The Mistletoe Motive(27)

“Stop it.” I playfully punch his rock-hard thigh, feeling a weird sense of déjà vu. “Stop baiting me!”

His mouth tips, so close to a smile, before it dissolves, leaving only silence and a thick, heavy charge in the air. Jonathan’s jaw works. His eyes search mine. “They’re very different,” he says. “The love interests.”

I nod. “Opposites, basically.”

“But…” His gaze slips down to my mouth. “That ends up really working for them. It’s the heartbeat of their connection, being drawn to each other’s differences, stretching themselves to narrow that distance between each other without losing themselves. They…grow. Together. And more deeply into their true selves.”

My heart’s pounding, slamming against my ribs. Goddamn him for saying it so perfectly.

“Forced proximity also helps,” I say, quieter, almost a whisper. “Being stuck in a carriage for days in a row, an inn with only one room and—”

“Only one bed,” he says, his throat working with a fresh swallow. “I read about that. That’s a popular trope. I can see why.”

“Of course you read up on romance tropes.”

“I read up on the whole damn genre.” His fingers drum on the steering wheel. “I don’t do things half-assed, Gabriella.”

“No…” I search his face. “No, you don’t.”

Jonathan’s hand flexes around the steering wheel. His jaw ticks. And then, suddenly, he throws open his door.

I blink, snapped out of a daze. Then I realize what he’s about to do. Dammit. He’s going to open my door next and be chivalrous again. I can’t handle that, considering one hand clasp got me so worked up, I’ve been squirming in my seat the whole ride home.

I scramble for the handle, desperate to beat him to it, but he’s already there, opening my door, then once again offering me his hand. I glance down at the mound of snow at my feet that I need to hurdle. Begrudgingly I take his hand and try to ignore the electric heat that jolts through me, radiating from where our hands are clasped to the tips of my toes.

Hopping over the snowbank, I land in the powdery softness with a thud, then peer up at the sky and Mother Nature’s sugar dust drifting down on us. I hold out my tongue and smile.

Snow brings out the child in me. The wonder. I will never not love it.

A thick, cold flake lands on my tongue. I hum in pleasure, then slowly open my eyes. Jonathan’s staring at me intently.

“What is it?”

“Your capacity for joy,” he says quietly. “It’s…humbling.”

A compliment from Jonathan Frost. And not just any compliment—one that makes the heart of me feel seen and glowing, like candlelight spilling from a window on a dark, cold night.

My vision blurs with the threat of tears. My throat is thick. “You don’t think it’s silly?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Odd? Strange? Juvenile?” I whisper. Just a sampling of the things I’ve been called when my happiness spilled over around those who found it to be “too much.”

Taking a slow step closer, boots crunching in the snow, he holds my eyes. “No, Gabriella. I don’t think it’s silly or odd or strange or juvenile to hold on with both hands to the best parts of who we are when we’re young and not let life take that from you. I think it’s brave and badass and infuriatingly impossible not to admire you for it.”

His knuckles brush my cheek, and my eyes begin to drift shut. It feels so overwhelmingly right, when all I can think is this is so absolutely wrong.

This makes no sense. Jonathan Frost isn’t affectionate or tender. He doesn’t read the shit out of a romance novel that I love or look at me with need burning in his eyes. He doesn’t hold my hand or keep me warm or stare at me like everything he wants in the world is right in front of him.

And yet here he is—large rough hands gently cupping my face, close and calm and intent, his eyes on my mouth. I need to kiss you, his gaze says. So badly.

I stare up at him as his thumbs circle the dimples of my cheeks, as heat pours off his body, so close to mine that our thighs brush, our chests meet as we both draw in a deep breath. I feel this tug toward him in the pit of my belly, and dangerously higher up, where my heart thrashes against a tightening knot of something I’m too scared to even begin to analyze.

I have never understood something less—how much I want Jonathan, how deeply I ache for him. But maybe that’s exactly why this needs to happen, to dispel the tension, to break the twisted bond of enmity that’s braided us together the past twelve months. Maybe a kiss is all we need. And then I’ll be free of this torture.

As I hold his gaze, he sees what I’m telling him: I need it, too.

My palms drift up his chest on a faint swoosh across the fabric. Jonathan peers down at me, dark lashes lowered over wintergreen eyes, that mouth that’s so often tight and stern now lush and parted.

“I shouldn’t do this,” he says roughly, so quietly, I almost don’t hear him. “Not yet.”

I don’t understand what he’s saying, but I’m beyond sense, beyond thought. All I want is to be released from the torment that is wanting him, that’s sunk its teeth into me, and make it let go. I’m going to kiss it right out of my system. It has to work.