Mismatched Under the Mistletoe by Michaels Jess

Author:Michaels, Jess
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Passionate Pen LLC, The
Published: 2020-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Cav sat at the end of the long table, far from Emily’s side, and watched her. She was observing the room, and he could see that she was…troubled.

The worry was partly because of him. He knew that. When she looked at him, she blushed every time. She worried her hands before her. She fidgeted as she was sometimes wont to do because she was nervous or uncertain.

He’d wanted her forever, and having her had been more powerful, more wonderful, more satisfying than he’d pictured in even his most heated and hedonistic dreams. Even now as he imagined the squeeze of her sex around his, the soft surrender of her gasps of pleasure, his body reacted.

He knew she’d been happy while they were in each other’s arms. But now she was thinking. Always thinking. One of her best qualities, until it spiraled her into a dozen worst-case futures. He could see her doing that now when she looked at him. See her writing a tale where their friendship ended because she’d let him lick her until she cried out his name in the quiet.

“Bollocks,” he grunted beneath his breath. He was going to have to tread lightly now. Be careful in how he approached her while she stewed.

He couldn’t lose her. He wouldn’t.

He took a sip of wine and watched as her gaze flitted over the table. If she was troubled when she looked at him, she was equally so as she surveyed her matchmaking kingdom. In the last five days, he’d watched her move her pieces around the chessboard, placing ladies with gentlemen, forcing them into positions where they would talk or play together. But her matchmaking was failing.

Tonight the table was listless. Conversations were subdued if they happened at all. The gentlemen talked to each other, the ladies amongst themselves and with their chaperones.

Emily’s experiment seemed to be a failure. And from the frown on her face, that troubled her deeply. She had always been the type to think of something wild and wonderful and play it out. She’d taken to new hobbies easily and enjoyed all types of pastimes. Sometimes they didn’t work, but she’d also taken her losses with a laugh. She’d always been able to see them as a way to learn, rather than something darker or more desperate.

But this…this was different. She looked truly troubled by the fact her matchmaking wasn’t going as planned. Her nostrils flared slightly, her hands shook as she lifted her wineglass to her lips, she was distracted when a servant came to take her plate.

Why, he couldn’t understand. But he needed to. He needed to reach out and offer her the help and comfort she had asked him here to provide. The friendship he’d been providing for a decade.

But not tonight. Tonight she was too fraught when she looked at him. It was best to leave her be. Let her settle and see that he wouldn’t push her into something she needed more time to allow.

But tomorrow, he was going to talk to her.

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