Jake was standing behind her; she could tell it was him even without turning. She had experienced the same feeling countless times over the last couple of days. Whenever he was near her, whenever he looked at her the tingling started.
She was used to the feeling by now. It had started the first time she opened her door to find him standing on her doorstep. Something inside her had clicked into place, and it had frightened her. Her flight mode had surfaced with a vengeance, and she had wanted to do nothing more than slam the door in his face. That same feeling had never gone away; she was attracted to him, but MacKenzie knew he wasn’t for her. They didn’t fit. They weren’t going to happen.
“You’re wrong you know.”
Those four words startled MacKenzie so much; she spun around to face him, a look of horror on her face that she might have spoken her thoughts aloud.
“What do you mean?”
“Whatever you were thinking, I’m willing to bet that you’re wrong,” Jake clarified with good humor.
Relief washed over MacKenzie, and she smiled once she realized that he was only fishing for insight. “I’m not telling you a damn thing, so unless you can read my mind, I’d say you just lost your bet.”
“You’ve never done that for me before,” Jake said, all traces of humor gone from his face.
“What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything.”
“You smiled at me. That’s the first time you ever did that.”
His intensity at something so small caught MacKenzie off guard. Although she could have sworn he hadn’t moved she somehow imagined that with each breath he was drawing closer, surrounding her. MacKenzie felt transfixed, but her survival instincts kicked in and she took a step away from him, then another and another.
Giving no thought to where she was going, MacKenzie kept moving until she was hidden behind the huge Christmas tree. She had no escape route, and they were blocked from everybody else’s sight.
Realizing her mistake, she attempted to correct her error with the first words that came into her mind. “Well, this is embarrassing!”
“What’s embarrassing?” Jake asked, staring at her with such intense concentration, it caused MacKenzie to want to push him out of her path, and run.
“Being stuck behind a Christmas tree. You need to move so that I can get by, Jake.” She was going for authoritative but suspected she only ended up sounding breathy and more than a little nervous.
“It’s almost a new year, MacKenzie.”
Somewhere in the back of her mind, MacKenzie became aware of the final countdown that signaled it was nearly midnight, but her thoughts were fragmented. Unable or unwilling to pull her gaze away from the dark orbs that held her spellbound, her bravado of moments before became something almost impossible to retain. As she looked away intent on finding an escape route, she felt the heat of his body passing through her causing her to shiver with awareness.
Caught in a trancelike state, MacKenzie began an internal dialogue. Just once, she thought, just once she was going to experience what it was like to be held in the arms of Jacob Kingdom. It was what they both wanted and at this confused point in her life, in order to give into his silent demand, she honestly needed an excuse.
The New Year festivities were it. Everybody shared a kiss at midnight, so why shouldn’t she? It was as though Jake’s mind was also finally made up. Moving with slow deliberation he gradually lowered his head. MacKenzie knew he was giving her time to pull away, to say no, but she didn’t want to. Tonight, this was what she wanted, tomorrow, she knew what she would say and do.
The first thing she noticed was the smell of his breath, mint with a hint of whisky. Then she experienced the delicate wafting of his exhalation as his lips passed against hers. His closeness alone was enough for MacKenzie’s pulse to leap in anticipation of the full impact of his kiss. Startled by her reaction to his closeness, she pulled back; her mind warning her that what she was about to do could be the biggest mistake of her life.
“If you can’t trust what you feel, all you need to do is tell me you don’t want my kiss. That’s all it will take for me to walk away.”
MacKenzie was torn. She was the mother of a beautiful baby girl, and she was also a woman who wanted a man that was not the father of her new-born child. It was too soon for her to have to deal with her feelings, and she didn’t know what to do. So she chose honesty.
“I want you to walk away. More importantly, I should walk away.”
“That tells me nothing, MacKenzie.”