CHAPTER FOURTEEN #2
Jake slides his arm out from under me to prop up on his elbow. He trails a fingertip across my neck, down to my collarbone. “I’ve marked you. I’m sorry.”
I smile, running a finger of my own along the love bite I left on his bicep. “Looks like I did the same. I’m sorry.”
Jake drops a tender kiss against my tangled hair.
Then he gets up and walks completely nude to the kitchen.
I watch him go, taking in the firm planes of his shoulders and his back.
Even his legs are beautiful. He grabs two champagne flutes in one hand, filling them with water so cold it frosts the outside of the glass.
He hands one to me and sets the other on the bedside table. “Be right back,” he says.
From the bathroom, I hear running water.
Jake is back after a moment wearing a towel around his waist. He carries a damp washcloth and another one of his enormous plush towels.
He climbs onto the bed again, inching towards me on his knees.
Then he looks me in the eyes and crooks a finger in a “come here” gesture.
I set my water aside and sit forward, and he bundles me into the big towel.
It’s lusciously warm from the heated rack in the bathroom.
Jake sits beside me, tracing the warm washcloth along my neck, my collarbones.
He gently pushes me back against the pillows again, and he somehow manages to make the ritual sensual, letting the cloth drift between my breasts, down the center of my belly, across my hipbones.
It’s chilled from the air by the time he tenderly uses it on my inner thighs, making me shudder. Jake chuckles. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” My voice is shaky. This feels distinctly more intimate than the sex we just had, and I’m having a hard time making sense of it. I do know, though—this thing with Jake has gone way beyond attraction for me. This is attachment.
I am falling in love with this man.
When he finishes, he pulls me upright between his legs to begin working on my braid. “This OK?” he says, easing the strands apart. My head lolls to the side. It feels better than OK. It’s hypnotic.
Jake manages my tangles faster than I’ve ever been able to myself.
Once my hair is loose, he draws me against his chest and we lie back, watching lights from the city flicker and shift on the wall across from the window.
It’s so quiet, I can hear Jake’s heartbeat against my ear.
I’ve never felt so held, and it goes far deeper than his arms around me.
We’re quiet for a long time. Jake makes tiny, languid swirls against my shoulder with the tips of his fingers. After a while, he says, “When’s your birthday?”
I chuckle and prop my chin on my hand against his chest. “Why? Are you going to consult the zodiac?”
He looks down at me through lowered lashes. “What if I say yes?”
“You don’t strike me as the type.”
“I’m not, really. One of my sisters is into it. I think I picked some up secondhand from her.”
“One mudlark, one astrologer? Your family sounds lovely.”
“They are, truly. You didn’t answer my question, though.”
My smile fades. “Would you believe it if I said Christmas Day?”
Jake sits up. “Actually, yes. I would. It would explain a lot.”
“About why I don’t like Christmas, you mean?” I turn to face him. “That’s a common misconception. Not all Christmas babies hate Christmas because they have to share their birthday.”
“Are you saying your Scroogery has nothing to do with it?”
“Well, maybe, when I was little. As I got older, though? I don’t mind so much. Having my birthday and Christmas on the same day means there’s just one day for my family to disappoint me instead of two separate ones.”
“Jesus, Evie.” Jake pulls me close, and we rock for a while.
“So when’s your birthday?” I ask.
“I’m a summer baby, actually. July first.”
I nod like I understand the significance of being born on 1 July, but I break down in giggles. “I’m sorry, I know absolutely nothing about astrology.”
Jake laughs with me. “I think Capricorn and Cancer are quite compatible signs.” After a beat, he says, “Maybe we can ask my sister.”
“Ah, yes, of course.” I nod. “Right after your other sister takes me mudlarking.”
Jake is quiet for a while. What he says next knocks the wind right out of me. “Spend Christmas in the Cotswolds with me and my family. I’m due to be there on the twenty-third. That’s in three days.”
When I first arrived in London and learned Maddie wouldn’t be coming, my biggest concern was how I could possibly fill an entire month alone in a city I knew nothing about.
Christmas itself seemed an eternity away.
As I’ve spent more time with Jake and Christmas has crept closer, I’ve assumed he’d either leave to spend the holiday with family, or he’d spend it here in London with me.
He’s mentioned how close he is to his family, so the latter seemed much less likely.
I never imagined a third possibility, where I might go with him.
Every time I try to pull back on the reins of whatever is happening here, Jake says or does something that makes me want to gallop towards it that much faster.
Being with him like this feels a bit more right every day, but I have to remind myself that feelings don’t manifest reality.
The more meaningful our connection becomes, the harder it is to ignore the actual reality that I’m leaving in nine days.
Jake going to spend Christmas outside London could be a tidy, natural conclusion to whatever we’ve started here—he’d have his family close, and I could walk away from this on a high, taking home a beautiful mosaic of memories of a man who never let me down. Permanently perfect.
I’m a coward, I guess? Am I so afraid of losing this, I’m not even going to try having it?
“I need a beat, Jake. Can I have a day to think about it?”
He raises my hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to the center of my palm. “Of course. You know how to find me. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”
* * *
Four days to Christmas
I spend the next day alone, wandering a few of the places Jake has taken me.
I get a sausage roll in Borough Market, and I pick up a copy of Burgess Selby’s new release at the bookstore on Cecil Court.
They’re selling tarot decks by the till, so I pick up one of those, too, even though I have no idea how to do a reading.
I spend an hour or so at Grey Earl’s to give Cherry and Quinn the enamel pins I bought for them at Southbank Market, and they immediately pin them to their aprons above their nametags.
I linger for a while, sitting at Jake’s table in the window, reading I Capture the Castle.
I’m painfully aware of the fact that I’m the one who asked him for this space today, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope to see him come through the door every time I heard the tiny bell ring.
Quinn approaches me at the table at the end of their shift. They take the seat across from me. “What is it, love?”
“Jake asked me to come spend Christmas with him and his family in the Cotswolds.”
Quinn leans back in the chair. “That monster.”
“Ha, ha,” I say. “This is going to ruin me when I have to leave.”
“Listen. Because it might hurt in the future is a poor excuse to not do a thing. There’s always going to be something that hurts you.
Might as well go for the happiness while it’s there for the taking.
” Quinn squeezes my hand across the table.
“My partner is French, did you know that? We throw a little festive do for expats, so they don’t have to be alone on Christmas Day.
You’re welcome to come if you decide not to go with Jake, OK? ”
Sudden tears burn my eyes. “OK.”
Cherry comes over, dragging a chair from another table. “I was listening, because of course I was.” She takes my other hand. “What I always say is—go with your gut. But if you don’t like what your gut is telling you, nothing wrong with getting a second opinion from your heart.”
I’ve got seven full days left in my trip. I don’t want to spend another moment apart from Jake.