The bed shifted justas I was starting to rise to the surface. I blinked a few times until my eyes focused on Jesse’s face.
Jesus, he was pretty.
“Mornin’,” I said, yawning through half of it.
“Merry Christmas,” he said, his smile a little too much like trouble for me to fully trust it.
I moaned into a stretch. “It is Christmas, isn’t it?”
“Last I checked,” he said, smirking. Like maybe he’d gotten up to something while I was sleeping.
Probably not a good sign that I couldn’t wait to find out what he’d done.
“You been up long?” I asked, my voice still gravely as I took in the way the early sun lit up his curls.
“For a bit.”
“I should be happy you kept your promise about not killing me in my sleep then,” I said as I wrapped a curl around my finger and gaveit a tug.
Jesse sent me a sharp grin, then shifted his eyes downward. I followed the movement, finally clocking the knife in his hand, right at my throat. I released his hair then tried and failed to hide my smile.
On a professional level—and only a professional level—I was slightly embarrassed that he’d managed to get the drop on me. On a personal level, my cock was thrilled with this turn of events.
Eh. If he wanted me dead, I’d be bleeding out already.
“I did say that you’d be awake and looking right at me.”
“Mm.” I distracted him with a lewd perusal of his hot, compact muscles. Prison really did do a body good. “That you did.”
“Then why are you smiling at me?” he asked, smiling right back.
I looked down, and he followed my line of sight to the knife that was now in my hand.
“Son of a bitch.” He shook his head, then muttered, “Yeah, that’s getting added to the spank bank.”
“I see you found where I hid one of the knives.”
“The planter on the back porch was an inspired choice,” he said, shivering. “Though it is fucking cold outside.”
I shifted, looking out the window. “Damn. That snow is still coming down pretty hard.”
We’d only seen this amount of snow in this part of Texas, maybe one or two times in the last hundredyears. I reached over and checked my phone. The cell service was still down.
“I do love a white Christmas,” Jesse said, gesturing at my phone, “but both cellandWi-Fi are still down.”
I sent him avery seriousfrown. “You went into my phone?”
“You really should change your settings.”
Of course he’d pick the lock on your professional life.
Narrowing my eyes, I followed the instinct honed by years of detective work and thumbed over to my photographs.
Holy. Fucking. Jackpot.
“I’m not erasing these,” I said, locking my phone and putting it back on the nightstand.
“Call it a Christmas present from me.”
