“That’s good.” He was hypnotized by the difference in her appearance. Every line of her face seemed more-dramatic, or something.

“No, Carter, it isn’t good.” She turned to face him, and her smile, a pinker, fuller smile than usual because her lower lip was pinker and fuller, had a patient look about it. “You must be tired. Maybe it’s time for us to go to bed.”

Oh, wow, do you really think so? You don’t think we need to know each other better? Have a few kisses first? A romantic date or two?

Okay. If now is good for you, it’s fine with me.

With a great deal of difficulty he pulled himself back from his Utopian dream. She hadn’t meant go to bed together. She’d meant separately, she in her bed, he in his. Good thing he’d taken a second to think before he spoke.

She got up. “Of course, if you’d like to have a nightcap first, or some coffee…” She moved toward him. Instinctively he took a step back.

Her hair shone in the lamplight. It looked a little mussed, which worried him, because her hair was never mussed, but her lipstick was perfect, which reassured him. “Did we hear from Phoebe about the lineup for tomorrow?” What he really wanted to know was how long she’d been home.

“You just missed her call,” Mallory said. She was moving her mouth differently, more slowly, shaping each word as she sent it through the slight smile that hovered around her mouth. “Supermom McGregor Ross got a baby-sitter so we’re all set with our two witnesses.” Her smile deepened. “Phoebe seemed disappointed not to find you here.”

“In your imagination,” Carter said. He hadn’t dialed Phoebe’s home phone number yet, and she’d mentioned his omission during lunch.

Mallory moved a little closer to him. “Not my imagination. You have a way about you.”

He swallowed hard and backed up a step. She moved forward a step. They repeated this choreography a couple of times until he realized she’d nearly backed him up to his bedroom door. What was she doing? What was this all about?

She looked directly into his eyes. Her lips parted. “Look up,” she said. “I’ve trapped you under the mistletoe.”

“What mistle-” he got out, but the sudden pressure of Mallory’s mouth cut off the word.

It was just a friendly kiss, a Christmas tradition, so why did it feel so hot? His entire being zinged with anticipation as he returned the kiss, still afraid to touch her without a sign that it was all right.

He felt her little gasp against his mouth. That was the sign he’d been waiting for. His blood went from room temperature to boiling in a second as he experienced a sudden vision of what she’d be like in bed. Shy at first, not, for once, taking the lead but not pretending to be unwilling either, and erupting under his touch into heat and flame, liquid gold pouring over him with burning intensity, coming fast and hard before he was inside her and after.

Sweat broke out on his forehead and his knees almost buckled as blood rushed to his rising erection. He placed a hand on each side of her face, held her there and let himself kiss her the way he’d been wanting to, deep and warm and hard. But he wanted more, the feel of her in his arms, and they went around her, his hands splayed across her back, crushing her breasts to his chest. Then he slid his hands down to her waist, pulling the delicious curves of her body into the hard tension of his.

Even that wasn’t enough. He wanted to grasp that curvy little bottom, pull her tighter, but as his hands began sliding even farther down her spine, a voice said, “What the hell are you doing?”

It wasn’t Mallory’s voice, it was the voice inside his head. She hadn’t asked for this much from him, just a playful kiss under the mistletoe. Reluctantly, one small step at a time, he made himself let go of her.

She was pink, flushed, her mouth bruised-looking, her eyes heavy-lidded as she gazed up at him. Did he imagine it, or had her lips clung to his until the last possible moment? He’d imagined it. Those had been his lips clinging to hers. It wouldn’t be like Mallory to cling, to urge him not to stop.

“Wow,” she said. Her voice was husky. “Kiss Phoebe Angell like that once and we won’t have any trouble talking her into settling.”

Slowly, painfully, his hands dropped to his sides. Was she teasing him or did she mean it? Until she said it, he’d been very close to throwing caution to the winds and breaking his vow to earn her trust before he went for her body. But she had just put his greatest fear into words, that he’d been chosen to take this case because Phoebe Angell was a woman and he was a man women desired.

He stepped back, away from the mistletoe, away from the gaze coming at him from eyes he’d once thought of as icy and now saw as more like the inside of a sauna. “That’s not really how you want me to settle this case, is it?”

He couldn’t read the expression on her face as she whispered, “No, it isn’t.”

“Well, good, because it’s not the way I want to settle it, either.” He backed away into his own room and closed the door with a definite and firm click. It would have been… sophomoric to slam it.

Once in bed, hot and bothered, frustrated as all get out, he had a thought. He’d gone out with Athena and Brie and neither one of them had tried to jump him. He’d even imagined that Mallory had wanted him to go on kissing her-and more-but he’d been wrong. In fact, she’d suggested that he put the moves on Phoebe Angell.

He could come to only two conclusions. First, she didn’t want him for herself. She just wanted him to settle this case by any means at his disposal. Second, he didn’t have to worry about turning off his charm because he’d already lost it. Twenty-nine years old and the testosterone leak had finally done its job. He’d run out.

No, he couldn’t have run out, not as aroused as he was. He still had some left, just not enough to leak. If he was no longer a sex god-not the way he thought about himself, but the way many a woman had described him-and he wasn’t smart enough to impress Mallory with his brains, then what the hell was he?

Of course, there was still, as Mallory had said, Phoebe Angell. She did seem to be under the spell of his charms.

The very thought made for a sadly sleepless night.

Mallory couldn’t sleep. At last she got up, put on her packable, practical travel robe, which she suddenly hated, and tiptoed out into the sitting room. There was hot chocolate mix in the little kitchen. She’d make a cup, see if it put her to sleep.

From where she stood, she could see through the arch with the mistletoe over it, down the little jog straight to Carter’s door. She couldn’t resist. Her feet went toward that door. Carefully she placed her ear against it. From inside came the soft, rumbling snore she’d imagined in her fantasy of him, the snore that would vibrate her naked skin, puff against her ear, soft and comforting. A snore to sleep to.

The ache between her thighs grew almost unbearable. Now she was letting the door hold her up as she sank against it, wanting him with an intensity she didn’t think she was capable of. The door opened and, with a shriek, she fell into his room.

The light went on. He sat up in bed, blinking sleepily. “Mallory?” he said, squinting at her.

“Uh, yes,” Mallory quavered, scrambling up off the floor. “Gosh, I’m so sorry. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up to make myself some cocoa, and I-”

He’snaked under that sheet.

And his room’s a mess.

“And I tripped over the footstool, you know, the little one that sits in front of that beige velvet chair,” she babbled on, making up the lie as she went along. “I was afraid it might have awakened you, so I listened at the door to make sure you were still asleep.”

He was waking up now. She could tell. He was staring at her with the strangest look on his face even as he pulled the sheet a little farther up his chest.