Page 59 of Holiday Interference
So much it terrifies me.
I shift, careful not to wake him. His breath fans warm against the back of my shoulder. I should stay still. Should let myself hold onto this for a few more minutes.
But I can already feel the pressure building under my skin—the slow return of reality, tapping like a finger against the back of my skull.
My body aches in all the best places. My thighs are sore. My lips are still swollen. And somewhere deeper—under bone, under skin—something else is sore too.
Something that hasn’t been touched in a long, long time.
I slip out from under his arm and sit on the edge of the bed. My feet touch the cold floor, and I feel it all the way up my spine. A jolt of now.
Of soon.
Ofdon’t get used to this.
His sheets still smell like us. Like sleep and sex and detergent. Like something that could’ve been more if either of us were the kind of people who let things last.
I drag on one of his hoodies and pad into the kitchen, tugging my hair up in a loose knot. The air out here feels different. Lighter. The hum of the heater kicking on. The faintest drip of melting ice outside the window.
The storm’s over.
The spell is breaking.
I pour a cup of coffee and lean my hip against the counter, closing my eyes as I take that first sip. I try to ground myself in the normalcy of it. The bitter heat on my tongue. The warmth of the ceramic. The distant chirp of birds for the first time in days.
But all I can think about is the way he sounded last night when I told him I wanted him rough. The way he looked at me like I was both the fire and the match. The way I wanted more the second it was over.
And the way I still do.
Even now.
Even knowing better.
I’m still staring into my coffee, replaying every second of last night, when I hear the creak of the bedroom floorboards.
A beat later, Cal’s footsteps pad across the hardwood.
I don’t turn. Don’t breathe.
Then, his arms come around my waist. Slow, warm, and sure.
His bare chest presses into my back, and his mouth finds the side of my neck like it’s instinct.
Like we do this every morning.
Like this isn’t borrowed time.
“Morning,” he murmurs, voice still wrecked from sleep and sin.
My pulse trips. “You’re awake.”
“Hard not to be.” His hands flex at my hips, fingers dipping under the hem of his hoodie—his hoodie on my body. “Smelled coffee. And you.”
The way he says it—likeyouis his favorite flavor—I nearly melt right into the floor.
I tilt my head slightly, give him better access without meaning to. His lips brush just beneath my ear. Once. Then again.
And I want him all over again.
