Christmas in Whitehorn by Susan Mallery Read Free Book Online Page A

keep from thinking about him watching her. Which was crazy. The mm had just touched about every significant body part she owned. Modesty was coming a little late to help.
    When she was dressed, she forced herself to look at him. He stood with his hands shoved into his slacks pockets. Tension filled his body – a body that she had touched, that had entered hers. The memory of what they'd done to each other made her study the carpet again.
    "I don't know what to say," she admitted.
    "Do you want me to apologize?"
    She stared at him and wished she knew what he was thinking. "Are you sorry?"
    "No."
    "Then don't apologize."
    "Fair enough." He shifted his weight. "I'm guessing it's probably time for me to go."
    She winced. "Of course." She headed for the door. He followed her, then surprised her by bending down and kissing her cheek. "Thank you. That was an amazing experience."
    "Um, yes well, for me, too." Despite her embarrassment and lingering horror at her impulsiveness, she couldn't complain about the physical aspects of their lovemaking. Mark had been amazing.
    "I'll call you," he said.
    "Don't say that." She forced herself to smile at him. "It's kind of a button for me. You don't have to call."
    "What if I want to?"
    "Then just do it, but don't tell me you're going to. If yon do, I'll obsess about it and when you don't call, I'll try to figure out what I did wrong. Two weeks later I'll finally remember that it's not my problem, it's yours. But I don't need the emotional down time."
    "There's nothing wrong with you," he said earnestly. "You're an incredibly attractive, sexy woman."
    "As true as that may be, your gender can be stupid. So don't tell me you're going to call. Okay?"
    "Deal."
    He stared at her. She gazed into his green eyes, trying to memorize everything about him. Because she didn't have a doubt in her mind that except for incredibly stilted conversations at the diner, she wasn't going to see him again.
    "Bye, Darcy. Thanks for the dinner."
    She opened the door and he stepped into the night. She gave a quick wave as he hurried toward his own apartment. She got the door closed and was halfway to the kitchen when reality slammed into her with all the subtlety of a runaway dish tray hitting the floor.
    She and Mark had just had sex. Unprotected sex .
    Darcy leaned against the dining room wall. No. That couldn't have happened. She wasn't that stupid, was she? After five years of trying to get it right, she couldn't possibly have blown it. And for what? Thirty minutes of hot, wild, incredible sex? If she had a craving, couldn't she just stick to chocolate?
    Still calling herself fifteen different kinds of moron, she crossed to the calendar and counted days. Okay, the pregnancy issue didn't seem to be a problem, but there were other considerations. For one thing, where exactly had Mark Kincaid been putting his handsome self? For another, even if her body got through this unscathed, what about her emotional well-being? One-night stands went against everything she believed in. She prided herself on being a thoughtful, intelligent, organized woman who made informed choices. She hadn't gotten through all the hell of the past few years by jumping into bed with every pretty face who asked.
    Why had she allowed a juvenile crush on her good-looking neighbor to overwhelm her good sense? And what was she supposed to say to him the next time she saw him?
    *
    Darcy turned off the alarm two minutes before it was scheduled to go off. She stared at the time.
Four fifty-eight
. She figured she'd gotten maybe two hours of sleep the whole night. Worry and self-recrimination had kept her awake most of the time. When she had finally dozed off, she'd found herself dreaming about her close encounter with her sexy neighbor. The sensation of him kissing his way up her thighs had been enough to jerk her into consciousness.
    Her eyes burned, her eyelids felt swollen and even her hair hurt. She groaned as she forced herself into a sitting