Shockwaves rippled to the tips of her toes and she questioned if time was standing still because the hotel seemed to fade away to just the two of them, just his eyes searching hers, his lips branding hers.
When he pulled away, reality immediately sank in. Hospital Christmas party. Surrounded by new coworkers. The most gorgeous man ever had just kissed her. Hello, had she lost her mind?
“Why did you do that?” She took a step back, wiping her lips as if trying to clear away his kiss. Sandpaper couldn’t have erased his kiss. Riley. Riley’s kiss. He’d permanently branded her lips, her entire body. The man started fires.
He pointed up to the doorway she’d stepped beneath.
“Had to.” He shrugged nonchalantly, as if the kiss had been no big deal. To him it probably hadn’t been. His knees weren’t the ones shaking. “Tradition.”
She glanced up, eyed the large clump of mistletoe tied with a red ribbon that hung over the doorway. Her gaze dropped back to him suspiciously. “You’re a traditional kind of guy and just couldn’t resist?”
“Absolutely, just ask my mom. She’ll tell you I’m the apple of her eye.” He grinned. “Now that we know I’m a traditional kind of guy, that you smell and taste like the sweetest candy, and the pressure of our first kiss is out of the way, let’s go party. I guarantee a good time. Plus, you can tell me all about you while I hold you in my arms on the dance floor, Trinity.” His eyes sparkled with devilment.
Feeling oddly out of sorts that he knew her name despite the fact she’d purposely not told him, that he was piling on the charm, she felt what little resistance she had to him ebbing away. “Do you always get what you want?”
One side of his mouth curved upward. “Not always, but it is Christmastime and I’ve been a very good boy.”
She doubted that. Besides which there was nothing boyish about his broad shoulders and testosterone-laden aura.
“I’m hopeful there will be something sweet under my Christmas tree this year. An angel.” He raised his brows. “You have plans? We could start a new holiday tradition.”
She should go. She knew that. Her tattered heart was no match for this man’s charisma. But the thought of going back to her lonely apartment just didn’t appeal. Not even with Casper there, waiting for her. Her cat might love her but, whether Trinity wanted to admit it or not, she craved the temptation Riley waved in front of her.
An escape, albeit temporary, from the deeply embedded loneliness that had taken hold of her soul from the moment Chase Langworthy had dumped her publicly at their hospital Christmas party two years ago and plunged her into depression and Scrooge-dom.
Darn him for doing that. Darn her for letting him.
She took the punch glass Riley still held and downed half the contents as if she were chugging a shot of whiskey. Ha, she never drank alcohol, but she needed something to give her the push to do what she suddenly wanted to. She’d pretend the punch was liquid courage. She’d pretend that she was the kind of girl used to men like him flirting and wanting to dance with her. She’d pretend she was the life of the party.
“Okay, Riley…” She drawled his name out. She would do this, would have fun. “I’ll dance with you, but I should warn you that I dance much better than I kiss so you might struggle to keep up.”
She had no clue how she managed the confident words, the brilliant smile, or where they had even come from. The only time she ever danced confidently was around her living room with only Casper around to yawn at her antics. Still, head high, she headed back into the ballroom.
Riley’s pleased laughter behind her warmed parts of her insides that hadn’t felt sunshine in a long, long time.
CHAPTER TWO
WHAT A PLEASANT enigma, Riley thought of the woman he held loosely in his arms. She really did dance like an angel. But she was crazy if she thought she danced better than she kissed.
No one danced better than this woman’s lips had felt against his. A meeting of their lips that hadn’t been an angelic kiss but one that lit hot fires all along his nerve endings. He still burned. of course, that might be because her curvy little body swayed next to his and every cell in him had an apparent surge of testosterone.
What other excuse could there be for that brief brushing of his mouth against hers to have set him on fire the way it had?
If he didn’t quit thinking about how much he’d wanted to deepen that kiss, about how he wanted to take her somewhere private and kiss her again and again and on places other than her juicy mouth, she was going to know exactly what he was thinking. He was intuitive enough to recognize she wasn’t the kind of girl who went for one-night stands.