Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Asher
The last few days have been a blur of incredible sex interspersed with maintaining our fake relationship charade around town and helping my father with things around his house. If I thought sleeping with Kat once would get her out of my system, I was dead fucking wrong.
If anything, finally letting the tension between us break has made me completely addicted to her.
Making her come has become my favorite obsession.
The way she arches beneath me, the little sounds she makes when I hit that perfect spot, how she responds to everything I do to her—it’s like she was made for me.
Every time I think I’ve memorized every inch of her body, every way to make her fall apart, she surprises me with something new.
A new sound, a new reaction, something that drives me even more crazy.
It’s not just the sex that’s got me in a better mood than I’ve been in for months, if I’m being honest.
It’s her.
I like her. I like spending time with her, bantering with her and making her laugh, seeing what gets her excited and what makes her purse her lips in that way she does when she’s thinking hard about something.
I like learning the little things about her that collectively add up to a mesmerizing whole.
This morning when I was getting ready to leave for Edward’s place, I noticed she was out of that caramel creamer she loves.
She looked cute as hell, standing at the counter staring into the fridge with a disappointed expression as if it had personally betrayed her.
But the sight of that small deflation in her shoulders and the realization that her morning hadn’t started off with one of her favorite things put me on a mission today.
On my way back from helping my father out around the house, I did a bit of searching and picked her up a new bottle. It might be too late for her to enjoy it today, but at least I know she’ll have it tomorrow.
Afternoon sun glints off the snow as I pull into the driveway, grocery bags in the passenger seat. I glance toward the front windows of the cabin, and just knowing that Kat is inside somewhere makes my pulse kick up a few beats.
I grab the bags and let myself into the cabin, calling out as I close the door behind me.
“Kat? I’m back.”
“In here!” Her voice comes from the living room.
I follow the sound and stop short in the arched doorway, taking in the scene before me.
She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the coffee table, surrounded by what looks like a craft store explosion.
Wrapping paper is spread across the floor like a festive battlefield, along with ribbon, scissors, tape dispensers, and what appears to be nearly a dozen Christmas gifts waiting to be wrapped.
She looks up at me with a slightly frazzled expression, her hair escaping from the messy bun she’s tried to contain it in.
There are faint smudges of what might be ink on her fingers, and her sweater, a soft cream-colored one that makes her skin glow, has somehow acquired a small piece of ribbon stuck to the sleeve.
“I may have gone a little overboard with my wrapping aspirations,” she admits, gesturing to the chaos surrounding her. “It’s gotten a little… out of control.”
The sight of her like this makes an unexpected emotion throb in my chest—something that feels uncomfortably close to the kind of protective affection I’ve spent years avoiding.
“I can see that.”
I set the grocery bags on the kitchen counter and pull out the caramel creamer.
Kat glances over through the large doorway connecting the kitchen and living room, and her jaw drops at the sight of it.
The tired frustration melts away, replaced by a level of excitement that’s honestly fucking adorable.
“Oh my god, I just ran out of that!” She scrambles to her feet, navigating through the wrapping paper minefield to reach me. “You got me more? How did you even find it? There’s only one store in town that has it!”
“Got lucky, I guess. I made a quick stop on the way home.” I shrug, deciding not to tell her that it was actually three quick stops to find the exact brand I know she likes.
She wraps her arms around me in a hug, catching me off guard. Her body is warm and soft against mine, fitting against my chest like she was designed to be there. She smells like almond and cinnamon, sweetness and spice, and when she pulls back to look up at me, her eyes are luminous.
Fucking hell. I’d drive to ten different stores in three different states to find that specific creamer if it would always make her smile like this.
“Thank you.” She shakes her head, looking amazed. “Really. That’s incredibly sweet of you.”
“Don’t mention it.” I clear my throat, then gesture with my chin toward the chaos in the living room. “Looks like you could use some help with all this.”
