Page 18 of Her Holiday Heartthrobs

“I don’t need?—”

“You can hardly stand. We’ll escort you up.”Mmm, I like that authoritative tone, especially when his pupils are blown like that. Especially when he’s looking at me.

I nod. It’s all I can manage.

“Ready?” Henry draws my attention back to him.

“I will be once you let my feet find purchase.” That earns me a half smile, and Henry releases me enough that I have somewhat stable footing. His arm braces under mine, and Jake’s appears under the other. “I have to admit. I feel a bit like Dorothy right now.”

Hanging on the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man. Dad would get a hoot out of that if he wouldn’t be stark raving mad about me referring to his friends that way. My bosses.

That’s enough to allow the chill from the mist and wind to finally penetrate. I shiver, and that prompts the two of them to usher me forward and out of the weather. The lobby of my apartment building isn’t grand, but it does have character with its warm tile flooring in red, orange, blue, and cream, matching red walls and copper mailboxes. The squat set of chairs by the front windows make for a great reading spot in the mornings.

Not that I’ve ever sat there. Being a single mother and all. But in another life, I’d be more than happy to curl up in just this spot with a book.

We hover by the stairs, and I nod to them. “Third floor.”

The first couple of steps are awkward until I get used to being practically carried up the first flight of stairs. By the second flight, I have a bit more control, the blood pumping back in the appropriate places.

Once we make it to my floor, I’m pulling free of their grasp. “Alright, boys, I think I’ve got myself now.”

Still, they follow me down the hall and around the corner to my apartment: 307. When I pause by my door and reach for my briefcase, Henry is examining my door like he can see through it.

Jake’s fingers brush mine, and the same curiosity brightens his green eyes.

“Stop lingering. I’ve made it. Shoo.”

“Shoo?” Henry’s brow lifts.

Extracting my keys, I cross my arms. “Boundaries. I think we’ve smeared the lines quite enough for one night.”

Nostrils flaring, Jake stares at my mouth for a few long seconds. Henry clears his throat and nods.

“Thank you for the ride home.” I purposefully wait until they’re moving down the hall before I slide my key in the lock. When they’re at the corner, my son squeals inside.

I slip inside quickly, and his high-pitched giggle is the perfect welcome home.

JAKE

Fuck. I wipe a hand down my face, sinking back into the leather and groaning as Henry shuts the car door.

Having Paige pressed against me, the heat of her body, the lushness of her hips, the delicate slant of her waist and ribs…complete torture the entire time. The way she just let me pull her over to us—not limp but not resisting. How she teased me, knowingly, while in that position.

I had to keep my damn tablet in my lap to hide my hard-on. Any little shift on her part, and she would have found it.

Part of me wishes she would have. Found it. Gone searching for it. Let me yank her fully into my lap so that I could grind into her ass. The caveman in me surfaces when she’s close, and the burn is scarcely dampened by guilt.

So many layers of guilt.

Her sweet scent lingers in the car, part the perfume she wore this morning, part her natural scent, and part her arousal. My hard-on flares back to life as the car pulls into traffic. The soft slush of the tires in the silence mimics my elevated heartbeat.

I have to stop this. It can’t be born. For too many reasons. If only listing to them would make my body settle down. But I’vealready been trying that method for the last thirty-six hours, and it hasn’t worked yet.

“That was…intense,” I say to break the stifling silence.

Henry shifts, straightening and uncomfortable. “I didn’t know she got carsick.”

“That’s not what I’m referring to, and you know it.” I saw his hand on her knee, the way he watched her. How it held the same intensity I felt.

---