“I was invited to stay out there,” he says. “And all I could think about was getting here. To see you. One smile from you in your mom’s bakery was worth the trip.”
I shake my head. “That’s what I mean. You have to stop saying stuff like that.”
“If I had a girlfriend, I wouldn’t say it.”
“Ican’t be your girlfriend. Even if I get jealous about gorgeous women named Sofia in New Mexico.”
“Then just be the woman that I eat Christmas cookies with and obsess over for the next few days.”
“Is that really enough?” I ask him.
“No. But if that’s all I can have, that’s what I’ll take.”
What am I supposed to say? I like him. I want him. I like that he wants me. Too much. And yes, I’m willing to buy this wholehe’s not really my boss right nowto make these quiet, intimate moments in the kitchen okay. “Okay,” I say softly.
“You didn’t ask me what eating Christmas cookies with me is like,” he says, his voice gruff, his gaze on my lips.
I smile. Probably because I hope what he’s going to say is going to be very dirty.
“What is eating Christmas cookies with you like, Everett?”
“Well… it gets kind of messy.”
“I’m not very good at messy,” I admit. I’m really fucking trying to avoid it, in fact.
“Me either. That’s why this is such a good idea. We could probably both use a littlestickinessin our lives.”
Oh my God. He’s kind of a dork, but Ireallylike him. And I really want to get sticky with him.
I reach over and grab a Santa face cookie. I swipe a finger through his white beard, then paint it over my lower lip. “Like this?” I ask.
He leans in and licks the frosting off my lower lip. I make a little moaning sound.
I lean back. “Kind of. But notexactlywhat I was thinking.”
One of the things I love best is his bluntness, so I say, “Tell me what you were thinking.”
“Ginger, you will make me the happiest man on this planet if you let me lick buttercream frosting off of your nipples.”
See? Never fails. I think my entire body clenched with that one.
Then I don’t say anything, but I set the cookie down. I reach up and unzip the hooded sweatshirt I’m wearing.
I was ready to gorge myself on cookies and milk and then read a naughty romance until I fell asleep, trying not to think about Everett and Sofia, so I am only wearing a thin camisole and my sleep pants.
Everett watches as the zipper parts. My nipples are already pressing, obviously, against the cami.
“Where are your parents?”
The fact that we’re in my childhood home makes all of this even naughtier, and I love it. “Fast asleep upstairs.”
Everett reaches over and picks up the cookie I just set down. “I think your brother and Margot are going to be busy for a while.”
That means we have the house to ourselves, sort of.
I boost myself up on the counter so that I am at a better level for…things to come. Everett’s eyes heat. Then I shrug out of my sweatshirt and pull the camisole up.
He growls.
