A Chance This Christmas(27)
Kissing Gavin was every bit as amazing as she remembered.
More.
Rachel wound her arms around his neck, hungry to be closer. To make sure the kiss never ended. Light-headed with awareness of him—his scent, his touch, his every breath—she needed to hold on tight for fear her knees would fail her and she would collapse into the snow at their feet.
The world around them receded. Christmas music faded along with the warped strains of the merry-go-round soundtrack. The laughter of visitors and carols of the strolling singers all felt distant, a hazy background to the most important connection of her life. Or, so it felt at this moment. Gavin had a way of holding her and touching her like she was the only woman in the world. The only woman who mattered.
It was addictively delicious. Rachel feared if she continued the contact she’d never let go.
Still, she couldn’t seem to pull away. The blood in her veins hummed pleasantly. There was a buzzing in her head that…
No. The buzzing was from her phone in her pocket.
Gavin seemed to come to his senses faster than her. He edged back, watching her. “Do you need to answer that?”
She didn’t want to, in fact. But maybe the cosmos had conspired to give her this mental time out to think about what she was doing before things turned even more heated.
“Um.” Digging in her coat pocket, she withdrew the device. “Maybe I’d better.”
Kiersten’s face filled the screen. What on earth could the bride want during the middle of her bachelorette party?
“Hello?” Rachel answered, her lips still tingly from kissing Gavin. She blinked twice, trying to ward off the haze of attraction.
“We just arrived at Frosty’s Igloo!” Kiersten shouted over a loud country holiday tune in the background, along with the high-pitched scrabble of feminine voices. “You have to come out and play now since we’re practically in your backyard.”
Swallowing back thwarted desire and a little awkwardness around Gavin, Rachel weighed her options. “I thought you were in Lake Placid for the party?”
“We wanted to end the night closer to home. Besides, the girls wanted to dance. If I don’t see you in ten minutes, I’m sending Emma over in the limo to bring you here personally.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Rachel’s chest constricted at the idea of facing the ladies of the bridal party tonight, but at least a few of them had seemed okay after the dress fittings. Besides, she probably needed to peel herself away from Gavin before she did something she’d regret. Like fall for a star athlete who was as attached to Yuletide as she was allergic to it. “I’m not at home anyway. I can be there in a few minutes.”
With a squeal and a cheer, Kiersten disconnected the call. Slowly, Rachel lowered her phone as Gavin watched her.
“The bride needs you?” The corner of his lips hitched in a half smile. His voice wrapped around her with an intimacy that made her shiver.
What had she been thinking to repeat old history with him? As if the first time hadn’t ended on a disastrous enough note.
Pocketing her phone, Rachel took a deep breath. “I guess I’m going to end up at the bachelorette party after all.”
“Can I walk you over there?” he asked.
“They’re at Frosty’s Igloo.” She pointed the way. “It’s in the opposite direction of home, so I’ll be fine on my own.”
No more repeat kisses that way.
“What kind of gentleman would I be to let you walk up icy hills in the dark?” He held out his arm—perfectly chivalrous and entirely too tempting. “I’ll just stay with you long enough to make sure you arrive without spraining an ankle.”
Grateful in spite of her misgivings about her ability to resist him, Rachel slid a hand into the crook of his elbow. He felt warm and strong, and with the taste of him still on her lips she felt her cheeks heat. She didn’t dare to meet his eyes, knowing he might read the hunger there.
And she couldn’t afford to fall back into another kiss. Not until she gathered her scattered thoughts. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Is this your first bachelorette party?” he asked while they walked through the light mist of snowflakes. “Or are you a pro at these things? I don’t know anything about your life in the big city.”
“I’ve been to a couple of them, but only for acquaintances, not for super close friends.”
“Do you have those kinds of connections in New York?”
“In Brooklyn, close to where I live, I’ve met some really great people.” She missed Shea and Larissa, who’d encouraged her to fulfill the pact to make peace with the past. That “peace” sure didn’t involve kissing Gavin. She wasn’t a woman who shared that kind of thing lightly. Now she was more confused about what she was doing here than ever. “One of my friends, Larissa, just moved back to Cheyenne and I’m going to really miss her. She was hoping to come here for a visit this week, but her favorite sheep is sick.”
“Her favorite sheep?” Gavin didn’t bother to hide a grin as they walked out of the playground and toward the igloos into a more rustic area.
Visitors could experience more of an old-fashioned holiday in some of the wooden cabins ringing the igloo area, while the faux ice-houses were stocked with more modern amenities.
“Yes. I’ve had so much fun hearing about her life out there. She moved to New York after I did to work on Broadway, but I think she always missed the wide-open spaces of her old life.” Rachel had liked hearing her stories and had learned a lot about using wool in her designs from Larissa the sheep expert. “And my other friend, Shea, just opened a boutique in a Vermont ski town.”