Page 59 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses
They weren’t all noble, his wants. He was a man, through and through. In his big, lonely bed, he stroked himself and dreamed of her in every position he could come up with and then some. His cock twitched in his breeches as if to say,yes, you have. She’d become a fixation, acute need throbbing just beneath his skin.
He wanted, and he wanteddesperately.
With a click of his tongue and a yank on the reins, he put the wagon into motion. This was too much deep thought for a man who didn’t think deeply. At least his unexpected speech had stunned his brothers into silence. He prayed for a peaceful ride into town. No more talk of empty houses and women disappearing from your life when you least expected it. No more wishing you were good enough for someone when you knew you weren’t.
He could tell them…
He could tell them…
He believed in love. And he wasn’t scared of loving someone.
He was scared of falling in love and of her not falling in love back.
CHAPTER FOUR
Macy stepped through the door of Caleb’s warehouse and into another world.
Sunlight from narrow windows set just below the beamed ceiling pierced the air at hard angles to gather in pools on the heart pine floor. The smell of glue and raw wood, linseed oil and a masculine undertone she guessed must be his, swept over her.
As did the music.
She turned a full circle, searching for the source. Joplin, if she was not mistaken. And she wasn’t. Music was her second love next to medicine. Other than those, she’d never had anything, or anyone, to be passionate about.
Perhaps it was time to change that. To leave the Mouse behind.
She followed the rasping sound until she found him, leaning over the bow of a partially completed skiff, his hands a gentle glide over gleaming wood. He was dressed for labor in an open-collar shirt and work breeches that hugged his muscular body the way the sea did the shore. He shouldered a bead of sweat from his brow, stepped back to eye his work, then moved in and set the plane to wood. Hair the color of the sky at midnight tumbled over his brow, and she had to stop herself from brushing it back. She yearned to tangle her fingers in the tousled strands, see for herself if it felt as soft as it looked.
What a fine specimen he was. Certainly, better than any drawing from anatomy class. He was real, and her base desire was toexplore.As she studied him, a spiral lit and spread through her, the sensation dancing along her arms, down her thighs and out the soles of her feet, rocking her where she stood.
So, this is what unbridled desire feels like.
“What took you so long?” Caleb asked without looking up, his hand smoothing over the spot he’d set the plane to as if he searched for another imperfection. “Couldn’t have taken Noah more than ten minutes after I dropped him off to get to you.”
She placed her medical bag on a rough-hewn table shoved against the wall, moving aside incongruent items: hammer, book, comb. “Noah came by, yes. Said you were too stubborn to come to my office yourself. Actually, your sisters—in-law, that is—brought me here. Requested my presence, rather. ‘Forced’ could be stated without duplicity.”
He swiped his hair out of his eyes. Oh, they were lovely in this sunlight. “Really.”
“Very persuasive. Frightening, actually.” She rotated the book.The Picture of Dorian Gray. Interesting. “They wanted me to talk to you. A therapeutic session, if I understood correctly. Because you’ve been destroying furniture.” She smiled softly, trying to get him to take the bait and smile back. “I promised I wouldn’t tell. But here I am, doing just that.”
He placed the plane on the bow, stood to his full height, and stretched with a low groan that slipped beneath her skin like a splinter. Her mouth watered as he twisted, flexed, shifted on the balls of his feet. Such graceful movements for a large man. No way to deny it, she was dazzled.
“So, you’re breaking a promise.”
She brought herself back to the conversation, found him watching her watch him. Heat hit her cheeks, a blast of embarrassment. The payoff was the subtlest hint of amusement curving his lips. Her discomfiture entertained.
His smile was worth any discomfort, she decided.
“Yes.” She opened her medical bag and began to arrange the items she needed to repair his torn stitches, stacked gauze, needle, and thread right beside the ever-charmingDorian Gray.“But I’m keeping one to you.”
He held her gaze until the workroom began to feel like a greenhouse even with a stalwart breeze rolling off the sea and through the open stable doors. What they were cultivating inside this fascinating space, she didn’t know. Yet the spiral of excitement, no,wonder, overtaking her mind and body felt like magic. A miracle after being alone for so long, fearing she’d never find her way out of the darkness. For being shaken from sleep after dozing for years.
To escape the penetrating silence and the intensity of his gaze, she lifted hers, noticing for the first time the charcoal sketches tacked on the wall behind him. They were luminous. Detailed, stunning. She’d seen poorer examples in a gallery. “These are yours?”
He tossed a quick look over his shoulder. “Have to draw what you build. At least I do.”
“You’re an artist,” she breathed and stepped in to review one up close. Trailed her fingertip over the remarkably rendered illustration, so vivid she could almost hear waves slapping the hull, taste a salty grit on her tongue. Her father had had a small sailing vessel, she wasn’t even sure what kind, and she’d stood on the shore of the lake behind their home, observing as he sailed off without her. Time and time again. He hadn’t wanted companionship. Or a daughter. So, she’d struggled to fill the void. Every decision, including those appalling ones involving her uncle, had derived from trying to plug the hollow space inside her.
To please a man no one could please.