Charlotte almost left her skin when Will sucked on her nipple. She had spent plenty a night visualizing just such a thing, imagining how it would feel, and planning her sexy and suave response. But she could never have known it would feel like fire and ice, like an orgasm and ice cream all at once, or that she would blurt out, “Holy shit!” instead of something witty and urbane.
It wasn’t pretty, but it was exactly how she felt. Forcing her eyes open, she stared into Will’s brown hair, brain trying to convince her that this was actually happening. She and Will were getting it on standing up in his apartment with one hundred or so snowmen piled around them and his Christmas tree not even assembled yet.
Crazy but true.
She needed to get a grip. Literally. If she didn’t grab on to something besides his very fine butt, she was going to fall over. She needed to hold on to the table, but first she wanted just one teeny tiny little touch across the front of his jeans on her way past. If he was going to town on her chest—which she was really grateful he was—then surely she could just squeeze and take measure of what he had to offer. Well on her way to doing just that, she got caught on something by his front pocket.
Glancing down, she saw her finger had looped through red ribbon. “What’s this?” She pulled back from Will to get a better look.
“What? Who cares?” He tried to pry back down the bra cup that had sprung back into place, but Charlotte stood straight up, recognizing what she was looking at.
It couldn’t be. She yanked hard.
But it was.
He had the flipping mistletoe in his pocket.
“Where did you get this?” She dangled it in front of his face, horrified. He’d had the stinking mistletoe right next to his penis, of all things. That had to be seriously bad. And an obvious explanation for why he had kissed her, something he had never even hinted at before. For why he was even now reaching for her chest again.
“It was in one of the shopping bags,” he said, pushing it out of the way and trying to kiss her again.
Charlotte dodged the lip lock. Her heart was pounding and she felt slightly ill. The poor man had no idea she was manipulating him into wanting her. She was evil and selfish.
“Why was it in your pocket?”
“I grabbed it thinking I could hold it up and steal a kiss.” He grinned. “Turns out I didn’t even need it.”
Suddenly it seemed like Will had twelve hands and three mouths. He had a grip on her again and was nuzzling her ear, which was really distracting. The mistletoe was crushed between them, emitting a soft evergreen scent. “Will,” she said, gathering every ounce of willpower she had. This had to stop.
“Hmm?” He made a sexy little sound, a cross between a growl and a purr as he nipped at her bottom lip.
It was so unexpected and arousing, that Charlotte shuddered, letting the ecstasy flood over her for just a tiny stolen second. Then she corralled her resistance and, in a move out of pure desperation, yanked her arm free from its position between their chests and pitched the mistletoe clear across the room, where it skittered to a stop in the kitchen.
He briefly glanced over in the direction she’d thrown. “What are you doing?” But he didn’t really sound like he cared all that much. His eyes were on her breasts again.
Charlotte grabbed his cheeks and tipped his head up. “We need to talk.”
She was squeezing his face kind of hard and his lips were bulging forward. “What?” he said, speech mumbled from her tight grip.
“This way you’re feeling…you know, attracted to me. It’s because of the mistletoe. Bree showed me how to put a lust spell on it.” Charlotte winced and waited for his reaction.
“What?” he said again, looking at her blankly, his fingers resting on the neckline of her sweater, his intent clearly to pull it back down. “What the hell are you talking about?”
It sounded a little strange in retrospect. Letting go of his face, Charlotte pried her sweater out of his grip and pulled the neck back up, feeling more than a little bare, both literally and figuratively. “See, Bree thinks we’re witches, right? You know that.”
His eyebrow went up. “Yeah. So?”
There was just no reasonable way to explain this. “So she wants me to admit it, and in return she’ll wear a reindeer sweater for Christmas.” Not that Bree’s clothes were the slightest bit relevant to the conversation at hand, but Charlotte was avoiding having to say out loud that she wanted Will in the worst way.
“Okay. Can’t picture your sister in holiday gear, but whatever. And you’re actually willing to admit you’re a witch? That doesn’t seem like you.”
“Well…I didn’t have to say or do anything so much as I had to cast a spell. Which I thought wouldn’t work, because I really didn’t think I was witch. So I cast a lust spell on that mistletoe for you, knowing you wouldn’t react to it, then I could show Bree I’m not a witch at all. But you did react to it. So I am a witch and you’re just feeling desire for me because of the spell. It’s all not real, this…physical attraction for me; it’s the lust spell.”
His face was still really, really close to hers. It was a good long five seconds before he responded. Then he said carefully, “Why would you try to cast a lust spell on me?”
Oh, shoot. She was going to have to admit it. There was nothing for it. Charlotte swallowed hard and whispered, “Because I wanted you to want me. The way that I want you.”
There it was. He could do with it as he saw fit. Charlotte wanted to toss her dinner but she just sucked in a breath and waited for the blow.
Will touched her cheek. “Sweetheart.”
Tears popped into her eyes. Damn it, she was going to embarrass herself by crying, but the way he said that, so sweet, so tender, it was like he was touched, and needed to let her down easy. It was awful, yet so like him. He’d never hurt her intentionally, and she’d put him in this awkward position.
“The mistletoe had nothing to do with me kissing you.”
That wasn’t what she expected him to say. “What do you mean? Of course it did.”
“No, it didn’t. I kissed you because I wanted to. Because I want you. Sexually. And I have for a long, long time.”
She had fallen and bumped her head. She was dreaming. She had accidentally ingested hallucinogenic drugs without being aware of it. She had entered an alternative universe or fallen into a virtual reality world. Because it sounded like Will had just said he wanted her, too, and that was just impossible.
“No, you don’t.”
He laughed. “Yes, I do. And I’m damn glad to hear you feel the same way. Not to mention flattered that you would try to cast a lust spell on me. But honey, that wasn’t at all necessary because I’ve been lusting after you for years.”
“Years?” Was that her voice? She was downright squeaking. But Will was freaking her out. “But you’ve never once tried to do anything…you never tried to kiss me or anything. Are you sure it’s not the spell?”
She’d hate it and drop to the ground and kick and scream if it was the spell from hell, but she had to be sure. There was no way she could allow herself to get all excited and worked up thinking there was a future for her and Will, then have it yanked away. She would, quite simply, die if that were the case. Overdramatic, maybe. But still the truth.
“I did try to kiss you once five years ago. Don’t you remember? You gave me such a look of horror that I just flat out stopped. I thought you weren’t interested at all, that being friends is all you ever wanted.”
“You never tried to kiss me!” She would remember that. And she wouldn’t have pulled back. God, what had she missed? It wasn’t like a kiss attempt could really be mistaken for anything else, like reaching for a napkin, or pulling a stray hair off her face. It was impossible. She would have known.
“It was when I got shot.”
One of the worst days of her life, second only to when her grandmother had died. Will had responded to a robbery alone, since Cuttersville’s police force was small. They did all their patrolling solo, and that night he’d encountered a desperate twenty-year-old addict trying to break into the pharmaceutical supplies at the drugstore. He’d shot Will in the shoulder, but Will had still managed to restrain and handcuff him before calling for backup. Charlotte had gotten the call from Will’s mom, who was still living in town at the time, and she’d met them up at the hospital. “What about when you got shot?” Just the memory of the fear she’d felt before knowing he was okay made her mouth go hot.