Page 100 of The Holiday Heartbreaker

She snagged a bite and moaned. “That is good.” Then she quickly took a piece of the pumpkin pie.

“I thought the pie was mine,” he said.

“No. We’re sharing.”

“This is why I like being alone,” he said. “I don’t like to share.”

“You’ll share with me,” she said smiling.

They finished eating and continued on down the street, Brody holding her hand still, and her holding the cookies.

There was a little boutique, and she couldn’t resist stopping inside, considering she had a yearning for some new clothes. She grabbed a sweaterdress, and a couple of other things, and Brody milled around awkwardly at the front.

“Have you ever waited while a woman has gone clothes shopping before?”

“Not a once,” he said.

“Well. Enjoy. Just be grateful I didn’t ask you to hold my purse.”

“Hey,” he said. “I’ll do it. I don’t mind holding your purse.”

“You can just hold the cookies,” she said.

She was just about to duck into the changing room when she saw a little rack with lingerie right next to them.

A little thrill shot through her system.

She had never really done lingerie before. Hadn’t actually seen the point of it. Of undressing just to go get dressed up into new underwear, and coming back out and it... It had always seemed very self-conscious.

But just then, she didn’t care about the logistics. It wasn’t about that. It was about trying to channel feelings about herself, her body, her sexuality, that she’d never had before.

About it being hers, about her body being sufficient to turn a guy on. Yeah. She liked that thought. She grabbed a white lace nightgown, and a red bodysuit.

She ducked into the dressing room and examined the flimsy garment. She was thinking it looked like way too much trouble when she saw that the bottom... Well, the... It just wasn’t there. It was completely open.

Her face went hot. But hey, that was one way to solve an undressing problem when things were heated.

She took the perfectly acceptable sweaterdress, a pair of sweater leggings and an oversize black top, and a rather sexy black dress, and held them over the top of the lingerie before heading to the front of the store to check out.

Fortunately, he didn’t seem to notice what all she had gotten.

“Thank you,” she said.

“No problem.”

He took a shopping bag from her hands. “I’m full-service.”

The way he grinned at her was so wicked that it made that place between her legs throb. “Well, I already knew that,” she said.

“But did you know that also extended to pack mule duties?”

“That’s news,” she said, feeling breathless.

She picked up a few other things. Some Christmas decorations and some items for her kitchen.

And Brody carried all of it. By the late afternoon, they were ready for lunch and stopped at a little stand right on the beach for some fish-and-chips. They piled her shopping bags on the top of a picnic table and sat across from each other, him making liberal use of her tartar sauce, and her using half the bottle of malt vinegar on the fish.

There was a strange, faraway look on his face all of a sudden as he looked past her out to the ocean.

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