Filthy Scrooge

Lake effect blew through and the roads were quickly going from a mere dusting of snow to visibility of two feet. I channelled my anger and found the eerie silence at the eye of a storm. She was intuitive. At least to the fact that I needed quiet to concentrate.

We’d made no promises to each other.

How could we? It was two days since we’d met. It felt like years. It didn’t make sense, and I’d lost the fanciful part of me years ago—even before Sheridan. My father had cured me of the ideology that my mother had cultivated. He’d groomed me to take over the business, but a heart attack had moved the timetable up.

Seemed that time was never quite on my side.

Finally, I turned onto Everly Lane and engaged the four-wheel-drive to make the final incline. Kay reached into the back and rescued our food as well as the bag of her own purchases.

She did a little twirl before we got to the stairs, her face tipped up to the sky. The sky held the opaque iridescence of a storm. “That sky is amazing. I can see why you want to be up here as much as possible.” She held her arms out, a bag in either hand as she opened her mouth. “The snow even tastes different from home.”

“It’s minus the pollutants.”

She closed her mouth with a sigh. “New York City’s pollutants keep me from getting sick, thanks.”

“And how do you figure that?”

“There’s so many terrible things in the city that my antibodies have no choice but to be overachievers.”

“You have a very strange outlook on the world.”

She shrugged. “Us city girls are made of sterner stuff.”

“Good to know.”

She lowered her bags. “Do I require sterner stuff tonight, Mr. Murdock?”

Fuck, it was like a switch attached to my cock when she said my name like that. Even with snow swirling between us, my body half frozen from the damn festival, and the finality of her words echoing in my head, I still wanted her. I suspected it would take a damn long time for me to forget her.

“Yes, you fucking do.” I erased the space between us and slanted my mouth over hers. She tasted of peppermint and chocolate with a dusting of icy snow. She tasted like every dream I hadn’t realized I’d wanted.

She smelled like home.

And she was standing right in front of the place I’d longed to turn into one.

It seemed cruel to waste what she was offering, even if it broke me into two. She sagged in my arms, her bags forgotten in the need to have everything, to demand it all. I pulled back and took the bags, ushering her inside. Once the door was locked, I dropped the bags and swung her up into my arms.

“Linc!”

I ignored her surprised shout. I was raging enough to put her down on the stone tiles of the foyer, but I knew it wouldn’t be good for either of us. I needed her in my room, in my space, surrounded by my scents.

God, I couldn’t deal with the fresh scent of Christmas on her skin.

I set her on her feet the moment we got to the top of the stairs, and I stripped her of the sweater and my shirt. I groaned at her freed breasts. Knowing she’d been naked against my clothes sent me ever closer to the edge of my control.

Mine.

I pushed the possessive thought away.

Not mine.

Mine.

I blocked out that voice and knelt at her feet. I reached under her skirt to find her panties, rolling them down her ass and hips. I left the tights.

I didn’t know what it was about them—the solid silk-encased legs and thighs made me insane. Especially the little slice at the top of her thigh where the elastic dug into her flesh. I flicked my tongue over the fragile skin along her inner thigh.

Salty and cool.