Page 62 of A Not-So Holiday Paradise
I open one eye to a slit, just to scope out the situation. When I see Beckett looking at me, one eyebrow raised as he kneels next to the loveseat, I sigh and open both eyes.
“What?” I say, fixing my gaze to my hands. My voice is still doing that terrible dead-sounding thing.
Beckett sighs next to me. One second later he places a finger under my chin, tilting my face up until I have no choice but to look at him.
“Molly,” he says—the third time now—as he moves one hand to cradle my face, his thumb tracing circles over my jaw. His voice is gentle, impossibly kind and full of emotions that I’ve only ever dreamed about from him. “What do you need from me right now?”
And that question, it seems, is my undoing; I burst into tears. There’s no in between, no escalation period—it’s zero to sixty in no time flat. I’m calm one second and bawling the next.
“I need you to forget everything that just happened,” I sob. “I peed my pants in front of you and I really like you and I’m so embarrassed.” I had no intention of telling him these things, but the dam has opened, it seems—and I can’t stop it. “I never meant for any of this to happen. I just wanted to make a good impression and maybe get some closure but Ilikeyou, Beckett, and I want you to think I’m pretty and cool and instead I peed on your carpet and that’s not sexy and seizures aren’t cute—”
“Whoa, whoa,” he cuts me off, looking startled. “Whoa. Hang on. Breathe, sweetheart.” He scoots closer, resting his elbows on the loveseat and taking my hand in both of his. “Breathe.”
I drag in one large breath, and it does help some; a few more stuttering breaths let me stem the flow of tears until I’m able to gulp myself into silence.
“Good girl,” Beckett murmurs, moving one hand to my head. He strokes my hair for a second, his eyes darting over my face. “Better?” he says. “Can you breathe okay?”
I nod hesitantly, pulling my hands out of his and swiping my eyes.
“Good. In that case,” he says, and a steely glint enters his eyes as his gaze zeroes in on me, “listen up.”
I blink at this sudden change in tone, but I don’t get a chance to ask him what’s going on—because a second later his hands are on my face, his eyes are burning, and he’s kissing me.
It’s not gentle or sweet. It’s the hard press of his lips against mine, a chasing, demanding kiss that pulls the air from my lungs and sends warm shivers cascading down my spine. An assault on my senses, the slide of his hands to my jaw and the tangle of our breaths.
And then, as quick as it began, the kiss stops; Beckett wrenches his lips away from mine, breathing hard, his eyes still blazing.
“I do not care about you wetting yourself. I do not care about the seizure. Ido not care.” His voice is as fierce as I’ve ever heard it. “All I care about is that you’re safe. My opinion of you has not changed, and itwillnot change. You are not broken. You are not defective. Do you understand?”
“I—I don’t—” I say.
But my words are lost as he presses one finger to my lips, warm and calloused. “I need a yes or a no, baby. Do you understand?”
And look. When Beckett called meBaby O’Malley, I hated it. But when he calls mebaby?
Sign me up now. Sign me upyesterday.
“I understand,” I breathe, my insides fluttering like a leaf in the wind. My words are slightly garbled since I’m speaking past his finger, and I look pointedly down at his hand. He lets it drop, taking hold of my hands again.
“You can’t ask me a question and then cover my mouth,” I say. I really hope my voice isn’t betraying how flustered I am right now. “How am I supposed to answer?”
“You’ve figured it out fine so far,” he murmurs, his gaze fixed on me.
“Still,” I say, sniffing. “That alpha male crap might fly in romance novels, but it won’t work here.”
The corners of his lips twitch. “Noted,” he says. “I’ll try to tone it down.”
“I mean, you don’t have to tone it downthatmuch,” I say, blushing. “Just be reasonable when you ask me a question. Don’t get impatient for an answer when you’re covering my mouth. And let me talk.”
“That’s a valid request,” he concedes, that little smile still on his face.
“Of course it is.”
His smile fades, and something remarkably like curiosity enters his eyes as he looks at me. “What are you doing to me?” he says. His voice is musing, and that little crease appears on his forehead. “I go out of my way not to feel big feelings, especially attachment to other people—”
“Very healthy—”
“But here I am, making an absolute fool of myself.”
