LITMIR.BIZ

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at the swirling white flurries that were falling down. “It doesn’t look promising.”

      A few moments later, he’d confirmed that it wasn’t good. “Planes are grounded today,” he said. “Even if we could take off from here, we can’t land in New York.”

      “What! But … tomorrow is Christmas Eve and … and I am going to kill you! I’m being hyperbolic but … but seriously, Luc, all I wanted was Christmas and now I am stuck in freaking Colorado with you! And you won’t even kiss me!”

      “Because I can’t control the weather, and because kissing would be a bad idea.”

      “Sure,” she said. “If I don’t get home for Christmas I am going to be unhappy. And,” she said, looking at him defiantly, “I’m going to sing.”

      “What?”

      “If I am here on Christmas Eve I am going to sing all night. I’m going to sing about wise men, and mangers and I’m going to sing about Santa coming to town and you won’t be able to stop me.”

      “I did not intend to get you stuck here.”

      “Well,” she said, her eyes widening, “I am stuck here. I just am. With you. In one room that now seems very small. So I would just … just like to make you as uncomfortable as I am.”

      “You don’t think I’m uncomfortable?” he asked.

      “You’re the one driving this train. You dragged me here. You didn’t correct Don when he assumed we were engaged. You made us get massaged in the same room when I had said that I didn’t want to get naked and oiled up with you. You kissed me, then you acted like you wished you could unkiss me. And now we’re stuck here. So you don’t have the right to be more uncomfortable than me. Not when you’re the one making decisions for everyone.”

      “I am trying to make the right decisions,” he said, his voice low, “you’re my employee, and even if nothing else stood between us, that would be enough. It’s wrong for me to touch you, wrong for me to take advantage of you.”

      “Take advantage of me? As if I’m a child rather than just your assistant?”

      “I sign your checks. There is every chance that an advance from me could feel forced on you.”

      “But it doesn’t!” she exploded, striding across the room toward him. “The thing is, I don’t want it to feel forced on you. One thing I am really sick of is having my advances just be a turnoff. That’s how he acts. He used to kiss me and now … barely. If ever. I thought we were just in a rut, but it turns out he doesn’t want me. Well, I’m not going to force myself on men who don’t want me.”

      “Amelia …”

      “But answer one question for me, Luc, please.”

      “What is that?”

      “Is it me? Is something wrong with me? Am I fundamentally unsexy in some way?”

      He closed the distance between them, wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her close. She blinked, her jaw dropped, her eyes especially wide. And she felt good. She felt so good. Her soft curves, her breasts … he didn’t want to say no.

      He didn’t want to toe the line or do the right thing or any other cliché. He wanted her. And the rest didn’t seem to matter. For once in his life, he wanted to be the one who didn’t care about the rules.

      Where had they gotten him? Under his father’s heel. He’d lost his intended bride to his brother. He’d been in a job he’d hated for more than a decade. What was the point of doing the right thing when it never got you what you wanted?

      He didn’t want right. He wanted Amelia.

      “Does it feel like there’s anything unsexy about you?” he growled, putting his hand on her butt and pulling her in tight, letting her feel the hardened ridge of his arousal.

      “I … I thought this was wrong.”

      “It is,” he said. “In so many different ways I can’t name them all. But I think it’s going to happen. One night, I might have been able to handle. Even two nights, maybe. I bet I could resist you for two nights.”

      “You aren’t resisting,” she said, her voice breathless.

      “Because I don’t want to.”

      “Neither do I,” she said.

      “You have to understand,” he said, “this isn’t going to be anything else. I don’t want marriage, and I don’t want a wife and children. I don’t want forever. All I want from you is sex.”

      She let out a sharp breath. “Thank God, because the other guy wants me to be his wife, bear his children and he doesn’t seem to want sex at all. Frankly, a man who only wants sex seems like a much simpler undertaking.”

      “I’m glad to hear you say that.”

      Then he kissed her, her lips soft against his, her body melting into him. It was rare for him to know his lovers these days, at least in a real way. Before Marie, he’d dated women, he’d had relationships, but after that he’d had sporadic affairs.

      Amelia was different. He knew her. He was conscious of the fact that it was Amelia’s lips he was kissing. That it was Amelia who made soft sounds of pleasure as he moved his hands over her curves.

      There was no room for right or wrong now. There was only want.

      Amelia felt as if she couldn’t breathe, but at the moment, she didn’t really care. All she knew was that she’d gone from enraged to turned on out of her mind in three seconds flat.

      This was exactly what she needed. He was exactly what she needed. How had she missed that? For four years, she’d worked next to a guy who did more for her just by asking her to make him coffee than Clint had done by kissing her, and she still hadn’t realized.

      Friendship wasn’t enough. The desire to make his life better wasn’t enough. Without this, they couldn’t have a marriage. She couldn’t marry him.

      So that decision was made, and she could stop thinking and just revel in the feeling of Luc’s lips on hers. She didn’t ever want to stop kissing him. She hadn’t known it could be this good, this deep. She hadn’t known she could feel it down to her toes and every place in between.

      That a kiss could make you lose track of time and sanity. That it could make you so damn hungry you felt weak in the knees.

      He growled and backed her up against the wall, his hold on her firm, the kiss so deep, so hard. As if he was trying to prove what she already knew. That his kiss was in a whole different league from every one that had come before it. As if he was trying to wash away every other touch with heat and fire.

      It was working. Oh, dear Lord, it was working.

      He pushed his hands beneath the hem of her top, warm palms skimming over her stomach. Yes. Yes, yes. This was what she wanted. She wanted it all, she wanted it now. With him.

      She hadn’t exactly imagined that her first sexual experience would be with Luc, but then, she’d spent the past few years imagining that her first time would be on her wedding night with the man who’d wanted to say vows to her before he ever took her to bed.

      But that had all been a sham. A way for him to put off what he didn’t want. A way for him to try and make what he was doing sound like it was somehow better, all while she starved for human touch.

      It didn’t matter that this wasn’t what she’d imagined. This was better. It was Luc. She spent five days a week with the man, assisting him, working with him. Talking to him. And, yeah, he was grumpy. And she didn’t always understand him. And she didn’t always like him.

      But he was a friend. And she trusted him. In that moment, it hit her just how much. She could never just go to a bar and find a stranger to give her what she wanted, it wasn’t in her. It was so much better to be

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