Page 51 of My Rival for Christmas

Paige’s stubbornness to change.

Her mask comes down on her face at my question, shuttering any kind of desire she might feel for me. “It’s the middle of winter and snowing outside. Put on a shirt.”

“Worried I’ll catch a cold?” I stretch my arms above my head and watch with a feral kind of delight as her stare dips back down, watching my abs constrict. “You can touch them if you want. I’ll even let you pick how. My favorite methods are with hands and tongue, though.”

Paige’s face almost matches her hair as she gives me a severe look. “That right there is why this divider is necessary.” She throws the last two blankets on top, not caring about keeping it perfect, before she walks over to the clothes I’ve laid out for her on the tall dresser and disappears into the bathroom to change.

“I think your mom likes me,” I whisper to Snowball, who runs around the little pen I made for him out of a handful of boxes from my old bedroom so he wouldn’t have to sleep in his travel carrier tonight.

He stops chasing one of the crumpled paper balls I also made him and stares at me. Keeping my voice low so Paige doesn’t hear, I add, “She might not know it yet, but she likes me. Now I just have to work on getting her to forgive me.”

His red eyes blink as if to say,Good luck with that.

“You doubt me?” I put a hand on my chest. “It’s all I asked Santa for this Christmas. I’m not worried.”

He shakes his head at me, not far off from the exasperated expression his owner usually gives me, before going back to his toys.

Paige comes out of the bathroom, and I have to bite back a groan as she flicks the lights off, both the bathroom and the bedroom, bathing us in darkness.

But not before I see what she looks like wearing one of my shirts and sweatpants.

Fuck.

They practically swallow her athletically petite frame.

But it’s not even how they look on her that really has my attention. It’s this surge of carnal pleasure that ripples through my body over seeing her in something of mine.

My brain is stuck on that word. Mine.

It feels right. Like she’s always been in my clothes.

I almost wish she resisted my offer, that she’d be repulsed to have anything that has been on my body near hers, but Paige is a comfort over everything kind of girl. When she’s not in her practice leggings, she’s in her lounge leggings or baggy sweatpants, so it doesn’t surprise me she didn’t care about who the clothes belong to. As long as they were clean and could keep her warm tonight.

But now I’m left lying here, unable to shake the visual of my clothes brushing up against parts of her body I’d commit capital crimes to feel. To taste.

My dick twitches at the thought, making me glare at my crotch.Don’t you fucking dare.

My body locks as I try to think of anything else.

My grandma. The square root of pi. Saying the alphabet backwards. Anything to take my mind from Paige in my clothes, from the sound of her delicate steps as she shuffles across theroom, to distract me from the mattress dipping under her weight as she crawls under the covers.

To forget she’s here entirely.

But that’s impossible. Even if I can’t see her, I feel her like I feel my chest move. Inherently. So entrenched within me, I couldn’t ignore her if I wanted to.

“Nate?” Paige calls after a long stretch of silence.

“Yeah?” My voice is hoarse. I struggle to clear it.

“If you cross that barrier, there will be consequences.”

“Does that go for both sides of the bed?”

Paige scoffs. “Please, I’d never.”

“Never say never, Princess. You might just find you like sleeping next to me.” God, wouldn’t that be something? Waking up with Paige next to me? “I’ll start thinking of your punishment now.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

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