Page 38 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas

The other man has intense eyes under a sulky brow, and a shock of dark hair tied in a knot at his nape. A few locks fall around his face, too short to stay in. He wears loose charcoal-gray pants and a cream linen button-down with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, one of them hanging looser than the other, like he couldn’t be bothered to check they were even.

Like Hammy, he gives Jake’s shoulder a collegial thump, but he’s not effusive beyond that. Jake gives him a firm, friendly handshake with a grip on his upper arm. “Appreciate the use of your humble abode yesterday evening,” Jake says. He turns to me. “Evie, this is Bowen.”

I feel like I’m meeting a celebrity, though the man is nothing like I’d imagined in my mind when we were at the atelier last night. The grandeur of the place conjured images of an eccentric aristocratic sort in a velvet smoking jacket. This man looks like he’d be right at home rolling contraband clove cigarettes outside an East Village speakeasy, barely able to make rent for the third month in a row.

“Did you enjoy the space?” Bowen says to me. He has one of the deepest voices I’ve ever heard. It seems mismatched to his lean frame.

“Stunning. My best friend Maddie is an artist, she’d …” I trail off. After his initial distracted greeting, Bowen’s attention drifts away. Jake puts a hand on my knee and gives me a quick, apologetic half-smile.

There’s no room for the trio to sit, so they crowd around us at our stools. Apparently, I’m the most fascinating thing Violet and Hammy have seen in ages. Bowen stands a bit behind them, giving Mr. Darcy at the Meryton Assembly vibes.

“Jake’s mint, Evie,” Hammy says. “His only fault is that he likes Liverpool.”

Violet says, “Should we tell her he cries sometimes when he’s hungover?”

I learn a few more fun tidbits about Jake, like the time he proposed in a text that they meet at the “pube” instead of the pub, and how he says “Excuse me” to Violet and Hammy’s dog when he visits their flat and has to move past it in close spaces. Eventually, they decide to move onto a different pub where they can actually sit down, so they say their goodbyes, welcome me once again to London, and wish us a happy Christmas. I loved them all. It’s a salty-sweet glimpse of what my life would be like if I really lived here.

* * *

Jake walks me back to Paperwhite. When we arrive, he stands back from the door as I key in. Warm light from the criss-crossing string bulbs between the buildings overhead create prisms in his eyes, and his cheeks are ruddy with the chill.

He’s waiting for me to invite him inside.

Tucking my fingers into the front pockets of his jeans, I yank him closer. A barely audible grunt puffs out of him when our hips collide. His bottom lip dips down. Gentle light from the gas lamp above us catches on the glistening tip of his tongue. Whoever said the thing about British folk having a stiff upper lip definitely never saw Jake Frost’s mouth.

I tug down on his scarf and he meets me halfway. There’s no hesitation, no awkward learning curve. His lips give where mine take, and I take whatever he gives. I can’t believe what a good kisser this man is. He’s got a hand up the back of my coat, my sweater twisted in his fist. Winter air creeps in, magnifying the heat of his palm pressing into my spine.

“You kiss me like you’re mine,” he breathes.

I push the door open with a backward thrust of my foot. “Come inside.”

Jake nips my bottom lip between the edges of his teeth, tensing for a beat. Then he’s moving, guiding me through the door, kicking it closed behind him the same way I just opened it. Shedding coats, toeing off shoes, we’re at the loveseat in a few shuffling, synchronized steps. Jake kisses me open-mouthed and hungry, the force of his lips tempered by the slick, soft heat of his tongue. He growls into my mouth like a man starved.

Bang. The lamp on the side table wobbles back and forth. “Fuck.” Jake’s laugh is muffled against my lips.

“You OK?”

“I am. Foot isn’t.”

“Do you want to sto—”

“Absolutely not,” he breathes.

He pulls me tight against him, bracing his forearm parallel to my spine, cradling the back of my head with his hand. He holds me so securely, it barely registers that we’re falling onto the loveseat until I feel the weight of him land solidly between my thighs.

He’s kissing me in cursive. His hips echo the motion of his tongue in a subtle rolling rhythm. With an explosive breath, he lifts his head and drops his forehead against my temple. “Evie. I believe …’ he pants. “I believe I’m bricked up. Like a bloody mason.” He’s heavy and hard between my legs.

When I throw back my head to laugh, Jake buries his face in the dip between my jaw and my neck. “You googled it.” I laugh until I’m wheezing.

“As soon as I got home that night.”

Jake laughs with me, and I realize—this is a first.

Joy. It shimmers along the edges of the lust, brightening it into something expansive and overflowing and metamorphic. “Kiss me,” I whisper.

Jake’s lips slant and slide against mine. Tasting, taking. I tilt my hips upwards in silent request, and he’s got my jeans button open and the zipper down before I have time to take another breath. At first, his warm palm slides across the soft plane of my lower belly, his thumb skimming back and forth just below my navel.

“So soft,” he murmurs.