“Lights, duh.”
“I told you. I’m a virgin here.”
“You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?”
“Nope.”
He made a low, growly noise and picked up the lights he’d discarded on the floor. “Here,” he said, handing one end to her. Then he pointed to the other side of the tree. “You stand there, and I’ll start wrapping these around.”
“Geez, and you think I’m the grumpy one?” She walked to where he’d indicated, stretching out the connected string of lights as she went.
He wasn’t grumpy. He was one innuendo away from popping a goddamn boner. Which made him feel like the lowest rung of humanity, considering the stuff she’d just admitted about her childhood.
It took only a handful of minutes to get most of the lights up, but he had to drag over a ladder that he’d brought in earlier to reach the highest peak of the tree.
When he was done, she playfully shoved his shoulder. “Let’s go, Colton. Pop my Christmas cherry so we can eat.”
He groaned and stumbled backward, hand over his chest. “Are you actively trying to kill me?”
“If that’s what it takes to get the meat, then yes.”
“Okay, that’s it.” He grabbed her hand and began to tug her toward the hallway.
She stumbled and let out a surprised laugh. “Where are we going?”
“I have something to show you in my bedroom.”
She laughed—like, really laughed, loud and hearty—and pulled back on her hand. He didn’t let go but instead looped around and used the leverage to pull her against him. She gently collided with his chest and gazed up at him in a way that made the world turn faster and slower all at once, like spinning out on a snowy road. The scenery sped by in a blur but somehow his senses noted every color, every object, every sound and smell, until he was left with nothing but the certainty that something big was about to happen. And it was either going to end in relief or disaster.
If he’d learned anything from reading romance novels, it was that a painful confession led to vulnerability, and that vulnerability always came with a cost. She was vulnerable. If he took advantage of the situation, the cost might be more than he could stand.
“Do you remember the first time we kissed?” His voice was strained, like sandpaper against rock.
So was hers. “Yes.”
“I’d been wanting to do it all night. I was desperate for you.” He let his thumb drift from her chin to her bottom lip. Another tremor shook her body. “I wish it hadn’t happened like that.”
Her eyes asked why, but she didn’t voice the question. Maybe she trusted her voice even less than he did his.
Colton slid his hand up her back until his fingers met the depths of her thick hair. “We deserved something soft for our first kiss. Something slow.” Her breathing hitched as he used the pad of his thumb to massage the top of her neck. “We deserved to know each other better. To take our time.”
He lowered his mouth atop hers, hovering a breath away in a silent query for permission.
“Colton,” she breathed.
His fingers spread wide across her back. “Yeah?”
She curled her fingers into his shirt, rose on tiptoe, and kissed him.
The blood in his veins became roaring rivers. She opened beneath him, welcoming the tangle of his tongue with hers, and just like that, a sun rose between them. Hot and fiery and bright. He leaned into it, turned toward it like the first graze of warmth on his face after a long winter.
He burned to go deeper, farther. To lay her down flat and touch every part of her. But he didn’t because he wanted to take his time. He wanted the simple beauty of teasing her lips with his, the hazy joy of learning her mouth differently this time. He wanted to let the taste of her linger on his tongue, explore all her flavors, and savor each one. He wanted to start again.
Her hand found a home against the center of his chest, and even through his clothes, she branded him. Colton moved one hand to lace their fingers together atop his heart.
She’d said they made no sense, but they did. They were a shared memory. A promise of something good. They were single-syllable truths in a conspiracy-theory world. They were heat and touch and faith and joy. They were a kite in the sky. A storm on the sea.
She was the sand, and he was a wave.
She was a song.
He was its voice.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
Colton lifted his mouth from hers, reluctantly, desperately. “Fuck, Gretchen.” He lowered his brow to hers. “I’m sorry.”