A Princess for Christmas - Jenny Holiday Page 0,42
that his favorite kind of ice cream is vanilla? Plain vanilla!”
“Maybe it’s not simple taste so much as classic taste,” Marie said. “A well-made vanilla is subtle, but if you’re paying attention, hard to beat.”
“Thank you.” Leo plopped down next to her on the sofa, and oh, she was in trouble, because he was looking at her with an almost violent sort of intensity. Like she was the world’s tastiest vanilla ice cream that he alone appreciated.
It only lasted a moment, and he was on to making sure everyone was situated around the coffee table.
But the effect of that look lingered. Leo had moved on, but Marie had not. She wanted to kiss him again, and wasn’t that interesting?
He scooted closer to her to make room for Gabby. He was almost but not quite touching her, which was somehow worse—better?—than actual contact would have been. There was perhaps an inch of space between the edge of her skirt and his jeans-clad thigh. He’d taken off the ubiquitous flannel shirt and wore only a short-sleeve T-shirt, which meant his arm was bare all the way up to the middle of his upper arm. That was . . . a lot of arm. She let her eyes slide over the familiar forearm with its veins and muscles. He’d worn his flannel shirt rolled up while he’d driven her around, so she’d spent a lot of time looking at his forearms. But because it was winter, upper arms were uncharted territory. His were, unsurprisingly, as nice as his forearms. They were . . .
And, oh. Oh no. She didn’t just want to kiss Leo again, she wanted that arm. To have it draped casually over her shoulders, like it belonged there. Or, worse, to pick it up and arrange herself beneath it, to burrow under it and hide from the world, like she had the right to do that.
Her ears were on fire. Her whole face was on fire. She was hyperaware of every inch of her skin. Of the boundary between her body and the world. The hole in her tights that her big toe was making worse. The spot where the tag of her dress rubbed against the back of her neck. It didn’t hurt or itch. It was just . . . there. A small sensation suddenly magnified a thousandfold.
The spot on her arm where her sleeve—her dress was three-quarters sleeve—stopped and her bare arm was exposed to the air. If she concentrated very hard, she could feel the heat from his arm radiating across the inch of space between them. Energy from his body making contact with her skin.
What if she moved her arm so it touched his? It would only take a slight shift. An accident.
And it probably would have gone unnoticed if she hadn’t hissed a sharp, involuntary inhalation the moment she made contact with him.
He turned toward her and in so doing ended the contact between them.
“You okay?”
“Yes,” Marie squeaked, aware that she probably did not look okay, but rather like a red-faced lunatic.
An arm. It was merely an arm. Goodness. She was like a nineteenth-century gentleman tied into knots over the sight of an unexpectedly exposed ankle. “It’s . . . been a long few days,” she said lamely.
She ordered herself to pay attention to what was happening, which was that Dani was carrying over plates from the kitchen. Soon they were enjoying the fancy sandwiches, which were delicious—Marie made sure to tell Gabby as much—and steaming cups of soup. She looked around as she ate. The apartment was modest but homey. It was furnished with what she suspected had been the furniture from the house Leo grew up in—big, solid, wooden pieces and worn sofas and chairs with quilts over them. It was comfortable and warm and lovingly decorated for Christmas right down to a homemade, cardboard fireplace and hearth trimmed with garlands. Two stockings lay on the floor next to it, waiting to be hung.
“Your tree is lovely,” Marie said. Every square inch of it was covered in ornaments, lights, and tinsel.
“It’s probably not as fancy as an Eldovian tree,” Gabby said. “But, look! There are a bunch of princesses on it!” She pointed out the Disney version of Snow White and Cinderella and a couple more figurines in the same style that Marie didn’t recognize. “My mom loved fairy tales, right, Leo?”
“She did. She used to read them to you at night before you went to bed.”