Page 16 of Getting Wrapped Up

She started to pull back, but he put his hand between her shoulder blades and brought her in. “Fucking love tinsel,” he said against her lips and then took her into a kiss that definitely heated things up.

She didn’t hesitate, which further fired his blood. In fact, when he parted his lips and stroked his tongue into her mouth, she moaned.

Tinsel and anything else she wanted. That was the only thing he could really think as she pivoted to lean closer. But they were sitting on a bench, and that meant she had to fold a leg up between them. Neither of them really wanted anything between them at all, so when she made a frustrated little sound, Levi took hold of her hips and picked her up to put her in his lap. Their cups of hot chocolate tipped over into the snow, but they barely noticed.

Thanks to the tight skirt on her dress, she had to sit sideways—pulling the dress up any farther would have put her at risk for frost bite in some very unpleasant places—but they were definitely closer now. And warmer.

She gripped the front of his coat in her hands like she had before. Levi kept his hands on her hips, loving the sweet weight of her against the suddenly noticeable fly of his jeans.

She tipped her head one way, he tipped the other, deepening the kiss, the tongue stroking getting bolder and faster.

She moved her fingers to the buttons on the front of his coat and as the first released, Levi caught her hands. “It’s too cold here for this.” Not to mention public. In a nice small town where everyone knew his brother. He really didn’t have any problems with public displays of many kinds—including some with far more skin showing than he and Hailey were—but his behavior reflected on Joe and Phoebe.

And he was a little afraid of his petite, red-headed sister-in-law.

He planned to stay in Sapphire Falls for several months, hopefully the whole year, to really soak it in and let it change him. He couldn’t afford to be on her bad side.

Hailey sat staring at him, pressing her lips together, looked bewildered and turned on.

He could work with both of those things.

“Let’s go somewhere warmer.”

He started to shift to get up, but she didn’t move. Since she was on top of him, that meant he didn’t get far. She was light. He could have easily picked her up and carried her off to his—Joe’s—truck. But he sensed her hesitation.

Considering they’d just met, that made some sense.

Joe and Phoebe had set them up. They had no reason to fear that the other was a serial killer or anything, but that didn’t mean they should hop into bed together.

Did it?

Levi pondered that for a moment. Why not? Joe wouldn’t set him up with someone crazy. And Lord knew, they had the chemistry for it. He was turning over a new leaf, but he wasn’t becoming a priest. Having sex with a nice girl who might expect him to show up at her grandmother’s for Sunday dinner and take her to the movies on Friday night would definitely be different.

Different was what he needed.

“I have one question,” she said. “Before we go to your place.”

Yes.

“Whatever you want,” he told her sincerely. “And if it involves tinsel, all the better.” At her little grin, he leaned in and said softly, “But turnabout is fair play. Remember that.”

“What if you never want to see another piece of tinsel again in your life?” she asked.

He gave her what Phoebe had labeled his bad-boy grin. “There’s always candy canes if I can’t take the tinsel.”

She seemed to be considering that. Carefully. And thoroughly. Much to his delight.

“I may never be able to look at a candy cane the same way again. And that’s just based on my imagination.”

He stared. Completely surprised and as turned on as he’d ever been talking about candy. “I’m buying every candy cane in this town.”

She laughed. “You can’t. Other people deserve candy canes too.”

Was there any chance, any chance at all, that this woman was thinking the things he was thinking about candy canes?

“Fine, we’ll leave three or four. But I’m a huge fan of peppermint flavored…things.”

She laughed, but it sounded breathless. “I can’t believe I’m talking like this with you.”

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