Kiss Her Once for Me (51)

“Liar.” Her voice is especially raspy first thing in the morning, thick with sleep and hoarse from other things, and she looks—fuck.

Jack first thing in the morning is just fuck.

Her black hair is matted in the back, with the front sticking straight up in a greasy wave over her forehead, and she is unabashedly naked. As she wakes up, she makes no effort to hide her body under blankets. I can see her tattooed arms, her dark armpit hair, her soft stomach and her strong thighs, her muscular legs stretched out beside Paul Hollywood, who climbed up onto the bed at some point in the night.

I bury my smile into my pillow. “Long is subjective.”

“Creep. I brought home a creepy stalker.” She hits me with an extra pillow. “Did you sleep at all?”

I shake my head. It felt like if I closed my eyes, I would wake up to find the snow had melted, that the magic between us had dissolved, too. “Not too much sleep,” I say.

She rolls onto her side to face me in bed. “How are you feeling?”

And I know what she’s really asking me. Do you regret this? Would you take this back? I’d only ever felt this way with one other person, and it had taken months for me to feel safe and comfortable with my college girlfriend. We were friends for almost two years before we even kissed, yet here I am, naked with this person I’ve known for a day. And I’ve never felt more certain of anything than I am of whatever this is.

“I’m feeling really good,” I tell her.

It’s her turn to hide her smile against her pillow. Under the blankets, she slides her hands toward me, her fingers hovering half an inch above my bare stomach, ghosting over my skin in some kind of tantalizing whisper. It feels almost better than when she touched me there last night—when she touched me everywhere, claiming every uncharted corner of me as her own.

“Are you hungry?” she asks.

“Starving.”

She leans over and bites softly on my shoulder before smoothing the mark with a kiss. “I’ll shower, and then I’ll make you biscuits and gravy.”

“That’s not exactly what I had in mind….”

“Well, you haven’t tried my homemade biscuits yet.”

“I would very much like to try your biscuits.”

Jack laughs, groggy and throaty, shouting, “Creep!” even louder. I reach for her. She comes willingly, rolls on top of me, settling herself between my legs, kissing my throat, my earlobe, my mouth. Sweet, unhurried kisses, like we have nothing but time, like the snow outside will never melt, and we’ll live in this little bubble forever.

“Okay. Okay.” She exhales against my collarbone a few minutes later. “I really do need to shower.”

I wrap my legs around her torso to anchor her to me. I have no intention of ever letting her go, not even for homemade biscuits. “I’m afraid if you get up, you won’t come back,” I confess into her shoulder.

That’s the thing about our honesty game: it made telling the truth easier, even when she wasn’t demanding it.

“Well, it’s my Airstream, and the bathroom is attached, so—”

“I’m afraid if you get up,” I clarify, holding her tight, “that this will be over.”

She pulls her head back just enough so her mouth can find my temple. “I’m not a pumpkin, Elle,” she whispers. “And I would really like to make you breakfast.”

“Not a pumpkin,” I repeat, willing myself to believe it.

“But I have to shower first,” she insists. “My hair is a disaster.”

“I love your disaster hair,” I say, running one hand through the grease.

Propped on her elbows above me, Jack sucks in a sharp breath, her eye contact burning through my entire body. “I love your hair, too,” she says back, touching what’s left of my braid from the day before.

I release her, and she climbs off the bed. She struts—truly struts—to the tiny bathroom, still unapologetically naked, and I watch her until the door closes between us. The shower turns on, followed shortly by the sound of her phone blasting a Jordin Sparks song I forgot existed. Of course Jack can’t shower without music. I smile to myself and sit in her bed, pressing my open palm to the too-much feeling in my chest.

There’s a pounding on the door to the Airstream, and Paul Hollywood awakes with a start, barking wildly at the intrusion. I scramble out of bed, searching for my underwear. “Jack!” I attempt to shout over the sound of the shower. “Someone’s here!”

She doesn’t seem to hear me over the water and the music and the barking, and I quickly slide my arms into the sleeves of her flannel and button it over myself. It looks like a dress. Like a very short dress, but an acceptable one for answering the door at nine in the morning on Christmas. I stub my toe on the edge of a cupboard as I trip over to the door, Paul Hollywood barking maniacally at my feet.

When I open the door, I’m temporarily blinded by the iridescent snow, and by the morning light reflecting off every surface. I put a hand up to shield my eyes and squint, and it’s then that I notice the woman standing below me. She’s short, with magenta hair cut to her shoulders, half-covered by a black beanie, the rest of her covered by a Patagonia coat. “Hi,” I greet her awkwardly as Paul Hollywood leaps outside and runs circles around the woman’s feet.