The Magic of Christmas

‘I’m afraid so.’ She closed the door behind her and gave an apologetic smile. ‘Bit of an emergency going on here. I need your help with something.’

Restoring her sanity.

He glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be going home?’

‘I’m going home right after this,’ she assured him, her heart pounding as she watched him walk around his desk towards her, concern in his eyes. ‘I just need you to do something for me.’

‘What’s that?’

He was so close to her now that she could hardly breathe. Feeling reckless and daring, she rose on tiptoe and the mistletoe slipped from her fingers as she slid her arms round his neck and touched her mouth to his.

His shock was palpable.

Her fingertips registered the sudden tension in his broad shoulders, the hesitation. He stood rigid, his hands by his sides. For a moment she thought he was going to step back and break the connection. But then he brought his hands up and slid them up her back, hauled her against him and took over the kiss.

His mouth was hot and demanding and he powered her back against the door of his office, his body hard against hers as he finally submitted to the violent attraction that they’d both been fighting for weeks. Or had it been months?

She no longer had any sense of time.

His hands slid into her hair and his mouth plundered hers, the astonishing skill of his kiss driving the breath from her body and all coherent thought from her brain.

Somewhere deep inside her she registered that this wasn’t turning out quite the way she’d planned, but she felt too dizzy to work out exactly where her plan had taken a wrong turn.

It was the most exciting, erotic moment of her life and, if she’d been able to think, she would have realised that she was out of control for the first time ever. And the kiss wasn’t enough. She wanted to touch him. She had to touch him.

Dropping her hands from his neck, she slid them under the top of his scrub suit, feeling hard, male muscle and the tantalising brush of body hair against the tips of her seeking fingers.

‘You feel so good,’ she gasped against his mouth, sliding her hand around his back. ‘Kiss me again. You have to kiss me again.’

‘I’m kissing you.’ His voice rough, he growled the words against her lips, one of his hands still locked in her hair, while the other slid under her clothing. His touch maddeningly seductive, he stroked his hand down her spine and then pulled her pelvis against his in a gesture as erotic as it was possessive.

She felt him, hard and ready through the fabric of his scrub suit, and reality suddenly sliced through her muddled thoughts.

What was she doing?

What had started as a light-hearted kiss had become deadly serious and she knew that one of them had to stop.

And judging from the purposeful slide of Christian’s hand against her quivering flesh, it wasn’t going to be him.

‘Christian—’ Dragging her mouth from his with a supreme effort, she put a hand in the centre of his chest to try and create some distance. Without distance there was no hope for them. ‘We have to stop. We can’t do this here.’

Ignoring her muttered protest, he cupped her face in his hands, brought her face back to his and started to kiss her again. She tumbled head first back into paradise, light exploding in her head and her nerve endings shrieking with an almost unbearable excitement.

For a moment she allowed herself to be swept along and then she dragged her mouth from his and shook her head. ‘No.’

The word must have registered because he stilled, his mouth a breath away from hers. ‘No?’

‘No.’ It took all her willpower to say the word, especially when she saw the simmering passion in his eyes.

‘Lara—you started this.’ His lips brushed hers with seductive purpose and she gave a low whimper and swayed towards him.

‘I didn’t.’

‘You did.’ He slid his hands slowly down her arms. ‘You grabbed me.’

‘I just gave you a quick kiss. You were the one who turned it into a—a—’

‘A what?’