A Hamilton Family Christmas - Donna Kauffman Page 0,55

happen that he—oh, he desperately wanted them to happen. Perhaps more, in that moment, than he’d ever wanted anything to happen. Ever. But this—this was not what he’d had in mind when he’d crossed the street. Kiss her, maybe seduce her a little, enough to get her to agree to at least think about giving the two of them a chance to find out what might be. Rationally. Flirtatiously, but rationally.

He hadn’t counted on one taste of her leading to this kind of volcanic eruption of need and want. And an eruption was just what he was risking here if he let this go on an instant longer.

Heart pounding, breathing labored, he forced himself to tear his mouth away from hers. “Holly—” was all he could manage.

“Yes,” she said breathlessly, her fingers curling into his shoulders as she instinctively pulled him closer again.

“I—we—wait,” he said before she could claim his mouth again. Claim him. In fact, he already felt it. How easily she could slip right in, under his defenses, which were remarkably nonexistent at that moment. Was it because he knew her? Because she was so familiar to him, having been around his whole life, that he wasn’t wary, wasn’t overthinking? Or was it because she hadn’t pursued him, and was quite possibly leaving? Thereby making that “how to make a relationship work” problem he typically had a nonissue?

He wasn’t a coward, and he always put his partners’ needs in front of his own. Just as he was always up front regarding who he was and how his life operated. And, with Holly, all of those things were magnified tenfold by her life and what it might entail.

So, why was it, staring into her big, brown eyes, that rather than tell her all the reasons why this might have been the big mistake he’d feared it would be…he just felt this ridiculous sensation of hope skyrocketing through him. Holly equaled hope. It was that simple. And that crazy.

“I want you,” he said.

Her face bloomed with the most delightful shade of pink, but her gaze stayed on his. “I—I think I was getting that.”

“But I didn’t—I mean, this isn’t what—”

The bright twinkle in her eyes instantly shuttered and she tried to shift back out of his arms, the pink in her cheeks now looking to be more from embarrassment than the blush of a woman flattered by his attention.

“No, no, wait.” He pulled her in close, reluctant to let her put any more space between them, both because having her there felt all kinds of right and because he was afraid she’d start building walls if he gave her half a chance. They were down now, as were his…and he was determined to keep them that way.

“What I was trying to say was, I want you, but not on the counter of your mother’s store. Trust me, another thirty seconds, and—” He broke off as his body surged with approval for that idea. He dipped his chin, took a steadying breath, then looked back at her. And suddenly, whatever he said next took on amazing levels of importance. Crazy as it sounded, crazier as it felt, it was like he was potentially making or breaking his entire future in that one, singular moment. “Holly, I want a chance. That’s what I came here to tell you. I can’t explain it, and maybe you think I’m crazy, but I—”

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” she said, her voice quieter now, but the look in her eyes said a whole lot more was going on that her tone was not belying.

“I just didn’t want to move so fast that we mistook one thing for another. I want you, but I want you deliberately, with very specific intent, and I want that first time to be in a place where we can both explore and figure out what…what this is. What it could be. Do you understand?”

She looked at him for a long time, and he’d never felt so at a disadvantage, like there simply weren’t words available that would put the chaos and irrationality of all the things going on inside his head into some sort of sane, logical order. Because this wasn’t sane. He’d wanted a kiss, a chance, a conversation, perhaps. But one taste, one touch, one of those tiny little noises she’d made and it was like…wow, he couldn’t even describe it to himself.

“Yes, I do. And I want to,” she said, at length. “But…I don’t know, Sean. I—the timing,