Kissing Santa Claus. Jill Shalvis. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Jill Shalvis
Издательство: Ingram
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Жанр произведения: Короткие любовные романы
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9780758262547
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and looked up at him. He saw her throat work and was close enough to see her pupils expand. “Yes?”

      “I’m not eighteen anymore. And I don’t give a damn about what people think. I still don’t like rejection.” He grinned. “But I’m not afraid to risk it.”

      “What—what are you saying?”

      “I’m saying that some attractions don’t fade with time. In fact…” He reached up, pushed that silky fall of hair off her cheek. “Sometimes, they just get more intriguing. Especially when you’re old enough to know where intriguing attractions can lead.”

      She didn’t just swallow hard. She gulped. “I, uh—I don’t know if I’m staying. I mean, I just came to—”

      “Aren’t you curious?”

      “Curious? About—”

      “About following up on that mutual attraction. Unless—unless, you’re otherwise—”

      She shook her head. More of a jerky move, really. “No, I’m not otherwise anything. Except otherwise unsure if this—um, pursuing this conversation any further is a good idea. I mean, maybe it’s just as well to leave the teenage fantasy as just that? Why risk ruining a sweet memory?”

      “Now who’s afraid?” he gently teased, his fingers still in her hair.

      “Bwak, bwak,” she said.

      He could feel the slight tremor beneath his fingertips as he traced them along her jaw, then slid them beneath her hair and tilted her head back with the slightest of pressure. “So,” he said, slowly leaning closer, “you really don’t want to know?”

      “Is that all it is?” she asked, her voice husky and soft. “Curiosity?”

      “It’s as good a place to start as any.”

      “Some people—” She had to pause, clear her throat, which made his lips twitch. “Some people get to know each other first, before—”

      “We’re hardly strangers.”

      She shifted back a little. “We’re pretty much exactly strangers.”

      “Okay…so what do you want to know? I know what I want to know.”

      She actually rolled her eyes, which choked a little laugh out of him.

      “I didn’t mean that. Well, not exactly that. Yet, anyway.”

      Her mouth dropped open at that, and it was really almost just too much to take.

      “It’s just a kiss…a hello.”

      “And if it’s just…pleasant?”

      “Then a hello is just a hello. We’re friends, Holly. Or, at least I’d like us to be. It doesn’t have to be more than that.”

      “Awkward, though.”

      “We’re the only ones who’d know. And the friendship stands.”

      “I can’t believe I’m standing here, in the middle of the night, bargaining over a kiss. With you.”

      He grinned, but she stepped back. And took the box of food, hugging it, almost too tightly from the sound of crinkling cardboard.

      “Why don’t we move straight to the friendship part,” she said.

      He lifted his hands. “Okay.” Then he shook his head. “Turns out it doesn’t feel any better fourteen years later. The rejection thing,” he clarified.

      “I don’t know what I’m going to be doing a day from now, much less a week, or a month. My life is…complicated. In ways it hasn’t been in a very long time. I can’t handle further…complications. Not right now.”

      “It might have just been pleasant,” he said, teasing her, wishing he wasn’t so disappointed but respecting her wishes.

      Now that smile came back, and it did things to him, surprisingly intense things, which made him wonder if perhaps she hadn’t made the wise move.

      “It might have been pleasant for you,” she said, “but I can pretty much guarantee it would have ranked a lot higher on my scale.”

      Now it was his turn to stand there and stare.

      “I really need to—you know.” She gestured her head, toward the back of the building.

      “Um, yeah. Right.” He turned and walked back to the front door. “Don’t forget to lock up behind me.”

      “I won’t,” she said, staying where she was.

      He supposed so they didn’t risk being in each other’s personal space again. He paused at the door, though, then looked back at her. “I think you’re right. When we kiss, it’s going to be a hell of a lot more than pleasant.”

      5

      Holly heard the tapping on the door downstairs and immediately stopped shoving the large packing crate toward the dormer window and away from her makeshift bed. Sean?

      She knew it was foolish, the little skip her heart took, the extra zip in her pulse. Even if it was him, there was no point in getting all schoolgirl-crushy about it. She’d spent far more time thinking about their almost kiss in the wee hours last night than she should have, especially considering the laundry list of things she absolutely had to be thinking about. It was more than a little mind-blowing to know, to even think, that Sean Gallagher had been attracted to her. Ever. But they were adults now, and she had some very adult responsibilities to attend to. Ones that left no room for reliving childhood fantasies. Much less contemplate trying to turn fantasy into reality.

      She used her reflection in the pane of glass in the china cabinet that was shoved up against the wall behind the door to push at her hair and check her teeth. Realizing she was primping, she stuck her tongue out at herself and tried to get her head in the place it needed to be as she walked downstairs. The fantasy was pretty damn good if her dreams last night had been any indication, and he’d been right about time only enhancing the details of those fantasies, but the dream world was the realm in which all thoughts of Sean Gallagher were destined to remain.

      She pasted a professional, friends-only smile on her face, prayed it was even in the ballpark of looking believable, and turned the corner at the base of the stairs into the main part of the shop…only to have the smile fade and her shoulders involuntarily slump a little when she spied who it was at the door. And who it wasn’t.

      She wasn’t ready for this conversation, but she’d known word would get out she was back and she’d have visitors before too long. She’d just hoped that too long would have been a little bit longer before this particular visitor popped up.

      She gave a nod to Mrs. Gillespie as she unlocked the door. Arlene Gillespie had worked part-time for her mother for more years than Holly had been alive. She was a tiny wisp of a thing, even smaller than Holly, not the type to indulge in chitchat, though she knew her antiques and could give you, in great detail, the provenance of each piece in the store’s entire and ever-changing inventory without ever having to refer to a single catalog. Holly was certain she’d been a librarian in a former life.

      Her expression was much as Holly had always remembered it to be, neither smiling nor frowning, but merely intent. She opened the door and stepped back to invite her in. “Mrs. Gillespie, how nice to see you.” That was another quirk of hers. Everyone, even her peers, had always called her Mrs. Gillespie. It was only because her mother had signed her paychecks that Holly even knew her first name.

      “So, you’ve finally come back,” Mrs. Gillespie said without preamble.

      Holly closed the door behind her and did her best not to roll her eyes as Mrs. Gillespie unwrapped the long knit scarf that was swallowing her neck whole and unbuttoned her olive green overcoat. She left her hat on, but did take her gloves off. Which meant this was not going to be a brief visit. Lovely.