Page 35 of The Snuggle Is Real

Without those I would be on the floor in a puddle.

I nod eagerly, knowing this is stupid, knowing we should talk about this, but right now all I can think about is me and Malcolm alone in the Harvest Suite. Naked.

“Yes,” I add, in case my nod wasn’t clear enough.

Malcolm steps back without another word, his jaw set. He takes my hand and drags me off the dance floor.

“See you all tomorrow,” he says to nobody in particular as we head to the exit.

I don’t think anyone even hears him.

In spite of my desperate need to get back to the Inn, that still makes me laugh. “We can’t just leave like that!”

“Watch me.” Malcolm leads me across the restaurant and to the front door. He shoves it open. “The Irish goodbye is my specialty.”

“They’re going to wonder where we went,” I say, glancing back at the private room as we step out onto the sidewalk.

As a wedding planner, disappearing guests are a nightmare.

And I like Malcolm’s family. I don’t want to be rude.

Malcolm pauses and looks down at me. “You think they’re going to wonder where we went? Really? I think they all have a pretty good idea.”

That makes my cheeks turn hot. “We’re really good at faking it, aren’t we?”

Malcolm’s hand cups my face, his thumb stroking over my bottom lip. His gaze sweeps over my mouth. “I wasn’t faking anything.”

He kisses me with a ferocity that takes my breath away. Like he’s been holding back and now he’s unleashing all his passion and desire. On me.

I whimper. I actually whimper. Never in the sum total of all my intimate encounters have I whimpered and yet I do on the sidewalk in Wanted with Malcolm.

He pulls back and gives me a very naughty, very proud smile. We start to walk toward the Inn.

“The pumpkin pillow with the googly eyes can’t watch,” he tells me. “Just warning you.”

Even with my heart beating unnaturally fast, knowing what we’re about to do, I still have it in me to roll my eyes. “Performance anxiety?” I ask.

Malcolm lets out a loud and very genuine laugh. I love that I can make Mr. So Serious laugh like that.

“I don’t even have the pumpkin. Lucy stole it, remember?”

“Oh, God,” he says, shaking his head with a grin. “That pumpkin is going to return sequined within an inch of its life.”

The night air is cold and Whiskey Way is dark except for the lampposts and their scarecrows. Malcolm told me earlier it’s Homecoming weekend—the reason for the marching band parading the day before—and a lot of residents are out at the high school stadium watching the football team. Our footsteps sound very loud. I shiver a little.

Without a word, Malcolm peels off of his jacket and drops it over my shoulders. He’s done this before. But everything is coded differently now. There is a new edge, a sharpness, a deeper meaning. We should talk about this. What we’re doing.

The jacket smells like cedar and bourbon and him, which is not helping unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth.

He's also still holding my hand. He’d been holding it, released it to take off his jacket, then grabbed it again.

So a double hold.

With definite intention.

It’s not the way he held it at Fall Fest, swinging it a little for the benefit of the cider line. He's holding it firmly, close to his thigh. His thumb moves over my knuckles every few steps, slow, and I feel it in places that haven’t felt anything in a very long time.

I should say something. I'm the talker. Malcolm is always the one who waits me out.