Page 33 of Mishaps and Mistletoe

“I think I can do better.”

She licked her lips, a futile attempt at moistening them since her mouth was totally dry. “Show me.”

Then he did.

His lips crashed into hers, reading the urgency in her actions, and matching them with raw, hungry movements of his own. His hands were everywhere—in her hair, around her waist, running up and down her back. If she wasn’t so engrossed in the moment, she might have stopped to check if he’d sprouted extra limbs.

And then he slowed down, and she nearly melted. He took his time with her. She was his favorite book, one he’d savored, tabbed, highlighted, done everything but dogear the pages (He wasn’t a monster!). Her every want and need—he’d read them all like something she’d test him on later. He’d already passed with flying colors.

As he nipped at her bottom lip, a low growl escaped her mouth. This was nothing like their first kiss—or their second. If their first was a song, it’d have been a demo tape of an up-and-coming band that was still working out some kinks. Their second would have been the debut album, something enjoyable. Upbeat. But this one? This one was the live concert—a symphony of sound so alive, so captivating. The crowd could feel the music rumble in their chests as each bass note vibrated through their bodies. It was all the songs they’d heard before, but never like this. Because this, right here, was the culmination of all the excitement, anticipation, and waning nerves crashing in an unforgettable crescendo. And Josie knew the song would never sound the same to her again.

They pulled apart, chests heaving as their lungs worked overtime to pull the chilly air into their bodies. And just when Josie thought the moment couldn’t get any more perfect, Kevin raised his hooded eyes to the sky and chuckled softly.

“Can you even believe this?” he exclaimed with the unbridled joy of a child running down the stairs on Christmas morning as fat snowflakes danced down from the dark night sky.

“Your first snow, Kev! Is it everything you’ve ever dreamed of?”

He tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear and kept his gloved hand cradled against her cheek. “I could have never imagined something as perfect as this in a million years.”

Josie had long imagined the romance associated with a kiss under the mistletoe. But kissing a man right here, under a sky full of stars on an ice rink he’d gotten for her as the first flakes of the season tickled their lashes—well, no kiss could ever top this.

She spent the rest of the evening conducting “research” though, just in case.

ChapterEleven

“Please see the cashier now,” the robotic voice at the Target self-checkout blared as a light flashed overhead.

“Please see—”

“Alright, alright,” he mumbled as he grabbed his box of cereal and lip balms. Yes, balms. Plural.

When he turned to find a human cashier, he glimpsed his dry, cracked lips staring back at him on the store surveillance screen. The cold air sure had done a number on them last night. And so had Josie. He totally wasn’t complaining about that, though.

“Moisturizing. Ultra-Moisturizing. Maximum Hydration.” The cashier read off the names of the balms as she swiped each across the scanner.Was that really necessary?

He paid the woman and walked with his loot back to his Jeep. One tube claimed to be “fast acting,” which he hoped wasn’t an empty promise. He was meeting Josie in about five hours for their trolley ride through the light display at Oglebay. And after last night, he doubted he’d make it through the evening without tasting her lips again. He hoped so, anyway. He was a starving man who’d just feasted on the finest cuisine in all the world and was powerless to resist something that delectable.

For the past few weeks, he’d tried. Harder than he’d ever tried at anything before. Driving back to the office, he thought about the itty-bitty peck they’d shared at his house. After that, he’d tried to keep his distance from her. But he was a weak man. No, that wasn’t true. Josie was just an incredible woman.

“Is Mr. Stevenson back yet?” Kevin asked as he approached the receptionist desk. His boss had been out of the office all morning, and it was pressing that Kevin spoke to him today.

After what had happened with Josie last night, he needed to be honest with Mr. Stevenson. Maybe he’d be okay with their relationship. Perhaps he wouldn't. Maybe he’d put Kevin on another project. He didn’t know. What hedidknow was he was ready to fully commit to Josie. And that meant being totally honest with her too.

Should he have told her the whole truth from the beginning? Yes. He should have been up front about them working closely together after the first of the year. But being the good person she was, once she’d found out it might affect his career, she probably would have insisted they keep their distance so he could keep his job.

But he didn’t care about that now.

He’d let her out of his life once; he wasn’t about to do it again. Back then, he’d researched every Greyhound bus station in West Virginia and rounded up all his money. But he didn’t know where in the state she even lived, and he only had about half the money he needed for a bus ticket toonestop. Definitely not enough to ride around the state looking for her.

He couldn’t do anything back then. But he could do something now.

“Mr. McCann,” a voice interrupted, bringing him back to the world of ringing phones and the tap, tap, tapping of fingers on keyboards. “He’s not coming back.”

“Uh, what? Who?”

“Mr. Stevenson. He took the rest of the afternoon off.”

Dang.

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