Page 10 of A Funny Thing Happened…

I don’t get tired of hearing sweet nothings, because they will never mean nothing to me.

I know what it cost us to get here.

Jake muttered roughly, “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” His mouth was hot on mine as he kissed me again and again; his lips so soft, his jaw scratchy-velvet against my own.

I gasped, “Same here.”

“Sometimes I think, what would have happened if someone else had got that call?”

“What call?” I managed, between kisses. Maybe you wouldn’t think a guy as tough, as hard as Jake, could like kissing so much, but there wasn’t a centimeter of my surface he hadn’t thoroughly explored with lips and tongue: crook of elbow, tip of toe, curve of neck, back of knee… Every little shivery, secret space.

I’d waited a while for that first kiss, but once Jake got started, he never stopped.

Best of all was when he pressed his warm, open mouth to mine and we held each other tight, sharing each breath, feeling each heartbeat as our own.

Jake drew back a little, looking alarmingly serious. “Hersey. If someone else had caught the case.”

Ah.

Robert. It had to be that damn compatibility quiz dredging up all our murky history.

I shook my head. “I’d be in jail. Or maybe dead.”

He looked so stricken at the idea, I teased, “Or I’d have solved the case, and right now Guy and I would be cleaning up after our solstice party.”

Jake growled, apparently no more thrilled with that idea than the idea of me in prison—or possibly dead—and rose from the bed.

“Hey,” I protested. “I’m kidding. Solstice was three nights ago.”

Jake muttered something unintelligible. He was kneeling in front of his olive-green daypack, rifling through the contents.

“If you’re looking for a condom, I’m going to kill you.” I absently admired the smooth, muscular breadth of his shoulders. This time of year, his skin was nearly as pale as mine.

He was back in a moment, landing with a bounce that nearly took out the aged bed frame and sent Tompkins fleeing for safer ground. My laugh was cut short as Jake waved a small uncapped bottle beneath my nose. I got a whiff of winter green and snow, and sneezed.

“What the… Smelling salts?”

“Christmas Bliss,” he informed me. “Gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

I sniffed again. “Smells like Fraser fir and orange blossom.”

“More likely.” His smile was very white against the darkness of his stubble, his eyes gleamed almost tiger yellow. “To warm the cockles of your heart.”

“And the cockles of my cock?”

His smile widened; he drizzled a little of the green-gold liquid onto two fingers. We watched its lazy trickle down his fingers, and I shuddered, letting my knees fall open to grant access. Oh yes, I wanted that oil inside me, hot and slick, and I wanted those fingers inside me, hot and slick, and I wanted Jake’s cock inside me, hot and slick.

Jake reached down, his oily finger brushed the sac of my balls, and I closed my eyes, moved my leg, lifted my hips. His finger pierced me with delicate deliberation, and he sighed as though the pleasure was all his. It wasn’t, though. Surely most of it was mine as I lay there panting and shivering and waiting for what came next.

Probably me.

“Good?” he whispered.

I swallowed, gulped, “Sogood…”

And it was. The oil felt heated, and it tingled a little as Jake touched me with pleasurable expertise. The scent of snowy pines and sex seemed to rise around us.

“You’re so beautiful. So beautiful. You’ll still be beautiful when you’re sixty, seventy…”

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