Page 96 of Beg, Borrow, or Steal

He must feel me stir because we’re facing each other, and his eyes open slowly like mine. I smile at him, and he smiles at me, and we’re both obviously contemplating making what happened last night a double feature. That is, until a throat clears at the end of my bed.

I jolt upright, pulling my sheets to my collarbone while I glare at my sister, who is standing at the foot of my bed like an absolute creep. “Madison, what the hell?”

Madison’s smile looks like she should be holding a bloody pitchfork. “Are you my new brother?” she says to Jackson, delighting a little too much in being a menace.

I hurl my pillow at her and then rip Jack’s out from under him and catapult that one next. Maddie is cackling like a witch brewing something extra special in her cauldron as she scuttles out of the room. “I need you to take me to the airport in thirty minutes, though!” I’m out of bed and slamming the door behind her. Locking it. “Don’t dawdle, Emmy! I have a plane to catch and a big city to conquer. Also, nice to see you again, Jack!”

“Nice seeing you too, Madison!” he calls out from the bed, where I turn to find him looking like a sleepy, studious model. He’s clothed only in his tattoos and the drape of my sheet across his waist, propped lazily on his elbow, muscular shoulder sagging toward the mattress. He put on his glasses too. Good lord, this man. All loose-limbed with his hooded eyes and scruffy angles. This looks like a man who knows his way around a woman’s body—and let me tell you, I can confirm that he does.

Apparently while I’ve been standing here, he’s been having a moment about me too. “Shit, look at you.”

“Who, me?” I say with false modesty as I stand here in a sexy pink-and-white gingham-patterned sleep set. Right after we—ahem—finished up in the truck, Jack looked unsure of how things would go. Or more like willing to step back and let me set the pace for our new relationship. I’m so used to Jack fighting with me on who will call the shots that I nearly busted out laughing when I slid off the truck’s tailgate and he just sat there with his legs dangling off the back, his crooked, self-deprecating smile stealing my heart.

“Good night?” he asked, the question mark a strong punctuation.

I took his hand and guided him toward the front door. “You know what I think it’s time for, Jack?”

“I can think of several great options actually.”

“It’s time for you to be the first man to try out my incredible mattress.”

“I get to take your mattress’s virginity? This is an honor.”

And it was gratifying that he made so many moaning noises when he finally lay on it that I had to slap my hand over his mouth so Madison wouldn’t wake up and get the wrong idea.

But here he is now, lounging in my bed in the full light of morning, looking so attractive I could cry, because as rumor has it, he’s mine.

I’ve floated closer to the bed, and Jack reaches out, pinches the fabric at my navel, and tugs me even closer. “Come back to bed.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Why? I’m already out.”

“Because I’m still in.” His hand is skating up the back of my thigh and under the hem of my shorts.

“But…but…” My bones are melting. “I’ve gotta take Madison to the airport in thirty minutes. I’ve got stuff to do.” His hand glides completely up under my shorts and over the slope of my ass. I shove my fingers into his hair (blond today) and he looks up at me. Hands tender, eyes blazing.

“Just for a minute…come back to bed. I won’t let you stay too long.”

I can see it now, my future sprawling out in front of me where I have trouble saying no to Jackson ever again. We’re not going to be competing over a parking space because we’ll ride together. We’re going to be disgustingly cute.

I turn and sit on the edge of the mattress. Jack’s arms go around my middle, quickly flipping me up and over him until I’m facing the opposite wall. He curls in behind me as the big spoon with one arm under the pillow and curving up and over my chest. The otherwraps around my lower abdomen like a lazy python, curling and constricting in the most fantastic way.

When I’ve thought of snuggling, it’s always been something flippant and silly. A complete waste of time. But this. This is different. It’s as if Jack knows that my body needs pressure to rest. I’m wearing him like a parachute. And with the feel of his body intentionally holding on to me, mine relaxes. I point and flex my toes. I brush my fingertips up and down his inked forearm.

“Your fingernails drive me insane, have I ever told you that?” he says softly next to my ear.

“No, I don’t think you have.”

“They do. I don’t know what it is about that red, but I want to bite them.”

“That’s okay. I’ve decided I want to live inside your skin. Is that creepy?”

“A little, yeah,” he admits casually. “Can I offer you one of my sweaters instead?”

A giddy swirl hits my stomach. I have to kiss his arm. “Even better.” We lie here a minute before I realize something important. “Wait! You never told me what happened with your parents last night.”

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