Jess burrowed against him, happy to stay exactly where she was until Sebastian’s stomach growled. She began to giggle, glancing up as he turned towards her.
‘I didn’t get any dinner, remember?’ he said, his own grin matching hers.
‘Shall we go and find something to eat?’ she suggested. ‘And I am talking about food, just to be clear.’
‘Yes, please.’
They scrabbled for clothes and headed for the kitchen. Jess swung open the fridge, revealing shelves groaning with partially prepped food for the following day. She pointed at boxes of snacks ready for the villagers.
‘We could always pinch a few of these,’ she said, slipping the lid from a box full of vol-au-vents and cheesy twists.
‘Let’s take them with us to bed. Are you bothered by crumbs in the sheets?’ he asked, lifting a cheesy twist and biting into it.
‘Whose sheets?’ she asked, stepping close enough for him to wrap an arm around her again, close enough for him to kiss her.
‘Mine. Yours. I don’t much care so long as you’re in them with me,’ Sebastian said.
Chapter 32
Something was scratching at the back of Sebastian’s thigh, irritating him into consciousness even though the world was still bathed in darkness. A glance at the eery blue glow of the bedside clock told him it was way too early to be awake; the slow, rhythmical breathing of a still-sleeping Jess beside him reassured him the previous evening had panned out exactly as he remembered.
He allowed himself a slow smile, a recognition that what he’d decided had been the best sex of his life had happened exactly as he recalled. It had been real. Jess was real, not a figment of his imagination. She was real, she was here, and she was possibly the most attractive woman he’d ever met.
Shuffling across the mattress, Sebastian closed his eyes and breathed her in. There was a strong waft of lemon shampoo alongside the scent of her skin, the heat of their lovemaking evident in the sweet remnants of perspiration. There was something else, too. The merest hint of Marie Rose sauce.
His movement made her stir, as well as shifting his buttock closer to whatever it was he was lying on. Brushing at the sheet with a hand, his fingers found what, at a guess, he would assume to be flaky pastry from one of the savoury snacks they’d teased one another with the previous evening. Some of the food had even made it into their mouths. Checking for more crumbs, his movements were enough to wake Jess.
‘What are you doing?’ she murmured, her voice muted from sleep.
‘Had a piece of vol-au-vent up my arse,’ he said.
‘Need to be in the fridge, or they’ll be ruined,’ she muttered.
Sebastian smiled in the darkness, listening to the pattern of her breathing changing as she became fully conscious.
‘What was it doing up your arse?’ she said, confusion uppermost in her tone.
He stifled a laugh, shifting his arm to make it easier for her to fold herself against him. ‘It was just a crumb.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Half three or something,’ he said, kissing the top of her head.
‘Oh, that’s good,’ she said, tilting her face for a proper kiss. ‘Plenty of time until we have to get up.’
Just being close to her was enough to turn him on, so this kind of naked contact was only going to have one outcome. As he felt himself harden, their kisses became increasingly fervent. There was only one place he wanted to be and as Jess urged him on top of her and pulled him close it was all he could do to hang on, to give her what she needed. To not whisper how heavily he thought he was falling for her.
Afterwards, the drift back to sleep was rapid, and it was Jess who had the final word.
‘Happy Christmas, Sebastian,’ she whispered.
It felt like it was no more than a few minutes before an alarm was sounding, dragging Sebastian back to reality, Jess stirring beside him.
‘Where’s that coming from?’ He hadn’t set an alarm, was confused by it until Jess reached for her phone and prodded at it.
‘Sorry. I need to go and put the turkey in,’ she whispered. ‘And sort out the world’s largest plum pudding. Dorathy Keel insisted I have to reheat it in the traditional way, or it’ll be ruined, but it’ll take hours to do it in a saucepan, and I need the hobs later for the vegetables.’
‘But it’s still the middle of the night,’ he said.
