A Baby on Her Christmas List. Louisa George

my God, is this really happening?’ She reached round his waist and pulled him into one of her generous hugs. His nostrils filled with her perfume and he fought a sudden urge not to let go.

      Her body felt good close to his. She was soft in his arms and her head against his chest made his heart hurt a little. He’d missed her these last few weeks. Especially these last few days. They never argued.

      And this … was just a hug. Nothing strange there. She gave them all the time. And yet … He was aware of the softness of her body, the curve of her waist … He swallowed.

      Nah. She felt just the same as always. Just the same old Georgie. She turned her head and looked up at him, her dark eyes dancing with excitement, the evening sun catching her profile. For a second she just looked into his eyes. One. Two. He lost count. She had amazing eyes. Flecked with warm gold and honey that matched her hair. His gaze drifted across the face he knew so well, and a shiver of something he didn’t want to recognise tightened through him.

      She pulled away quickly and the connection broke.

      Thank God, because he was getting carried away in all her emotion. And that was definitely not something he was planning on doing. Emotional distance was the only thing that stopped him wreaking any more damage on those he loved. Hell, he was his father’s son after all. Emotional distance was what MacAllister men did better than anyone else. But somehow he didn’t think that that admission would go down well on Georgie’s tick list.

      ‘Thank you. Thank you so much. It means a lot to me.’ She placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. Again with the goosebumps. This time they prickled all the way to his gut and lower. ‘I’ll mull it over and … um … let you know? Soon as possible?’

      ‘Okay, and I’ll get the turkey baster sorted for when you say yes.’ Now he needed to ignore the strange feelings and off-load some of this ache in his chest. He saw a damned long run in his immediate future.

      Her demeanour changed. She brushed a hand down over her scrub trousers, all business and organisation as she took a shaky little step away from him. ‘Like I said, we’ll do it the clinic way.’

      ‘For sure. Any other way would be just too—’

      Her head tilted a little to the side. ‘Ick?’

      He grinned. ‘Is that a technical term?’

      ‘Absolutely. For that weird feeling you get when you think about sleeping with your best friend? Like sex with your cousin? Right? Weird.’ Shuddering, she looked to him for reassurance.

      Which he gave unreservedly. ‘Right. Yes. Ick’s the word.’

      The notion of them having sex had rarely arisen. Back in the early days he’d caught himself looking at her and wondering. She’d walked through his dreams many nights. He’d tried to imagine what kissing her would have been like. How she would taste. How she would feel underneath him. Around him. But he’d never put any of that into words for fear she’d run a mile. He’d never asked more from her than what they’d already had and, frankly, he’d believed that any kind of fling would inevitably ruin the great friendship they’d built up.

      She was worth more to him than just sex. And seeing as that was the only thing he ever offered to women, he’d never wanted to risk doing something so pointlessly stupid and losing her.

      Plus, while Georgie was funny and loyal, she’d never made a move or seemed interested in him in that way. They’d had an implicit agreement that anything of a sexual nature could never happen. So he’d sublimated those imaginings until he’d stopped having them. Had lost himself in other women.

      Which made it all the more nonsensical that he’d started noticing things again … like her smell, the colour of her hair, her eyes. Surely it could only mean some sort of nostalgia for the younger Georgie in his past when the present was shifting out of his control?