AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She didn’t know she already had.
My teeth skimmed over her full lower lip, and she moaned as my hand moved of its own volition to her breast. I had the briefest sensation of its weight in my palm, round and perfect, before she tore her lips away.
Fuck, I’d gone too far.
She stared at me for a moment before darting around me and fleeing down the steps, her scarf slipping off and sliding to the ground.
“Wait.” I followed and picked it up, but she never looked back.
I pressed my lips together. They were still tingling from the pressure of hers.
“It’s mistletoe, you pervert.” Someone jostled me from behind, and I turned to see I’d been bumped by an older woman’s cane as she descended the steps. “Not a peep show.”
She gave me another wack
on the ankle for good measure before letting out a “harrumph” and shuffling down the walk.
I fingered the baby-soft scarf my mystery woman had left behind. She didn’t know it, but I’d be sketching her tonight wearing this.
And only this.
Two
My day was not off to a rip-roaring start. And it wasn’t even the same day of the car-ditch mishap.
Maybe I’d finally learn that sweet small towns weren’t necessarily meant for everyone.
“You don’t recognize it?” I held up the bright red scarf as if it was the spoils from a prizefight. “Are you sure? It has your shop’s tag right here.” I jabbed at the embroidered Kinleigh and August’s attic emblem near the fringe.
“No, I’m sorry.” The woman who owned the store I was currently standing in glanced over her shoulder as a baby let out a wail. “That’s my daughter. She needs lunch.”
“Oh, okay, I’ll wait while you give her a bottle or whatever.”
Kinleigh smoothly pulled her long curly red hair over one shoulder. “Her lunch comes from my nipple.”
I blinked. A sleepless night had left me on edge, and admittedly, I wasn’t processing as fast as I would have normally. But that didn’t compute for a good half a minute. “Oh. Oh.”
“Yes, oh. And I’m afraid I can’t share client lists in any case, even if I knew who had purchased that particular item.”
“You do know. I can tell. Look, I’m not a crazy stalker, I swear. I just want to talk to her.”
“As all crazy stalkers have claimed since the beginning of time.”
I let out a breath. She did have a point. “No, it’s not like that. She kissed me. We kissed each other. You know that mistletoe at the gazebo?”
Kinleigh raised her ginger-colored eyebrows and waited.
“She was standing beneath it, and it was snowing, and God, she looked—”
“Willing to sleep with a handsome stranger who was a good kisser?”
“Obviously not, since I slept alone at the bed and breakfast.” I frowned. “Did you just call me handsome? Pretty sure you’re the only person who’s said something nice to me since I drove into town. Except Dare, but you’re a lot prettier than he is.”
Wordlessly, she held up a hand and tapped her sparkly wedding ring.
I had to laugh. “I wasn’t hitting on you. Just saying the welcome mat in this town has not been rolled out in my direction.”
“Yet a beautiful woman kissed you thoroughly enough you’re ready to search to the ends of the earth for her. Sounds pretty welcoming to me.”
