Page 90 of Hero for the Holidays

“Yeah. True.” He brushed past her and went to the vending machine. He smelled so good. What was the matter with her? Why was he dominating her thoughts and feelings like this? Why was she perpetually sixteen with him?

That this was a permanent state with Landry did not thrill her at all.

“Landry,” she said.

At the same time he said, “Fia.”

“You first,” he said.

“Today was really special. Thank you.”

“Yeah. It was.”

And then suddenly, he was moving toward her, intent in his dark blue eyes. He wrenched the ice bucket out of her arms and set it in the catch tray of the ice machine. And then he wrapped his arms around her, lowered his head and kissed her.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

HOLYHELL.She felt like she had been dipped in flames.

Burning.

She remembered what she’d thought about her mother. Self-immolation.

Well, this was immolation by Landry King. And she didn’t think she had the fortitude to stop it.

She hadn’t been kissed in thirteen years. She hadn’t even wanted to kiss anybody. Because his lips were the only lips she wanted.

Because his mouth washome.

Because she could admit that now, even though it cost her. Even though it made her feel like she was insane. Even though she knew it was completely against everything that made any kind of sense. Against what they decided.

He kissed her like he was trying to make up for lost time. Like he was trying to add passion back to all those years that had been a desert. A wasteland.

He cradled her face, his tongue parting her lips, sliding against hers.

She needed this. She clung to his shirt. She felt how hard he was. How strong and muscular andeverything.

Landry King. The boy who had lit her on fire. The man who continued to.

The father of her daughter.

The father ofherdaughter.

They couldn’t do this. They had to be a family. And they could not be trusted. Not with this. It was a box of matches, and they might have learned enough, and changed enough to try to be parents now, but she wasn’t sure if they were enough to try this, and they had to be sure. They were both so stunted in this way. They’d never tried it with anyone else.

Maybe because they’d broken something in each other all those years ago.

But he was still kissing her. And she was still letting him. Hell. She was still kissing him back. Even though she had already decided they had to stop.

She had decided that. She knew they had to.

But she couldn’t.

Shecouldn’t.

She couldn’t make her hands release their hold on his shirt. She couldn’t stop her lips from clinging to his.

This was everything, and so was he. A huge part of herself that she had covered up years ago. That she had imagined she might have cut out with a knife, but it had always been there.

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