Mismatched Under the Mistletoe - Jess Michaels Page 0,19

and had stripped away his jacket, leaving him in a brocaded waistcoat, his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows as he paced the room, not looking at the books on the shelves.

When she stepped into the room and shut the door behind herself, he stopped moving and just…stared at her. Just like in the garden the day before, just like in the same place less than a quarter hour earlier, that focused stare stole her breath. It made her feel like it was the first time he was looking at her, rather than the fiftieth, the hundredth, the thousandth time those dark blue eyes had held hers.

“Don’t,” he whispered.

She ignored the admonishment. If she listened to it, if she pulled away now, she might lose the closest friend she’d ever had. No, they just had to push past this. Pretend it away, didn’t they? Act as though it had never happened and then it would disappear like smoke in the wind.

“Thank you,” she said, wishing her voice didn’t shake as she stepped toward him. His eyes came shut and he let out his breath in a long stream. “You saved me today.”

“I would do so any day,” he growled, his tone almost angry. “You know that.”

She stopped moving, because he was as tightly wound as a spring. His jaw flexed, his hands fisted against his thighs, his mouth was a thin line with no hint of his usual playful smile.

“Cav,” she said.

His eyes flew open. “Don’t,” he said again.

“Don’t do what?” she asked.

“You know what,” he retorted, scrubbing a hand through those curly locks, mussing them and making him all the more rakish and wicked looking. “You know what, even if you want to pretend you don’t.”

She was shaking so hard she thought she might fall over because in that moment the truth became painfully clear: Cav wanted her. He wanted her as he stood here in her library, holding himself back like he was trying to protect her from that feeling. From all the damage that feeling could do.

“We need to just pretend—” she started.

“Pretend,” he repeated on a humorless laugh. “What do you think I’ve been doing, Emily? What do you think every moment I’m in a room with you is?”

Her knees went weak and she staggered closer, even when she knew she should move further away. “You don’t mean that. You can’t feel that. You’re my friend, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he ground out. “I have always been your friend. I shall always be. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t more here, too. That I don’t look at you and want to—”

He cut himself off with a curse that made her cheeks burn.

“We can ignore it,” she suggested. “Ignore these desires.”

His eyes went wide. “We,” he repeated. “We can ignore it. What are you ignoring, Em?”

Her breath caught as she realized her slip. At what it had revealed to him. At what it revealed to her, too. It had been a long time since she felt…desire. And that was what this was. Desire. Hot and heavy, flowing from the deepest part of her. Something she feared she could not stop now that she recognized it, named it, claimed it even just in her own heart.

She desired Cav. What was worse was that the feeling didn’t seem…new.

Her silence must have emboldened him because he eased a step closer to her this time. She looked up into his handsome face and no longer saw her friend. No, she saw something else, someone else, and when she leaned into him, it was because she couldn’t do anything else.

He reached out a hand. It was shaking as he traced her jawline with a feather-light and gentle touch. A sigh escaping her lips because the pleasure of what he was doing was too, too much.

He leaned down and she lifted up, drawn to him like a magnet. Their lips were not a millimeter apart, and then not even that. Then he was kissing her and everything else faded away.

Cav brushed her mouth gently at first, just the stroke of his lips on hers. But as his hand closed around her bicep, the timidity of his kiss evaporated. The hesitation that was meant to give her an opportunity to escape. When she didn’t take it, he took over and she felt every bit of his reputation as an experienced, passionate rake. He claimed. His mouth opened and she did the same. He dragged her against him with a rough groan and she clutched at his lapels