She assumed he was smiling, too. Hard to tell with the beard, but hoping for the best, she took another step, silently willing him to help her out.

Why wasn’t he backing up?

Instead he tilted his head, as if asking her what she was doing.

She thought that should be rather obvious!

“I don’t know if you realize this,” she said. “But right behind you and around the corner, there’s some mistletoe…just sort of hanging there.”

Nothing.

“I helped decorate. It’s waiting for some couple to get themselves beneath it. So they can kiss,” she added helpfully.

Still no response!

Okay, she could admit she didn’t know Matt well, but she did know he wasn’t an idiot. He was vice president, for God’s sake. Yes, he was sedate, he was mature and focused, but she was offering to kiss him!

What was wrong with him? According to Cosmopolitan magazine, there wasn’t a red-blooded man alive who would turn down a kiss! The editors had promised!

But Matt didn’t budge and her nerve was fading fast. She was beginning to feel very sorry she’d ever thought about doing this. In fact, maybe she should switch her Christmas wish from a kiss to a big black hole opening up in the floor so it could swallow her.

“You are in there, aren’t you?” she asked with a teasing smile to hide her embarrassment.

Slowly Santa turned and craned his neck, studying the plant in question.

Then looked back at her.

She smiled encouragingly, knowing her time was running out. Any second now, Holly was going to decide she wanted Matt for herself, and she’d have no such difficulties getting him-or any man-beneath that blasted mistletoe.

No, she couldn’t fail. Take charge time.

Grabbing Santa’s hand, she pulled him around the corner, noting his hand was big and warm and callused. At the first tug she also took in the fact that he seemed bigger and more powerful than Matt’s lean physique had led her to believe, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on that when she had him so close to her goal.

The noise of the party followed them, but they were completely alone in the hallway. Around them, all the office doors were shut, with not another soul in sight. The music and laughter from the party seemed almost surreal.

They were in their own little world.

Right beneath the mistletoe.

And he was staring at her from behind those ridiculous glasses and fake facial hair; the only real part of him available to her was his mouth.

Perfect, since that was all she happened to need at the moment.

Reaching up to touch his shoulders, she leaned in close. “Merry Christmas, Matt,” she whispered, and set her lips to his in the connection she’d been dreaming about all night.

She felt his startled jerk, felt the immediate tensing of his big body, but she just pressed closer and deepened the kiss, swallowing the growl of desire he made.

Of course it also could have been a sound of surprise, since she’d given him little choice in this kissing matter, but she figured if he hated it, he’d back off.

He didn’t.

Instead, his hands went to her waist, tightening when she pulled off his glasses and tossed them over his shoulder. He tasted like champagne…like wonderful, delicious male…like heaven. It was better than her wildest dreams, and then he was tilting her head for better access and kissing her back. She nearly fell to the floor because it was the most blazingly, most pleasurable sensation she’d ever experienced in her life.

One of his large hands cupped her cheek, his fingers playing havoc over her skin as he slowly pulled back and stared at her.

She nearly staggered from the wonder of it all. Never had a kiss so rocked her world, left her so off balance, so dizzy with rocketing emotions. “That…was some mistletoe,” she gasped.

“It had nothing to do with the mistletoe.”

No, he was right, she could see that in his blue eyes, in the lines of his mouth, that wonderful, soft yet firm, incredibly talented, mouth.

Confusion had her taking a step back, so that Santa’s hands fell to his sides. This was supposed to be just a kiss, she thought, not a life altering moment with the emotional impact of an 8.0 earthquake. “Gotta go,” she managed to murmur.

Yeah, she definitely had to go. Maybe she really was just a chicken, but Lord have mercy, how could she have known what would happen to her insides over one silly embrace? It made her feel things; wild, reckless, hot things that she’d never felt before.

Had never wanted to feel. All she’d wanted was one kiss! A silly little Christmas wish. But she’d gotten much more.

“Katie.”

She heard him call her name, in a voice made so thick by desire that she didn’t recognize it, but she kept moving, had to keep moving.

Wow. Just wow.

