Free Her Christmas Fantasy & The Winter Bride by Lynne Graham, Penny Jordan Page A

Henry’s parents’.
    It didn’t surprise Lisa to learn that the house had been in Oliver’s family for several generations but what did surprise her was how at ease, how at home she actually felt here, how unexpectedly easy it was to talk to Oliver after he had returned from the kitchen with a huge mug of piping-hot chocolate which he insisted she drink, virtually standing over her until she had done so.
    She had suspected from the taste of it that something very much more alcoholic than mere milk had been added to it, but by that stage she had been so grateful for the warmth of her comfortable niche in the deep sofa, so drowsily content and relaxed that there hadn’t seemed to be any point in mentioning it, never mind protesting about it.
    Now, as she yawned sleepily, blinking owlishly, her forehead pleating in a muzzy frown as she tried to focus on the fireplace and discovered that she couldn’t, she was vaguely aware of Oliver getting up from his own chair and coming over to her, leaning down towards her as he firmly relieved her of the now empty mug.
    â€˜Bath for you, and then bed, I think,’ he told her firmly, sounding so much as her father had when she had been a little girl that Lisa turned her head to look at him.
    She hadn’t realised that he was quite so close to her, nor that his grey eyes had a darker outer rim to them and were not flat, dead grey at all but rather a mystical mingling of so many silvers and pewters that she caught her breath a little at the male beauty of them.
    â€˜You’ve got beautiful eyes,’ she heard herself telling himin a soft, slightly slurred…almost sexy voice that she barely recognised as her own.
    She was unaware that her own eyes were registering the shock of what she had said as Oliver responded gravely, ‘Thank you.’
    She was, she recognised, still holding onto her mug, even though his own fingers were now wrapped securely around it—so securely in fact that they were actually touching her own.
    Some of that molten silver heat from his eyes must have somehow entered his skin, his blood, she decided dizzily. There could be no other reason for those tiny, darting, fiery sensations of heat that she could feel where her own flesh rested against his.
    â€˜So are yours…’
    â€˜So are yours’? Uncomprehendingly, Lisa looked at him and watched as he smiled a slow, curling, sensual smile that made her heart soar and turn over and do a bellyflop that left her as shocked and winded as though her whole body had actually fielded a blow.
    â€˜Your eyes,’ Oliver told her softly. ‘Your eyes are beautiful too. Do you always keep them open when you kiss?’
    â€˜Why?’ Lisa heard herself croak shakily. ‘Do you?’
    As she spoke her glance was already drifting down to his mouth, as though drawn there by some potent force that she couldn’t control.
    â€˜That depends,’ Oliver was drawling, ‘on who I’m kissing…’
    He was looking at her mouth now, and a panicky, unfamiliar feeling of mingled excitement and shock kicked into life inside her, bringing with it some much needed sobering sanity, bringing her back to reality.
    Lisa gulped and turned her head away, quickly withdrawing her hand from the mug.
    â€˜I…I…’
    As she fought to find the words to explain away her totally uncharacteristic behaviour and conversation, she was overcome by a sudden fit of sneezing.
    Quickly reaching for the box of tissues that Oliver had brought her, she hoped that he would put her flushed complexion down to the fever or the cold that she had obviously caught rather than to her self-conscious embarrassment at what she had said.
    What on earth had come over her? She had practically been flirting with him…asking him…inviting him…
    Thankfully, Lisa buried her face in another tissue as she sneezed again.
    When she had finished, determined to dispel any erroneous