Holiday in Your Heart by Susan Fox Page B

indeed feel as if her world had shifted on its axis. Now, what was she going to do about it?
    She needed to be patient and not get ahead of herself. She barely knew this man. Quite possibly, at some point his actions would belie his words. Or there’d be something about him that totally put her off. Or he’d turn out to be lousy in bed. Sometimes the hottest-looking guys proved to be duds between the sheets, men who didn’t have a clue how to look after a woman.
    On the other hand, if Mo truly was the one man for her, before long everything would start to fall into place. How amazing if that happened at the very moment she’d decided to move ahead as a single parent. Maybe she should stop shopping for a sperm donor? But no, that would be short-sighted. Right now, she needed to keep all her options open.

Chapter Five
    Mo grinned at the beautiful redhead who was such an intriguing combination of practical and romantic. “Tectonic plates?” he queried with amusement. “Is that the same thing as ‘the earth moved’?”
    â€œDon’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” she said saucily. A few moments ago, she had looked a little dazed, but now she’d recovered her sass.
    The only thing he wanted to try right now was to touch her. He’d told her about when he’d first met Brooke when they were teens, how he’d felt like a kid staring in the window of a candy shop. It was the same with Maribeth, except more potent because he definitely wasn’t a kid and he knew exactly what, as a man, he wanted from the irresistible redhead. Sex, yeah. But also he wanted to know if her hair felt as springy and silky as it looked. If her cheek was as soft yet resilient as it appeared. If those lush reddish lips tasted of strawberries, lipstick, or chocolate. Whether the tantalizing flowery scent came from her hair or from perfume.
    There was so much more to a woman than just sex.
    Tentatively, he reached a hand toward her face, then saw how rough his skin was and noticed the grease that lurked under his nails no matter how hard he scrubbed. She was so clean, so sweet-smelling, so perfectly feminine. It seemed almost like a profanity to touch her with this hand—and yet she was leaning forward as if she wanted him to do it.
    What had she been talking about with that romantic tectonic plates stuff? Should he be worried? No, he’d told her he didn’t get involved in relationships. Besides, despite her earlier denial, she obviously was choosy. If all those guys she’d dated before him didn’t measure up to her standards, no way would she get serious about a man like him.
    Which meant he needn’t have qualms about accepting her body-language invitation. As gently as he could, he ran a couple of fingers down her cheek, feeling warm skin, not makeup. That delicate paleness tinted by a slight rosy blush, it was all Maribeth, which made it even sexier. And so did the fact that her color deepened as he caressed her skin.
    Such a simple touch, and yet it affected her.
    Him, too. It was no surprise that arousal surged through him, but it did startle him to see that his fingers trembled as they slid along her cheek and down to cup her jaw. A strong, determined jaw for a woman who knew her own mind. Maribeth was a grown-up, that was for sure, and he liked it. Liked her. Liked everything about her.
    Liked the way her lips parted slightly as he leaned closer, angling his face to hers.
    And then there was the soft brush of her warm, chocolate-scented breath against his skin. A moment later, his lips touched hers. A sound—a rough moan—escaped him.
    So sweet, her lips, chocolate and sugar and woman. So eager, in the way they met his. So intoxicating that the world spun around him and he was dizzy, lost, wanting only to kiss her and kiss her and kiss her. And so he did, with his lips, with his tongue, even with little nips like he was testing to make sure she was