Page 40 of The Naughty List
“You okay, Jonah? You’re quiet.”
I look directly into her wide, melted chocolate eyes. Mistake.
She smells so fucking good. Even better than the cookies baking in my oven. The mix of vanilla and sugar swirling in the air reminding me of a hot fudge sundae with whipped cream and a cherry on top.
I want to devour every inch of her. Twice.
“I’m good,” I lie.
“We need some music. Christmas music,” she declares, reaching for her phone.
“Hang on,” I tell her, seeking out my remote for the sound system. Within a few moments, Bing Crosby is serenading us with his rendition ofWhite Christmas.
After the cookies have baked and cooled, we fall into an assembly line process of decorating them. Once we finish, we return to constructing the houses.
She holds the walls, I glue the seams. She blows gently on the icing, pursing those full lips together and driving me mad. She holds the rooftops at an angle, I glue the middle, there’s more blowing and I’m lightheaded by the time we get all dozen of the houses built.
“Now for the fun part,” Hollis declares, waving a new bag full of red icing at me. “Decorating!”
She’s actually excited about this. “Sometimes I seriously wonder about what constitutes your idea of fun,” I tease.
“Don’t knock it till you try it,” she says while grabbing a tray she’s filled with what looks like a dozen different varieties of candy.
“Pipe me some stripes on this roof, please,” she says, bending over my kitchen bar to reach the first house we finished.
I wish I still drank.
I could sure as hell use a distracting burn down my throat about now.
I nod. “You got it, boss.”
Hollis’s mouth spreads wide, displaying her perfectly straight gleaming white teeth. “I like the sound of that.”
“Don’t get used to it,” I grumble, following orders and piping stripes across rooftops.
When she gets preoccupied placing candies and whatever the hell else, I get a jump on striping more rooftops. When she sees that I’ve iced them all, Hollis inahles sharply.
“Oh, Jonah.” She reaches out and touches one of them.
The icing is too stiff and dry for her candies to stick.
“Oh hell. My bad.” I feel like a jackass. I thought she’d be happy that I took the initiative. But like always, I fucked it up. “I’m sorry, Hollis. I didn’t even think about how fast it would dry.”
Instead of being pissed, she smiles sweetly at me. “It’s okay. We’ll just get them a little wet. They’ll soften right back up.”
If she’d never saidwet,I might’ve been okay.
She runs some water and I watch as she swipes her fingers beneath the stream. She touches the icing gently, and she’s right. It softens and her sprinkles stick.
Relief turns the tension in my chest loose. I didn’t completely ruin her project. Thank fuck.
I continue to watch her, participating when she tells me to. Placing globs of icing here and there, holding gum drops in place until they’re steady.
Apparently pleasing her does it for me. Each time she smiles, the way her eyes shine when she steps back to appraise our residential construction efforts, how she practically bounces on her toes with joy when we complete a house.
As much as I try to convince myself otherwise, I want her. Badly.
Tonight.
