She stood there at the edge of the rug, the lamplight glinting off something red and soft and altogether impossible. My pulse lurched, hard enough that I had to remind myself to breathe.
“Colette,” I said, and the word came out lower than I meant. She shifted her weight, half-smiling, half-nervous, and every piece of me that was supposed to know better went very,verystill.
I’d written a thousand women, known more, but none of them had ever dug their way into my veins like this one did — alive, hopeful, trembling just enough to undo me.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she murmured.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re trying to memorize this.”
She wasn’t wrong. Iwastrying to memorize it. The color, the light on her skin, the small courage it took just to stand there.
Her.
I wanted to reach for her, to say something that would make themoment easier, but the words that came out were quiet and unguarded instead.
“You’re beautiful, Colette.”
She blinked, surprised — like it wasn’t a thing she heard often, or maybe she was trying to deny that it meant more coming from me than she wanted it to.
The air between us stretched thin, humming with everything we weren’t supposed to say.
“Sexy, right?” She did a little twirl, casting a glance back at me from over her shoulder as my cardigan pooled at her elbows.
“Undeniably,” I muttered, but shook my head. Because shewassexy. But it wasn’t the lingerie.
She had been sexy with a messy pink bun and a corny Christmas sweatshirt.
She had been sexy curled against me at three in the morning, wearing nothing but my wool sweater.
She was sexy when she had been completely bare before me in the tub just moments ago, but… I was starting to believe I would find her sexy in anything at all.
I took one step forward, then another, until I could feel the warmth coming off her, a heartbeat’s distance away. My hands twitched at my sides, aching to touch, tothankher somehow for trusting me with this small, glittering piece of herself.
“Come here,” I said finally, my voice rough from the effort of keeping it gentle. I held my hand out in invitation, fighting back the tremble I felt.
Colette took a few steps closer, just out of my reach, and when she stopped, my cardigan slipped to the ground. A sly little grin tipped the corners of her mouth upwards as she cocked an eyebrow.
“You look…” there weren’t words. Dragging my hand down my jaw, all I coulddowas shake my head again. “You just randomly packed thesexiestoutfit known to man for your own Christmas getaway?”
My hands raised of their own accord, hovering in the spacebetween us. Her grin never faltered, long fingers curling around one of my wrists.
“Women are allowed to dress in revealing lingerie for themselves, hotshot.” She tugged on my wrist, pressing my palm against the bare skin of her waist. “You just got lucky.”
“Luckiest bastard in the world, I’d reckon.” I managed around the knot of anticipation in my throat.
“You just gonna stand there?” Colette teased, eyes flicking over my bare chest as she wet her bottom lip. “Or did I get all dolled up for nothing?”
“Just let me look at you, Colette.”
She froze for a heartbeat at the way I said her name — like it was a prayer I was half afraid to speak aloud.
And I did look. God help me, I looked.
The red caught the firelight, glimmering against her skin like she’d been wrapped in the season itself. Ribbons, bows, a whisper of shimmer at the edge of every breath she took. But what wrecked me wasn’t the lace. It was the way shestoodthere — steady, chin lifted, daring me to see all of her and not look away.
The ribbon that held the top together could barely contain her tits. Plump flesh spilling over the top and peeking out from the bottom.
