A.C. Arthur - Winter Kisses

As kisses go, this one rated well beyond Monica's high standards. She struggled to figure out exactly where in the stratosphere it compared, then gave up and simply sank in. Wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, made it more a present pleasure than one just swirling around in her mind. Beneath her arms she felt the strength of his broad shoulders. Pressing against her with heated persistence, the delicious warmth of an aroused man. Her heart hammered as his tongue slipped fiercely into her mouth. He was consuming her, that's what she thought when coherent words surfaced. He was sucking and tasting, savoring and enticing. She was simply falling, falling until she didn't think she could feel the floor beneath her feet.

Then, as quickly as this pleasurable funnel cloud had swooped her up, it dropped her. Hot to cold, light to dark, beginning to end. Alex pulled back, stared down at her, then walked away.

Again.

About ten minutes ago she was ready to curse him up and down the snow-lined path outside the door for walking away from her. But right about now, it was all she could do to remain upright. Lifting shaking fingers to her still-throbbing lips, she braced herself, searched for her normal calm and prayed this momentary lapse hadn't just screwed up her plans of a peaceful existence in this cabin.

“That's not—” Her words were cut short when she walked into the empty living room. Where was he now?

Concluding it would be simply too embarrassing to go look for him just to tell him that little demonstration in the kitchen wasn't a part of the plan and that it wouldn't happen again, she stayed in the living room. She sat on the couch, figuring she'd just play it cool. If he didn't say anything about the kiss then neither would she. Although she was wondering what had made him do it.

Not five minutes later she could hear him coming again and sat up straighter.

“Now, about your ground rules,” he was saying. He was carrying a box in his hand.

Trying to see what was in the box meant looking at him and she wasn't sure she could handle that, so she pretended to pick at a piece of lint on her pants. “They're simple—you stay in the living room and I'll stay in the bedroom.” She stood and was about to get her bags and be the one making the grand exit, but he grabbed her wrist, stopping her.

“You can't just make the rules here, Queen,” he said with a grin. “We'll have to play for the bedroom rights.”

“What?” Asking him to repeat what he'd just said wasn't going to make her like it any better.

Then he moved his other arm, the one that had the box tucked beneath it. “We're going to play this game and whoever wins gets the bed.”

“That is so juvenile,” she said, then glanced at the box he was holding.

Twister.

“I am definitely not playing that with you.”

“Scared?” he said, shaking the box so that the contents inside rattled.

Alex had made a grave mistake. A colossal error in judgment he wasn't sure he'd be able to overcome.

He'd kissed the Ice Queen.

And she'd kissed him right back. With a heated fervor that had him instantly wanting more, he might add. The first good thing that had come of the kiss was that he'd proven one notion to be true. Since the first day he'd seen her walk into Karena's office at the Lakefield Galleries there'd been this heat, this carefully banked inferno he'd sensed simmering just beneath her cool exterior. And damned if he didn't blow the top right off that assumption. She kissed like a woman full of desire and sensuality just waiting for the right man to caress it. But he wasn't that man. Or at least he didn't want to be.

Therein was his mistake. While he wanted to know what she tasted like, what she'd feel like in his arms, he was in no way prepared for the blast of desire that would rock him to his very core. In those few precious moments he'd literally felt consumed by her.

In business Alex knew to expect the unexpected and to always be prepared for new developments. In his personal life he sort of adopted the same rules. In the case of Monica Lakefield, he didn't really know which road to walk. Lightening the mood seemed to be the better idea.

When he'd first arrived at the cabin and had begun unpacking some of his things he'd come across the board games in the bedroom closet. Looking at the childhood favorites of his—Twister, Battleship and Sorry—had him thinking that maybe a family with children had stayed in the cabin before him and had forgotten their games. Fleetingly he'd thought the staff should have cleared them out before the next guest. But after the new developments of the afternoon he'd begun thinking that his family and Monica's had a droll sense of humor in their matchmaking scheme. Fill the kitchen with food and the closest with juvenile games—how that paved a road for seduction, Alex had no clue. Maybe it wasn't their intention for him to seduce Monica. Maybe they just really wanted both of them to take some time to relax and get away from their businesses. Monica would prefer to think the latter, he was sure.

The way she was looking at him now was proof that the last thing on her mind was seduction.

“Look, we have to pass the time or we're just going to drive each other crazy. I found some games in the closet and thought it might be fun.” Her gaze kept going from the game box to his with growing agitation … and interest.

“Besides, you're the one who came up with the idea of ground rules. I don't think either one of us should just dictate what the other should do. So why not play for the bedroom rights? If you win, the bedroom's yours. If I win, it's mine. Simple.”

One elegantly arched eyebrow lifted and Alex felt a tightening in his groin.

“Simple, huh?”

She was thinking about it, weighing the odds. He noticed she thought about things a lot, probably over-thought them. That either made her very careful or paranoid, both bringing him back to the conclusion that something had happened in her past to make her the way she was now. A natural fixer of all things wrong, as his siblings often accused him of being, Alex wanted to know what happened. He wanted to know more about Monica Lakefield, about why she'd built this enormous shield around herself and practically dared anyone to attempt to knock it down.

“Come on, Monica. You're not afraid of playing one game with me, are you?”

“I'm not afraid of anything” was her quick retort.

Just the words he'd expected to hear from her. “Great. Then kick off your boots and let's get started.”

“I can't play dressed like this.”

He looked at her pristine slacks and sweater and had to agree. “You go change and I'll get the game set up.”

After a brief hesitation she said a quick, “Fine,” and was out of the room before he could say another word.

Alex cleared the floor in the middle of the living-room area and spread out the giant plastic sheet filled with colored circles that would be their playing board. Then he looked down at his own jeans and shirt and thought he should probably change, too. As he remembered, Twister was a game of flexibility, which he wouldn't have much of in the constricting denim he was currently wearing. One of his bags was still in the bathroom so he grabbed a pair of gym shorts and slipped them on. He returned to the living room and his throat went dry when he saw her holding the cardboard dial that would instruct them throughout the game. It looked as if she'd put on gym clothes, as well—black spandex pants and a hot-pink top that just barely covered her midriff.

“What? I didn't pack any play clothes. This was a business trip, remember?” she asked, looking plenty guilty about her attire.

Guilt wasn't what Alex was feeling. Hot described it best.