Page 61 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses

“Doc.” He swept his thumb along her jaw, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m not the one, whatever, whoever, it is you’re looking for. But I find myself fantasizing about you so often of late, I’m almost willing to volunteer. Waking in the darkest pitch of night reaching for you, remembering the feel of your lips beneath mine. Even if I’m no good for you. Even if it’s mostly me who’s going to benefit”—he traced the shell of her ear—“I still find myself wanting you. I can’t seem to help myself.”

She licked her lips, her heartbeat spiking as his pupils flooded pewter. “Mrs. Schumacher said you were always the first to volunteer.”

He sighed, sending those long lashes fluttering. “The way you stare at me doesn’t help.”

How did she stare at him?

He leaned in, his hand sliding to cradle her neck. Into her hair, his fingertips were rough against her scalp, his breath cinnamon-scented and scalding her cheek. “You look at me like I’m gonna hang the moon. Or make your dreams come true. When I’m not, I’m telling you. And this…” The hand caressing the nape of her neck tightened as he gripped her waist with the other and inched her forward, trapping her knees inside his own.

She swayed, flattening her hands on his chest to steady herself. He was so close, too close, and it feltwonderful.

“If you said it was just kisses you want, I wouldn’t trust you. I could say the same and, hell, I wouldn’t trust myself. I could tell you I kissed you back in that cloakroom because I was lost from the moment you touched me. Blind with desire for you, mad with it. That it’s only deepened every time I watch you cross a crowded street, looking through fripperies in the mercantile. Painting those women’s rights signs with Savannah and Elle. That I lay in bed each night hungering for you, forus. I don’t like building anything without a plan telling me exactly what I’m building. And you, this…” His fingers worked deeper into her hair, sending pins to the floor as her chignon collapsed atop his fist. “I don’t know what this is. What I’m feeling.” He laid his lips to her brow, her cheek and drew a breath as if he wanted to take her into his lungs like oxygen. “But it’s impressive.”

“Is it her?” she asked as she noted the crescent scar running alongside his nose, the freckle on his chin she wanted to press her mouth against. It made her feel possessive to be close enough to gather these intimate things about him. Her own personal box of Caleb Garrett treasures. If he let her, she would draw a map noting each point of interest on his body. Drawn with her lips, her tongue, her teeth. “Are you truly so heartbroken?”

He bent his broad body until they were eye-level, like it was urgent she understand what he was about to say. His eyes had gone gunmetal and were shimmering in the fading sunlight. Stubble dotted his jaw, giving him a sinister look when he was far from fearsome. “I’mnotand neither is she. Don’t you see? That’s the confounding, sad truth of it. It’s not that I’ve been stung, like all the biddies are saying, and now I’m giving females a wide path 'til I forget how much the venom hurt. I’m…” He rocked back on his heels but kept his hold on her. His gaze on her. “I’m afraid of heartbreak with therightwoman, not heartbreak over losing the wrong one.”

Her heart expanded in her chest, bumping against her ribs. “You’re afraid oflove?”

Still kneeling, he pulled her to him, their bodies sealing from hip to chest. Each valley of hers perfectly met a peak of his, a most splendid fit. “And spiders.”

“Not kisses,” she whispered as his lips grazed hers, a fleeting stroke, barely there but for the lingering scent of him clouding the air she breathed. His skin was warm beneath the thin cloth of his shirt, searing her palms, his muscles rippling as he angled their bodies for closer contact.

“Never kisses,” he murmured as his lids slipped low. He sucked her bottom lip between his and feasted, gently, thoroughly, causing her legs to tremble. With a sigh, she fell against him. His arm slipped lower, circling her waist, holding her tightly as his mouth left hers to bite, suck, lick. Her skin sizzled with longing at each point he attended. Her throat ached; her nipples hardened until the scrape against muslin was almost painful.

And the area between her thighs—where she touched herself while she imagined touchinghim—awakened and bloomed. “Stop toying…with me,” she gasped as he nipped her earlobe, then pressed it between his lips to soothe. Once, twice, a third time.

“Ah, Doc, if I was toying with you”—his breath thundered like the sea as it swept past—“you would know it.”

She worked her hand between their bodies as he explored the sensitive area below her jaw, the nape of her neck. Who knew vibrations could flow from head to toe as if sent on a telegraph wire, click, click, click?

If he explored, so would she.

After all, she’d dreamed of this.

Collarbone.Clavicle. Links Sternum to scapula.Ribs. Latin: costae. Abdomen.Abdodere. Stomach.Ventriculus. His skin was flushed, moist, velvet-smooth in some areas, rough and scarred in others. Muscle contracted where she touched, heaving with his breath, which had intensified as she’d progressed. When she reached the waistband of his breeches, he exhaled and forcibly moved her away from him.

She blinked, searching for time and place. Her body submerged, engrossed, liquified. Like beakers over a gas flame, the contents bubbling, ablaze.

He gave her a gentle shake. “I lied. Iamtoying with you.”

“This isn’t—”

Moving to cup her face, he seized her mouth. Slanted his head for a richer connection, one reaching to her marrow. His participation had been negligible, controlled, before this moment.Oh, how he’d been toying. His tongue engaged, invited, parried. She could only follow, duplicate, counter. He rose to his feet, bringing her with him without breaking contact. His hands swept her body, settling on her hips and guiding her back into the table. Then he pressed, leaving her no room to move. Sensation from all sides, all senses. The scent of labor and raw wood, cinnamon and an elementally male essence she couldn’t define. The brackish rush of air from an open window. Splintered wood from the table pricking her cotton shirtwaist. Joplin a haunting presence circling the room.

Caleb. Muscular, broad, formidable. Gentle. His hand trembling where he gripped her jaw; his voice ragged, unintelligible murmurs she neither deciphered nor absorbed. Not when those beautiful, artistic fingers were touching her.Finally.

She was astounded that he appeared as taken with her as she was with him.

As vanquished. As famished.

The roll of gauze fell to the floor as they bumped the table. His hand clenched, fingertips a hard press into her hip. He sighed and trailed his hand up her body, his fingers delving into her hair and tangling as he extended the kiss. Slowed, drawing on her bottom lip. Teasing bites, his tongue tracing the edges after. Soothing, playful. This touch, this frolic, went with the smile he unveiled earlier, the easy laugh. The side of him he’d hidden from her, from everyone, for so long.

She was trapped inside his arms, contained on all sides, the most sensual hug imaginable.

Forget his brother.Calebwas the genius.

She murmured a plea against his lips and shifted, restless.More.Her breasts were aching, her thighs throbbing. She’d chosen him, which he did not understand the importance of. To pull her from the darkness. To make herfeelagain. The mechanics were straightforward and ones she understood. Her virtue mattered little. Her heart, if it became engaged, a problem she would deal with.