“Yep!” Hopping out of bed and heading for the bathroom, he took a moment to compose himself.Slow, he instructed his reflection.Cool.No moreOh my God. No moreYep.
He did a passable job, he thought, on implementation. He came back sheathed, and they kissed again. She writhed some more. He bit his tongue until he remembered he could use his tongue in other ways. He got to work on one nipple, and, impressed by the sounds she was making, pulled her onto his lap as she’d been before, except this time there were no pants involved on either side. No pants whatsoever. She slid down on him and he couldn’t help it.
“Oh God.”
“What time do you usually go to sleep?”
Blair woke Jack with the question, which was his first postcoital surprise. He tended toward insomnia. “Around midnight, usually.” But here it was—he checked the clock on his nightstand—all often o’clock and he’d been dozing. Being flattened by pleasure would do that.
“We are temporally incompatible,” Blair said.
“Did you say ‘temporally’ as in time or ‘temperately’ as in temperature?” His brain hadn’t fully geared up.
He eyed her. He was sprawled on his side facing her, but she was sitting up, her back against his headboard. She’d put her pajamas back on, which was disappointing, though he didn’t know why. He was sufficiently flattened that he wasn’t sure if he was up for a repeat performance. But he didn’t want to be done with the evening yet.
“I said ‘temporally,’ but I think both are true.” She pressed the sole of a foot against his calf. It wasn’t as cold as earlier, but it was distinctly cool.
“Good Lord. Even after all that?”
“Why are you always so warm?”
He thought back to the night she’d invited him to come to California.
Jack’s second postcoital surprise was what he was about to tell her. “This past fall, when we were first texting, the condo was cold. I was cold.”
“Do they not turn the heat on in the building until some arbitrary date?”
“No, no, that would be me.Idon’t turn the heat on until some arbitrary date.”
“And what date would that be?”
“As late as possible.”
She was looking at him like he was a puzzle. “Did you think heat would make you soft?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I must have. Though it was more that it just didn’t jibe with the way I saw myself.”
“So instead of turning up the heat in your house, you moved your body to a hot place.”
“Apparently. Isn’t that stupid?”
“Nah. It makes a certain kind of sense.” She smiled. “Especially if you’re the kind of person who likes to make life difficult for yourself.”
Maybe she hadn’t been looking at him like he was a puzzle. It certainly seemed like she had him thoroughly figured out. “Here’s what I’m trying to say, though. I don’t think it was just literal heat. I don’t think it was just about heating my body up. I think it was you.”
Her eyes danced. “I am known to be rather attractive.”
“No—”
“Well, thank you very much.”
“Will you let me talk, woman? I’m trying to emote here!” Why, though? He had no idea.
“Yikes, yes, of course.”
“I think I accepted your invitation because some inner part of me knew that you’d get me unstuck. That—if we’re still dealing in overly heavy-handed metaphors—it wasn’t coldness so much as it was stuckness. Which isn’t a word.”
“Stagnation,” she said.
