Three Kisses Before Christmas by Wilde, Tanya (epub e ink reader txt) 📕

“I mean, obviously you are not a shadow.” Goodness, what was she blathering on about? “You have turned into the very devil, Wicke!”

Rebecca spun and fled the room, only to stop abruptly at the door to shoot him a splintering glare over her shoulder. “From now on, please keep your distance, you, you wolf-beast!”

It was only when Rebecca fell across her bed for a second time that she realized she hadn’t demanded the most important question of them all—why had Wicke kissed her? Why did he want her to sketch him? Why did her heart not stop hammering in her breast?

Chapter 5

Wolfstan’s fingers flowed over the notes of the pianoforte with practiced smoothness.

He favored Mozart in particular, and in times of great reflection, Mozart’s pieces always calmed Wolfstan’s senses. He hadn’t expected to get any sleep after Rebecca had bolted from his chamber. He had not been wrong. The entire night he had tossed and turned. Usually, he slept on his back, but every time he shut his eyes he relived the taste of Rebecca’s lips beneath his. So he had tried to sleep on his side. First the right. Then the left. Each time when he closed his eyes, there Rebecca was, lips locked against his.

He had even tried to sleep on his belly, but that only made him more aware of his erection, pressing into the mattress. Then he recalled Rebecca unceremoniously referring to his manhood as a rod. That only made him harder, and he found himself arching into the mattress . . . at which point his cousin’s face popped into his head, effectively dousing the heat of his desire.

It had been a night in hell.

The cycle must have repeated itself a thousand times. And perhaps Wolfstan was the very devil himself. He had been a fool to ask Rebecca whether Langley had ever favored her. Wolfstan hadn’t favored her either. He had always kept his distance, observing, waiting for her to resolve her infatuation with his cousin. And then he had gone and kissed her. Twice.

Damnation.

He had never courted a woman before, and Rebecca was not just any woman. He was not just any man. They shared history. They shared ties of family friendship.

But she was not immune to him.

She had kissed him back. Fleetingly or not, he hadn’t imagined that.

It gave him hope.

Wolfstan could live with being called a wolf-beast, he thought as he remembered her parting words. He could live with her calling him every foul name known to man, but could no longer live in the shadows. And he was not about to give her the distance she desired. He had seen the way she had gawked at his body the night before. It had not been the look of a woman indifferent. Astonished, maybe, but not indifferent.

His fingers flowed over the notes as the piece unwove chords of tension in Wolfstan’s gut. He shut his eyes. Rebecca surrounded herself with nature whenever upset, Wolfstan preferred music when he wished to gain clarity.

And he had never needed clarity this much. The question at the forefront of his mind now: how ought he go about wooing Rebecca?

After kissing her twice, he gathered the normal rituals of courting were now moot. And being practically family, calling on her would not entirely have the same or desired effect. Not only did he need to make his intentions clear, he needed them to be so clear she could not possibly retreat into self-denial.

Wolfstan grimaced.

Picking her flowers would seem like an apology for the kisses. And a poem would come off as insincere. Plus, Wolfstan had never attempted his hand at writing one before. He would not stake his future on his ability to pen words together.

He supposed the normal thing to do was take a stroll with her through the countryside. But hadn’t they done that the previous day? In a way, they had. And look where that had gotten them. Horse-riding was something Rebecca loved to do, but that brought to mind the sketch of her and Langley riding together and Wolfstan shuddered.

Wolfstan wanted to rise above the fold. He wanted to do something grand. Something that made an instant impact. Like kissing her had.

Seduction.

Not courtship.

More kissing. More touching. More time to prove to her that he was her perfect match, not Langley. Time spent alone seemed the best way for Wolfstan to show her another side of him, one where she did not cry out in horror that a man she looked to as a brother had kissed her.

Wolfstan curled his lip and rose from the piano.

He was not her blasted brother.

He had to make her understand that.

The sweet melody of Rebecca’s muted laughter filled the room and Wolfstan snapped his head to the window. Her voice brought a familiar shiver to his spine. He strode to the window and peered outside, certain he had heard her laughter echoing from the courtyard. The day was still an infant, and the light reflecting off the thick sheet of snow covering the earth danced like diamonds. Rebecca was outside, hunkered in the center of the courtyard.

The smile that gathered on his lips froze.

Langley rose from behind the snow creature they were building. Not a creature, a man, he thought. Christ, he hoped by the end of it the thing wouldn’t look like Langley. Wolfstan shook his head and watched as Langley brushed off his breeches and strode to the stables.

This is your chance to catch her alone.

Wolfstan would be damned if he wasted it.

REBECCA STOOD BACK and dusted the snow from her gloved hands. She stood back and regarded her handiwork. All that was left was to mold the face. She loved building snowmen. Ever since she was a little girl, she would build all sorts of animals, castles, and stick figures.

I want you to sketch me.

The haunting words grazed against the edges of her mind, and she shoved the voice, his voice, from her head. She did not care to think