Kissing Under the Mistletoe - By Marina Adair Page 0,52
black top she wore. He continued heading north, pulling her shirt as he went, exposing that little patch of skin above her belly button.
“No,” she said, her eyes going heavy when he paused to remove a branch that was stuck to her sweats before pushing her shirt high enough to display a very pretty yellow bra—and not much else. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure you don’t have any more branches stuck to you.”
“Under my shirt? I landed ass-backward, remember?”
“We’ll get there.” Nudging the hoodie over her head, he pressed his mouth to the curve of her neck. Slowly made his way down her collarbone.
“We can’t.” She dropped her head back, giving him room to work. “We have a problem”—she gasped when he ran his tongue over the swell of her breast—“upstairs.”
“I guarantee you”—he took her hand and placed it over the bulge in his pants—“that we have a much bigger problem downstairs.”
“I told Holly I’d be back in five minutes. I let her watch Miracle on 34th Street on my laptop to keep her busy, but I don’t like to leave her alone.”
“I can deal with five minutes.” He kissed her long and hard, taking his sweet time. He wasn’t about to be rushed. Not now. Not when she was moaning into his mouth and had her fingers sliding over where he needed them most.
They couldn’t have sex in five minutes, he thought, as his hand glided over her stomach to toy with the elastic on her sweats, but they could definitely round third.
“Five minutes ended five minutes ago,” she whispered against his mouth, still tracing the outline of his erection through the denim. If she kept that up, they both might walk away feeling a whole hell of a lot more relaxed.
“Then we’d better get up there.” He kissed her again, one hand coming up to cup her breasts. He could feel her nipple stiffen beneath her bra and had dipped his thumb inside to pull the lace aside when a bright light blinded them.
He blinked into the headlights, trying to make out who was driving the car, and then saw spinning hubcaps, a DELUCA1 license plate, and groaned.
“Shit, you really are cursed.”
CHAPTER 9
“I’ll take him,” Gabe said, grabbing for Randolph.
“No.” Regan pulled her shirt back on and snatched the deer by the antlers. “You buy me some time. I’ll hide the deer.”
“Why don’t we just tell them the truth and then this whole mess will be over?”
She jerked her head from side to side.
“Then why don’t I say I had him?”
“I can’t let you lie too,” she said, feeling tears prick her eyes. “And I can’t tell them the truth because then they’ll know I deceived them. I am the webmaster for the Safe Return of Randolph hotline, and ChiChi made me a junior detective on the Where’s Randolph campaign. If they find out that I took Randolph and threw Santa through ChiChi’s rear window, the only three people in town who have been nice to me from day one will hate me.”
Gabe stroked her face and she leaned into his hand. “They won’t hate you.”
“I’ll take him back tomorrow. I promise. I can get Ava to watch Holly.”
Gabe sighed. She could tell he didn’t want to let her go. Or let this charade go on any longer. But she meant what she said. The Mrs. Clauses were the closest thing Regan had come to having a mother figure in a long time. She didn’t want to lose that.
Hugging Randolph to her chest, she ran behind the corkscrew shrub and, making a mental note to join a gym immediately, made a wheezy lap around the building. Darting behind her car, she waited until Gabe approached the orange SUV, then slid Randolph in her trunk, closed the lid, and snuck up her steps.
She shut the front door, emptied her pockets into the Dirty Jar, gave Holly a kiss on the forehead, and hightailed it to the bedroom. Yanking off her hoodie, she pulled on the first shirt she could grab. She was just smoothing out her hair when she heard the doorbell.
“Mommy!” Holly leaped up off the carpet and scrambled to the window. “We have our first visitor.” She peered out the window and started jumping. “It’s Gabe and the Mrs. Clauses.”
Whoops. Regan had started calling them that at home, but she never thought about Holly repeating it. Especially within hearing range.
Regan opened the door and barely had a chance to step back before the three Mrs. Clauses, each