Marion Lennox - One Winter's Day - A Diamond in Her Stocking / Christmas Where They Belong / Snowed in at the Ranch

Now she kissed him back, lost in the overwhelming pleasure of being with Jesse again. She’d found it impossible to clamp down on her attraction to him—no matter how many times she’d told herself Jesse wasn’t right for her. She might be able to deny herself that Belgian chocolate—but not this.

Desire bloomed in the tightening of her nipples, the ache to be closer, and she tightened her arms around his neck, breathing in the intoxicating scent of his skin. Wanting him. Craving more than kisses. She had never been kissed the way Jesse kissed. Jesse the master kisser would be Jesse the master lover and she shivered in sensual anticipation of the discovery.

What was she thinking? She stilled in his embrace.

She could not let herself want Jesse this much. Too many other women wanted Jesse. It would only lead to heartbreak, to agony. He couldn’t give her what she needed.

She broke the kiss and drew away, pushing against his chest, her breath ragged. He murmured a protest and gathered her back into his arms but he let her go when she continued to maintain her resistance. His expression, passion fading to bewilderment and—yes—hurt wrenched at her heart. She hated that she was the cause of that.

What had just happened was purely physical, she reminded herself. Oh, she wanted Jesse all right. And the more she’d got to like him, the more she’d wanted him. But she needed to be cherished, loved for herself, not be the latest in a line of conquests. She wanted to love and be loved—but she also wanted to trust.

How hard would it be to trust a player again?

‘Jesse, I can’t do this. I won’t do this.’ Her voice came out wobblier than she would have liked. But Jesse got the message.

He choked out just the one word. ‘Why?’

* * *

Jesse gulped in deep breaths of salt-tangy air to try and get back his equilibrium. He was convinced that Lizzie had enjoyed being with him as much as he’d enjoyed being with her. He could see her aroused nipples through the fabric of her bikini top. She was flushed, her eyes dilated, her mouth swollen from his kisses. She had never looked lovelier.

But she turned away from him. Bent down and picked up his towel where it lay rumpled on the sand at her feet. With hands that weren’t steady she draped it around her shoulders but it covered less than it revealed. He wanted her so much it hurt.

She twisted the corner of the towel until it was scrunched into a knot, untwisted it and twisted it again before she looked back up at him. ‘Because all those reasons that make it a bad idea for us to get together are still there,’ she said.

Somewhere in the realm of good sense he knew that. Hell, he had his reasons too. Desire this strong could lead to pain as wrenching as Camilla had inflicted on him. But his body didn’t want to listen to his brain. He wanted Lizzie and he wanted her now. If not now this afternoon, this evening, tonight—and hang the consequences.

‘It was...a mistake. We have to forget it happened. This...this shouldn’t ch-change anything between us,’ she stammered.

He cleared his throat. ‘How can it not change things between us?’

She looked up at him, her eyes huge in the oval of her face. ‘Jesse, I want you so much I’m aching for you.’ Her voice caught and she took in a deep breath but it did nothing to steady it. ‘If...if things were different there’s nothing more I’d want than to make love with you right now.’

He made a disbelieving grunt in response.

‘Oh, not on the beach. But back in my apartment. In a hotel room. At your place. Somewhere private where we could explore each other, please each other, satisfy our curiosity about each other. Even...even if that was all we ever had.’

He groaned and when he spoke his voice was edged with anger. ‘Do you realise what you’re doing talking to me like that? Don’t be a—’

‘A tease? Believe me, I’m not teasing.’ She swallowed hard. ‘In the six months since I last saw you, even though I thought you’d gone off with another woman, I dreamed of you. I kept waking up from dreams of you. Wanting you. Aching for you. Reaching for you, to find only an empty bed.’

‘Then why—?’

‘Because desire isn’t enough.’ She took in another of those deep breaths that made her breasts swell over her bikini top in such a tantalising way. ‘I’m sometimes accused of being blunt but I have to be honest with you,’ she said.

He swallowed a curse word. Whenever anyone used that ‘honest’ phrase he knew he was about to hear something he didn’t want to hear. Lizzie’s expression didn’t give him cause to think otherwise.

‘Fire away,’ he said through gritted teeth.

‘I’ve told you, right now there’s no room in my life for a man.’ She was having trouble meeting his eyes. Not a good sign. ‘But if I do start to date again, I want it to be someone...someone serious, dependable, reliable. Not—’

‘Not someone like me,’ he finished for her, his voice brusque.

She bit her lip. ‘That didn’t come out well, did it?’ she said with a quiver to her voice. ‘It’s not that you’re not gorgeous. You are. In fact you’re too gorgeous.’

‘I don’t know how being told I’m gorgeous sounds like an insult, but I get the gist of it.’

Her eyes widened. ‘I didn’t want that to sound like an insult. I wouldn’t want to hurt you for the world.’

I wouldn’t want to hurt you for the world. Jesse felt uncomfortably aware that he had used something like that phrase more than once when kindly breaking up with a woman. But those words directed at him did not feel good. They made him feel scorned like he’d felt when Camilla had rejected him—though she hadn’t been as kind about it as Lizzie was being.

‘No offence taken,’ he said gruffly.

‘I...I’m not very good at this,’ she said, looking down at the ground, scuffing the sand with her bare foot.

Amazing that while she was thrusting the knife deep into his gut and then twisting it, he felt sorry for her having to deliver the message. In the interests of being honest .

‘No one is good at it,’ he said.

‘I do want to try to explain. Because...because I’ve come to really like you.’

Like. It was a runner-up word. A consolation prize word. A loser word. How could he have exposed himself again to this?

‘Continue,’ he said gruffly.

‘My ex was a good-looking guy with the charisma to go with it. I was always having to look over my shoulder to see what woman was pursuing him, what woman he was encouraging.’

‘He was a player , right?’ He practically spat out that word he was getting sick of hearing applied to him.

She nodded. ‘I never want to endure a relationship with someone like that again. I can’t live with that feeling that I’m not the only woman in my man’s life. To be always suspicious of girls he works with, girls he encounters anywhere. I want to come first, last and in between with a man. Not...not always feeling humiliated and rejected.’

Jesse clenched his fists by his sides. He wasn’t that guy. How could she be so wrong about him?A nagging inner voice gave him the answer. Because that’s the way you appear. He’d done such a good job of acting the player to cover up his fears and pain that he’d given Lizzie the wrong impression of him.

It was true, over the years he’d been flattered by all that female attention. But he didn’t want it now. He didn’t want people taking bets on his marital status. Most of all he didn’t want Lizzie so unfairly lumping him in a category of cheats and heartbreakers.

‘What makes you think I’m like your ex-husband? You’re implying that he cheated on you—I’ve never cheated or been unfaithful to a girlfriend. Never. ’