Page 62 of The Forever Christmas Tree

Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic! She’ll think I’m as needy as a teenager with raging testosterone.

More clichés!

His game plan, if you could call it that, was to not think, to tune out any niggling thoughts about what an insane, bound-to-fail, fucked-up idea it was to imagine that they could have sex and then just walk away, no feelings hurt, no hearts broken. Teflon sex, some people called it. In and out. Nothing sticks. Yeah, right!

As a result, Ethan didn’t speak at all on the ride back to his house, but he did hold Wendy’s hand on the seat between them. She didn’t speak, either. He hoped it wasn’t because she was having regrets already.

“Everything looks the same,” she remarked when they walked toward the house. He’d left the kitchen light on, which shone out over the back porch.

“It pretty much is, except for a second bathroom and a few odd renovations. Nana likes it to stay the same as it was a hundred years ago when it was a small farm, the only one at this end of the Outer Banks.”

Harvey was barking up a storm, welcoming him home and somehow sensing a new person to sniff up. As soon as Ethan opened the door, the dog was on his hind legs, paws on Wendy’s shoulders, trying to lick her face.

Wendy was laughing and trying to avert her face. “And who is this handsome fellow?”

He grabbed Harvey by his collar and yanked him away. “This ‘handsome fellow’ is Harvey the Bad Boy who knows better than to slobber and shed dog fur all over our guests.”

She continued to laugh as he settled a woeful-looking Harvey on his dog blanket near the door, wagging his forefinger in warning. As a second thought, he tossed him a rawhide bone to keep him in place.

“Where are Bonnie and Clyde?”

“Long gone over the Rainbow Bridge,” he replied. “We just have Harv now, and two cats.” He pointed to the two felines who were sprawled out on an old-fashioned cupboard on the other side of the kitchen, not interested enough to come down to greet him, or any newcomer, to the house. “And a bunch of rabbits out back that can’t stop multiplying. Don’t suppose you want a pet rabbit . . . or five?”

He took off his jacket and hung it over a chair, followed by his tie.

Are her lips parted because she’s as breathless as I am?

She watched closely as he unbuttoned one, then two buttons on his shirt.

Yes, she’s definitely breathing hard, and her eyes are kind of glazed. Too much wine at the party? No, she’s high on me. He smiled at his wishful thinking.

But then, she smiled back.

Ethan did a mental fist pump in the air.

No words. By unspoken agreement, they would not speak. Not yet. If they did, the spell might be broken.

But it was time they got this show on the road if they wanted the main event to take place on a bed and not here on the kitchen table. He held out a hand for her to come with him.

They made it only as far as the hall before he had to kiss her.

Just once, he told himself.

Okay, twice.

Maybe up against the wall.

Oh, hell! Oh, damn! Oh, heaven and hell! He succumbed to an unending kiss, with teeth and tongue and wetness, and memories, memories, memories. Her lips became pliant and equally demanding.

Oh, I remember this.

And this.

But this is new.

Somehow the rest of his shirt had gotten unbuttoned and pulled out of his waistband, and her hands were on his bare chest and around his back. Caressing. Relearning old parts. Discovering new ones.

Yes! Touch me there.