Page 48 of What Happens This Christmas
“This would be a lot easier if there was a large group of people chanting it, but I can play all the roles. Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” Every time she said the word, it came out sounding different. The first time normal. The second time masculine. The third time whiny and, frankly, annoying as hell.
“Enough. Enough,” I said, chanting my own prayer and turning Candy around in my arms. “What do you say we appease her this once?”
Candy gave me a shaky smile, but my eyes fell to the pulse in her neck. It was going crazy. Her chest was rising and falling at an alarming rate, her back arching as she obviously tried to remain in control, straightening for whatever reason.
Any verbal protest she had would’ve been a moot point. We’d been through this before. On the piano. Let’s be real, she wanted me. This. Us.
I hadn’t felt her soft lips on mine in a while, a really fucking long while, and I had enjoyed every second of tasting her other lips, but these…
“We’re not even standing under it,” Candy replied. She was as predictable as the traffic in New York.
Fair point, but I had a solution. I picked her up, holding the sides of her, and placed her underneath the decoration. “There we go,” I said hoarsely, watching her clench her thighs together as she peered up at the mistletoe. So, clearly, she was purposefully diverting my gaze. I had to admit that this was doing wonders for my ego, not that I needed much help in that area. I was self-confident.
“Be serious, Nick. We’re not teenagers, Eloise, so we’re not actually going to—”
I didn’t hesitate in my next move, just made it. I didn’t see the point. I saw her, watched her lips moving, wanted her, andhad to have her. Shit was complicated, okay? But this, kissing her, had always been simple.
* * *
CANDY
He didn’t hesitate in making his next move, only made it.
So much between us was complicated, but even I had to admit that the physical attraction and intimacy never was when we dared go there. It was as easy as breathing. Except in this moment when breathing was somewhat of a challenge. It was the best way I could describe the greedy, savage way he claimed my lips, like we were in a competition for oxygen.
At this rate, we were both going to lose, though, because as I cupped his jaw with my hand, a low groan sounded in the back of his throat, and whatever restraint he had broke like a cheap, old condom.
An unfamiliar feeling zipped through my body at a disturbing rate. My husband was kissing me. I wouldn’t be able to forget what his lips felt like on mine if my life depended on it. Soft. Warm. Commanding. Convincing.
His tongue darted out, sliding across the seam of my lips and urging me to part for him. A bolt of electricity ran through me, and I felt it quite literally from my head to my toes.
Dropping my grip on his jaw, I reached between us and curled my fingers in the front of his shirt, pulling him closer. Obviously, he wanted us to be closer too, since he dragged his hands to the back of my neck and gripped it firmly. Taking control of the situation, he nudged me to angle my head for better access as we both parted our lips.
I was a step ahead of him, though, my body working a lot faster than my brain right now. From everything I knew, I knew that this was the previews before the movie began. This wasthe prequel to an obsessive, nail-biting book series. I traced my tongue over his bottom lip before raking my teeth over it.
With a flick of his tongue, he was inside and deepening the kiss as he explored me like this was our first kiss.
Honestly, it’d been so long, it might as well have been.
I moaned, but his mouth was devouring mine in a passionate dance, so it was nothing more than a mere throaty muffle.
He growled in response and plunged his tongue so deep in my mouth it was practically at the back of my throat. This was unlike any kiss we had ever shared before. It felt more real somehow. Like he had imprinted on me all over again with a kiss. Like no matter how hard I tried, I’d never be able to forget it. It was going to plague my thoughts, wasn’t it?
Oh, no, what was I doing?
I was deeply rooted in reality, and the reality was that this was silly. It should have never happened. It was…difficult to ignore the incredibly obvious truth that Nick had always been a walking aphrodisiac for me.
But that didn’t change the facts in front of us.
I was kissing my husband who wanted a divorce…
All because of a plant…
My sister had hung in our foyer.
I loosened my grip on his shirt and broke the kiss, backing up. Heaviness filled the air as we watched each other, studies in stillness. We were both withholding things we wanted to say but couldn’t bring ourselves to.
“I think I’ll take a walk.” I licked my lips, abandoning my desire to rub my fingers across them and replay the memory of what made them swollen on loop. I looked to the side, where we had left my sister standing, but she was gone. If I hadn’t seen her there before, I may have believed it to be as made up as Santa Claus. The entire notion that one man could make all those tripsin one night was preposterous, so it was no wonder children stopped believing as they matured.
