the breath, that signaled two adults susceptible to passion for each other.
The joy of that, the startling, gleeful satisfaction of it, had Patience leaning against him, all her attention centered where his arousal pressed unapologetically against her belly.
“Tell me, Patience. D’ye still think advising a kiss beneath the mistletoe is in keeping with Mrs. Horner’s signature common sense?”
She wiggled, and he sighed. The cloved orange bobbed against her elbow, and Patience could not recall a time when she’d been so utterly, completely, unexpectedly happy—or glad to be wrong.
* * *
Dougal could not recall a time when he’d been so utterly, completely, inexcusably dunderheaded—though happily dunderheaded.
He’d stolen a kiss, and Patience Friendly had stolen his every good intention, not that the lady was accountable for his actions. She was untutored in the art of kissing, but a damned fast learner. Her kisses were as eager as they were inexpert.
And God above, the passion in her. As dedicated as she was to her writing, as exacting and demanding as she was about the written word, her kisses were ten times more…more.
“I have an idea,” she said, her hand trailing over Dougal’s chest.
Perhaps this idea would involve the sofa in his office, in which case Dougal would have to pitch himself out the window into the nearest snowdrift.
“I’ve always admired your nimble mind, Patience.” And her ink-stained hands, which Dougal wanted to kiss. Her curves were delightful too, as was her vocabulary and her ability to reduce a complex problem to its simplest form.
“I’ll write holiday couplets for Jake to sing when selling the broadsheets.”
Dougal made himself focus on assembling her words into a sentence he could comprehend, for the weight of her against him was perdition personified.
“Holiday couplets?”
“Yes! The clerks can help with them.” She whirled away, back into the clerk’s office. “You know, ‘God rest ye merry, gentlemen, here’s a broadsheet you can read/Mrs. Horner has a clever solution to your every single need.’”
“That sounds naughty.” Memorable, though. Very memorable.
