Page 12 of One Night on the Naughty List

Bain

Ishould have kissed Samantha when I had the chance.

As we drove the short distance to my mother’s house, I kicked myself for backing down. It would have been so easy to kiss her—to cup her jaw, lean in, and press my lips to hers. To find out if she tasted as sweet as I imagined. For the briefest moment, I could have sworn she almost swayed toward me, ready to make a move of her own.

Then I’d straightened her hat. I might have been absent from the dating scene for a while, but even I knew that was a swing and a miss.

Worse, confusion had flashed in her eyes. When she took that little step back, I could almost feel her throwing up walls, shielding herself from hurt.

It killed me not to pull her right back and crush my mouth against hers.

But I had a good reason for holding off. No matter how many signals she threw out, I had to be absolutely certain she would welcome a kiss—and that she had somewhere to retreat if she didn’t. An empty forest was no place to test the boundaries of our relationship.

That didn’t stop me from stealing glances at her as we approached my mother’s house. Her cheeks were still that soft pink, and she was sucking at her bottom lip again. Her pale hair fell in waves down her chest, the ends curling around a high, firm breast. She had no idea how good she looked.

She had no idea how good she’d felt in my arms.

I probably shouldn’t have carried her, but she’d been damn near irresistible sitting on that stump, her peaches and cream skin glowing against the snow, my name embroidered on her hat. Call it caveman instinct, but something about laying eyes on a beautiful woman after swinging an axe made blood pump to certain places, and it wasn’t my brain.

Judging from her swift intake of breath after I swung her into my arms, her blood had raced, too. I knew she was self-conscious about her size, although goodness knew she had no reason to be. She was soft in all the places a woman should be, her curves melting against my chest and stomach. Her brown eyes had widened as she clung to my neck. Then they widened some more when I put her down and our gazes met. Her lips had parted, and she seemed to hold her breath.

Waiting.

If I waited much longer, I risked blowing my chance—or making the flash of hurt in her eyes permanent.

Not going to happen.

First, though, I had to get through my mother’s party. It was going to be torture when all I wanted to do was take Samantha back to Albany. Take her to dinner. Take her to my place. Take her to bed.

Not necessarily in that order. I was flexible.

As I turned down the narrow mountain road that led to the house, I caught her eye. “Just a heads up, my family can be a bit overwhelming. The place gets loud with twelve kids running around, especially at Christmas.”

She smiled, her dimples showing. “It’s okay. It can’t be any worse than Kara and Alexis singing karaoke at the company holiday party.”

“God, I forgot about that.” I laughed, and her smile grew, making her even more beautiful. I could get used to having her beside me—to teasing her just to see if I could make those dimples appear.

The house emerged between the trees. My brothers’ vehicles were already in the driveway, which meant the volume inside was probably at noise pollution levels.

I took another quick look at Samantha and caught her worrying at her bottom lip again. Her brow was furrowed, and she twisted her hands together in her lap as her gaze moved over the line of cars.

My heart squeezed. She was probably nervous. Whenever she spoke of her family, she described a loving but small circle made up of her parents and a handful of distant, elderly relatives. By contrast, there was an army of Thatchers inside my mother’s place—most of them under the age of ten and likely hopped up on sugar and excitement. I’d be lucky to get a word in edgewise with her once we went inside.

Samantha’s frown deepened.

And, suddenly, I realized I needed to take a chance a lot sooner than I thought.

I parked behind my oldest brother’s car and turned to her. “Before we head in, I wanted to, uh, tell you a few things.” Heat crept up the back of my neck, and my heart fluttered around my rib cage like a trapped bird. Under other circumstances, I might have laughed at my predicament—a divorcé nearing his sell-by date sitting in his mom’s driveway, too nervous to tell a girl he liked her.

But I couldn’t laugh about this. It was too important. And there was a fragility to Samantha. Something delicate and precious that needed protecting.

Her expression was open and expectant—the same look she gave me when I asked her to write something down or swing by my office for a quick meeting.

Shit.This was going to be harder than I thought. The SUV’s interior was silent except for the sound of snowflakes pelting the windshield. The fluffy stuff gathered around the wipers and coated the glass, enclosing us in a wintry cocoon.

I cleared my throat. “Thank you for agreeing to come.” I glanced at the house, which had gone blurry through the snow. “It’s hard flying solo at these types of things, especially this time of year. My brothers have families. I have a health food company.”

Her eyes softened. “You and Natasha didn’t want kids?” She blanched, then looked down, clearly regretting the question. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked something so personal.”

---