“Getting organized.” He pulled the top sheet and quilt back and guided her to lie down before covering her back up. He fussed a bit until she was fully covered all the way up to her chin.
“Wow, you got some real sexy moves here, Branksome.”
“Hush.” He added the two unicorn duvets to the top. He was trying to make sure she stayed warm, building her a nest. It was one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for her.
He lifted the covers from the bottom and started shimmying headfirst under them.
“What are you—Oh.Oh.”
He answered her incomplete question just before his mouth made contact with her center. “Concerted.”
She had half a mind to object, but why? She sucked in a breath as he used one hand to part her folds and lowered his mouth again, letting his tongue slide against the tender flesh. As pleasure started gathering—efficiently, she had to admit—between her legs, she told herself to shut up. She was under a pile of warm covers in the perfect lakeside cabin with Jack Branksome’s head between her legs. She had asked for concerted, and she was getting concerted. She smiled and let herself go.
“Can we have a fire again?” Blair asked a while later, after their second go-round and some dozing. “It seems like it’s getting dark.” She reached for her phone out of habit, to check the time, but of course she had no phone up here in the loft. She didn’t need one. It was strange but great.
“Mmmph.” Jack disengaged himself from her and stuck an arm and a leg outside of their toasty nest. “No. All that water I poured over the fire yesterday means the ground is wet. But I have something better.”
“I don’t know if I can get out of this warm cocoon if there isn’t fire.”
“Trust me.”
She did, a fact she no longer even found surprising, so she got out of bed and bundled up as well as she could. He made tea, and they took it outside to the dock. He laid out a couple of beach towels, and she sat, taking care to leave a bit of space between them.
These were the awkward moments with Jack. Not awkward between them—they seemed to have achieved a new level of ease with each other in pretty much all circumstances—but uncomfortable forher. She could deal with expressions of lust, like the hand on the thigh in the car. She could deal with expressions of care, even, as with the pile of blankets earlier. She and Jack were friends, after all, even if their friendship was unlikely and hard-won. She cared about him as a person, independent of the fact that she was sleeping with him, and she suspected he felt the same, even if he didn’t want to.
What she didn’t know was how to be with him when they weren’t having sex. Or sitting around talking about books—and life. They talked well. And, it turned out, they had sex well.
It was the in-between moments that tripped her up.
She told herself to be cool. She was in a good place, metaphorically but also literally. It was another gorgeous night, perfumed by that elusive lakey-ness—she agreed with Jack thatlakey, whileinsufficient, was better thanearthy. It was windy, so the lapping of the waves against the shore and the dock was louder than she’d heard before. This was the kind of noise people paid to get via apps and sound machines.
She tipped her head up. It was partly cloudy, so the stars were blinking in and out of view. The clouds were moving fast. She followed one with her gaze as it slid across the sky, and…
Oh.
Oh my God.
A green light, shining dimly but steadily, almost directly across the lake.
“Look!” She pointed. “Was that light there last night?”
“No.”
“Did you put that light there?” Hearing the answer, which she already knew, was going to be the end of her.
“I did.”
She started crying.
“Oh shit.” Jack moved closer to her. “I thought you’d like it.”
She waved a hand back and forth in front of her face. “I do like it.” She cleared her throat in the hopes of sounding less squeaky. “I love it. I think it’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.” The nicest thing anyone had ever done for her. She’d had a similar thought earlier with the pile of blankets. Jack turned out to be really good at the nicest things.
Seeming to relax, he settled an arm around her shoulder, and they gazed out across the lake. So much for not touching in the in-between times. “What did it mean, do you think?” he asked. “The light across the lake?”
“InGatsbyorGreen Light?”
“Either. Both.”
