Page 33 of When Glitter Meets Gold

Instead, I close my eyes and smile at the fact I just heardJack laugh for the first time since being out here. I let the sound play over in my head.

It’s the fastest I’ve fallen asleep in over a year.

I wake to a shock of light leaking through a transparent section on the peak of the tent. Groaning, I push my back further into the warmth behind me. Sinking into the comforting mass I’ve molded myself to all night. The mass pulls me in tighter. I push my ass into it, seeking out its heat.

And then, it breathes into my hair.

My eyes pop open as everything comes flooding back and I remember just whose body I’m shamelessly arching against right now.

My eyes dip to where Jack’s huge arm is draped across my waist. And when I register something hard pressing into my butt cheeks and lower back, I suck in a loud, sharp breath.

A tornado of panic erupts from inside the tent. Jack gasps, leaps up, grabs a pillow, presses it to his crotch. I squirm from the blankets, spring to my feet, and attempt to create as much space as possible between us.

“Fuck!”Jack blinks, his voice thick with sleep and shock. He keeps the pillow in place. “What time is it?” He readjusts his shorts as he angles his body away from me, there’s more cursing. “Fuck, it happens sometimes, okay? It doesn’t mean I’m?—”

“I don’t want to talk about it!” I shriek. “Just forget about it.”

Forget about your damn morning boner wedging into my ass cheeks to say rise and shine.

He unzips the entrance, cursing and mumbling before storming out. He’s so embarrassed, it’s almost funny.

Thirty minutes later, after minimal eye contact and focusing only on packing up the tent, Jack appears to have recovered from the sunrise incident.

The storm has passed and for the first time since being here, I notice things like the trees and the color of leaves, and how fresh and replenished everything looks after a night of rain.

“Morning,” he calls to me in a low, gravelly voice. Then, with a raised eyebrow and a slight grin, he adds, “I’d ask if you slept well, but since you were snoring in my ear all night, I can draw my own conclusions.”

I pull a face. “I do not snore.”

He performs a quick sweep of my body, perhaps noting that I’m still wearing his sweater.

“You’re right, you don’t.” He shrugs before adding, with a level of charm I haven’t been exposed to yet, “But you do talk in your sleep.”

Dread pools in my gut.

He’s not quite smiling, but a hint of amusement tugs at his handsome features.

“What did I say?” My stomach churns so violently, I might capsize.

I track him as he strides off to a row of trees, forcing me to scuttle after him like a suckerfish scouring for barnacles. “Hey, wait a minute! What did I say?”

I hear some rustling, followed by a zipping noise. “A little privacy?” he says, and I can’t help the gasp that shrieks out of me when I realize he’s about to pee.

I whip my head around.

“You could’ve warned me you were about to do that,” I yell as I march off, even though I figure the gesture is his defense against divulging whatever incriminating thing I mumbled in my sleep.

I stride off, retuning to camp to find everything is packed up and the area looks as if we were never there in the first place. I can’t stop my eyes from traveling like magnets to the spot next to the tree where I’d lain frozen to Jack’s chest only a few stormy hours earlier.

Even though I can’t wait to get out of this place, a part of me can’t shake the thought that it wasn’t all bad. The part where I slept without medication for the first time in a hundred years, inside atentfeels pretty monumental.

As we set off, I roll up the sleeves of the sweater. Suddenly, the ardent curiosity to explore why I haven’t changed back to my own clothes, surfaces… I tell myself it’s because my sweater is still damp from the storm. I tell myself it has nothing to do with the level of comfort Jack’s sweater offers, or his scent that still lingers on the collar.

“You’re quiet back there. Ankle okay?” Jack pulls back, visibly shortening his strides as he looks down at my leg.

“No, it’s not that, the ankle is fine,” I reply. “I was just thinking about work.”

I lie, letting my thoughts drift to the hotel where I have every intention of packing up and getting back to the city as soon as the next flight will allow. Five-star luxury be damned – I just want to be in my apartment surrounded by my things.

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