Mistletoe Wishes: A Regency Christmas Collection
“Please call me Maggie,” she said quickly, even as she acknowledged that he was right to accuse her of being disingenuous about what they’d done. That hadn’t been a quick, flirtatious kiss to mark the end of a couple of enjoyable hours together. Those kisses said that he meant to bed her.
“Maggie.” The edge he lent the word in no way conveyed fondness, yet hearing him speak her name for the first time flooded her with forbidden pleasure. “From the moment I met you, I wanted to kiss you.”
Shocked, she sat up fully and studied his features. So far she’d known him as a lighthearted companion. But this man regarding her with somber green eyes was a more powerful adversary than she’d ever imagined.
Adversary? Why on earth did she call him that?
He wasn’t her enemy. Even if right now, his stare held no hint of softness.
She shivered again. Nothing to do with the worsening cold. Heaven help her, this new version of Joss Hale was still more compelling than the cheerful, charming companion she’d come to know over the last few days.
And she’d already lost her heart to that man.
Her breath cramped in her lungs. Oh, surely that wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Could someone fall in love in four days?
She drank in the sight of him, imprinting him deep in her heart, and recognized that she could. She had.
“Have I frightened you?” he asked in that austere tone. He raised one knee and rested his arm on it, still watching her like a cat watched a mouse hole.
She shook her head. “No.”
At her swift denial, the flat line of his lips relaxed a fraction. “I’m glad.” He sucked in an audible breath. “But now I have kissed you, I need to leave. You see that, don’t you?”
She bit back a cry to think of him going away. “Do you mean I’ll never see you again?”
“I’ll come back to you, Maggie. Once Jane gets home.”
“But it won’t be the same.” She bit her lip and stared out across the ice, blinking hard, telling herself she wouldn’t cry. “I’ll be the housekeeper, and you’ll be the guest. We won’t be…alone.”
She glanced back in time to catch a hunted expression crossing his face. “It’s us being alone that’s the problem.”
“Nobody knows,” she said quickly. “Nobody needs to know.”
“And what if I can’t keep my hands off you?” he asked roughly. “Are you ready to share my bed, Maggie? Because if I stay, that’s exactly where you’re going to end up.”
She returned stare for stare. “You don’t imagine I can resist you?”
He shook his head, and at last a hint of his characteristic wry humor appeared. “We can’t resist each other, my darling.” They no longer touched, but she’d never been so conscious of another person’s nearness. “Or are you going to pretend that’s not true?”
Denying his statement would be too coy for words. This attraction had existed from the start, strengthening with every moment they’d spent together since.
“No. It’s true,” she said in a subdued voice.
Triumph flashed in his eyes, and he reached toward her. She leaned in, only to watch him draw away before he made contact.
“If I touch you, I won’t stop,” he said, and she flinched at the bleakness in his voice.
What was the point of arguing? He knew how vulnerable she was to him. “I won’t want you to stop,” she muttered miserably, raising her knees and clasping her shaking hands around them.
“You see?” With unusually clumsy movements, he began to unfasten his skates. “I’ll go back to the house and pack my things.”
“You can’t go tonight.” She grabbed his arm, as if meaning to keep him by force.
Gently he caught her hand and untangled it from his black sleeve. “I have to.”
“But it will be dark in a few hours, and I can smell snow in the air.” How she hated the whine in her voice. Even more she hated the thought of wandering around an empty house that Joss’s company had briefly turned into a home.
A muscle worked in that lean cheek. “You said it’s five miles to the village.”