Read Getting In the Spirit: a Sapphire Falls novella for Free Online Page A

playful and pleased look in his eyes. “What?”
    He pointed at the top of the drink station. A sprig of mistletoe hung directly above the window where people were picking up their cups.
    “Oh.”
    Oh boy.
    She’d hoped for a Christmas kiss. She’d hoped for mistletoe. She’d imagined the whole thing.
    And now she was panicking.
    It could never measure up. She needed to keep this simple too, like the hot cocoa.
    No romantic kisses, no romantic dreams and fantasies. A nice guy, a formal, a few dances, maybe some eggnog— not poured all over his body—and a nice, simple, sweet Christmas in a nice, simple, sweet small town.
    “I was thinking—”
    She abruptly stopped thinking about anything at all the second he took her by her upper arms, pulled her up onto her tiptoes and touched his lips to hers.
    It was…everything. Everything she’d imagined and then some.
    Like hot cocoa with peppermint syrup.

    She tasted like Christmas cookies.
    That was Levi’s first thought.
    Not like she’d been eating them, but like she was a soft, sweet, delicious melt-in-his mouth cookie. And that was pretty whimsical for a guy who was used to women tasting like tequila.
    Her lips should have been cold. The crisp air of the afternoon had turned downright icy as darkness fell, but her mouth was anything but. She was hot. And sweet. And he could happily spend the rest of December right here doing this.
    Then she clutched the front of his coat, trying to get closer, opened her mouth and sighed.
    And he amended the thought to the rest of the winter.
    They didn’t use tongues. It was lip to lip only. Open lip to open lip, but that softened the kiss, made it more of an exploration.
    The moment he’d seen her on the bar stool, his hands had itched with the need to touch the red dress, and the curves it covered. He’d immediately imagined her long blonde hair spread out on the maroon and navy quilt in the farm’s guest room. And he’d instantly started making a list of thank you gifts he could get for Phoebe and Joe.
    But then she’d swiveled to look at him and everything hot and urgent and pulsing in his gut had risen to a soft, warm ball in his chest. He’d wanted to run his hand over her cheek instead of her ass. He’d wanted to make her laugh rather than scream with an orgasm. He’d wanted to know how she drank her cocoa rather than how she took her martinis.
    It was the craziest fucking thing that had ever happened to him.
    And he’d embraced it.
    This was it. This was how it was supposed to feel when sweet, normal, happy things happened to someone. When liquor and money and sex were not part of the equation. When two people met for the first time and connected.
    Maybe it was Sapphire Falls. Maybe it was the concussion. Maybe it was that he was dressed in denim. Maybe denim made people instantly normal. Or maybe it was her. Maybe this woman really did have the power to cure him of the selfish, superficial, ego-driven crap he had bottled up inside.
    He cupped her cheek, simply tasting her. The kiss wasn’t about arousal or a step toward sex. It was only a kiss.
    And he fucking loved it.
    “Ahem.”
    The sound of someone clearing their throat pulled them apart.
    She stood staring up at him, her eyes wide, her lips pink. And he grinned. He couldn’t help that—he really did love having an obvious effect on women.
    But again, this was different. Rather than wanting to see her nipples get hard and her panties get wet, he wanted a faint blush on her cheeks and a sparkle in her eye.
    It had to be the concussion.
    But he was going to go with it.
    Hear that, ghosts? I don’t need any midnight hauntings. I’m good here.
    “What are you having?” the guy in the window asked.
    “Two hot chocolates, extra-large, with marshmallows,” Levi told him. Those words sounded so foreign, like he was speaking another language. That also made him grin.
    There were four guys inside the booth working to make drinks, taking orders and money.
    Two