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

trust the sudden foreign heat snaking its way through her veins. It would surely lead her astray. It was too sudden, too wildly silly.

Because this was Wolfstan.

And they were having a moment Rebecca did not want to have. A blazing intensity that made it both marvelous and uncomfortable to look him in the eye. How was she to respond to his shocking behavior? The challenge that hung between them?

“If you are not teasing me, then what are you doing?” she whispered. Any moment now, he would wink and declare his behavior a roaring jest.

“Giving you a glimpse of how life could be between us.”

Rebecca frowned.

He shrugged, the picture of reasonableness displayed with a dash of arrogance. In the blink of an eye, Wolfstan had become the devil—the devil in sequenced cotton, but devil nonetheless.

“What do you have to lose?”

His words conveyed a meaning that Rebecca did not follow. She had trouble keeping a sensible train of thought. Pearls of sweat dotted her brow. The urge to flee intensified as his eyes blazed into hers. She even instructed her brain to angle her head to break the unnerving connection between them, but Wolfstan’s stare refused to free her.

There is a portrait of your great grandmother to your left—avert your gaze and look at it.

Her gaze remained riveted.

“No answer, Rebecca,” he drawled, “in itself is an answer.”

She shook her head. Because whatever answer he had read in her silence, the glint that entered his eyes meant it was not the answer she intended.

Oh, and what answer did you intend, pray tell?

She shook her head again, more at herself than at him, but he grinned and nodded nonetheless.

“You are still here, Rebecca. That also says something.” And before she knew what he was about, he dipped his head and kissed her.

Rebecca gasped. How could she not? Flavors of cheroot and licorice invaded her mouth, a taste not at all as disagreeable as one might have believed. Which was not the first thought she ought to be having. His gall was absolutely breathtaking, his actions beyond belief.

Wolfstan is kissing you.

What madness! What utter delicious craze. For a moment, Rebecca forgot to breathe. Wolfstan invaded each of her senses fully. Fire spread through her belly. She had never felt so . . .

No.

Save your first kiss for me.

No. No. No!

Rebecca gave a hefty push and tore herself away from Wolfstan, who had robbed her of her first kiss. Anger exploded deep within her. How dare he?

She sent him a look that should have quelled any man. “You are the very devil, Wolfstan Robert Ward!”

Chapter 4

Wolfstan let out a shaky breath. He had not expected this turn of events. He certainly hadn’t thought his day would include kissing Rebecca. She sent him a final glower before she entered the drawing room. He did not regret it either.

He had done what he had only ever dreamed of doing in secret; he had claimed Rebecca Flowerdy’s soft, plump lips. Lord, but she tasted like honey. Like berries. A sweetness that ought not to exist on this earth but somewhere between the moon and the stars. He never wanted that flavor gone from his mouth.

Saints preserve him. He had kissed himself into a daze. Into a blazing fury.

Did you expect any less?

Good question. For one, he had not expected to gaze into clear pools of emotion flashing with anger. He had expected her to be moved, dreamy, even bedazzled by his kiss. Naturally, it had been too much of a stretch to hope she would link her arms around his neck and demand him to carry her to her bedchamber.

Dammit.

He had blown what was always supposed to be a magical moment.

He could not blame her anger. Never had Wolfstan acted this out of character before. But with Langley’s untimely arrival, the stakes had never been higher to win Rebecca’s heart. He had to use every tool in his arsenal or forever hold his peace.

Peace be damned.

He would wait for his heart to steady before he followed her to the drawing room. Then he would drag Langley back to Willoughby Castle where he belonged. Georgiana, Langley’s sister, had married Nathan Burton, the Countess of Stapleton’s grand-nephew, and Langley, unlike Wolfstan, was expected to be present.

Wolfstan straightened his back. Yes, that was what he would do. Wind and snow be damned, he thought as a heavy current shrilled in the distance.

He smoothed his jacket as his resolve set, his hand skimming over the journal in his pocket. Ah, yes, he suddenly recalled the notebook he had scooped up from the forest bed. Rebecca’s notebook. One he really ought to have returned the moment he had spotted it.

Curiosity had held him back, however. The rare chance to glimpse the inner workings of Rebecca Flowerdy’s mind. He’d be a fool to pass on such an opportunity. He would be a fool to pry.

Wolfstan pried.

A daring move and a gross invasion of Rebecca’s privacy but he was done playing fair. He fished the book from his pocket and snapped it open, his eyes poring over the pages.

And promptly wished he hadn’t.

Everlasting hell.

That was where the content hurled him. Hell.

Rebecca had created an entire life with his cousin in sketches. Disbelief held him immobile. There was a sketch of her dancing with Langley in a field of flowers and tall grass. A sketch of her and Langley reading a book under a tree. A sketch of them racing their horses in an open clearing.

He flicked through the pages with a scowl. Her fixation with his cousin hadn’t passed as he had hoped. And he still believed her feelings no more than infatuation. He could count on the fingers of his one hand the times those two had spent in each other’s company.

Nonetheless, poring through the pages of the book, Wolfstan lost a touch of his confidence. Langley and Rebecca had never danced, Wolfstan was sure. Rebecca did not dance. He turned to a page of her and Langley playing whist in a