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We were now only separated by inches, and his face was exactly as it had been in the video. Hungry. His gaze made my mouth water, and we were both breathing so hard that our breath made little white clouds around our faces.

I should have been backing away. I should have been rolling my eyes. But his eyes had their own gravity again, and their magnetic force was pulling my mouth to his.

“This is so stupid,” I whispered.

“I know,” he agreed.

His lips touched mine, and there was nothing chaste or sweet or mistletoe-friendly about this kiss. It wasn’t a peck and it wasn’t gentle. He kissed me hard, and I pushed back, just as ravenous, completely surrendering to the stupid. How could I not when his hands came to my jaw and tilted my face so his mouth could go deeper, devouring mine? How could I resist when he tasted so, so good?

No, this wasn’t a tentative, getting-to-know-one-another kind of kiss. It was an open-mouthed, straining to get-inside-one-another kind of kiss.

I went up on my tiptoes and half-climbed him while one of his arms went around my back and tried to haul me up higher against him, which moved us several feet in one direction toward his car.

We stumbled against his vehicle, and he whirled me around so that I was pressed up against it. Grateful for the steady structure, I dropped my hands from his neck and shoved them inside his coat, running them up outside of his shirt, feeling the hard muscles of his back, pulling him even tighter to me.

He groaned in the back of his throat and licked into me even deeper. My whole self was on fire, from the hair follicles on my head to the tips of my pinkie toes. My thigh muscles were clenching, wishing his hips were already between them.Skin, my brain insisted, and so I slid my hands under his shirt, scratched his bare back with my fingernails.

He gasped against my mouth, and then one of his hands was inside my coat, inside my shirt, sliding toward my breast. I arched my back against the car and bit his lip, willing thosehands to get to their destination. I wanted them everywhere on my body andnow.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d made out with someone like this. Couldn’t remember this kind of clawing, moaning, dirty-in-the-good-way kind of kissing. Had I ever been this primed for release? A release that seemed ridiculously imminent.

Headlights on the road. A car approaching from town. The sound of tires on gravel. I recognized the squeak of Sean’s broken car radiator.

I broke our kiss, dropping my hands from his back and shoving at Nate’s shoulders. He backed away immediately, unpinning me from the car.

We stared at one another. He looked just as shocked as I felt.

The second Sean’s headlights swung in from the road, I sprinted to my front door. It took an embarrassing ten seconds for me to get the keys in the lock, and I pictured Nate watching me fumble.

He didn’t say a word, not that I was exactly expecting him to. I wasn’t quite sure what my answer would have been if he’d said, “Can I come in?” or “Come to mine?” in that quiet, night whisper.

I slammed the door behind me and pressed a hand to my swollen lips. Across the room, Bruce lifted his head. “What the hell was that?” I said aloud.

Chapter Eleven

Friday, December 12—Single Bells—Date 3—Bowling Alley

Pairings:

Bella and Michael

Nicole and Jim

Diane and Brian

Mabel and Tripp

Jane and Nate

Carol was stringingChristmas lights at the bowling alley when Sean and I arrived early to set up the camera equipment. It was a good idea because the interior of the alley was typically as festive as a parking lot.

Not that I was thinking about parking lots.

“Do you ever rest?” I hollered up at her. She’d already worked a full day at the diner, which had been busting at the seams when I’d driven by.

“I’ll sleep in January,” she called back, and I nodded wryly. Same.

Sean waved to the other cameramen, gathered by the bar. “At least tonight will be really easy to film.” He pointed to the six bowling lanes. “Are you going to assign lanes to particular couples?”