McDonald_NoELFngWay_GEN_Dec2015 by Donna McDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

to you, I wish I’d been a better person with her now too.”
    Vixen found her gaze seeking his. “I’m genuinely sorry for your loss, Dash. Dancer’s father and I were only dating when I got pregnant. I can’t say I loved him, but I thought I was starting to. My feelings became a moot point after he decided he didn’t want either of us. So I know what you mean by the unexpected reorganization of your priorities.”
    Dash reached out a hand. He sighed when Vixen reluctantly put hers in it. Turning, he headed for the doorway leading out into the hall.
    Vixen lifted one eyebrow. “Are we going to go help Cupid too? I’m sure she’ll save us some marshmallows. The question is—will I be able to get Dancer to sleep tonight after all the sugar she’s going to consume?”
    Dash stopped in the doorway. “The only comfort I can offer is that I’ll be facing the same challenge with Nicky. My plan is to work my son hard putting a train together until he falls over in exhaustion.”
    Vixen laughed. “I just can’t reconcile the self-centered boy I knew in college with who you’ve become.”
    “Well, not everything has changed,” Dash promised, grinning as he pointed up.
    Vixen lifted her gaze. “And I fell into your trap. Are you seriously going to use a lame tradition that reveres a fungus as an excuse to kiss me?”
    When Vixen lowered her face, Dash put his fingers under her chin and directed her gaze to his. “Yes. Until I no longer need an excuse.”
    He lowered his mouth to hers before Vixen could protest. It was as good as he’d imagined and better than he remembered. Her vibrating groan sent him over the edge and his lips devoured hers in an age-old response. Not holding back any longer, Dash pulled her firmly into his arms. It felt like he’d been waiting forever to hold her body against his.
    Feeling herself melt against Dash, Vixen tried to wrestle her body out of his arms. He let her lean back, but had yet to turn loose. She was breathless from a single, blood-churning kiss. His half-lidded gaze said he knew it.
    “Let me go, Dash. I can’t do this again. I can’t. I have too much at risk.”
    “Okay. Let’s do this instead,” Dash whispered. He kissed her forehead, her temple, the corner of her eye. As she relaxed in his arms, he kissed a path down her cheek to the edge of her mouth and hovered there. “Fast. Slow. Just so you let me.”
    Using all her willpower… and it took it all… she pushed hard until she broke Dash’s hold and stepped away. There wasn’t a body part that didn’t acknowledge his power over it. Her draw to him had not lessened over time. If his buddies hadn’t intervened back in college, Dasher Sleigh might have fathered her child because she would have done anything he asked.
    Since that was the scariest of all the thoughts she’d had since they’d met again, Vixen took two more steps backwards.
    “I don’t plan to let you do anything else to me and I don’t know why you think I would. Just because I feel attracted to you doesn’t mean I have to act on it. Please keep your physical distance until I can talk Dancer into leaving.”
    Dash sighed, his heart hurting as badly as the rest of him. “Vixen… are you always going to hate me?”
    Vixen shrugged. “Until I get over turning myself into a doormat for the men I care about, distance and denial are the only forms of self-protection I have. Excuse me. I need to find Dancer.”
    She turned away blindly from the man she desired and followed the sounds of laughing children until she found the kitchen.

Chapter 6
    His head lifted when the staging room door opened, but his heart plummeted when the wrong elf walked through it. Vixen hadn’t tried to contact him since Sunday and he’d stopped himself countless times from contacting her. But he hadn’t gone more than a few minutes a day without thinking about kissing Vixen again.
    Not wanting to work his Santa shift with him was the ultimate rejection… worse even