Christmas Ever After (Puffin Island 3)

“Why? You don’t want them to know you scored straight As for stamina?”

He swore under his breath. “Sky—”

“Calm down, Alec. I’m teasing you. And I don’t know if, or what, I’ll tell them but it’s irrelevant really because they are going to know within two minutes of meeting me from the plane.”

“You’re planning on engraving ‘I had sex with Alec in multiple positions’ on your forehead?”

“You took me home with you. If you think they’re going to let that gesture pass without comment, you don’t know them. Don’t worry, if it comes to it I’ll give them top-line info but I won’t tell them the really intimate stuff.”

“Well, that’s good to know.” His dry tone made her smile. “I wouldn’t mention—you know—”

“I do not know.”

“Yes, you do. That thing you do—that thing that made me—”

He sighed. “I used to think I wanted honesty, now I’m not so sure.”

Her smile faded as she saw the tension in his shoulders. “Do you regret what we did?”

“No, but I’d rather the details of our encounter didn’t become the topic of conversation in Harbor Stores.”

She laughed. “I can just imagine Hilda saying, ‘Seems like our resident professor has been studying more than dusty books.’ And Zach and Ryan will tease you in that cute guy way.”

“That cute guy way that ends in me giving them both black eyes and throwing them off the dock?”

“Yes, that way.” She settled deeper in her seat. “I love the whole bromance thing.”

“Bromance?”

“Yes, male bonding. Richard didn’t really have that. It should have been an alarm bell for me. I like people who care about their friends. You, Zach and Ryan have a great bond.”

Alec rolled his eyes. “There is no bonding.”

“And that’s part of it, pretending there’s no bonding. Pretending that you don’t give a damn about each other. Cute.”

“It’s not cute, it’s manly.” But there was a smile in his voice and she smiled, too.

“So when we get back to London, you’re dropping me at my hotel—and then what?”

“I go back to my hotel.” He kept his eyes fixed on the road but she saw his hands tighten on the wheel.

Her heart thudded a little harder. “So each of us goes to bed separately.”

“That’s the idea.”

“I’ll be naked. And alone. I hope I don’t get cold.”

“For—” He pulled off the road into a gateway by a field and yanked on the hand brake. Then he put his hand behind her head and pulled her mouth to his.

Whatever she’d expected it hadn’t been this.

Nothing prepared her for the scalding heat of his kiss or the power of her response.

“Oh, God, Alec—”

She’d been kissed plenty of times before and she’d assumed that over the years she’d experienced the whole range from playful to passionate. But this was something different, and she knew that what they’d shared had ripped away some of the insulation he’d used to protect himself from the world. From women.

Alec unleashed, she thought and melted into it.