Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
She laughs. “Sorry, things were going so well, I lost track of time. She loved the concept artwork. Absolutely loved it, just like I hoped she would, and started coming up with ideas for the design right away. We’re going to combine flowers and recycled fabric to make the ceiling in the dining area look like it’s made of giant blossoms.” Emily flaps a hand again. “It’s kind of hard to describe without the sketches, but it’s gorgeous and brilliant, and assuming Fletchers chooses my pitch, Belinda’s on board. She promised she’d set aside an entire day for installation as soon as the venue’s on lock. Gah! I’m so happy and relieved!” She presses mittened hands to her flushed cheeks, words slowing as she adds, “And I mean, maybe I’m crazy, but I think we might actually end up being friends.”
“That’s fantastic, Em,” I say, grinning. “So chuffed for you.”
“I’m chuffed, too.” She giggles as she throws her arms around my neck again. “Sorry, I get huggy when I’m this excited.”
“You’ll hear no complaints from me,” I say, adding in a whisper as I spot a giant lens in my peripheral vision. “But it looks like we have company. Paparazzi at eleven o’clock. Chap in the red hat trying to blend in with the tourists, and failing miserably.”
Emily groans, “Jesus. They really are relentless, aren’t they?”
“Completely,” I agree, brushing my lips across her forehead as I murmur, “But we could use this to our advantage… Shall we give him something boring to photograph?”
Emily lifts her chin, eyes glittering. “I think we should. Something very boring, with no choking or humping in it.”
“But still romantic,” I insist, pulling her closer. “We have to show them we’re an established couple, after all. Shall we Eskimo kiss?”
She grins. “No, that would be weird. And we’re trying not to be weird, remember?”
“Oh, right,” I say, feigning confusion as I ask, “So what’s a non-weird couple thing we could do?”
“Well, I guess we could just kiss.” Her smile fades as she presses up on tiptoe. “A nice, normal kiss…for the camera.”
“For the camera,” I agree, and then my lips are on hers and damn…
Kissing her is even better than I remember.
Kissing Emily in the dark under a softly falling snow was electric.
Kissing her across my penthouse, while I stripped her bare for the first time, was the sexiest thing to happen to my lips in a damned long time.
But kissing her on a sunny winter’s day, under a clear blue sky, with nowhere to hide…
I’m not sure exactly why it hits so hard, but it does. Her lips are still warm and wicked and so skilled at unravelling me it’s a little frightening. But this kiss is also gentle, curious.
The way she cups my face in her mittened hands, the way she whispers that I taste like peppermint and that she “loves a peppermint kiss.” The way she sighs and melts closer when I curl my fingers into a loose fist at the nape of her neck, deep in the soft, luxurious underbelly of her magnificent hair…
It’s sweet.
So sweet that when we finally pull apart, I can’t help staring down at her for a long beat, wondering where she’s been all my life.
And if she’ll still be here next Christmas.
It’s a completely inappropriate thought, but still…
“Should we try again?” I whisper. “Just to make sure he got the money shot?”
She exhales a shaky breath. “I mean, maybe. We wouldn’t want to waste a perfectly good—” Her words end in a startled squawk as a pigeon zooms past, inches from our foreheads, making a beeline toward the popcorn a child just spilled on the ground.
“Good grief, that was close,” she says, frantically patting the top of her head. “He didn’t bless me, did he?”
Laughing, I ask, “Bless you? Shit on your head, you mean?”
“Yes,” she says, huffing as she shoves at my chest with a grin. “My grandmother calls it getting ‘blessed by the birds.’ She swears being pooed on is actually very good luck.”
I fake a disappointed sigh. “Oh, well, in that case, you’ll be sad to learn that your hair is currently pigeon-poop-free. Which is sad for us both. Looks like the odds of you surviving an hour as my skate partner without sustaining multiple injuries just went down by quite a bit.”
She takes my hand in hers with a laugh. “Oh, come on, you’ll do fine. We’ll take it nice and slow until you find your skate legs. Besides, how bad can you possibly be?”
Twenty minutes later, I’ve answered that question definitively.
Spectacularly bad.
Historically bad.
Potentially catastrophically bad if that kid in the yellow jumper knocks into my leg again. I barely avoided crushing him into a greasy spot on the ice the first time.
If he rolls the dice again…
“Must not crush children,” I mutter beneath my breath. “Must not crush children or the elderly or break every bone in my body.”