Page 50 of Holiday Interference
Like we’ll do it again.
I lean into him for half a second before I remember why that’s a bad idea. Why this can’t be real.
He senses it. Pulls back slightly, but not far. His hand stays on me.
“Coffee for both of us?” he asks, voice lower now.
“Yep,” I say. “Apparently a habit I just picked up.”
“I like this habit.”
His fingers tighten just a little at my waist, and I swear I feel it between my legs. Like my body’s already rewired itself to respond to him.
I grab a mug and hand it to him without turning around, afraid that if I look at him, I’ll forget how to breathe.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod, then shake my head. “I don’t know.”
There’s a silence that says everything he doesn’t.
He waits.
I finally turn toward him, coffee clutched between us like a shield.
He looks like temptation. Hair mussed, jaw shadowed, that sleepy smile tugging at the corner of his mouth like he already knows what I’m thinking.
I lick my lips.
His eyes drop to my mouth, causing heat to coil low in my belly.
“Last night wasn’t a mistake,” he says quietly.
My breath catches. “I didn’t say it was.”
“You didn’t have to.”
The tension stretches between us again, thick and sharp. I feel it in my throat. In the way my nipples tighten under the oversized shirt. In the way my thighs press together, slow and instinctive.
“I’m not sorry,” he adds.
I find it impossible to lie to this man because while I’m scared shitless, I have no regrets. “I’m not sorry either.”
Cal shifts first, slow and deliberate, reaching around me to pour coffee into his mug. His hand grazes my hip when pulls back.
He just lingers close enough that I feel the heat of his chest, the press of something unspoken between us.
“But you keep looking at me like you’re waiting for the awkward part to hit,” he says.
I blink up at him. “Because I am.”
That earns a small smile. Crooked. Soft. “And?”
I hate how much I like that smile, how warm it makes my chest feel. I shrug, trying for light. “Still waiting.”
His gaze sharpens—not teasing now, but intent. He tilts his head. “Why is that?”
The breath sticks in my throat. My fingers clench around the edge of the counter.
