Things I Need to Google Before Date #2 （Like Do Bikers Count Heavy Makeouts as Foreplayas Patience）
Today can be neatly divided into two categories:
Times I thought I was keeping it together.
Times I very much was not.
Spoiler alert: Category Two won.
Case in point: waking up in my bed with Jake underneath me. Literally. I was on top of him. Limbs everywhere like I’d tried to win gold in the human octopus event.
At some point in the night, I’d spread myself across his chest, my cheek pressed against warm muscle, an arm and leg hooked over him like I had ownership rights.
My oversized sleep shirt had ridden up to reveal way more skin than I’d ever intended, and my very traitorous boobs and ass had clearly decided modesty was optional.
I was mid-dream when I felt him shift beneath me, a low grunt vibrating through his chest. My eyes blinked open, confused, only to find his face an inch from mine. His jaw was tight, his gaze burning the ceiling.
“Eden.” His voice was thick and restrained, as if every syllable cost him. “Darlin’, I need you to move.”
My brain immediately went into panic mode. “Oh my God, am I crushing you? Did I cut off your circulation? Are you dying?”
His lips twitched as he looked at me. “Not dying. But you’re makin’ it real hard to stay a gentleman right now.”
That’s when I registered what he was actually saying. I promptly tried to roll off him in the smoothest, most casual way possible...which, of course, meant I got tangled in the sheets, kneed him in the thigh, and flashed him a boob in the process.
Kill me now. Delete me from existence. Reboot the universe.
By the time I finally collapsed in a mortified heap on the other side of the bed, my face was on fire. “I swear I don’t usually assault people in my sleep.”
Jake turned his head, meeting my eyes with that devastating grin. “Good to know. But for the record—” his gaze dragged deliberately over me before returning to my face— “I didn’t mind.”
My ovaries promptly set themselves on fire too.
Jake didn’t miss a beat of it. That was clear from the way his eyes crinkled with amusement. He rolled onto his side and threaded his fingers into my hair. “I liked sleeping next to you,” he said right before bringing his mouth to mine.
Abort. Abort. ABORT.
My brain was flashing red warning lights like a system meltdown, and all I could think about was the very real, very unsexy fact that I hadn’t brushed my teeth yet.
His mouth was right there. Centimetres away. About to kiss me. And all I could picture was him pulling back mid-kiss, gagging like I’d just fed him expired milk.
“Wait!” My palm smacked against his chest, hard enough to startle him. “No.”
He stilled, eyes narrowing slightly, his fingers still tangled in my hair. “No?”
“No, I mean yes, but not like this,” I blurted, already flailing to extricate myself. “I have to brush my teeth first.”
The look in his eyes told me he had zero intention of changing his plans. “I don’t give a fuck about morning breath.”
“Well, I do!” I squeaked, pressing harder against his chest. “Seriously, I need a minute to become a human being again before you come near me.”
“I’ve been lying here watching you sleep on me, thinking how good you feel pressed against me. You think a little morning breath is gonna scare me off?”
“Oh my god, I was probably snoring.”
“You were.” He grinned. “It was cute as hell.”
I let out a pained noise. “Kill me now.”
“Not happening.” He loosened his hold on me. “I like learning these things about you. How you steal all the covers, and how you make these little humming sounds when you’re dreaming, and how you apparently think morning breath is more dangerous than anything else I might have to face in life.”
“Jake—”
He jerked his chin at me. “We’ll brush our teeth if it’ll make you feel better. But I’m telling you right now, it won’t change how much I want to kiss you.”
I stared at him, realising that he really, truly didn’t care. That he was looking at me like he couldn’t get enough of me, even with my questionable breath and messy morning hair.
Then, he was moving off the bed and heading into the bathroom.
And I was left thinking about the fact I’d never dated a guy like him.
A guy who didn’t make me feel dumb because of the little things that were important to me.
My brain was absolutely going to over-analyse that data point on a loop for the rest of the day.
I followed Jake into the bathroom and grabbed my toothbrush. His eyes met mine in the mirror as I stood next to him, and he gave me a sexy smile around the pink toothbrush he was using. Honestly, only this guy could make brushing teeth together sexy.
When he finished, he moved behind me. Heat radiated from his body as he stepped in close. His hands came to my hips, firm and intent, and I nearly swallowed my toothpaste.
