LITMIR.BIZ

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really a rule, as such, but it was a nice idea. “I’m very, very strict with my guests on that.”

      “I’d better pick a different mug, then,” he said. “Hope I’m not out of luck. Really don’t want to have to drink from...” He examined a few more, ones that didn’t have book covers on them. “...a basket of kittens, or something with a china frog inside it, while you’re being all intellectual with Virginia Woolf. Aha, okay, good.” He’d found George Orwell’s 1984, in orange and white.

      It ended the conversation, and the coffee wasn’t quite ready yet. Upstairs, somebody changed the music and the thumping acquired a different rhythm, just as loud, possibly Coldplay. Lee and Mac faced each other, waiting. He stepped closer. Very close. Well, it was a tiny kitchen. He reached out and touched the scarring on her shoulder. “We didn’t quite finish about your skin. Does it bother you if it’s touched?”

      “Not anymore. It used to.”

      He nodded, hand still resting lightly there. She waited for more, but apparently there wasn’t any. She liked that he’d said something, rather than pretending there weren’t any issues. And she liked that he’d kept it short and practical, both here and back at the bar, with no meaningless gushes of sympathy.

      “This is good,” he said. “Don’t you think?”

      He didn’t spell out what this was, but she thought she knew. The way they were talking, the ease in being close to each other. The way they could both handle the occasional silence. The fact that he’d found a mug he was permitted to drink from because he’d read the book—even though they’d both made up that rule on the spot.

      “Mmm, it is,” she answered.

      Something vibrated in the air between them and she stepped into it. They were so close now that their thighs were touching, and if she hadn’t arched her back a little, she would have been leaning against his chest.

      She wanted to lean against his chest, but for people who’d only met four hours ago, they were taking this pretty slow. She didn’t want to rush a kiss or a close embrace. He touched her mouth with the pad of his thumb, then bent lower and tasted her, just the tiniest brush of a kiss on her mouth. “Nice,” he said softly. “We’re going to make this so nice.”

      She liked that he’d chosen such a plain, simple word. He wasn’t promising to rock her world, baby. As a thank-you for his down-to-earth ego, she kissed him back. Longer this time. Sweeter. Then she broke away, just as he had done, so that they could assess what had happened up to this point.

      He grinned, and it looked like relief, and she felt it, too.

      Whew! So far, not a disaster. Let’s cautiously keep going and see if we can make it stay that way. Or even get better.

      “Coffee’s ready,” she said.

      “Better pour it, then.” He slid Virginia Woolf and George Orwell closer. Lee preheated the cups with hot water, steamed the milk, started the flow of rich, dark liquid through the spigot and into each mug.

      And then they didn’t sit down. They just stood there in the kitchen, drinking the coffee with their backsides pressed against the edge of the counter and an arm around each other. “It’s really good coffee,” he said.

      “I know. I have to ration myself. This’ll keep me awake half the night, drinking it so late.”

      “Which is good, in my opinion. Kind of like the idea of you awake.”

      “It does tend to enhance the experience.”

      A little later, when the coffee was nearly gone, he told her, “You have foam on your top lip.”

      “Oh.” She reached up and brushed it off.

      “You know you weren’t supposed to do that, right? I was supposed to kiss it off.”

      “In fact, I didn’t really have foam there at all.”

      “No, you did. But you took care of it. Sadly.”

      “You don’t need an excuse to kiss me, do you?”

      “Valid point.” He put down his empty mug, took hers and put that down, also, peeled himself away from the edge of the counter and folded her in his arms.

      They must have kissed for...oh, hours. They kissed until she was boneless, until her vision blurred, until she was practically a puddle on the floor, soft all over, throbbing.

      She’d never known such kissing. So warm and strong and lazy. So hot and deep and luscious and perfect. So much an experience with her whole body. He made it totally clear that he was in no rush, and neither was she. Maybe no one had invented anything beyond kissing. Maybe kissing was the whole point, the be-all and end-all, the pinnacle.

      Or maybe it wasn’t.

      Finally, he took his mouth away long enough to say lazily, “Think they’ve quietened down, upstairs.”

      She listened, beyond the slow thump of her heart and the giddiness in her brain. The music was turned off. There was no more laughing and yelling. She could hear a couple sets of footsteps going back and forth, and the occasional sound of a low-pitched voice. “I thought they might go on later than this. What’s the time?” She heard the creakiness in her own voice.

      Mac peered over her shoulder at the microwave clock. “Midnight. Well, twenty after.” He sounded creaky, too. Rusty, as if too much kissing had clamped up their vocal cords.

      She groped for rational thought. “I guess it’s Christmas tomorrow. There are some kids visiting who are still Santa age. Parents probably wanted to get the gifts under the tree, before they’re awakened at the crack of dawn. I noticed they’d corralled off the room with the big tree, and weren’t using it for the party. They’re saving that for their gift opening, tomorrow.”

      “It’s Christmas today,” he corrected.

      “After midnight. You’re right.”

      “So...Merry Everything!” He smiled at her.

      “Merry what?”

      “Christmas itself is not the top thing in my mind, right now. So I’m leaving it open. Hoping there’s some merry other stuff about to happen pretty soon.”

      “Well, Merry Everything back at you, then.”

      “Pretty merry so far.” He pressed his cheek against hers, then turned his head a little so that he was kissing her again. “You have the best mouth....” he whispered. “The best body.”

      “You’re not bad, either,” she whispered back.

      “So that’s how we’re going to play it? I tell you you’re the best, and you tell me I’m not bad?”

      “It’s not a competition,” she said lightly.

      “And yet I really like to win.” His breath heated her ear.

      “So do I.”

      “I’m taking your top off....”

      “Not if I take it off first.”

      “You do like to win. But you won’t win this.” He peeled the red-and-green Christmas garment upward in one swift movement, taking her by surprise. When he ran his hands deliberately over the generous curves of her already acutely sensitized breasts on the way, she gasped and forgot about fighting back. How could anything feel this good?

      He reached around to the back of her bra and turned his slight clumsiness with the hooks into a caress, thumbing the knobs of her spine with silky touches. The hooks stayed stubborn. “I am going to win the bra!” Lee said, because she knew the quirks of this one and had beaten them before.

      Seconds later, the straps slid down her shoulders and her breasts fell into his waiting hands. “Mmm, so good,” he said. He cupped and stroked her, then bent to taste, and electric need ran instantly to her core.

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