She was surprised she didn’t hover as he laid her down on the bed. But then she didn’t have the brain space to be surprised about anything at all, because Wade was peeling the sweater dress off of her.
For a moment, she felt a flush of embarrassment at her plain, functional underwear. When she’d gotten dressed today, she hadn’t expected this to happen. She had sexy lingerie! But you wouldn’t know it from the plain cotton boyshorts and sturdy beige bra she had on right now.
She was half-tempted to apologize for it, and it wasn’t her fading voice that stopped her. It was the look on Wade’s face.
That was not the look of a man who felt disappointed with the present he had just unwrapped. He lookedenraptured, like every inch of her uncovered skin was the most fascinating, erotic thing he’d ever seen.
Well, in that case, Mira was happy to help him see more of it. She pushed herself up on her elbows and reached back to unhook her bra.
But she wanted to do some looking herself, and Wade had been so focused on her that he hadn’t taken any of his own clothes off yet. Mira gestured to him, and—with uncanny accuracy—he realized what she meant.
He got everything off quickly, but she still had time to savor his golden-brown tan and the lean, hard-working muscle of his frame. He really was an Adonis. It was a crime to hide all of this beneath a cheap Santa suit.
But then, that did mean she was the only one who got to see—and touch—everything, and that was pretty appealing ....
She tossed her underwear on the floor as he rejoined her in bed, and then it was just the warm, sweetneedof their two bodies pressed against each other. Wade stroked up and down Mira’s body, a kind of slow-building, maddeningly intense foreplay that made her think sparks would start flying from herskin. She was going to go up in a blaze. She was so turned on that her whole body felt lush and overripe, achingly but wonderfully sensitive to the slightest touch. Some part of her felt like she could have laid there under his caresses forever, but another part—which had the edge—wanted to make sure she didn’t come until he was actually inside her. As incredible as this was, she wanted to make lovewithhim, not just bask in his attentions. She wanted to have him as much he had her.
Her voice was well and truly shot now, so again, all she could do was gesture. And once more, he understood her right away.
He rolled on a condom and slid into her with a delicious slowness. Mira raised her legs and hooked them around his waist, silently urging him to keep going.
They fell into an easy rhythm, and Mira’s orgasm hit even sooner than she would have guessed. It took her breath away and slammed her head back into the pillow, making her whimper and grind her hips against his. She felt like her whole mind had been blotted out with pleasure.
It was unbelievably good, but she almost liked it even more when the last of the aftershocks faded and she could concentrate on just being with him: on tightening her body around his, on kissing his neck, on feeling his sweat on her skin, on seeing his eyes darkened as he got close to the edge. She cataloged it all, just to convince herself that thiswasreal and she wasn’t dreaming it.
It wasn’t a dream, and she didn’t wake up from it. Instead, as Wade finished and they got settled, curling up in the warm and rumpled sheets, she fell asleep in his arms.
Chapter Thirteen
December 22
The morning went by in a whirlwind. Wade had needed to run back to his own place to change clothes—and pet Fiona, who was haughtily miffed about how his absence had robbed her of the chance to jump on his head at three in the morning—and so he was late to the Christmas Village staff meeting. Much, he was sure, to Marsh’s delight.
But since he had woken up with Mira, and they had gotten to eat breakfast in bed together—leftover cinnamon rolls from the bakery stall, made warm and gooey again by a short spin in the microwave—and he had gotten to kiss a dollop of sweet icing off the bow of her mouth before he’d left ... Wade couldn’t bring himself to care about what kind of hustle and bustle the day would bring. Mira wasn’t stuck leading nonstop carol-oke, and that was good enough for him. She was back on regular elf duties, mostly alternating between crowd control and gift-wrapping. It was easy for him to steal glances at her from Santa’s chair, and she always looked gorgeous.
She always looked happy, too. The daily grind of her job and worries was still there, but it didn’t seem to wearing her down anymore.
If Wade had given her a break from that pressure, he was unbelievably glad of it.
He knew for sure that she had liftedhimup. If he had spent too long in a rut, feeling like his life was a block of wood with no secret shape worth hewing out of it, then Mira had changed that completely. He could see how the two of them fit together now, and he knew how he would carve their interlocking pieces.
When he wrapped up his last meet-and-greet—this one with a little girl who dutifully reported her older, non-Santa-believingsister’s requests as well as her own—Mira was there waiting for him with a paper cup of peppermint hot chocolate.
“You’re an angel,” Wade said.
“I’ve heard that a couple times today. It’s the dress.”
She did look a little like a treetop angel, and with a garland in her hair and silver or gold wings on her shoulders, she’d look like it even more. But that wasn’t what Wade had meant.
“Those people are just guessing,” Wade said. “I know.”
She smiled, her cheeks rounding and dimpling in a way that made his heart skip a beat.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you that I come bearing bad news, not just hot chocolate. Marsh offered everyone the chance to drop offtonsof presents for overnight gift-wrapping, and we still have a couple dozen left. He wants me to stay late and finish.”
Thatdidmake the hot chocolate turn more bitter than sweet.
But only for a moment. Sure, he had wanted another real date with Mira, but any time with her was time well-spent.
