Page 85 of Mistletoe All the Way

I press an open-mouthed caress to the lovely column of her neck. “I knew it. Do you get candy cane panties there too?”

“If I do, will you rip them off me with your teeth?”

I snap my gaze up from her neck. “Yes. Now,” I say. Wait, nope. That’s a grunt. That’s pure Neanderthal.

She swats my shoulder, then laughs. “I don’t have candy cane panties.”

“Not yet,” I say, since that is going on my shopping list. I don’t even have a shopping list, but I know with stone-cold certainty I will be finding a pair tomorrow.

“Have it your way,” she teases.

“You,” I say, cupping her cheek. “You’re what I want to have.”

Her eyes widen. She rolls her lips together, breathes out softly, then in. Maybe taking her time with my confession.

Was it even a confession? It feels patently obvious to me. I don’t know what happens next. Hell, I’ve no clue what comes after the contest.

But I’m not thinking past tomorrow. I’m thinking only of right here, right now, and the words that ghost past her lips.

“Have me. And don’t stop,” she says.

Say less. I drop my face, layering more kisses on her soft throat, then undoing the top button of her blouse. Traveling lower. Another button and my mouth reaches the top of her breasts.

She squirms against me, her breathing turning into sighs and whimpers.

Sexy noises and racing heartbeats.

I take my time opening each button, wanting her to feel every second of tonight. I sweep my lips across the top of one soft breast, groaning at the delicate taste of her skin, the sweetness of this fiery woman. She shudders, grabs my head, yanks me closer.

I smile against her skin, pride spreading through me from her reaction.

Until she whispers, “What are we doing?”

I sit bolt upright. It’s an icy dose of reality. “Do you want to stop?”

“No. It’s just that we weren’t going to do this.”

“We weren’t,” I say, reluctance flooding me. “It’s distracting.”

“So distracting,” she repeats, and for several long, heavy seconds, the possibility of us stopping weighs me down.

But then, she rocks against me once more. Laces her hands through my hair. Smiles. “Distract me, Noah.”

That I can do. I smack her ass. She yelps, blinks, then lets her lips quirk into a grin. “Very distracting.”

“Good. You fucking distracted me all day at the booth.”

Grinding against me, she asks, “How badly?”

“You’re feeling how badly, sweetheart,” I say, my gaze locked on her brown eyes.

Her brown eyes.

That’s it.

I wrap my hands around her waist and lift her off my lap. The loss of contact sucks. But once I set her down on the floor, I scoop her up and toss her over my shoulder.

“Oh, I can see now how hauling those bales of hay comes in handy.”