His mouth brushed my ear, sending a shiver through me. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured, his voice nothing but gravel that settled deep in me.
Was he blind? My hair was doing things I didn’t even have vocabulary for. It was less “messy chic” and more “wild crow nesting in despair.” Beautiful was not a word I’d use, but I took the compliment and filed it under “sweet lies I choose to believe.”
Bending, I rinsed and finished up. Jake kept his hands on my hips and when I straightened, he turned me to face him. My back hit the bathroom counter as his hands came up to frame my face.
“Much better,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to my mouth. “Now I can do this.”
My brain lagged two beats behind his words, then caught up just in time for his mouth to claim mine.
Mint. Heat. Him.
His kiss started gentle, lips brushing mine softly. The second I leaned into him though, he abandoned gentle like it had been a terrible idea all along. His mouth claimed mine, hot and hungry, and holy god yes okay right yes please keep going, my willpower has left the chat, DO NOT STOP.
I grabbed his shirt because I needed something to hold on to, and apparently that was the signal for him to lose every scrap of gentleman restraint he had.
His hand fisted in my hair, tilting me exactly how he wanted, while the other locked on my waist, anchoring me against him.
Possessive. Rough. Unapologetic. My entire body responded like it had been waiting for this exact programming update.
When I moaned, he groaned like I’d just gifted him life itself. His hips pressed into mine, and oh. Oh. There was no mistaking the hard length straining against his boxer briefs. Every nerve ending I owned lit up like they’d just been wired directly into him.
His hands slid beneath my sleep shirt, hot palms skimming over bare skin with zero hesitation.
Greedy and thorough. When his hand closed around my breast, I gasped and arched like a shameless offering, and my brain wrote a new law on the spot: every woman deserves to be manhandled like this at least once.
He pinched, kneaded, circled, and my hips betrayed me completely, rolling into him with reckless hunger.
His mouth swallowed every sound I made. And then he hoisted me onto the counter like I weighed nothing, spreading my thighs so he could step between them, and oh god, the new angle.
The feel of him against my core. A shameless sound broke from both of us in perfect harmony like some kind of unholy sex duet.
His grip on my ass tightened, pulling me into him with the kind of big-dick energy that came with a hazard rating, grinding us together until my head tipped back and stars exploded across the inside of my eyelids.
My fingers tangled in his hair, pulling, desperate for more. He kissed me with everything—mouth, tongue, body, soul—and my brain was just screaming moremoremore .
When he finally tore his mouth from mine, we were both breathless, foreheads pressed together. His voice was shredded when he rasped, “Fuck, darlin’, you’ve got no idea what you do to me.”
I opened my mouth but nothing came out. All I had was the taste of him on my lips and the ache of wanting more.
Jake chuckled, low and sinful, raking a hand through his already-wrecked hair. He looked torn between choices. Exhaling hard, he muttered, “We need coffee.”
Coffee??? My body was literally chanting dick like a Gregorian monk and this man said coffee .
“Sweetheart, I’m seconds away from bending you over this counter and not stopping. And I don’t wanna rush this.”
And just like that, he left me sitting on a bathroom counter, pulse scrambled, thighs trembling, trying not to scream: sir, I would like to rush .
I slid off the counter on legs that were one hard blink away from collapsing. Jake grabbed his jeans on the way to the kitchen and followed me out. Meanwhile, I was busy trying to return myself to the functional adult I was supposed to be.
I made him coffee while he rested his ass against my kitchen counter and watched. Having his eyes so focused on me caused my intelligence to forget it was even a thing.
First, I tried to pour milk into my coffee machine’s water tank.
Then, I nearly scooped sugar into the grinder.
My entire system was malfunctioning under the weight of Jake watching me like I was the main event instead of a girl in sleep shorts making bad life choices before her first shot of caffeine for the day.
“Darlin’,” he drawled, amused, “are you always this dangerous around appliances?”
“I swear I’m usually better at this,” I muttered. “Feel free to take over.”
He didn’t move. Just leaned harder into my counter, arms crossed, eyes fixed on me with that kind of lazy dominance that somehow made me clumsier.
“Not a chance,” he said. “I like watching.”
“You’re not exactly helping.” Heat flared everywhere in my body when I looked at him and found his eyes glued to my ass.
“I am helping.” He met my gaze and gave me a sexy smirk. “Just not in the way you think. You look good flustered.”