Christmas With Her Ex by Fiona McArthur

look at me like that when we’re in public,’ he murmured with a wicked hint of warning in his voice.
    Her stomach kicked and her face flamed. What were the rules for a first date with someone you’d once loved? Someone you’d thought about on and off over the last fifteen years. Someone you’d once known as well as yourself and who’d always left you deliciously alert. She’d never known him that way—though they’d had a few close shaves—but Connor had always said he’d wait until they were married.
    But that had been then and this was now. Now they were both consenting adults with no ties. She was no longer a virgin—and it would be highly unlikely that a gorgeous man like Connor would be one either.
    They passed through the bar car and she didn’t see anyone. Just a blur of obstacles to avoid. Was she being too forward?
    Would he think she’d turned into a nymphomaniac if she asked him to bed? Because that was what she was thinking, though it could be problematic in a small train with very thin partitions between the cabins.
    His hand stayed in the small of her back, hot and possessive and the tension eddied and churned between them and her belly swirled with a mounting ache thathad her squirming as she walked faster than she probably should have towards her cabin.
    They came to a deserted corner between carriages and he leaned her against the wall and pinned her there. His face was all angles and intent and a hint of a smile in his eyes as he took his time studying her face.
    ‘Now. About that first kiss… ’ This time he didn’t miss and Kelsie felt her head bump back against the polished rosewood parquetry as she melted bonelessly against him. His mouth was strong and hot and demanding and she couldn’t have denied him if all the passengers had trooped past them.
    His hand was in her hair, absently rubbing where she’d bumped it, murmuring against her lips with a smile in his mouth, and she kissed him back with all the angst of fifteen years of regret and apology and finally pure desire, and became lost.
    Then someone did come along, coughed and made a small joke, and they broke apart. Kelsie smiled down at the carpet, avoiding the face of the other passenger, and heard Connor’s relaxed, ‘Good evening.’ How could he be so cool? She not accidentally, though unobtrusively, brushed his thigh with the back of her hand and heard his indrawn breath. Still able to smile and pretend nothing was going on, Connor?
    She glanced up at him as the footsteps died away and his eyebrows hiked as he smiled down at her.
    ‘My, my. Haven’t you grown up?’ He leaned in again and flattened himself into her so that she could feel the length of him pressed solidly against her. He grinned lazily. ‘Has anyone seen Kelsie?’
    ‘I’m here. And you’ve been practising your kissing.’
    ‘Fortunately.’ They both smiled as he stepped back, took her hand and led her into the next carriage, and then the next, until they stood outside Kelsie’s door and she opened it.
    Kelsie put her fingers to her lips. Inclined her head towards the cabin next door. ‘Sh.’
    He leant down until his lips just brushed her ear and she shivered as he whispered, ‘I can do quiet.’
    Kelsie decided there was something very intimate about whispering in a darkened compartment on the Orient Express.
    Especially when golden chains of her dress had been lifted aside and Connor Black was spreading wonder over her bare skin as they stood pressed together in the darkness of her cabin. It was all a blur of whispers and touches but mostly it was feeling Connor’s mouth against hers.
    Every few minutes a bell would ring and lights from a railway crossing would flash lights across their faces, and once she opened her eyes to see him staring at her as he stroked her cheek.
    Time passed. They kissed like they could never kiss enough. Whispered about their lives, their dreams, their regrets and their successes. Held each other, Kelsie even