“Your boyfriend is quite the protective one,” she adds teasingly as she checks my IV. “He wouldn’t leave your side at all. The night nurse had to remind him quite sternly not to jostle you.”
Her assumption ought to make me scoff, but it doesn’t. It sets my heart racing anew. Flush creeps up my cheeks. “Oh, he’s not my boyfriend.”
“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“He’s my business partner.” I lick my sore lips, trying to sort through my thoughts. “He’s, um, sort of like a brother, except—well, obviously a brother wouldn’t kiss his sister like that, so we’re... well, we’re friends. Just... good friends. He really stayed in this room with me all night?”
Lola blinks.
I can’t seem to make myself shut up. “Sometimes I annoy him so much, I wouldn’t put it past him to feed me pineapple on purpose. Not that that’s what happened here. He didn’t try to poison me. If I died because someone intentionally fed me the thing I’m allergic to, would that be considered a poisoning?”
“You should rest a little more,” Lola says. She frowns. “Actually, let me take your temperature again.”
As she wraps up her examination, reassured that I’m not fever-babbling, Jack walks back into the room. He looks more alert than before, with a paper cup in hand.
“Coffee?” I say hopefully.
“No coffee for you yet,” Lola says, fixing us both with a stern look. “I’ll send a tray for you. Keep down some orange juice and then we’ll talk.”
As she leaves the room, Jack settles into the chair next to the bed. “I’d sneak you a sip, but I’m already on thin ice around here.”
“Lola mentioned something about that.”
“She seems nicer than the night nurse. That woman was about a hundred years old and made it clear she’s called security many times before.”
I snort, shaking my head. “You really could have gone back, you know.”
“No, Poppy.” He sets the coffee on the table, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. His voice has dropped an octave. “I couldn’t have.”
And with aching gentleness, his lips meet mine.
I freeze. My mind trips over itself. Jack Hartman, kissing me again. Considering the other things we’ve done together, this shouldn’t lend itself to any reaction at all. And yet my breath catches. I whimper as his hand slides into my hair. He’s undressed me, tasted me, filled me, and the mere brush of our mouths has me trembling. It’s erotic beyond belief. A kiss a thousand times more charged than the one he gave me in the kitchen. A kiss to end all other kisses. A kiss that promises even more than what he’s already given me.
I want it. I want it so badly, my soul aches.
Almost too late, I kiss back. He groans, low in his throat, spurred on by my clumsy reaction, and licks into my mouth. We’re devouring each other. His fingers tug my hair. I claw down his back, practically growling as I grab a fistful of his shirt. It’s a filthy thing to do in a place like this, and yet I can’t stop. When he tries to ease away, I cling tighter, a koala hanging on to her favorite tree branch. Jack is my eucalyptus tree.
“Poppy. Darling.” He untangles us gently. His face is flushed; I can tell even with his beard. “The heart monitor is going wild.”
I wish he’d kiss me again, but his face is pinched with worry. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Jack.”
“You’re exhausted.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.” I scratch my thumbnail over a tattoo on the back of his hand. A set of fangs, dripping blood. It’s right next to the delicate outline of a sunflower.
He leans in again, and I meet him halfway, eagerly awaiting more pressure, more friction. The heart monitor can explode for all I care; I’ve never craved a kiss more.
“I was so scared to lose you,” he whispers as his lips brush mine.
My brain short-circuits. Fireworks erupt in my belly. The whispered confession echoes again and again in time with my heart, which beats a frenzied tattoo against my ribs.
No one has said anything remotely like that to me, ever.
