I break the distance, reaching for her and grabbing her hips, twirling her around. Her surprise morphs into excitement when she sees that it’s me.
“You did so great up there!” She wraps her arms around my neck and hugs me.
Her body pressed against mine has me closing my eyes and imagining what this would feel like if we were both naked.
Just then, the song ends, and rather than another upbeat song coming on, a softer, slower one starts. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” plays, and people around us pair off to slow dance.
I pull away enough to look Ashley in the eyes. “Care to dance?”
She holds my gaze with a small flirty smile that makes my dick twitch. “I’d love to.”
It’s obvious something has shifted between us. I’m not sure exactly what or when, but things feel different even if we’re both ignoring it. Clearly, she feels it too, by how welcoming she is to me.
Ashley leaves her hands around my neck, and I set my hands on her hips as we rock back and forth in a circle. I’m so transfixed by counting the gold flecks in her eyes, I realize our eyes haven’t swayed from each other’s.
“Did you like what you saw up there?” I ask after a few moments of silence.
“I did.” She bites her bottom lip, and I almost audibly groan, wishing I could lean in and pluck it free with my teeth.
“Good.”
“Good?” She arches an eyebrow. “You wanted me to be impressed?”
“That’s all I wanted while I was up there.”
She rubs against me with every shift of my body. I don’t think you could fit a piece of peanut brittle between us, we’re so close.
“Why would you hope that?” Her voice is quiet and soft, so I almost don’t catch it over the music.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
She shakes her head as we continue to move. “Not to me.”
I’ve successfully led us to the center of the room. I glance up, and she follows suit, finding the mistletoe hanging above us.
“There’s a reason I was dancing to Justin Bieber.” I laugh. “It was fair warning.”
Her gaze stays on mine, and she smiles. Then she holds her breath and waits. “Oh.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve kissed, but it’s the first time we’ve kissed with intention. I really understand who Ashley is and what I want from her.
I bring my hands up to her face, cupping her cheeks. Slowly, so gradually, I lean in, giving her time to push me off if she doesn’t want this. To tell me this is a bad idea. But she doesn’t.
At the first press of my lips to hers, our kiss instantly feels different than the first time. It’s night and day different. This kiss is all-consuming. Life-affirming. This kiss is the kind they write about in those romance novels my sister reads.
Slowly, I drag my tongue over the seam of her lips, and she opens for me. The moment our tongues meet, we both moan. Her fingers go into the hair at the back of my head, and she sways into me. My dick is hard between us, pressing against her stomach, and I deepen the kiss.
Our tongues glide along one another’s, and the taste of her feels like a shot of whiskey on a fire, flaming my arousal higher, the heat scorching. My need to have her grows with every second of our kiss, but before I can satisfy myself, the song ends, and another high-energy Christmas carol comes on.
We pull away from each other, and our eyes hold.
“Want to get out of here?” she asks, and I love even more that she’s on board with me.
“All right. Just stand with me for a minute while my dick softens. Don’t want to give your townspeople more to talk about.”
Ashley laughs, resting her head on my chest, and my hand instinctively goes to her back, rubbing up and down. It’s not really helping me calm down, but damn, she feels good in my arms.
I scan the room for Ester, trying to think of things like evil Christmas elves running a coup in Santa’s workshop, or those sad animal commercials they always run this time of year to get people to donate. Anything to get myself presentable so we can get the hell out of here and back to her place.
