Page 42 of Eight Days of Christmas
“Your competitiveness.”
“Really?” She gaped at him. “That’swhat does it for you?”
He shrugged, his fingers moving slower as they strung the popcorn. “I guess so.”
“But not me practically throwing myself at you?” The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them. She had absolutely thrown herself at him in the rental car, but she definitely didn’t need to revisit the details.
“Oh no, believe me, that was hot, too. But this,” he gestured in the space between them, “is much more intense. It’s like foreplay. Remember how exhilarating it used to be when I’d beat you at something? How you’d sneak into my room later and tackle me in my bed, all to prove you could still own me in at leastoneway? Pretty sure that’s what the whole car thing was about. Not that I’m complaining.”
Isabella’s cheeks burned, and as much as she scolded herself, her body hummed at his words and the tension winding between them. “I remember that going both ways.”
“What, the after-battle sex or the car sex?”
“Both.” She bit her lip, her mind replaying the wordsexin Leo’s man voice over and over.
His gaze drifted to her mouth. “Seriously, if your family wasn’t in the other room, I’d—” his words dropped.
She simultaneously wanted him to finish that sentence and not finish it. “You’d…what?”
He rubbed his forehead, like he was contemplating the best words to say. When he pulled his hand away, red cranberry stains streaked his skin.
Isabella couldn’t help but smile.
“What?” Concern crumpled his brow.
“Come here, you’ve got cranberry on your face.”
“I do? Where?” He swiped at his forehead, but only made it worse. “Stop laughing and get it off. This stuff stains.”
Isabella snorted another laugh, rising to her knees and moving closer to him. She wiped her thumb across the red marks. It helped, but the cranberry juice was already seeping in for the long haul. “Here, lick my finger and I’ll use it to wipe your forehead.”
He reeled back when she held her finger up for him. “What? Gross.”
“How is that gross? You’ve licked worse things on my body.” Their eyes locked, and she swallowed down the choking awkwardness of what she’d just said. She cleared her throat, imagining her face had turned ten shades of hell-fire red. “Anyway, do you want me to lick my own finger and rub my spit on your face? Because you better hurry. It’s staining.”
He hesitated, and she swore his eyes had darkened. He folded his hand around hers and drew her finger into his mouth. But instead of just licking it quickly, he held it there, giving it a long, sensual suck, his eyes never leaving hers.
What. Were. They. Doing. In her parents’ living room, no less.
Her body didn’t care. She tensed, her entire being answering to his touch.
A sigh escaped her lungs, but laughter from the kitchen snapped her out of her Leo-induced haze. She wrenched back her trembling hand, then hurried and rubbed her wet finger across his forehead, erasing the red stains.
“There,” she breathed out a shaky breath, tucking her chin to her chest, trying to look anywhere but at Leo so her heart had a chance to chill out.
“Better?” His voice came out gravelly and rough, and he touched her chin.
So much for a strong will.
She lifted her gaze to meet his. “Yep. All better.”
Leo took her hands and wrapped them around to the back of his neck. He peered into her eyes, and she sucked her lip in between her teeth. So many intense emotions rippled through her that she couldn’t make sense of them all.
“That mouth,” he whispered, running a thumb against her jaw, and sending a craving low in her belly. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, her lips hopeful and parted, waiting through pure agony.
He pressed his forehead against hers. “If you don’t pull back, Izzy,” he said, low and husky, “I’m gonna kiss you.” His warm breath on her mouth made her thighs clench, that feeling in her stomach only intensifying.
She threaded her fingers into his hair, her thoughts battling in her mind. Should she let him kiss her or stop this now? A kiss would go further. Not here and now, of course. But later, when the house grew still, they’d find one another and collide. They weren’t capable of any less.
