Page 18 of His Until Christmas

So is this.

I go up on tiptoes in a way I always thought was only acting. Itdidfeel fake every other time I tried it, and believe me, I put in plenty of practice. But I guess disappointment is what you getfrom having cinematic expectations of people who aren’t even close to hero material, unlike Reece.

He can’t have seen the same scenes play out as often on a TV screen as me. Reece goes off script, and I like that even better when he lets me go but doesn’t back off. He pauses, and it takes a moment to register that he’s waiting for me to choose what next happens.

That’s so easy.

I climb him, and he huffs out the same kind of laugh as when I spun in a circle for him. He also hoists me higher, and I hook my legs around him as the study door swings closed behind us. Reece settles onto a sofa I’m pretty sure is hairy. I’m not about to fuss about dog dander like I would with Rex though. I’m way too busy straddling someone who will soon be above me.

Organisationally, I mean.

If I stay.

Plus, it’s too dark in here to notice dog hair or any stray glitter left between us, and I twine my arms around Reece’s neck to keep up this close contact.

Here we go again, making a perfect pair, only not via text message.

He holds me just as tightly, and our next kiss is as intense as I daydreamed all too often while cradling my phone in bed each morning.

Reece’s mouth slides on mine, deliberate and devastating. Our tongues touch again, and that’s all kinds of electric. So is his touch after getting my coat unfastened, and I regret wearing winter layers. He makes small inroads, battling through buttons to pull my shirt free from my suit trousers as he kisses his way along my jawline.

He also rumbles a question against my throat, I think.

I don’t need details. I go ahead and tilt my head back and groan out a roughyes,followed by anotherwhen he finds entry.

He slides warm hands up my torso. The breeze was icy on the way here. Now I melt, and I want so much more of this hot contact that I fight with his coat buttons. His sweatshirt is next. I shove it up and wish we’d stopped to turn on the study light so I could see if his chest hair is as golden as the rest of him.

My hands span where he’s so much broader than me, and it’s his turn to sound rough. He lets out a low rumble I feel everywhere we’re connected, and if I wasn’t already well on my way to hardening, that sound does it for me.

I need to know if he’s as affected.

I grind against him, and?—

“Jack.” His mouth pulls away from my throat, and despite this room’s dimness, I see myself reflected in the wide ink of his pupils, right down to the hat Rex gave me. I shake it off, my hair a disaster, but I can’t shake the fact that Reece looks as wrecked as I do. He’s as into this—intous—as I am. I also get to see what crosses his face when I rock down again, slower this time, and harder.

“F-fuck, Jack.”

I swear too, only at another kind of vibration.

This one comes from my phone, and Reece freezes like he did in the hallway, only now I’m on his lap and both of us have boners.

We’re also both in demand—his phone rings too.

I pull out mine first and see who’s calling. “Sebastian.”

Reece rumbles one last time, which I feel in all kinds of tingly places. “Patrick.”

I almost slipped on the marble floor tile in the hallway. Now I come down to earth with a real bump.

His brother.

My other bestie.

We both answer at the same time.

“Hello?”

Sebastian speaks fast over a backing track of restaurant noises. “Are you okay, Jack?” He spits more questions like bullets. “Do I need to send Pat to meet you? Did something happen to you on the Tube again?”