Page 62 of The Jinglebell War
“This may shock you, Demon, but there wasn’t a lot of making out or a lot of girls in my mis-spent youth. I was too busy looking for new trouble to cause to make much time for dating or making out.”
I tilt my head and look up at him. “Shocking.”
The fondness in his gaze when he looks down at me makes my chest go tight with a feeling I do not like at all. “I wasn’t always this good looking or this smooth, Demon.”
That does surprise me. I figured he’d been born charming. “You’ll have to teach me your secrets. Maybe if I’m smoother or as charming as you, the council will accept me.”
He presses a kiss to the cold tip of my nose. “You couldn’t be any more charming if you tried.”
I snort. “That’s not what you were saying a week ago.”
“No, but I was thinking it. I was having to fight really hard to remember all the reasons you were my enemy.”
“You’re just saying that because you want to get laid.”
“Speaking of that. We should get out of here.”
I hop off his lap, and he grabs my gloved hand. His are still bare and his gloves are nowhere to be seen. Did he actually take them off and manage to shove them in his pockets while kissing me?
Clearly, my kisses don’t have the same effect on him as his have on me.
Which is a very good thing. I don’t want him to fall for me in any way, not even physically.
No matter how sad it makes me to think about us going back to being strangers in Yuletide. Or, even worse, enemies.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Garrick
I have never been so hard in my life. And it has never taken longer to get from the resort back to my parents’ house. I’m pretty sure we went through some kind of time warp on the way here and it actually took three hours instead of fifteen minutes.
I park the truck in front of the house and look over at Blue, whose hand is still on my thigh, where it’s been creeping ever higher since we got into the truck.
She looks back at me with every bit as much desire as I feel right now.
Damn, her lips are kissable.
“Race you to the house?”
She’s out of the truck before the last word has left my mouth.
The laugh that bursts from me feels like the freedom of childhood, but the excitement I feel about catching her is one hundred percent adult and x-rated.
Blue’s laughing so hard she can barely catch her breath when I reach her. I don’t let her catch it. I press her against the frontdoor and kiss her upturned lips until she melts against me, all laughter forgotten.
I punch in the code on the keypad while I’m kissing her and push us both inside.
I don’t even get the door closed before Blue gasps and pitches backward.
Trying to catch her, I fall with her, realizing only as we hit the hardwood floor that we’re falling over my dog.
“Are you okay?” I pull Blue onto me as Barry stands over us and whines.
“I banged my elbow pretty good, but I’m fine otherwise.” Blue twists to look back at Barry and immediately climbs off me to wrap herself around the sad-faced mutt.
“We’re okay,” she says into Barry’s fur. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Barry whines one more time before her tail wags and her mouth falls open in a happy pant. I stare at this woman I want in my bed loving on my dog, more concerned for Barry’s feelings than her own injuries, and my chest aches with the most unusual feeling.
