Hot Winter Nights (Heartbreaker Bay #6)(27)

“Mom, I appreciate your food so much I have to run four miles every morning.”

Lucas’s mom slipped an arm around Molly and turned her toward the front door. “You’re chilled. Come in with me, I have—”

“Mom,” Lucas said. “Back away from her. We’re working.”

“Well you have to eat.”

“We’re not hungry.” He handed his mom the game and then wrapped his arms around her in a very warm, loving hug, brushing a kiss to her temple. “Love you, you crazy person.”

Her arms squeezed him tight. “Someday I’m going to be dead and you’re going to be sorry you were so mean to me.”

Lucas just laughed and kissed her again. He hugged Laura and Sami, gently patted Sami’s baby belly and then took Molly by the hand. “Good night,” he said firmly.

They headed back to the car, Molly deep in thought. Her family wasn’t anything like Lucas’s warm, loving one. She and Joe had been raised by a single dad who suffered from war PTSD. He hadn’t been able to hold a job for long, which left them perpetually scrambling for a roof and food. Safety and security had been in short supply. She’d learned early to count on herself and no one else.

And God knows, that had certainly stuck with her as she’d gotten older. There’d been lots of bumps along the way and she’d been bruised and scarred, inside and out, literally and figuratively. Her trust issue was a fifteen-foot-thick brick wall around her heart, and not much penetrated.

But Lucas, who also had been bruised and scarred, didn’t seem to have that brick wall, and it wasn’t a comfortable realization.

He cranked over the engine and met her gaze. “You survived that pretty well. Thanks for being so nice about it.”

“Your family,” she murmured, still a little overwhelmed. “They’re . . .”

“Crazy. I know.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. Not even close. She could still feel their warmth, their closeness, their unconditional love. “They’re . . .”

“Nosy, manipulating, pushy . . . ?”

“Stop,” she said on a laugh, knowing he was teasing by his fond tone. He knew what he had, how wonderful they were, and her smile faded. “You’re lucky, Lucas.”

His smile faded too. “I know. I take it you aren’t as lucky?”

“No, I’m lucky too,” she said, thinking of how much Joe and her dad meant to her. “Just in a very different way.”





Chapter 10





#UnderTheMistletoe



Molly took in the sight of the Christmas Village as Lucas pulled into the lot. It had been constructed on a part of a large parking lot at the marina and was lit within an inch of its life with an old-fashioned feel to it. She wasn’t sure if that was on purpose or if the decorations and lights had just been around for half a century.

Lucas parked and turned to her. “We’re going in as paying customers. Just a couple out on the town, having a good time,” he instructed.

She gave him a long look. “You should know, I typically only take alpha orders in bed.” It was a total bluff, of course, pure bravado. And okay, maybe she was trying to goad him into kissing her again.

“Molly.” He took a deep breath. “You can’t say things like that. I’ll take advantage.”

“Promises, promises.”

He shut his eyes and groaned. “Killing me.”

“Am I? Cuz it seems like you’ve resisted pretty easily.”

“Trust me,” he said, voice low and gruff. “Nothing easy about it.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Molly, look at me.”

Oh boy. She inhaled a deep breath and turned to face him. They were no longer playing around. His expression was serious, very serious, as he stroked a finger along her temple, tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re incredible, and you should know that it’s been a long time since I’ve felt so tempted by someone.”

“Come on,” she said on a scoff. “You don’t expect me to believe that when you went out with that redhead from the pub like two weeks ago.”

“Not the kind of tempted I meant.”

She stared at him, trying hard not to read too much into that statement. “What does that even mean?”

“It means I want you, and I’m tired of resisting. But when I get you naked, it won’t be in an office where anyone can walk in, or in my car, and it sure as hell won’t be something one of us can’t remember.”

All her girlie parts quivered and she ordered them to behave. “You said when, not if,” she murmured.

The fingers he’d just run over her temple sank into her hair. Pulling her face to his, he kissed her long and slow and most definitely not sweet. By the time he pulled back, she’d forgotten what they were talking about. Hell, she’d forgotten her own name.

“When,” he repeated in a voice that made her toes curl. “Definitely when.”

Okay then. With hands and knees shaking a little bit, she got out of the car and headed to the entrance gate of the Christmas Village. They had to pay ten bucks to get in. “Yikes,” Molly said to the older woman staffing the ticket booth dressed in an elf costume complete with pointy shoes, pointy ears, a little green dress made out of a cheap material that couldn’t help but cling, and matching cap that didn’t quite hide the fact that she was about three decades past looking good in anything little and stretchy. “Ten bucks seems kind of steep for an empty Christmas Village.”