Page 49 of Theirs for the Holidays

Her eyes go even wider, and her lips part, making her look every bit as tempting as one of the pastries she makes. She’s clearly shocked, working through what I said to figure out how to respond.

When her tongue darts out to lick her lips, I follow the motion with my eyes, hunger burning through me. It would be so easy to follow her tongue back into her mouth with my own, to taste her the way I want to. Would she taste like peaches? Or something deeper and more enticing?

“You… you wanted to do that?” Violet murmurs. Her cheeks flood with color and she looks even more edible in that moment. “Even though there was no one here to pretend for?”

I swallow, licking my lips. “Yeah. I did.” My hands tingle, itching to touch her. To pull her close and do everything I just told her I wanted to do. To prove to her everything I said is true. But I take a breath and wrestle myself back under control. We can’t do this here, for one thing. Not right now. And just becauseIwant to taste her, doesn’t mean she wants me to. I’ve already kissed her without her permission once, and it would be rude to do that again.

Not to mention, this whole situation is messy enough as it is. My brothers and I can barely be in the same room together without going for each other’s throats, and we’re all pretending to date Violet, which makes it even harder. On top of all that, there’s the fact that she’s not the kind of woman you kiss and then just walk away from.

And I know I’ll be walking away before long—that’s what I always do. It’s basically who I am now. Even if it wasn’t, this isn’t a long term thing. It’s just until Andrew’s wedding is over and then life goes back to normal. That’s what’s for the best, and it puts boundaries on this thing that it’s best to abide by.

All the same, Violet is standing there, looking so soft and so sweet. She looks torn between desire and confusion, and the whole combination is so fucking endearing that it makes my composure snap. I drop my head, unable to resist giving in just a bit. Just a little bit.

My face is close to hers now, so close I can feel her breath fanning over my face as she stares up at me. So close that her scent is everywhere, filling all my senses.

“You’re so fucking alluring,” I tell her. “And the thing is, you don’t even realize it.”

“I’m not—” she starts to say, but I shake my head.

“I’m realizing that you don’t see yourself at all. You really don’t get it. Peaches, any man in this town would be lucky to have you. They should be lining up at the door to beg for the privilege of having someone as sweet and talented as you are. None of them are good enough for you, but still.”

“What—” Violet cuts herself off, swallowing hard. She looks almost lost, like she doesn’t know how to handle what I just said, and that snaps me out of my daze. I didn’t mean to take it this far. Something about her just shuts off my better judgement and makes it hard to focus.

There’s no one to pretend for now, like Violet said, but apparently, that doesn’t matter as much as it should.

I tear myself away from her and walk out of the kitchen, heading back through the front of the bakery and into the bracing chill outside. With the heat currently pounding through my veins, I need the cold to calm me the fuck down.

17

VIOLET

I stare after Sawyer,rooted to the spot. My heart is thundering so loudly, I can hear my pulse all through my body and feel it beating hard. In a daze, I reach up and touch my lips, and it’s almost like I can feel his against them. Even though it was just the warmth of his breath I felt, there’s something like a phantom touch left behind.

His gaze was so hot that it seared right through me, and even thinking about it now makes my heart skip a beat. There was such an intensity to the way he looked at me. Like I was the only person in the world, let alone in the bakery. Like nothing else mattered other than us, right then and there.

It definitely didn’t seem fake.

Nothing about it felt like it was to keep up appearances or trick anyone at all. It felt like Sawyer meant every single word he said to me, and like he wanted to make sure I heard it and believed it.

My stomach flutters at the thought of that.

The timer for the cookies goes off at the same time as the bell above the door jingles. That shakes me out of my daze, and I grab the cookies out of the oven, leaving them on the work top to cool while I dash out to take care of the customers.

The rest of the day is slow, which is kind of a good thing, considering my head is in the clouds for most of it. Every time I stop moving, I think about Sawyer, and I spend a lot of time shaking myself to try to focus. Unfortunately, when I close up for the afternoon, I have to go to a fitting for my dress for the wedding.

With everything going on with the guys, I’d almost forgotten about it, but the reminder is there on my phone, telling me I have half an hour to get to where I need to be.

I text the guys to let them know, feeling weird about it as I do. It’s the kind of thing I’d do with a partner, the kind of thing I used to do with Andrew when I wasn’t coming straight home, but it’s not like the guys and I are really together.

Still, I want them to know where I am so they won’t wonder. That just seems like good manners.

Isabelle is already at the little boutique she chose to get our dresses from. She has a fitting today too, for her wedding dress, and that doesn’t make me feel any better about what I’m about to do.

Trying on clothes in front of someone as thin and pretty as my twin sister has never been fun, and this isn’t going to be an exception to that rule. At least Isabelle is more likely to be focused on herself than me, so I won’t have to deal with her making any comments.

A woman with bright blonde hair and an even brighter grin shows us to the fitting area where our dresses are hanging up waiting for us.

“I’ll give you a few minutes to get changed and then be right in to make adjustments,” she says, flitting out and closing the door behind her.