She didn’t know she already had.
My teeth skimmed over her full lower lip, and she moaned as my hand moved of its own volition to her breast. I had the briefest sensation of its weight in my palm, round and perfect, before she tore her lips away.
Fuck, I’d gone too far.
She stared at me for a moment before darting around me and fleeing down the steps, her scarf slipping off and sliding to the ground.
“Wait.” I followed and picked it up, but she never looked back.
I pressed my lips together. They were still tingling from the pressure of hers.
“It’s mistletoe, you pervert.” Someone jostled me from behind, and I turned to see I’d been bumped by an older woman’s cane as she descended the steps. “Not a peep show.”
She gave me another wack
on the ankle for good measure before letting out a “harrumph” and shuffling down the walk.
I fingered the baby-soft scarf my mystery woman had left behind. She didn’t know it, but I’d be sketching her tonight wearing this.
And only this.
Two
My day was not off to a rip-roaring start. And it wasn’t even the same day of the car-ditch mishap.
Maybe I’d finally learn that sweet small towns weren’t necessarily meant for everyone.
“You don’t recognize it?” I held up the bright red scarf as if it was the spoils from a prizefight. “Are you sure? It has your shop’s tag right here.” I jabbed at the embroidered Kinleigh and August’s attic emblem near the fringe.
“No, I’m sorry.” The woman who owned the store I was currently standing in glanced over her shoulder as a baby let out a wail. “That’s my daughter. She needs lunch.”
“Oh, okay, I’ll wait while you give her a bottle or whatever.”
Kinleigh smoothly pulled her long curly red hair over one shoulder. “Her lunch comes from my nipple.”
I blinked. A sleepless night had left me on edge, and admittedly, I wasn’t processing as fast as I would have normally. But that didn’t compute for a good half a minute. “Oh. Oh.”
“Yes, oh. And I’m afraid I can’t share client lists in any case, even if I knew who had purchased that particular item.”
“You do know. I can tell. Look, I’m not a crazy stalker, I swear. I just want to talk to her.”
“As all crazy stalkers have claimed since the beginning of time.”
I let out a breath. She did have a point. “No, it’s not like that. She kissed me. We kissed each other. You know that mistletoe at the gazebo?”
Kinleigh raised her ginger-colored eyebrows and waited.
“She was standing beneath it, and it was snowing, and God, she looked—”
“Willing to sleep with a handsome stranger who was a good kisser?”
“Obviously not, since I slept alone at the bed and breakfast.” I frowned. “Did you just call me handsome? Pretty sure you’re the only person who’s said something nice to me since I drove into town. Except Dare, but you’re a lot prettier than he is.”
Wordlessly, she held up a hand and tapped her sparkly wedding ring.
I had to laugh. “I wasn’t hitting on you. Just saying the welcome mat in this town has not been rolled out in my direction.”
“Yet a beautiful woman kissed you thoroughly enough you’re ready to search to the ends of the earth for her. Sounds pretty welcoming to me.”