Page 29 of The Naughty List Agreement

He was so close now that each exhalation of her breath brushed over his beard and he could feel the heat of it against his lips. Her eyes fluttered closed as she leaned toward him.

He leaned away. If he kissed her, things would change. His control was already hanging by a thread. There would be no more wondering; there would only be knowing. Knowing her taste. Knowing how her tongue felt against his. Knowing how the soft curve of her upper thigh felt against his palm.

He took a deep breath and her eyes opened. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and looked him dead in the eye … and he forgot about the ticking clock of responsibility. Forgot about all the things he had to do as her breasts brushed against his chest. Forgot about Black Lumen and the dark knots in the Yearweave and her name on the Naughty List as she came up on her tiptoes and planted her mouth on his.

This was all about what he wanted to do. Not Santa Claus but Nick Bari. The embrace was aggressive for a split second before the kiss softened. Her mouth opened against his and he sucked her lower lip into his mouth as his tongue plunged deeper inside.

She tasted better than he could have imagined. It was so good. She was so good. She brushed her finger against his neck, up to his ear, and toyed with his lobe as he pulled her more fully against him. His arm slid around her waist while the other hand rested on her hip—and yet he wanted so much more.

That hunger that he’d been denying, that he felt was a gnawing ache in him … he couldn’t walk away now. He angled his head to deepen the kiss and at the same time he lifted her off her feet. Just as in his imagination, she wrapped one leg around his ass, and spark inside him flamed into life. Her hands pushed up into his hair, holding his head as if she were afraid he was going to break the kiss.

He couldn’t. Nothing could make him do that.

His blood felt hot and heavy in his veins and his dick hardened. He walked them both back inside her house and closed the door with his foot. He leaned back against it for support, cupping her butt with his hands and lifting her higher so he could push his erection against her. She moaned and pulled her head back, resting her forehead against his.

“Nick…”

Just his name on her lips made his dick jump in his pants. In his arms, and wrapped around his body, she felt softer and sweeter than ever before. This woman had him tied in knots. The kind of knots that could unravel his night, his career, and his entire world if he wasn’t careful. It was supposed to be a kiss under the mistletoe.

Just one kiss.

He’d let it become more.

Let? Ha! He’d had no control over this situation from the moment he’d walked into her house. Her sadness, her spirit, her legs… He’d been unable to resist the powerfully sensual cocktail that was Cora.

“That didn’t hurt, did it?” she teased.

“Not at all,” he said, putting her back on her feet.

“I’m sensing a but.”

“We have to work together and there’s a lot going on right now.”

She stepped back, licking her lips as she did so. He almost gave in and kissed her again but he knew that if he slept with her now, he would never know the real woman, the one beneath the superficial image she wore like a shield. Glancing out of a window beside her front door, he noticed the snow had stopped falling. His eye was caught by a shadow that looked out of place under the tree near the sidewalk.

It was Pete.

Pete stood in the shadows watching, waiting, ready to take Cora.

It was a potent reminder that the kiss Nick craved might cost not just him, but everyone, the kind of Christmas they deserved.

CHAPTER 8

Instead of finding Pete, Nick found himself on the ice with a hockey stick in hand. Krampus had been creeping outside Cora’s house as a solid reminder that unless she mended her ways, her future endeavors would be guided by fear and punishment. It might force her to make better decisions in the end, but she’d gain far more if she remembered that one good deed fed another and brought about a chain reaction of goodness.

But the last thing Nick was thinking about right now was a chain reaction of human goodness. He was hot and horny and had left the woman he wanted in his bed at her house an hour ago. He wasn’t firing on all pistons and it took everything in him not to leap through the portal and knock on her door. His priorities were all over the place. He needed a reset, and skating hard and slamming the puck into the net was the only way he could think to make that happen.

“One-on-one?”

Jack sat on the bench near the rink, tying his skate laces. There was no point in Nick’s life that he could remember when his best friend wasn’t at his side. There was a lot to be said for having a friend who knew him as well as Jack did. But tonight, Nick didn’t want to do any reflection. He wanted to whack the hell out of the puck. He wanted to skate until he was so exhausted he wouldn’t dream of Cora’s ass in his hands as he pressed his cock against her soft warmth.

“So … yes to one-on-one?” Jack asked as he got to his feet. He had to wear skates for hockey with Nick to make things even between them because Jack glided across all ice like he’d been born to it—which technically he had…

“I’m in a pissy mood,” Nick warned his friend.

“Then you won’t mind if we join in,” Pete said, emerging from the forest on the opposite side of the outdoor rink with Finn Blaze behind him. Finn was Jack’s twin—the spirit of summer and heat.

Fire crackled through the air as Nick charged at Pete, grabbing him by the throat and holding him up by his neck.