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It doesn’t feel like we’re strangers now, though.
I watch as Noel runs back to the small welcome shed where a shriveled little woman who has to be in her seventies if she’s a day is handing out maps of the farm. He asks her a question and she points to the map, which earns her a hug and a kiss on her cheek that has her giggling like a schoolgirl. And he tells her he’d marry her if he wasn’t already engaged to me.
It’s adorable.It’s fun.And a good reminder. Guys like Noel aren’t serious, and I’m a pretty serious girl. At least about relationship stuff. So, no crushy feelings.
Shaking my head, I revert to teasing. “Think you canhandlea hayride?”
His mouth drops open in mock affront before curving again into that lopsided grin he wears so much.
“Asks the terror of highway hell,” he says, now headed my way.
“I drove at asnail’s pace!” Seeing the way his eyes are fixed on me, my heart does a little flip as I take a retreating step. “And still you were pumping your imaginary brake pedal and grabbing the dash.”
He keeps closing in. “That car cut us off.”
“Youclotheslinedme,” I accuse a little breathlessly. “And that car was a half-mile ahead of us.”
He stops in front of me, close enough that I need to look up to see his face. Close enough that a part of me is wondering if he’ll come even closer. If maybe I’d like it if he did, even if I know I shouldn’t.
It doesn’t mean anything. And so long as I remember that, it’s totally fine.
“I was saving you,” he says, quieter now, eyes holding mine. And then he does it. Leans in just that much more, and it’s like some kind of magnetic energy between us, because then, I’m leaning too. His eyes drift lower, to my mouth, lower still, to—to the sawhe takes from my grasp.
His brows bounce. “Let’s find a tree.”
We walk through row after row of snow-dusted spruce, balsam, Frasers, and white pine, talking and laughing and rejecting each other’s tree picks until finally we’ve found her.
“Look at you, beautiful.” Noel walks a slow, assessing circle and bites his bottom lip, giving this tree bedroom eyes so sexy I’m embarrassed to admit I feel a flutter in my belly. “Tall, full backside. I just want to run my hands over—”
“Noel, do you need a minute alone? Or do you want to get your hands out of her branches and cut her down?”
“Jealous?”
“Insanely,” I deadpan. And no, I’m not jealous of a tree, but I am reminding myself that eventually Diesel and Stormy are going to show up, and when they do, Noel’s going to leave. He’s going to hop on a plane to Vegas, where he’ll be giving his best flirt to some other girl. Maybe one who isn’t as serious as me. One who will get to find out what a night in this man’s arms would feel like. And maybe… I’m a little jealous of her?
No. That’s crazy.
Crazy like the way Noel’s kneeling on the blanket I keep in my Jeep, caressing the trunk of the tree he’s about to cut down and asking if that’s the spot she likes, whether she wants it fast or slow while giving me a salacious wink.
This guy!
I want more of this man, yes. Because it feels like we’re becoming friends, and that is something I want to keep.
And the only chance I have of that happening is to tamp down any sort of crushy feelings that might be creeping in and trying to take root.
“Hey, Mistletoe, hold my stuff?” he asks, peeling off his jacket.
I nod, stepping around the cut trunks of trees and branches left behind to take it.
I open my mouth to say something but freeze when he starts undoing his fitted charcoal button-up next, shrugging out of one massive shoulder and then the other, leaving him in a tight white T-shirt that hugs every sculpted muscle beneath.
It’s the sort of hard-core sexy, masculine move I thought only existed in those slow-motion black-and-white video clips of unknown origin that turn up in your feed from time to time. But it’s real, and I really need to close my mouth and swallow before I start to drool.
No crushy feelings!
Clearing my throat, I try for a casual I’m not feeling. “Shouldn’t you keep that on? It’s freezing out here.”
“Hockey player, remember?” He hands over the shirt, still warm from his body. “Besides, it can’t be colder than thirty.”
