Millionaire Under The Mistletoe: The Playboy's Mistress / Christmas in the Billionaire's Bed / The Boss's Mistletoe Manoeuvres. Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
base instincts…all the same, thinking about it—and she discovered her embarrassingly lurid imagination had a mind of its own—made her body temperature soar despite the sub-zero temperature around them. Her dry-throated excitement mounted with dizzying rapidity as her knees began to literally shake.
Seconds probably carried on ticking relentlessly away in the few moments after speculative green eyes had met startled blue—but Darcy was unaware of the passing time as they stood stock-still in a silence broken only by the distant wail of an ambulance.
No good will come of this, a sensible voice, to which she paid no heed, forecast in her head.
Reece felt his breath perceptibly quicken. Her mouth was just sensationally lush. The uneven sound of her breath catching in the back of her throat was driving him slightly crazy. He watched as her clenched fingers unfurled and she began to reach out…he thought about them touching his face…his hair…his…!
With a mumbled expletive he took a step backwards. ‘Darcy…!’
It was a verbal warning, the sort an adult gave a reckless child about to indulge in dangerous exploration.
Mortified, Darcy let her extended hand fall away, and she stood there feeling stupid and confused by what had just occurred—whatever that was… He had wanted to kiss her too—hadn’t he…? It hadn’t been a figment of her over-heated imagination, had it?
The uncertainty only lasted a split-second; she hadn’t imagined anything—it had been real. She thrust her softly rounded chin forward defiantly. As unlikely as it seemed, Reece Erskine had wanted to kiss her just as much as she’d wanted to kiss him! She raised her eyes stubbornly to his stony face and her heart sank—only he didn’t now!
So he had gone off the idea; she was damned if she was going to let him make her feel ashamed!
‘Darcy what?’ She sniffed angrily. ‘Darcy, don’t kiss me…?’ she suggested shrilly.
She watched his eyes widen as she gave an appalled gasp—I can’t believe I said that!
‘Were you going to?’
I asked for that, didn’t I? What was she supposed to say…? Given a little bit of encouragement, probably…?
Darcy served up a withering look. ‘What a tactless thing to ask,’ she observed, resorting to disgust to disguise the extent of her dismay.
Spontaneous and asking for trouble would have been closer to the mark in his estimation. No wonder the brother wanted to keep her at home—if she was his sister he’d never let her out of his sight!
For the first time Darcy noticed the lines of strain around his sensual mouth—as if not kissing her hadn’t been the easy option…then why…? A horrifying possibility occurred to her. ‘Are you married?’
Unprepared for the tense, accusing query, Reece blinked, his jaw tightening. ‘That’s not relevant.’
Her mouth hardened with contempt; that meant he was. Not again! She didn’t know who she despised the most at that moment—him or herself. ‘To me it is!’ she choked bitterly.
Reece gave an exasperated sigh; he could cope with a lot of things but he discovered—rather to his surprise—that being looked at as if he was some sort of moral derelict by those big blue eyes was not one of them.
‘If it matters so much to you, I was, but I’m not now.’ He saw her slender hunched-up shoulders slump in relief. ‘Though why it should be so important to you I don’t understand…’
And Darcy wasn’t about to explain. Having an affair with a married man—even if she hadn’t known he was at the time—was not the sort of thing she felt like sharing.
‘I’d introduce the subject of morals if I thought you’d understand.’
‘I don’t see where morals come into it,’ he drawled. ‘You didn’t do anything…’
‘If I had…would you have…?’ Cheeks flaming, she struck her forehead with the palm of her hand. ‘Oh, God!’ she wailed. ‘Me and my mouth…!’ How to take an embarrassing situation and make it ten times worse in one easy-to-follow lesson!
His eyes automatically moved to the object of her contempt. The muscles in his strong throat worked overtime.
‘Yes, I’d have kissed you back,’ he admitted throatily. The words seemed drawn from him against his will.
Her eyes widened. ‘You would…?’ She saw his lips twitch at the incredulity in her voice. ‘I knew that.’ A puzzled frown crinkled her smooth brow. ‘Then why didn’t you…?’
Reece’s bark of rueful laughter brought her back to her senses—and not before time. He stared at her flushed face for a couple of moments before replying.
‘You don’t kiss married men; I don’t kiss girls young enough to be my…kid sister.’
It was the very last explanation Darcy had expected to hear. ‘How quaint that you’ve got principles.’
‘It comes as as much of a shock to me as it does to you,’ he assured her drily. ‘It’s getting cold out here.’ He spoke abruptly now, as if the humour of the situation was wearing thin. ‘If you really can’t stomach the idea of giving me a lift back I should be able to make alternative arrangements.’
Darcy touched his arm; he didn’t flinch but his rigidity didn’t suggest relaxed and carefree—was it possible he was not entirely immune to the contact? This not unflattering possibility was heady stuff.
‘How old exactly do you think I am?’ Repressing a smug smile, she worked her way towards her grand finale.
Whilst it might have been wiser to leave him in ignorance, given the dangerous sexual chemistry in the air, she wanted the satisfaction of establishing herself as a mature woman of the world in his eyes. Perhaps for once in her life she wanted danger…? Her eyes slid over his tall, rangy frame before coming to rest on his face, and she gulped; he registered high enough on the danger scale to satisfy the most reckless risk-taker, she conceded.
‘Nineteen…twenty maybe.’
‘I’m twenty-seven.’
His chin came up and the dark veil of lashes lifted from his high, chiselled cheekbones. His narrowed eyes raked her face. ‘Not possible.’
‘Furthermore,’ she continued, breathless after his intense scrutiny, ‘I’m not some teenage virgin.’ Like he really wanted to know that, Darcy.
‘What are you, then?’
‘Your best hope of getting home, mate.’
His mobile lips quirked; his expression was still rapt. ‘I’d not forgotten that. I was actually wondering what you do when you’re not doing the angel-of-mercy act.’
A wistful expression flitted across her face. ‘At this moment I should be skiing.’
‘But you were lured away by the glamour of deepest, darkest Yorkshire?’
His sneering irony brought an annoyed frown to her face. She took any criticism of her beloved Dales very personally.
‘There was a family crisis,’ she told him tersely.
‘So they called you.’ That would figure.
Darcy resented his tone. ‘I don’t mind,’ she flared. ‘Who else would they call?’
‘You tell me. My recollection is a bit cloudy, but there didn’t seem any shortage of family members from what I saw.’
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ she mumbled. ‘I get a panic attack every time I think about how many people I’m meant to be cooking Christmas lunch for.’
‘Is this the same girl—sorry, woman, who considers every strand of tinsel sacred…?’ he taunted gently.