She glances back at the wrapping paper disaster zone and laughs self-deprecatingly. “Oh… yeah. That would be amazing if you don’t mind. I’m usually good at staying organized when I wrap stuff, but I got over-ambitious this year. I might have bought too many gifts.”
“Is there such a thing as too many gifts?”
“Not according to Megan and Oscar.” She grins. “Most of this stuff is for them. I’m their only aunt, so it’s my duty to spoil them.”
I laugh and quickly put away the rest of the groceries, then follow her into the living room, shrugging out of my jacket and tossing it over the back of the couch.
Settling on the floor across from her, I pick up a small rectangular box and a sheet of red paper covered in tiny Christmas trees. How hard can gift wrapping be? I’ve wrapped hockey sticks for equipment donations and handled delicate plays under pressure.
“This should be easy,” I say confidently, holding them up a little.
Famous last words.
If my hockey career ends, I definitely won’t be able to fall back on a job gift wrapping at Macy’s, because even though it takes me over ten minutes to wrap the damn thing, it looks like a fucking abomination.
The paper is wrinkled and bunched in places, the corners look like they’ve been through a blender, and I’ve somehow managed to use approximately half a roll of tape on one small box.
Hell, there’s more tape on my fingers than on the actual present.
Kat, meanwhile, has wrapped three gifts in the time it’s taken me to butcher one.
Despite the mess around her, her packages look like they belong in a magazine spread, with perfect corners, elegant ribbon work, and the kind of attention to detail that would get her promoted to head gift-wrapper at Macy’s.
“Uh…” I hold my attempt at a gift-wrapped package up, peeling some of the tape off my fingers.
“Oh!” She makes a face as if she’s trying not to laugh at my disaster. “Wow. Hm, maybe we should split this differently.”
“I can figure it out,” I say stubbornly, reaching for yet another piece of tape—as if that will fix this.
“I’m sure you can. Eventually. But at this rate, it’ll be Easter before we finish.
” She scoots around the coffee table until she’s sitting beside me, close enough that our shoulders brush.
The contact sends heat through my entire arm, making it hard to concentrate on anything except how fucking good she smells.
“First rule of gift wrapping,” she says in a mock-serious tone that makes me huff a laugh despite my frustration. “Measure twice, cut once.”
“I measured.”
“You measured with your eyes. That doesn’t count.” She reaches for the scissors and a fresh sheet of paper. “Watch and learn, hockey boy.”
I smirk at the nickname, but I do pay attention to what she’s doing.
Her hands move with the grace and confidence of a professional artist, measuring the paper against the box, cutting clean lines, folding edges with surgical accuracy.
I try to focus on her technique, to learn whatever magic she’s employing, but I keep getting distracted by other things.
The way her tongue darts out slightly when she’s concentrating.
How delicate her fingers look as they curl a ribbon.
The soft sound she makes when she’s pleased with a particularly perfect corner, a little hum of satisfaction that reminds me of entirely different circumstances.
“Your turn,” she says once she’s finished her demonstration, handing me another box. “And this time, let me help.”
She guides my hands as I position the paper, her fingers warm where they overlap mine. When I start to fold a corner wrong, she covers my hands with hers to correct the movement, shaking her head and grinning.
“Like this,” she murmurs, and her breath tickles across my neck, raising goosebumps along my skin.
The innocent contact shouldn’t affect me the way it does, especially given everything we’ve done together over the past few days, but every brush of her skin against mine sends electricity through my system.
When she leans closer to help me with the ribbon, I catch another hint of her almond and cinnamon scent and have to resist the urge to take a fucking bite out of her.
“There,” she says as we finish the package together, smoothing down the final edge. “See? Much better.”
She’s right. It actually looks like a present instead of something that’s been mauled by a particularly destructive animal.
“You’re a good teacher,” I tell her with a wry smile.
“You’re a good student. When you’re not being stubborn about asking for help.” Her grin is teasing and affectionate.