Page 62 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses

The joy of this, the true gift: she had faith again.

For the first time, shetrusteda man. For a person of medicine, it bewildered her how unbelievably healing this felt.

Returning the kiss with equal fervor, she worked his sleeve down his uninjured arm and let his shirt drift to the floor. As her hands caressed, explored, Latin once again swept her mind, a sing-song chant pulsing in time with her heartbeat.Caro. Cor. Corpus. Coxa. This rather than visualize his penis, which was a rigid presence against her hip, inviting, calling to her.

She wanted toconsume.

“Wait,” he gasped and released her. “Hold on a second. Hold. On. A. Second.”

She grabbed his hand, linked their fingers and yanked him closer. “Oh, no. No. Don’t back out now. Not when I, you…” She gestured to the delightful erection tenting his breeches. “Really?”

He tugged his free hand through his hair, sending it into splendid disarray. “You must be losing your mind if you think I—” He blew out a hard breath, his eyes a slate glimmer in the dying sunlight. “I’m not saying no. God, do you not know men. I was simply going to tell you, if you’re certain, positively sure about this, saying yes, aclearyes, I have a bedroom here. I spend a lot of nights working on—”

“Yes.” She turned a half-circle, taking him and their linked hands with her. “Where’s the bed?”

With a growl, he lifted her off her feet and tossed her over his shoulder as if she weighed nothing. The bulge of muscle in his biceps was phenomenally impressive and quite arousing.

She laughed as he stalked through the warehouse and entered a back room, where he unceremoniously dropped her atop a bed large enough to house an entire family. “Watch those stitches,” she ordered.

“Yes, ma’am,” he whispered and rolled over her like a wave.

Heartbroken,she thought and shook her head in delight as his lips captured hers.

Pilot Isle was filled with a bunch of fools.

And she the most lovesick of them all.

* * *

The throaty sigh Macy released as he settled over her luscious little body about did him in, drowning out the roar of waves hammering the wharf, the faint thread of ragtime spitting from his phonograph. His heartbeat pulsing in his ears.

Perching on his elbows to keep from placing his full weight on her, Caleb paused to gaze at her, not quite believing she was there. But she was, in the monstrosity of a bed he’d ordered from High Point for the simple reason that he liked it, an indulgence he could now afford. Her hair was a flaxen cascade over his drab counterpane, her magical eyes glinting in the sunset glow filtering through the window above them. She was every dream he’d ever had come to life. A mix of traits that charmed and captivated. Intelligent, beautiful, shy.

He’d frequently pictured her in this modest sanctuary tucked inside his somewhat forbidding warehouse. Stroked himself to dazzling completion while imagining her beneath him. Bent over his worktable, laid across the bow of a skiff. Riding him, her legs locked around his as she clutched his body to her own. Touching, licking,devouring.

It would take a year to recreate the many ways he’d dreamed of pleasuring Macy Dallas.

Desire struck hard, harder than he remembered it hitting, washing over him like the sea on a summer day.She was his. For an hour, or a night.

And make no mistake: he would take her.

He didn’t know why she wanted him. He wasn’t nearly good enough. Somehow, they were all wrong.Hewas all wrong.

But he was also weak.

What she offered, he could not refuse. Because she’d made him feel alive again. Wanted. Special. Entirely separate from the Garrett mystique. For once, his own man.

He was infatuated, he admitted, as he cupped her breast, found the nipple straining beneath her thin shirtwaist. Caressed it with his thumb, circle, stroke, repeat, until her back bowed and her lids quivered. Until a raspy moan shot from her throat. Until his cock stiffened to an unbearable degree, making him worry over how long he’d last this first time.

He wouldn’t take their relationship further than this evening, not with such a grave risk to his heart. Or hers. Still, he was good at boatbuilding, and truthfully, he was good atthis. She didn’t know it, but lovemaking could be tender and ferocious at the same time. An erotic mix with so many fine options, a different one for each day of the week for a hundred years.

When you trusted who you were with.

She was hiding in a manner he had yet to figure. Like a puppy who’d been kicked, she was fearful. Of men, he suspected. Maybe even of being touched. A streak of raw anger pulsed through him as he pictured why. And maybe he was wrong…but he didn’t think so.

So, he’d show her pleasure and pray he wasn’t losing his heart in the process.

This was the only promise he could make.