The Bachelor on the Shelf (Reindeer Falls)

Carter grabs the photo from the front, and he’s all smiles when he sees it. He slides it into an inside pocket in his coat without even showing it to me, which is annoying, but I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of asking for it.

I can, unfortunately, sense that Carter knows this. He keeps tapping the pocket the photos are in, and once we get back to his car, he tucks the envelope up in the fold-down visor. He doesn’t say a damn word the entire drive back, preferring instead to shoot me sideways glances, trying to egg me into speaking first.

I will not break. I focus on adjusting the vents and syncing my Christmas playlist to his car so he has to listen to Kelly Clarkson belting out Christmas songs.

When we pull up to my house he parks and gets out of the car, acting all chivalrous, walking Rudy and I to the door.

I’ve had enough.

“What are you gonna do with the photos anyway?” I ask, whirling around to face him. “Put them on your Instagram?”

Carter grins. “Fantastic idea.”

I roll my eyes, opening the door so that Rudy can dart inside. “You still think we can sell us as a couple?” I ask, turning back to him. “The two of us are more implausible than a Hallmark movie about a secret prince trapped inside a snow globe who can only be freed when the right woman gives his globe a shake and makes a wish at midnight on Christmas Eve.”

“That implausible, huh?”

“Yes,” I say. “Obviously.”

Carter grins at me in that way that makes my insides melt as he steps closer. “Because of the chemistry thing?”

I gulp. There’s that damn cologne again. I force myself to ignore its mystical hold over me as I murmur, “Yes.”

“But we’ve got chemistry, sassy elf,” he tells me, stepping closer and closer. “You’re trying to tell me you don’t feel… this?”

And then he’s reaching out, tucking a stray curl behind my ear. And I want to tell him that I don’t feel it, not at all, but the words won’t come because it’s a lie. I like what he’s doing very much, even if it is so very, very fake—

His lips meet mine like the first snowflake fluttering down in a storm. Light, unexpected. And then like an unexpected blizzard, we go from zero to a hundred in a heartbeat. Suddenly, my chest is pressed against his, my hands wrapping themselves around his neck, trying to pull him even closer. It’s as if everything in the world melts away in a millisecond, leaving me with only the feel and taste of Carter Sheppard’s lips on mine.

It’s so intense that my knees buckle at the sensation, and I’m only kept upright because Carter’s hands find my lower back, holding me tight. I let my lips part as his tongue flicks across my bottom lip, and shivers run up my spine as one hand moves from my back to my cheek and then into my hair. He’s tipping my head back, tasting me, something so potent and erotic about the motion that I swear I nearly black out.

Fuck, Carter Sheppard knows how to kiss. This is a kiss that’s perfectly slow, as if he knows he’s pulling out every ache and want in my body just by the way his lips move. It’s a smug kiss but I can’t get enough of it, and I’m barely able to breathe as he slides his tongue into my mouth, teasing me with promises of what else he could do with that tongue.

Then, suddenly, he’s pulling back. His hands are no longer in my hair or on my back. His mouth isn’t on mine. My chest is heaving, and he’s six inches away looking like he kisses for a living.

“What was that you were saying about chemistry, sassy elf?”

I can’t find any words. I’m wordless, which, as a librarian, is saying something. And even if I did have words, I’m not sure I could get them out. It’s like someone clicked ‘delete’ on the Word document that is my brain, and I’m not going to be able to form any sentences until they’re replaced.

“That’s what I thought,” he says, and then, thank everything good in the world, his lips are back on mine.

This is the kind of kiss that they write books about. The kind that could raise the dead. It’s heady and wild, and as Carter’s fingertips trail down my sides, I’m suddenly at a loss for why I ever said no to this man. Fake-date him? Why wouldn’t I just date him, if this is what I get to do? I’m drunk on his kisses, especially as his mouth moves past my lips and over my jaw. His hands are moving lower and lower, too, one of them sliding up under my sweater—