“Oh.”There’s that sound again.That quick, breathless exclamation that catches in her throat and gusts out of her lips and makes me want to discover all the sounds she’ll make for me, sounds of pleasure and wildness.
I shouldn’t tell her all of this. I should do what I’ve been trying to do since the other night and keep a professional distance. But with every passing day, that distance gets harder to maintain.
I’ve been so twisted up with lust and longing and, yes, jealousy. I’ve been jealous as hell that Conner might have taken his shot with her and won because I’d stepped back. If it had only been jealousy, though, it would have been manageable. But there was also this feeling that I had lost something infinitely precious—the chance to be with Poppy, even if it’s just for a week.
We only have a week.
All the good reasons I have for staying away fade to insignificance with our shrinking timeline. I don’t want to waste one more minute hiding behind the bullshit of professional distance.
We may live in opposite worlds and have opposite personalities. I may have nothing to offer her for the future. I don’t do relationships, and even if I did, now would not be the time to try for a long-distance one. I already face having my heart ripped open with one loss. I don’t need two.
But I need this one last week with everything in me. Every single ridiculous, Christmas-filled day. And maybe even a few extra days.
“What if we didn’t leave on Christmas Eve?” I say, the words popping up and out of me unbidden. They may be spontaneous, but they feel absolutely, utterly right.
“What?”
“I have the house until the end of December, and I don’t need to be back in LA until the 28th. It’s only a few days more, and, I mean, you don’t have to spend Christmas with us. You have your own family, which I understand. But I thought Belle would like to stay here for Christmas and maybe—”
“Yes!” Poppy shouts, and she throws herself into my arms. I catch her easily; of course I do. And I swing her around, not able to hold back the goofy smile that matches hers.
“Yeah?”
“Heck yeah,” she practically yells.
“Hell yeah,” I repeat.
“Does this mean…?”
“It means whatever you want it to mean.”
Her smile is slow and sensual. I set her down to the floor, inching her body along mine.
“I can think of a lot of things I want it to mean.” She grins.
I meet my forehead to hers. “I don’t want to fight this anymore. Not when we have such a short time. But we have to keep this separate from Belle. I can’t risk her getting hurt.”
“She can have our days,” Poppy says. “And you can have my nights.”
Her words and that teasing smile get me harder, if that’s even possible. “God, you can’t say things like that. You don’t know how much I’ve been fantasizing about you.”
“You can tell me all about it. In detail.”
“How about I show you?”
“I like that idea. Upstairs?” she asks, looking shy now.
“Eventually. But I want to indulge in one particular fantasy. It involves that rug in front of the fire.”
“I like the way your imagination works.”
I pull her up. She squeals and wraps her legs around me. I walk her over to the rug and sit her on it then brush aside the tendrils of hair that have escaped from her ponytail.
“I have another fantasy,” I say and slowly pull the bow holding her hair. Only. “Huh. Your hair’s still up,” I say, disappointed.
She gives a short laugh. “It’s only a ribbon. It wouldn’t hold up my hair. I have a hair tie beneath it.”
When she gently pushes, I fall back. She straddles me, and I forget all about the hair bow. But then she reaches up and pulls out the tie herself, and her cinnamon waves fall around her like a waterfall. Desire shoots through me at the sensuality of the gesture. At the mischief in her gaze. At this girl, with her hair ribbons and days-of-the-week underwear.
