will, but I just realized what’s different. You’re not squinting.”
“No, I’m not. Want to see my bedroom eyes?”
“Absolutely.”
“Watch this.” She lowered her lids to half mast and her eyes took on a smoky quality.
His balls tightened. “That’s good.” He swallowed. “Very good.” He started to kneel.
“Wait. I’m not done.” Her gaze dropped to his feet. Then it traveled slowly up his calves to his knees, and beyond his knees to his thighs, until finally coming to rest on his pride and joy. At that point, she ran her tongue over her lips.
“Now you’re done.” He sank to his knees before she figured out he was shaking again.
“No, I’m not.” She beckoned to him with a crook of her forefinger. “C’mere.”
A stronger wizard would have refused the temptation she offered. He’d intended this session to be all about her. Apparently he wasn’t as strong as he’d like to think he was. He stretched out on the quilt and allowed her to have her way with him, and it was so good the fire roared in the hearth.
She drew back, startled. “Why did that happen?”
His breathing wasn’t very steady, but he gulped in air and managed a quick explanation. “Pine knots. They flare up.”
“Oh.” She wrapped her fingers around his bad boy and leaned toward him. “Sorry for the interruption.”
“No, it’s a good thing.” He cupped her cheek, stopping her descent. “I was about to get carried away.”
She glanced up at him with a seductive smile. “That’s the idea.”
“Not this time. I have a few plans of my own. Be fair. Take turns.”
She hesitated.
“You used to really like some of the things I did.”
Her eyes darkened and her breath hitched. “Yeah.”
“Let me do those things again.” He stroked his thumb over her cheek. “You know you want me to.”
“Okay.” She flopped back onto the quilt like a ragdoll. “You convinced me, Evergreen. Do me.”
“You bet.” And he proceeded to. Revisiting all his favorite Taryn places felt like coming home, and she rolled out the welcome mat for him. In seconds she’d abandoned herself to the process of being seduced.
By the time he put on a condom and slid into her, she was on the brink of climax. One firm stroke on his part, and she came. He muffled her cries with the flat of his hand and kept pumping into her.
“Again,” he murmured.
She pulled his hand away, gasping. “I can’t breathe.”
“Then, here.” Bracing himself on one arm, he cupped the back of her head and lifted her so she could press her mouth to his shoulder. When she came the second time, she bit him.
He didn’t care. In fact, it made him happy to know she’d marked him. Eventually the mark would fade, but until it did, he’d have a physical reminder of loving Taryn.
Slowly she relaxed in his arms and he eased her head back onto the pillow.
She looked up at him, firelight dancing in her eyes as she massaged his back. “Amazing. Stupendous.”
“Mmm.” His own climax hovered, but he’d managed to keep the urge from overwhelming him. Holding her gaze, he eased in and out. “We’ve still got it.”
She nodded.
“There’s no one like you, Taryn.”
“I’m a special snowflake,” she murmured.
“Uh-huh. Very special.”
“So are you, Cole.”
And there was that pain, burrowing into his heart. He might carry that ache forever, but that was okay, too. The pain would remind him that, for a little while, he’d had Taryn to love again.
She grasped his hips. “Your turn.”
“Not yet.” He hated for this moment to end.
“We can do this again tomorrow night.”
“I hope so.” But he had no guarantee of that. His intuition was excellent, and it told him he’d better treasure this moment and not count on any more.
Her grip tightened. “I think I can come again. Let’s do it together.”
“All right.” He’d mastered that little trick before. The secret was watching her eyes and timing his response to what he saw there.
He bore down and increased the pace. Yes, she was right with him. Her pupils widened. He slowly slipped the leash on his own response and his heart began to pound.
The glow in her eyes was impossible to misunderstand. She loved him. His eyes surely reflected the same emotion, because he loved her, too. And because he did, he had to let her go.
But in this moment, as they surged toward a shared climax, he was hers and she was his. He held nothing back as he drove in one more time. She arched against him and he pulsed within her, each of them silencing their cries and their words of love. Yet their eyes said all their voices could not. And the fire roared.
Cole left long before anyone in the inn was awake, and Taryn understood why he’d done that. Whatever mysterious element was keeping them in limbo would naturally figure into his reluctance to let anyone here know they were lovers. She wouldn’t give him away, either. She’d act strictly professional today at Evergreen Industries.
She hated that he couldn’t stay to share the breakfast tray that had arrived outside her door, though. Cole had a sweet tooth—he preferred cocoa to coffee. She’d bet Mrs. Gustafson would have made him cocoa to go with the apple strudel and fresh orange juice.
Placing the tray on a small desk by the side window, she drew back the lacy curtains and peeked outside for the first time. Cole hadn’t been kidding about the charm of Gingerbread. Judging from the slice of town she could see, it was a full-size version of the Christmas villages in Seattle shop windows this time of year. The architecture reminded her of Europe, with a fairy-tale element thrown in.
Old-fashioned lampposts each sported a wreath and a red bow. Every shop featured garlands in the window, and larger garlands hung at intervals across the snowy street. The late-model cars that drove by seemed out of place. Horse-drawn carriages would have fit in better. Then she saw one of those, with laughing people bundled up in blankets in the back, enjoying an open-air ride.
One lone high-rise building was visible above the peaked rooftops covered with snow. Evergreen
