“About?”
“Everything.”
She laughed quietly and leaned in, pressing a slow kiss to my shoulder, her fingers tracing idly along my ribs like she had all the time in the world. Instantly regretting taking my sweater off last night when it’d gotten too hot, I felt the tension building deep within like pressure in a sealed room, slow and unavoidable.
“Jane…”
“What?” she repeated, her lips dragging against my collarbone before she suddenly lifted her head again and shot me a coy smile. “Are you not a morning person or something?”
“Or something,” I grumbled, rolling onto my side to face her and propping my head on my hand.
She mirrored me without thinking, our knees brushing under the covers.Thiswas the problem. Everything felt natural with her, too natural to be as tense as I was right now.
She reached out and touched my wrist, her thumb pressing lightly over my pulse. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“You always say that.”
“It’s always true.”
She hummed an unconvinced sound and traced the vein up my forearm, not trying to get anywhere, just touching me. I caught her wrist gently, holding her there. “Jane.”
“Alex.”
“You’re not helping.”
She smirked. “I’m not trying to.”
That was the issue. It looked like she’d woken up as sure about what she wanted as she had been last night, and surely the buzz of the alcohol had faded by now.
As my gaze traced the line of that smirk on her mouth, I leaned in and kissed her, just a brief touch of my lips to hers meant to reassure her that I wanted the same thing, but wedidn’t have to rush it. She kissed me back like she understood exactly what I was doing and disagreed on principle.
Her hand slid into my hair and my restraint snapped tight enough to hurt, so I pulled back. “No.”
She blinked hard, but there was still a healthy dose of amusement in her eyes as she looked at me. “No?”
“I’m making breakfast,” I ground out. “Now.”
She stared for another beat, then started giggling. “You’re making breakfast? How?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“There’s no power.”
“I’m aware.”
She arched an eyebrow at me, looking way too tempting lying like that, with her hair still all mussed, her lips still swollen from all our kisses last night, and that oversized fucking hoodie still hiding way too much.
“No offense, Alex, but you don’t strike me as thematches and camping stovetype.”
“Watch and learn.” I rolled out of bed before she could argue, the cold air hitting hard enough to make me swear under my breath. I grabbed my hoodie and pulled it back on, then swept her sweats up off the floor and tossed them at her. “Those are for when you decide to stop trying to kill me.”
She caught the pants, smirking again. “You’re the one who invited me downstairs.”
I didn’t respond, already halfway out the door before I changed my mind and spent all day doing all the dirty things to her I’d literally dreamed of doing. At this point, I wasn’t even sure why I was still trying to be a gentleman.
It’s just, she’s mywife, goddammit. Why does that make it feel like I need to do it right and what the hell does that even mean?
