I feel her shift, her feet curling slightly into the cushion before relaxing, and I know she’s working up to something.
“Is that why the kiss was such a bad idea?” she finally asks, almost a whisper. “Because of the risk to the business? To everything you’d sacrificed for?”
I look over at her, my heart kicking up into an uneven rhythm. This night, even more than last—the darkness, her quiet voice and everything I’ve just told her, those ridiculous pajamas she’s wearing—it’s so close to those fantasies of my sad, secret heart. The borrowed tree is the starlight; her soothing voice is the silence. She’s the softness, no matter what she’s wearing.
“You’ve always said,” I begin, gripping my thigh too tightly, feeling my restraint dull second by second. “You’ve always said things can go wrong when—”
“I know what I’ve said.”
I look over at her, see her lips compressed in frustration, determination. As much determination as I’ve ever had.
“That night, when we stopped, you seemed like you regretted it. You looked . . . startled.”
“I was startled,” she says. “Weren’t you? Did you expect it to be like that?”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation. “I mean, I didn’t expect it to happen. But I expected it to be like that, if it ever did happen.”
“You did?”
“Kristen. I always did.”
She blinks. She’s shocked, I’m sure, but I’m not taking this back, not now, not with the way she’s looking at me. The day’s blown over me, like a drift of the snow outside. Unstoppable. Covering and muffling everything that keeps me away from her.
“Remember what I told you about my Christmases?” I ask her, my voice low, and she nods. Both of us have leaned in, closing the space between us.
“Making trouble,” she whispers, and I think I can feel the puff of breath on my lips.
“Let’s do that, now,” I say, almost against her lips—and God. Thank God.
She kisses me.
Chapter Ten
KRISTEN
December 24
It’s the best Christmas tradition, this one. The one I didn’t even know I was missing. After midnight, now Christmas Eve. Kissing Jasper.
Jasper kisses me like he’s been making this kind of trouble with me for years, and within seconds of our lips touching I’m in his lap, and it’s so fast, so hot, so natural that I don’t know if I crawled over or if he pulled me. I only know the way we feel together—our lips and tongues tangling, his fingers pushed through my hair, holding one side of it back, his other arm wrapped tight around my lower back, pressing me close to him. Between our layers of clothes I can feel how hard he is beneath me, everywhere—the strong arms that hold me, the broad chest I’m held against, the muscled thighs supporting me, the thick length between those thighs that I feel desperate to rub against.
I bite at his lip, scar-side, and he grunts. “Damn,” he breathes out.
“How did you get this?” I whisper, darting my tongue against it.
“I don’t remember,” he says, the words muffled against my neck, where he starts kissing. “A fence, maybe.” He lets out another frustrated exhale. “This sweatshirt is enormous.”
I tip my head back, exposing more skin, and he rewards me with a slow lick up the side of my neck, and—yeah. This sweatshirt is enormous, and too warm, and my breasts ache with the need to be closer to his chest, his hands, his mouth.
“Not”—I pause, gasp as he nibbles at the spot he’s just licked, try to get my motor skills under control enough to find the hem of this thing so I can get it off—“the sexiest lingerie, I guess,” I finish breathily. I have never been this turned on, ever. I hope he doesn’t think I’m having an asthma attack.
“It’s the sexiest thing,” he says, moving my hands away, pushing his own under the hem, his hands hot and calloused on my skin. “I love this sweatshirt.” His hands rise up, tracing either side of my spine, then the bottom edge of the pullover bra I’m wearing. “It’s so soft.”
“Wait until you feel what’s underneath,” I tease, and I feel his smile on the skin of my neck.
“You are trouble,” he says, and then his hands work fast, pulling the sweatshirt and the bra off all at once, and for a few seconds he stares, his face dumbstruck—a slow blink of his eyes, his lips parted. His hold on me is firm, his big hands on either side of my rib cage, and that feels so good, to be held like this by Jasper. To be looked at like this by Jasper.
“You’re beautiful,” he breathes. “Feels like I’m unwrapping you.”
“My turn,” I say, and the rest of our clothes come off like that—like presents under a tree, like we can’t decide how long to pause and admire the gift we’ve got in front of us before we start thinking about what we still have waiting.
When we’re both down to just our underwear, me back to straddling Jasper’s lap, his hands caressing all over my skin and mine clutching at his biceps, shoulders, and hair, Jasper pulls his lips back from mine, moving one hand up my arm and pausing when he reaches my neck, so sensitive to his touch that I shiver. He looks at me, his expression serious, his eyes searching, the lights from the tree winking across his skin gorgeously.
“Kris,” he whispers. “Is this okay?” I realize he’s waiting to see whatever he thought he saw the last time we kissed. Me regretting, or me startled, whatever.
“It’s better than okay. It’s . . .” I lean forward, kiss him again, sink into his