Because she needed a moment to herself, she escaped into one of the darkened offices. It took more than a few deep breaths to calm her racing heart and throbbing body. It took a while longer before she realized she’d gotten far more than she’d bargained for.

By the time she reentered the party, Matt stood by the tree, the Santa costume gone. How did he get rid of it so fast? And why? When she caught his eye, she could only stare, still amazed by the connection they’d shared.

“Good evening.” His voice was perfectly calm. Almost asleep calm.

Catatonic calm.

“It looks as though nearly everyone showed up tonight,” he said.

How could he sound so…so normal? With one kiss he’d leveled her, and yet he stood there as if it’d been no big deal.

Was it possible he hadn’t felt what she had?

And how humiliating was that?

“Matt, about what just happened-”

He looked at her blankly. “What just happened?”

“Exactly,” she said, nodding. “About that-”

“Excuse me?”

“No, excuse me,” came a low, husky male voice that made Katie’s entire body tighten.

Bryan Morgan.

Head pilot and local daredevil. He was the hero of every man at Wells Aviation, and the center of every woman’s fantasy.

Every woman but Katie. He was a jump-off-the-cliff type of guy, far too similar to her daredevil father who had gotten himself killed when she was just a teenager. As a rule she steered clear of him, though the reasons were so complicated she didn’t often allow herself to think about them.

Especially now, when he was smiling at her, a wide, devastatingly charismatic smile that would have melted any other female in the room.

“You look lovely,” he said, which was funny only because he was tall, leanly muscled, rugged, and the most gorgeous man ever to walk the planet, and he thought she, plain-Jane Katie, looked lovely. Right.

“Thank you,” she said politely, pointedly turning away from him back to Matt. Darn it, she wanted to talk about their kiss.

“And the decorations,” Bryan said, a small smile in his voice. “So tastefully done.”

Great. He liked the decorations. Now could he just go away? She had a kiss to discuss!

“Especially all that strategically placed mistletoe,” Bryan added, and Katie finally went still, giving him her one-hundred-percent undivided attention.

“What?” she whispered, her heart all but stopping.

Bryan just looked at her, his brilliant blue eyes innocent. And hot. Now she realized that was a complete contradiction, but it happened to be true. Something deep down within her unfurled, hesitated. “What did you just say?” she asked again.

He merely smiled. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

2

BRYAN MORGAN threw his plane into a spin, acknowledging he had about ten seconds to pull himself out if he wanted to live.

Nine…eight…

The image of last night’s party floated through the haze in his mind. There’d been plenty of loud talking and even louder music, reminding him of his huge family. Growing up with six older sisters, there hadn’t been a lot of quiet, or alone time. So he had a fine appreciation of both. Because of that, he liked his parties a lot more intimate and personal…but there had been one redeeming factor last night. A surprising one.

A woman. Now, Bryan loved women, he really did. All shapes and sizes. But in his mind, he already had a permanent force of at least seven in his life, if he counted his mother as well as his sisters. All of whom had bossed, charmed, coaxed and threatened their way for each of his thirty-two years. And since they showed signs of living another half a century at least, it wasn’t often Bryan allowed another woman to play a serious role in his existence.

In fact, it was downright rare. Oh, he dated. Often. But things were always on a walk-away basis.

Always.

And yet last night he’d held Katie and his heart had sort of fumbled. Warm, vital, sweet, funny Katie, with her soft, wavy, whiskey-colored hair that matched her whiskey-colored eyes, eyes in the past that had always looked at him so aloofly.

Seven…six…

She’d looked amazing in that shimmery red dress. Who would have thought? He’d even dreamed of it, the way it had fallen over her curvy little body and trim thighs. So different from her usual prim-and-proper business attire, which suited her accounting position, but not the heat and passion he knew lurked just beneath her surface.

Well, to be fair, he didn’t know for certain she had heat and passion beneath her surface, he’d known her all year and hadn’t been able to tell…until last night.

In spite of the force of gravity pulling his face into a grimace, he managed a grin. Because now he knew, oh yeah, he definitely knew.

Five…four… But what he didn’t know was why she seemed so wary of him. Over the years he’d caused a lot of feelings in women, most of them pretty good, some of them not so good, but never once had he caused wariness.