Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 145731 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145731 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Yes, fuck yes. Isla wants to be kissed as much as I want to kiss her.
I brush my thumb across her lower lip. A murmur escapes her, and that’s my cue. I drop my mouth to hers.
For the first time, I taste her sweetness—she tastes like cherries as I brush my lips to hers in a soft, chaste kiss. The kind you’d give a first date when your friends catch you under the mistletoe at a holiday party. It’s not a make-out kiss. It’s not a closed-door kiss. It’s the kind of kiss you give somebody in public.
Except, the sounds she makes feel private and just for me. Soft, sexy murmurs as I flick the tip of my tongue along the seam of her mouth. Needy breaths as I coast my mouth against hers. She parts her lips, then inches closer, her body pressed against my chest. Yes, that’s not subtle at all, and I love it. I love the way she’s soft and pliant as my lips explore hers for a few mind-bending seconds.
I don’t want to let go.
Her fingers tiptoe up my shirt, curling around the collar of it. That, right there, I will remember forever. Her want. My tongue flicks against her mouth, and I catch her gasp. I slide my fingers from her jaw, past her ear, to her lush hair. I slide them through it while she grips harder, twists the fabric more fiercely.
I twirl a few strands of her hair around my finger as our tongues skate together, as our murmurs fill the silence. She slides even closer to me, and I reach my other hand around her waist, pressing it gently to her back, eager to hold her against me all night long.
She arches into me, and the way she responds is frying my brain. It’s sending all my senses into overdrive as want—deep and powerful—floods my body.
Our lips coast together again, and again, and images of how this night might go snap temptingly before my eyes.
But I can’t give in. If I keep this up, I won’t just be kissing her all night. I’ll be asking to take her home. And I can’t do that. Not to this woman I’m starting to actually care for. Not when I’m destined to fail. She deserves better than a broken guy.
Somehow, I manage to let go, breaking contact at last.
My head’s a fog. It’s hazy with thoughts I’m trying to deny.
With the kiss broken, my gaze sweeps down her face. Her cheeks are flush. Her eyes are glossy.
And hell, I’d planned to taunt her post kiss. To say something smart-ass-y like “I guess you liked that kiss,” but I’m woozy and speechless. I can’t even stitch together words.
Blinking, she catches her breath, then says, “I suppose it’s safe to say you just hate Christmas.”
And like that, I find my bearings. Because Isla Marlowe liked our mistletoe kiss more than she wanted to.
I smile victoriously. “Yes. That’s safe to say.”
As I load the boxes into the trunk of her red car, I’m replaying that kiss. It’s on a goddamn loop in my mind. And I’ve no idea what to do with these insistent feelings growing stronger in my chest.
I close the trunk and walk her to the driver’s side door with that kiss still hanging over my head. Maybe her head too?
She turns my way, her gaze all serious. “So where do we go now, Rowan?”
She probably means with the matchmaking, but all I can think is I want to see you again. It’s like a clawing in my chest. A drumbeat in my head. “Give me another chance to make it up to you. What happened tonight.”
With a curious look in her eyes, she says, “Your sabotage? You’ll make it up to me by trying for real over the next few days?”
Maybe. Possibly. I don’t know. “Sure,” I say, since that’ll help my cause—my immediate cause.
“How? We don’t have much time left to find you a match,” she points out.
Like this is a play on the ice, I have to think fast and move faster. Evidently the kiss has knocked my brain loose, since I say, “I’ll go Christmas shopping with you. Tomorrow, in fact, if you’re free. Ideally before my game.”
But doubt is written all over her pretty face. “How does that help with matchmaking?”
I ferry the puck down the ice on fleet feet. “I’ll carry your shopping bags. And we can talk about dating as you shop. You can teach me about dating without sabotage,” I add, setting up the goal with my surprise offer. Hell, it’s surprised me.
She snort-laughs. “So you’ll shop with me to one, apologize? Two, help me out with heavy things? And three, learn how to not sabotage a date?”
If that gets me more time with you. I take a shot at the net, saying, “Think of it as my penance.”