Christmas. Mistletoe. Crap!

"I didn't! There was... I couldn't! Not even if I wanted to!" He looked between her and the plant, suddenly quite panicked. Damn. He was definitely getting fired.

"Oh? Don't you want to?" She said with a somewhat severe note in her voice and an assertive step forward.

“Er, I, um...?" He lifted his hand to scratch the back of his head. She thought that if he ever played poker he'd probably lose a Lot of money.

“I see." She took another confident stride forward to step directly under the Little plant in the ceiling.

“Well, since you've been such a big help recently." She edged a little closer to him.

“And because you made me dinner." Closer. "And because I like you." Closest. "And because it's Christmas."

Placing her hands upon his chest, she leaned in and pressed her Lips directly to his. There was a Light thud in which his oven glove landed on the floor, and then his hands lifted to cup her face and return the kiss with a shocking degree of passion. All the reasons that they couldn't be together. ALL the difficulties with work. They suddenly didn't seem to matter at all. She was kissing him, and he'd be damned if he was going to miss that opportunity.

When they eventually did come up for air, she released a laugh of immediate delight. He was stunned. It felt like his brain needed to reboot to take in that information, but it was having an issue with loading properly. She helped by sliding her arms over his shoulders and around the back of his neck before resting herself against him. Deep blue eyes flickered with long lashes as they Looked deep into his pools of warm mahogany.

“I feel Like I should come clean with you, Hugh," she said.

“By all means."

“That was supposed to be a playful little kiss for Christmas.”

“Oh. Then it wasn't very good."

Her smile broadened again. "It wasn't, really. Was it?"

“Although if you ever plan on expanding the business into searching for explosive renewable energy resources? I'd say a kiss like that might be a good place to start."

Another hearty laugh emerged from that smile, and she nodded in agreement.

“Ok then," she continued. "Want to watch The Snowman a little later? I can see only two ways forward here. You kiss me like that again, or..."

“Or what?"

"Or I do this instead."

She slipped her arms from around his neck and ran her hands down over his sweater before hooking her fingertips under the hem of his pants.