Page 12 of Christmas with the Billionaire

I close the distance, my mouth finding hers in a kiss that feels less like a beginning and more like a homecoming. It’s not tentative, not questioning. It’s a release of every ounce of longing I’ve ever felt for her.

Her lips are soft and warm, and taste of chocolate and hope. One of my hands cups her jaw, my thumb stroking her cheek, while the other remains braced against the shelf, gripping tightenough to cause pain in my fingertips. Proving that this is very real.

She kisses me back with a matching desperation, her grip on my coat tightening, a small, broken sound escaping her throat that is undoubtedly going to haunt me if I don’t hear it again.

It’s the sound of a throat being cleared, awkward from the next aisle over, that destroys the perfect moment between us.

Reality crashes back in, cold and unwelcome.

I break the kiss, pulling away so suddenly it feels like tearing my own skin. Ellie is panting, her lips swollen, her eyes wide and dazed. Her chest rises and falls in unsteady breaths, and the sight of her like this, so thoroughly wrecked, sends a wave of desire straight through me. I’m left hungry, starving, a man who’s been offered a single, perfect bite of a feast and then dragged away from the table.

My own breath is ragged. I can feel the heat in my face, the wild, untamed look in my eyes. I need to get a grip.Now.

Clearing my throat, I try my damned hardest to bring us back to where we were moments before.

“The book,” I manage, my voice strained. I reach for the forgotten volume of poetry still in my hand and offer it to her. Our fingers brush, and the simple touch is nothing but. She flinches, her gaze dropping. “Here. For you.”

I shove the bag of pastries and candy into her hands as well, the plastic crinkling loudly in the tense silence. She blinks, confused. I don’t think she’s wrapped her mind around the kiss, either.

“I… need a moment. Please excuse me.” I don’t wait for a reply. I turn and walk away, my strides long and purposeful, a man fleeing the scene of a crime. I find the door belonging to the restroom and lock it behind me, the click of the bolt promising a moment to release everything growing inside of me at a rapid rate.

I brace my hands on the edge of the small sink, hanging my head, trying to steady my breathing. I look at my reflection in the mirror. My lips are slightly red. My eyes… they are full of a hunger that frightens me. A hunger I thought I had locked down perfectly.

Get a hold of yourself, Charles. Calm. Down.

“That was an accident,” I tell the wild-eyed man in the glass, my voice a low, forceful whisper. “A moment of insanity. It just… happened.”

But the lie tastes bitter. It wasn’t an accident. It was everything I’ve wanted since I was old enough to know what wanting was. And that is the problem.

If I don’t cool down now, if I walk back out there with this need written all over my face, I will scare her away. I will ruin this fragile, beautiful thing being built between us in this snow-globe town. She deserves more than a man consumed by a decade of pent-up longing. She deserves gentle, she deserves slow.

I turn on the cold tap and splash water on my face, the shock of it a temporary fix to the heat coiling in my gut. I need to be the man who can give her a book of poetry, not the one who pins her between bookshelves and devours her.

But as I dry my face, her taste and hope still lingers on my lips, a silent promise of everything I’ve ever craved. And I know, with a terrifying certainty, that cooling down is going to be the most brutal battle I’ve ever fought.

8

Ellie

Did that really just happen? My lips are still warm, still tingling. It had to be real. Charles kissed me. Not just that, I initiated it.

Now my legs are feeling like jello, and I’m scared to take a single step without risking crumpling to the floor. I can’t trust them to hold me up.

Charles is areallygood kisser. Like, the bar was already set pretty high, but this guy just passed it in flying colors.

Looking at the book in hand, taking in the familiarity of it, I can’t help but laugh that slips past my lips. Not only did he remember something so silly, but it also led to what just happened.

It feels wrong to put it back on the shelf. I should buy it for the core memory in itself.

Biting my now swollen lip, I hug it to my chest and seek a distraction by continuing my search for anything else that looks good.

As lovely as the library is in Fairland, there isn’t a super impressive bookstore like this anywhere near town. I have to get as much as I can out of this predicament of ours.

Charles returns eventually, and he looks completely different than when he left. Back to normal, making me question if what happened really did occur.

There’s no denying the disappointment that forms in the pit of my gut, but I am a master at crushing down these kinds of feelings.

Clearing his throat, he motions to the few new books jumbled against my arm. Cocking a brow, he takes in the spine of each one.