Page 12 of Christmas With the Convict

Chase’s body is heaving. He runs a hand up my leg before pulling back.

“Yeah.” I nod. “Let’s not push our luck tonight.”

I get up and straighten myself out, already missing his warmth, his touch, the feeling of those thick muscles pressed against me.

“I’ll handle those two,” I promise. “I’m their favorite aunt.”

“Aren’t you their only aunt?”

“Exactly.”

I turn to head up the stairs, but Chase catches me by the arm. He’s on his feet, pulling me into his warm embrace and a soft kiss.

“I know I shouldn’t do this,” he says, smiling mischievously. “I know I shouldn’t have come here. But… you’re all I’ve thought about for months, Wendy. I thought I’d never see you again when I walked out that gate. When that car stopped and it wasyou in the driver’s seat, it was the first time in my life that I felt like something, somewhere, might be looking out for me.”

Our foreheads rest together.

I tremble as his hands run down my arms.

“I wish I could say that I picked you up due to some moral compulsion,” I laugh softly, fingers rolling over his barrel chest. “I was looking foryou. I wanted you to be out there on the road. I wanted you to be cuffed to the bench in my class. I’m selfish, Chase. There isn’t any other way to say it.”

He lifts my gaze with two fingers on my chin.

Deep in his earthy eyes, chaos swirls. It’s a mirror. Everything I’m feeling is in there looking right back at me.

Chase’s voice cracks as he speaks, “So am I.”

A chill runs down my spine.

“Wendy, I—“

“No.” I press my lips to his before yanking myself away. “That’s enough for tonight. I don’t want your confession. Not now. I just want to knowyou.”

He watches me head up the stairs, body tense and heaving.

“I’m afraid you won’t like what you find,” he says.

“Let’s take it one date at a time.”

“This was a date?” Chase laughs, coming round to the bottom of the stairs. I don’t care that he can see right up my nightgown. In fact, it excites me so much that I stop at the door and look down at him.

“Mhm.” I bite my lip and point my toes as if I’m about to come back down to him. “The best first date I’ve ever had.”

He smiles and nods. “Me too.”

“And tomorrow,” I whisper and crack open the door. “We go skiing.”

“Wait,what?”

I shut the door behind me and lean against it. On my back, I can still feel the heat of his touch through the wood.

Chapter 4

CHASE

Footsteps thudding above me let me know that the house is slowly waking up. The kids are first, rushing around like puppies, their stampeding resulting in acrashorthumpevery few minutes. Some poor adult, probably their mom or dad, follows and fills the place with the smell of coffee.

All I want to do is stay here, in the basement, and wait for Wendy to sneak down again. I didn’t fall asleep for hours after she left. How could I? How could I do anything but lie here and hold onto the image of her delicate body in that red nightgown…

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