Welcome to
another LoveCats
DownUnder Sunday Smooch!
the winner of last week's Sunday Smooch
Giveaway is -Savannah Blaize!
Savannah, can
you please contact Michelle Douglas on michelle (at) michelle-douglas (dot) com to receive your
copy of Snowbound Surprise For the Billionaire!
And now for
today's Sunday Smooch from Louisa George's Medical Romance, A
Baby On Her Christmas List
Back cover blurb:
Nurse Georgie
Taylor has just one thing on her Christmas list: a baby! But she never expected her best friend, Dr Liam
MacAllister to offer to be the father. Liam keeps his heart strictly
off-limits, but seeing Georgie pregnant ignites feelings he just can’t
ignore…feelings that could destroy a beautiful friendship- or result in so much
more!
‘I’ve a feeling it’s already a
little late to worry about things changing between us. Don’t you think? I’m not
the only one here wondering what it would be like if we kissed again.’ Pricking
some vanilla cheesecake onto her fork she offered it to him across the table.
‘Don’t you get just a little tired of being so saintly?’
‘Yes. Every single moment I’m with you.’ He leaned forward again and
she was transfixed as he closed his mouth over the morsel of food. Heat
shimmied through her as he very slowly chewed then swallowed, the movement of
his Adam’s apple dipping up and down was strangely and compellingly sexy. Her
eyes slid from his throat to his mouth, a guarded smile in a face filled with dips
and curves she knew so well but had never really explored. How she wanted to
trace her finger along those lips, to run her hand across his cheek and feel
the rasp of his stubble against her skin. To scale the furrows of his
cheekbones.
His voice was an octave dirtier when he spoke. ‘My mind is working
overtime thinking of the things we could do together. But I’m sure it’s just a
passing phase. All interest in the new curves and stuff. I just want to touch
you. It’s a man thing- feral and protective and instinctive, we can’t help it.
Nature’s a bitch sometimes. If we act on these instincts and then it doesn’t
work out then that’s a lot of friendship down the drain. We need to co-parent
on a platonic and sensible basis, not give in to rash lust and then have regret
to deal with too.’
‘Oh, so you mean the bigger boobs are distracting you? Interesting…’
She very slightly arched her back as he lowered his gaze to her breasts. A
powerful need zinged through her. She wanted him and was resorting to seduction
of the clumsiest kind. But she couldn’t get him out of her head. She needed to
know what it would be like to be with him. If only one time. Just to hold him
as lovers, unlike the way they touched each other now as friends. She wanted to
stroke him, kiss every part of him. And if she didn’t do it soon she’d go
completely mad.
One day they’d look back on this and laugh- if they were still speaking
to each other. ‘So it’s nature that’s making you look at me like that?’
‘Like what?’
‘Sex.’
His pupils flared at the word. ‘It’ll wear off.’
‘I sincerely hope not.’ She finished the last bit of dessert in one big
almost-but-not-quite satisfying mouthful. She had a feeling there was only one
thing that could satisfy her right now, and it wasn’t cheesecake. ‘We should give
in to our natural urges sometimes, it’s bad for us to repress all the time,
apparently.’
‘It’s even worse to break something that’s pretty solid.’
Their friendship. But that was true and lasting and proven. ‘Why would
it break? It doesn’t have to break, not if we don’t want it to. We can do
whatever we want. It’s our choice.’ She couldn’t resist stretching her fingers
across the table towards his. For a few seconds just their fingertips touched.
Then, without looking at her he slid his fingers across hers, intertwined them,
stroked his hand across hers. His skin was rough but his touch was soft. His
heat spread through her, up her arms, to her back, down to her belly.
After a moment of such an excrutiatingly sexy caress he turned her palm
over and lifted it to his mouth. His kiss was hot. He licked a wet trail to her
forefinger. She snatched her hand away before the moan erupted from her throat.
Even so, her voice was filled with need, ‘We should be getting home.’
‘We? Is that an invitation?’ His face cautious and turned-on at the
same time, he scraped his chair back to go.
Finding him her sexiest smile she whispered back, ‘Honestly,
Macadoodle-doo, since when have you ever needed an invitation to my house?’
‘I think maybe this time I do.’
She hadn’t answered him in words, but she’d taken his hand and led him
out of the cafe like a woman on a mission. Thank God she lived only a short
drive away because he couldn’t have waited many moments longer. Liam didn’t
know when he’d ever been so burnt up about a woman.
They by-passed the living area and made it to her bedroom without
words, without kissing. He went in first, held open the door and she walked
straight in and turned to face him, a question on her face. A dare. A promise.
There was space between them. It would only need one step.
Just one.
He faltered. For a few moments neither moved as they stared at each
other. This was happening. Really happening. The step from friends to…to
whatever this was. Lovers might have been doubtful, but the trajectory
from restaurant, to street, to bed was unstoppable. The air in the room seemed
to still. One second. Two. With every lingering moment heat spread through his
body like a raging fire, threatening to engulf him. If he touched her now there
would be no going back.
This could have been a time to leave. He almost took a sideways step,
his hand lingering on the door handle, but faltered again.
As she watched him a slow sexy smile appeared on Georgie’s lips; and if
he’d had any flicker of doubt that she didn’t want this it fled right then. And
that was when, he supposed, he should have drawn that line, the one they
shouldn’t have stepped over. Or where they should have agreed what this meant.
But he was too consumed by her, by this need to utter a word.
In the end he didn’t know who made the first move but suddenly she was
in front of him, or he was in front of her and his mouth was hard against hers.
This time there was no hesitation, no coy shaking. This was pure need and
desire, an equal feasting. She tasted of chocolate and vanilla and every
flavour in between, her mouth was wet and hungry and it fired a deeper, hotter
want within him. Jaws clashed, tongues danced, teeth grazed. There was nothing
sophisticated about the kiss, no gentle sucking or tender caress. It was messy.
Dirty. Hungry.
Louisa
is giving away a copy of her book to one lucky commenter! So her question
to you is:
A Baby On
Her Christmas List is one of my favourite romance tropes: best friends to
lovers. Which is your favourite trope and why?
Come back
next Sunday, when the winner of today's giveaway will be announced -- and a
smooch from The House at the Bottom of the Hill by Jenny Jones will be
posted!
