Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“For the followers, then?” I offered, giving him the out he seemed to need.
“For the followers,” he agreed quietly.
He stepped closer, one hand coming up to rest lightly on my hip underneath my coat. His touch, even through the remaining layers of clothing, sent electricity racing through me. I tilted my head slightly, heart hammering as he leaned in.
The kiss was gentle, almost tentative—nothing like the desperate hunger of our previous kisses. Just the soft press of his lips against mine, warm in the winter cold. It could have lasted only seconds, a perfunctory peck to assuage the press of the crowd. But Maddox leaned in a little more, deepening the kiss before catching himself and pulling back with the slightest hitch of breath.
With that little sound, I felt something inside me shift irrevocably.
When he stepped back, the crowd was cheering wildly. Mrs. Hoffman looked particularly smug, and Maya was bouncing up and down with excitement.
I barely registered any of it. I was too focused on the look in Maddox’s eyes—a mixture of wonder and terror that probably mirrored my own.
My tongue snuck out in search of any remaining taste of him on my lips, breath still clouding between us in the cold air.
“There,” he said, his voice rougher than usual. “Tradition upheld. It’ll make for good content, right?”
“Right,” I managed. “Tradition. Content.”
But as we moved away from the mistletoe, accepting congratulations and good-natured teasing from the townsfolk, I knew this was a lie.
That kiss hadn’t been for content or tradition or the crowd. It had been real—perhaps the most real moment I’d experienced since arriving in Legacy…
And I wanted more.
Not just physical contact, though god knew I wanted that, too. I wanted conversations by the fire, banter over breakfast, shared looks that didn’t need words. I wanted Maddox—grumpy, authentic Maddox—in a way that terrified me.
I hadn’t come to Legacy looking for connection. I’d come for my sponsor, for my career. For twelve staged dates with twelve different men. For a perfect holiday series.
But as I watched Maddox chatting with an elderly couple who’d stopped him to comment on his photos in the gallery, I realized with startling clarity that I didn’t want twelve men. I wanted one.
Imperfect, unfairly gorgeous, maddeningly frustrating, genuinely good Maddox Sullivan was the only man I wanted.
Now, I just needed to figure out how to make Maddox forget about my followers, my “content farm,” and his stupid Rule Three… and want me back.
#MistletoeMadness #MoreThanContent #KissMeAgain #ForTheLoveOfChristmas
12
#JEALOUSYONICE
MADDOX
“If you don’t stop pacing, you’re going to wear a trench in my barn floor,” Nate Lewis called out, amusement clear in his voice. “The horses are getting nervous.”
I stopped mid-stride, shoving my hands into my pockets and trying to appear casual. “Sorry. Just, uh, planning camera placement around your ranch.”
“Right,” Nate drawled, the smirk on his face making it clear he didn’t believe me for a second. “Nothing to do with that public kiss, then?”
My stomach clenched. Of course he’d seen the video. The entire town—possibly the entire internet—had seen the moment Adrian and I had kissed beneath the mistletoe last night at the holiday market. Maya had been particularly unbearable this morning, shoving her phone in my face to show me comment after comment about “relationship goals” and “Mistletoe Maddrian Magic.”
The whole town watching us like some damn Hallmark movie made my skin crawl. Not because I was ashamed of Adrian, but because I wasn’t. Because standing there under the mistletoe felt more right than anything had in years, and… I had no clue how to handle it.
“What were we supposed to do?” I muttered, the lie bitter on my tongue. “It’s a Legacy tradition. Wrong place, wrong time.”
Nate raised a skeptical eyebrow as he adjusted the harness on his massive Clydesdale. “Seemed like the right place, right time to me.”
I didn’t answer, just watched his steady, calloused hands as he worked.
Nate was tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular beneath his flannel shirt and worn jeans. He had the kind of rugged good looks that came from working outdoors, and he was talented in bed, too. We’d hooked up a few times over the years when pickings around town were slim and the winters too long.
Nate wasn’t the relationship type, so I had no real fear he and Adrian would hit it off in a true love kind of way, but I knew from personal experience there was a high chance they might hit it off in a quick fuck, body-fluid-exchange kind of way.
And the thought of Nate’s hands on Adrian made me wonder idly where the fuck I could get my hands on an industrial-sized bottle of antacids.
“Anyway,” I continued, clearing my throat. “Thanks for agreeing to this. The sleigh ride will make for good footage, and so far, everyone else we’ve tried to enlist in the project has bailed.”