Page 39 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas

“Touch me. Please, please touch me.”

His hand hooks like a claw around the satin front of my new pair of knickers, crushing the fabric into his fist. I have a vague awareness that I wouldn’t care if he shredded them with his fingernails to get between my legs. Then his grip loosens, and he’s tugging the elastic aside so gently, it’s a surprise when I feel his fingers ease inside me.

I can hear how wet I am as he touches me.

“Christ, Evie.” His hard exhale spools down my neck in a damp plume of heat. “All this … for me?”

“You.” My head lolls sideways on the cushion. I am starved for this. For him. “Yours.”

I gasp when he spreads his fingers so that my clit slips between them. He drags upwards with just enough pressure and friction that the sensitive bundle of nerves rolls between his knuckles. I kick the side table, and again, that poor lamp rocks side to side.

Jake moves for easier access. He keeps a knee between my legs on the loveseat and plants the other on the floor, half-kneeling for leverage. He gives me a decadent, swirling pulse with the pads of his first two fingertips.

“Tell me,” he rasps. “Tell me what to do.”

“Faster. Just—” I suck in a shuddering breath. “A little.”

Jake Frost is a very good listener.

He hits the perfect rhythm and maintains it without wavering. It’s barely been three minutes, and I’m exploding into his hand, shuddering and bucking and keening—

Someone bangs on the wall from the flat next door.

Jake’s eyes fly open wide, but he doesn’t stop. I’m half-moaning, half-laughing through one of the most incredible, back-bending orgasms of my life.

He drops his forehead to the cushion next to my head. “You’re a little firecracker, aren’t you?’ He’s panting against my neck like he’s the one who just came. He sucks a wet breath past his teeth, then he laughs.

I drift my fingers down the back of his arm. “What?”

He lifts his head, subtly jerking his chin sideways to flip his hair out of his eyes. “You made me drool like a fucking animal.” He sits up.

Cupping my hand over the generous bulge in the crotch of his pants, I say, “What about you? I want to—”

“I’ll take care of it later.” He tucks a wild lock of loose hair behind my ear, then he lets his fingers twist and trail down my braid. “Trust me.”

I pull up my jeans, not bothering with the zipper and button. “Jake. Why haven’t I seen your place yet?”

The restraint in his posture convinces me he’s about to say something evasive. “I guess I’ve liked how it feels when you see …” he swallows, “just me.”

“I don’t know what that means.” That familiar tingle begins at the top of my spine. I brace for the letdown.

But it never comes. Jake kisses me on the forehead. “I’ll show you, then. It’s a date.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Six days until Christmas

Today, I get to see where Jake lives. Aside from our date at Borough Market during my first few days here, this will be the earliest we’ve started our day together. It feels important, but I’m trying to not let it. It’s just another date.

On my morning walk to Grey Earl’s, the clouds over Covent Garden are ominous. We’re due rain later in the morning, and it feels a bit selfish, but I wish the temperature was colder so we could get a proper big snowstorm.

It didn’t take long for me to fall into a new normal here, and it’s strange when I arrive at Earl’s and Jake isn’t there. Right now, there’s a serious-looking man sitting at Jake’s usual table, scowling at a laptop. I have the urge to tell him he’s trespassing.

I slide onto my usual stool at the bar. “Have you seen Jake today?”

“Not yet,” Quinn says. “Bit weird. He’s usually come round at least once by now.”

“He’s here multiple times by ten in the morning?”