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“You know, I wouldn’t pretend to like you, much less love you if Mr. Henry gave me another million dollars. You’re an ass. There. Another obscenity.”
He smiled. Again. Like a Cheshire cat. “Technically, an ass is an animal and not an obscenity. Now, if you’d called me an asshole, that would be another matter.”
“Asshole,” she said, crossing her arms. She meant it, too. He was irritating and hopeless and—
Something flared between them that had nothing to do with the potshots they’d been taking at one another.
“So, you really think I’m an asshole?” His expression seemed to contain a mix of emotions, maybe even hurt. That shocked her. Did Brennan Henry have feelings?
“Gotta call a spade a—”
His lips covered hers, and she forgot calling anyone anything because he tasted delicious.
Following close on the heels of desire came anger. How dare he kiss her to shut her up? He wasn’t in charge. Who put him in charge?
She struggled against the sweet taste of him, breaking their embrace. “Don’t you dare kiss me. If anyone is doing the kissing, it will be me.”
He drew back, his dark eyes intense, measuring her. Mary Paige reached up, cupped his head, and jerked it toward her. Then she kissed him because she wasn’t some helpless, clumsy accountant who waited on a man to do what she was perfectly capable of doing herself.
She felt his laughter against her lips, and the rare sound flooded her with satisfaction, fueling the urge to do more than kiss the sexy millionaire. She doubled her efforts to maintain control of the kiss, but, like before, she faltered before being completely sucked under by a current of desire she had no power against.
Brennan’s arms wound around her, hauling her against him, and a hot heaviness bloomed low in her belly. The kiss grew bolder and the need rising inside her expanded.
Brennan groaned and tightened his hold on her, sliding one hand to her waist, bringing her into tight contact with the hardness of his body. He felt so good, so warm, and so manly—a feeling a woman couldn’t get enough of. Her hands slid up his shirt front, past his jaw and into his thick dark hair, and met his mouth with an abandon she hadn’t experienced in any of her dealings with the opposite sex.
Finally, he lifted his head and peered at her, his gray eyes dilated, his breathing ragged. “Damn, you really know what you’re doing, don’t you, Miss Merry Christmas.”
Cold water wouldn’t have been any more effective than that stupid title tacked onto his compliment.
“Uh, I shouldn’t have—” Mary Paige shook her head, before releasing the death grip she had on his hair and stepping away. “I don’t know why I did that. Sorry.”
He didn’t say anything, simply looked at her as though he couldn’t figure out why he’d been kissing her in an alley that smelled like a fast-food Dumpster on a hot day. Well, if he wanted answers, he needed to look elsewhere because she had no good reasons for why she’d taken the wheel and pounced on him like a love-starved psycho chick.
“It was bound to happen.” He thrust a hand through his hair, which made it stick up a bit, softening his hard corners.
“Why?”
“Because that kiss on the stage wasn’t real—it was playacting to satisfy a bunch of people hopped up on spiritual eggnog. Only natural it stirred curiosity in us.”
Sounded logical but something about his words pricked her pride because the kiss on the stage had felt real to her. In fact, it had totally tilted her on her elf hat and spun her for a loop. “Well, I don’t make a habit of going around kissing people. I mean, I kiss guys, just not as many as you.”
“I don’t kiss guys.”
“You know what I mean.”
A shadow from the crumbling building adjacent to the shelter stretched into the alley.
“I know whyIkissed you,” he said finally, his low voice breaking the silence. “I wanted to see if it felt the same.”
“Felt the same? How did it feel?” Was she some kind of strange experiment? Or was she actually a bad kisser?
“Just felt different when I kissed you last night.”
“Different bad or different good?” she asked, her heart beating harder despite the fact she shouldn’t give a flying tomato what McScrooge Moneybags thought. Maybe she was bad at kissing, and no one had been honest enough to tell her until now. After all, Sam Schneider had been the one to teach her in high school, and he’d later fessed up he’d learned all he knew from Cinemax After Dark.
“Different different.”
“Oh.” What could a girl say to that? Um…nothing?
