How My Brother's Best Friend Stole Christmas - Molly O'Keefe Page 0,12

drop of a hat. Much less whatever this kiss was.

A joke? Punishment?

I tore my mouth away, my lips burning. “What…” I breathed, and he was kissing me again and I tried to resist. I did! I gave it a good college try, but I’d been dreaming of this moment for years and my spine–usually so reliable–just melted.

I moaned.

“Yeah,” he said into my mouth like I’d done something he liked. Like my surrender was what he wanted.

“Sam,” I moaned, I had to stop him. I was going to. For sure. Any second.

“Fuck. Say it again.”

“What?”

“My name. Say my fucking name again.”

I did not know what was going on and I pushed against his chest, and that hand at my back reached up into my hair, grabbing a handful of the curls.

“Say my fucking name again,” he whispered, no longer kissing me. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness and with the faint light coming through the high windows I could see the flash of his teeth, the whites of his eyes. That was all, really. But I imagined his beautiful, deep-set hazel eyes boring into me and I was so powerless. So stupid.

“Sam.”

And then he was kissing me again and my hands, which were holding up the dress, wanted to curl around his shoulders. Wanted to pull him closer.

The whole of me wanted to give in.

This could be a trick. A joke. You have to—

“Stop,” I finally said, with a bit more power and strength than before. And look, Sam Porter was an asshole, but the guy wasn’t that kind of asshole, and he stopped. That hand was still in my hair. His body still crowded mine on the desk. But he wasn’t kissing me.

“What are you doing?” I asked. My lips felt ravaged and raw. My heart even worse.

He stepped back and I knew in a heartbeat what he was doing. How this would play out. He’d walk away without giving me any answers. Close himself off to me, and the next time I saw him he’d pretend nothing happened. I couldn’t honestly bear it. Not now. Not after this.

I grabbed his shirt with both hands, my dress slipping. It wasn’t like it fell and I was all bare-boobed, but it slipped enough. I looked down and realized because the way the light came in those windows that he could see me better than I could see him. And my skin was so white, and my dress caught and reflected whatever light it could find.

My eyes adjusted further and I could see his jaw. The hard knot of it.

“Is this a joke?” I asked, because I honestly wasn’t sure. “Like, you say what you said upstairs, and then you kiss me like this, and then I’m supposed to laugh. Because you’re laughing. At me.”

His eyes flew to mine as though he was stunned that I would think that. I’d been so good at hiding my feelings for him for so long, but I just…couldn’t anymore. I looked at him with all the love I felt for him. Every bit of it. But with that love came so much pain. And I let him see that, too.

“No,” he whispered. “It’s not a joke.”

“Then what—”

“It’s what you want,” he said. Him kissing me. Touching me.

“Yeah. But…” A laugh burbled out of me. “Is it what you want?” I mean, the guy never did anything he didn’t want to do, but this was coming out of left field. “You said I looked weird.”

Sam. Fucking Sam Porter stepped forward, pushing my knees out wide, and when the skirt of the dress wouldn’t let them go any further he slipped his hands up my thighs.

I gasped. I couldn’t help it. His rough palms on my pale, untouched skin. It was amazing I was still conscious. He pushed the dress up higher, practically to my waist.

“Fuck, Soph,” he whispered. And then he pulled me forward against his body. Until it was me, barely covered by damp satin, and him. Hard as a rock beneath his pants.

“I want you,” he said, like we were fighting. Like I was disagreeing with him about something.

My eyes might have rolled back in my head.

“You look…beautiful, Soph. So fucking beautiful.”

I had about ten million other questions but they were shoved back down my throat by his kiss. You know in those old romance novels when the hero gives the heroine a punishing kiss? Yeah. That was this kiss.

His hands on my body were rough. His mouth was rough, the way he