Page 38 of Mistletoe Latte

“What is this trash? Get rid of those damn rodents!” Nick shouted, chasing after her.

“You love them. Can’t get enough. Have to listen to the singing mice every Christmas.”

“Skylar…”

She rolled her eyes and abandoned her attack. “Fine. I’ll skip the CD ahead. Yeah, you heard right He’s so old the cafe uses a CD player.”

It was obvious the last part was yelled at Emma, who busied herself with the decorations. Only the colorful snowflakes remained, the rest of the box empty. She taped the red and green ones to the window, added the yellow just above the bench, then spotted a gaping hole. It was at the top of the window and would be perfect for a blue snowflake with hearts cutout on each side.

Steadying herself, Emma reached to get the snowflake in place, but she was a foot too low.Curse these short legs.She looked for a chair to stand on when she remembered the near folly with the bell. “Nick?”

He looked up from his cleaning.

Emma wafted the paper snowflake back and forth. “Would you mind helping me?” She then mimed putting it in place.

“Sure. I mean, no. Yeah, I’ll help.” He walked over, and she turned to face him to hand him the snowflake. Nick blinked, then bent down and wrapped his arms around her legs.

Before she knew what was happening, he lifted her into the air. She started to tip but clung a steadying hand around his shoulders as he guided her to the window. “How’s this?”

In his arms, it was easy for her to place the snowflake against the glass. She slapped a piece of tape, then two more so it wouldn’t fall. Nick kept a protective hand around her hip so the bottom of her ass rested on his forearm. The hard, strong-enough-to-lift-her-into-the-air forearm.

“Good,” Emma whispered.It’s so good.“I think I’ve got it up.”

She didn’t know what to expect, maybe for Nick to just drop her like he had the sack. But it certainly wasn’t for him to slide his arm up. His hand caught her side, then turned her around. Her chest pressed against his, and she fell at his command. Nick’s fingers tumbled under the back of her sweater, the whole of his palm spread across her naked skin. She stared first down, then up into his eyes, barely noticing when her feet hit the ground. All her attention was on the warm hand caressing her back and her palms winding their way across his shoulders.

When Emma’s fingers met at the nape of his neck, Nick brushed her cheek and raised her head. The moment her eyes slipped closed, his lips touched hers. Gently, he swirled the heat of his body across her mouth. Nick ran his fingers under the hollow of her jaw, and he tipped his head. The kiss deepened from a stolen moment under the mistletoe. Emma parted her lips and he slipped his tongue in. The richness of the hot cocoa lasted only a second as the taste of him, rough and tender at the same time, filled her. A tingle zipped from her panting lips down her spine to her core.

She took in a breath, and both stepped back. Nat King Cole asked for chestnuts roasting on an open fire. A thousand thoughts swirled through her mind, but what she wanted most was to ask for another kiss.

“I found this other box—”

The two adults shoved off each other, Emma banging her heel on the window. Nick almost smashed into the tree, but he rounded fast and started to jog towards Skylar. “You did what?”

“It was in the storage room and I thought…” She placed the beat-up white box on the counter and looked up. In the window’s reflection, Emma could see how pink her cheeks were. She tried to cover them over with her hand, but the longer the girl stared from her to Nick, the worse it got. “What were you two doing?”

“What’d you find?” Nick asked fast.

What were they doing?It was a good question. One that Emma should be mulling over instead of if it could happen again.

Skylar hunched over to tug on the box’s lid. As she did, Nick glanced back at Emma. She gulped in uncertainty until he smiled and ran the tip of his tongue over his lip.

“This was just sitting in the room, and I thought we could use…” The lid slipped off the box with a loud whine. Skylar dug in and lifted up an apron like the cafe ones, but this was navy blue with a name embroidered on the front.

“Oh, shit,” Skylar muttered.

Nick’s eyes went wide. With a low growl, he slapped the apron back into the box, then slammed the lid on top. It didn’t close, but he put so much brute force into it, the entire box collapsed. “We’ve got a business to run. Get the rest of that mess cleaned up, and shut off that god damn music.”

With a sneer obliterating his smile, Nick stomped into the back and silenced Nat King Cole. He didn’t once look at his flinching niece or Emma. Not wanting to cause a scene, Emma began to pack up the few boxes as quietly as possible. She didn’t have a clue what just happened, but she’d swear the name on the apron was Rachel.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

HE SHOULDN’T HAVE kept putting it off.

The tips of Nick’s fingers burned as he swung the ax. Rather than split the wood, the head of his ax lodged inside the log. Grunting, he tried to shake the barely cut wood off of the blade. While he looked like a right ass swinging the trapped ax around, the log remained stuck. Growing more enraged by the second, Nick slammed both his frost-bitten fingers into the narrow gap and pulled.

“Come on you stupid, son of a…!”

A crack shot through the frozen air, but it came from his back instead.

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