Page 78 of Christmas in Coconut Creek

The corner of his mouth lifted, smugly. “In that case we’ll have to make a pitstop while we’re out shopping.”

He stood and crossed the floor to the window, jerking open the curtains and hitting me in the face with a burning beam of morning sunlight. I fell back onto the bed, groaning, and pulled the covers over my head.

“Oh no you don’t,” he chided. A second later my ankles were being gripped and dragged from beneath the blankets, my entire tired body following.

“It’s so early,” I complained as I came face to face with him at the edge of the bed. “I’m on vacation.”

“Cap and Tally won’t be out of their dungeon for hours, and I need your help.”

“With what?” The soft stubble on his face had grown a bit longer since we first met on the plane. The shadow of a beard made him look older and more angular; his jaw was so sharp already it could cut glass. I reached out and brushed my finger down his chin. Call me easily distracted.

“Should I shave?”

“No, I like.”

“Good.”

I dragged the same finger down his throat to a maroon, Rorschach looking blot next to his Adam’s apple. My eyes flickered up. Frankie’s hooded gaze was already pinned to my lips like he was identifying the culprit.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you as a biter,” he said in that gritty, not remotely suitable for nine a.m. on a Wednesday, bedroom voice.

My skin pebbled, and a twist of lust made itself known between my legs again. “I never was,” I admitted quietly.

A tortured, unmissable grunt filtered from his throat. He pinched my bottom lip between two fingers and tugged on it. “This mouthis gonna get me in trouble. Because if you don’t get out of my bed right now, I’m gonna fuck it. And if that happens, we won’t be leaving this room until the sun sets again. Then my poor mother and sister will have to wonder why they didn’t get a gift from me for Christmas…and that will be all your fault, Ophelia.”

I closed my teeth around his thumb and bit down, shrugging innocently.

Frankie watched me intently before blinking out of his daze and unhinging my jaw with the pressure of his finger. “Where the fuck did you come from?”

“The North Pole,” I joked, finally hopping out of his bed. “And we take gift giving very seriously there.”

Mybarefeetrestedon the dash of the truck as it idled in the gas station parking lot. The passenger seat was tilted back like I owned it, and I’d not only convinced Frankie to let me play DJ, but my phone was now saved directly to his Bluetooth—which gave me a juvenile satisfaction thinking about another woman in this same seat eventually finding my name there.

Chalk it up as one of those silly, honest mistakes we make, like leaving scrunchies in cup holders or planting hairs in the bathroom. A modern version ofOphelia wuz here, but instead of in black marker on a frat house wall, I was leaving my very obvious digital footprint on the man's very expensive, financed vehicle.

Growth.

My phone pinged with a text I’d been expecting from Natalia.

Nat babyyyy:Matty said I shouldn’t be worried, but I’m still worried

Ophelia:Last-minute shopping

It was just like a man to wait until three days before Christmas to buy presents. I was relieved that Frankie was at least normal in that respect. Every other way was surprisingly too good to be true and he desperately needed a humbling for my sake.

There was definitely such a thing as too much of a good thing. And I knew that, because if I let him bring me a coffee in bed one more morning, I was going to go back to Colorado with expectations not even my regular barista at Starbucks could deliver on.

The driver’s side door swung open and Frankie hopped inside, casting a plastic bag full of things onto my lap.

“I guessed,” he told me, draping his arm over the back of my seat as he backed out of the parking lot and drove away.

I opened the bag to sift through and my eyes widened. A slow, embarrassing heat licked from the base of my spine to the nape of my neck.

He checked the rearview mirror nonchalantly. “I thought Snickers were a safe bet, but I guess you can have the KitKat if you really want it.”

“Are we running a marathon?” I gaped at him as I lifted the variety box of condoms out of the bag.

He sniffed out a laugh. “Am I being scolded for beingtooprepared now? After last night I’m never making that mistake again.”

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