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Except when he pulled the sock up, and his fingers brushed higher, she arched her back off the bed, and he nearly lost his resolve.
She pulled him down to her by his sweater again, and it really was bloody brilliant when she did that. As far as he was concerned, she could grab him and kiss him every moment that they had here together. If it wasn’t for one thing. He’d told her he was taking her clothes off for the sake of these photographs and he wasn’t having her on. If she wanted to seduce him on her own time, on her own terms, he would let her do that. Once he’d done exactly what he’d promised to do, and not a thing more.
‘Where are you going?’ Jess demanded as he pulled himself away from her.
‘This wasn’t for me,’ he said, gesturing to the milky white skin showing between her socks and her sweater. He picked up his phone and climbed back onto the bedside table.
‘Are you...?’ Jess turned to look at him. ‘What are you doing up there? Get back here. I wasn’t done with you.’
He smirked, took a photograph and showed her the screen. She looked divine in the warm afternoon light. Her lips pouted with dismay. Climbing back down, he regarded her all stretched out on the bed. She turned onto her side and regarded him carefully.
He smiled. ‘It’s Christmas Eve. It’s all about anticipation. And,’ he added softly, ‘it’s about making sure we both know what we want. And what we don’t want. I was invited into your bedroom to act as photographer. If you want me for anything else, you’re going to have to ask me for it. Specifically. Very specifically.’
‘I hate you,’ Jess breathed, dropping back on the bed and breaking their gaze, looking up at the canopy of the bed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘NO, YOU DON’T,’ he told her confidently, leaning in to press the briefest of kisses to her lips. ‘Now, let’s get the rest of these pictures done for Lara. I want the whole evening with no chance of interruptions.’
‘You do realise I’m going to have to put my clothes back on for that to happen.’
He groaned as she pulled on her leggings and layered up thermal socks. Anticipation might have made Christmas Eve magical when he was a kid, but it was downright killing him now. He watched Jess as she worked, taking a couple of pictures from different angles, dipping down until her eyes were level with the mattress. From there she got the twinkling lights and the crystal bowl from the sideboard in the background. And from a different angle, the window and the fire, the bright light darkening the foreground into moody silhouettes.
‘I like that one,’ Rufus said. ‘The house looks lived-in. Cosy.’
He leant against the side of the bed as they scrolled through. Then she turned abruptly.
‘Don’t move,’ she instructed. He rested his forearms on his knees while she adjusted something on the touch screen and then leaned back, pointing the camera in his direction.
‘I like this one,’ she said, showing him the result. ‘It was missing heart. It needed you. You belong here.’
‘Yes. Well. I used to.’ He pushed himself to his feet. ‘Let’s get this finished.’
* * *
Two hours later, Jess scrolled through the pictures on the phone screen, trying to decide which to send to Lara. Not the ones of her on the bed, bare-thighed, her eyes full of lust. No, those were for her and Rufus only. But the others she could share. And her favourite: Rufus leaning back against the bed, arms propped up on his elbows. Lost in thought. Deliciously shaggable. Looking every inch as if he was as much a part of the house as the walls and the floorboards. No wonder he was mourning the loss of his family home. If only she could make him see that it wasn’t his fault. But she knew it wasn’t her job to do that. He just had to decide whether he wanted to hold on to that guilt or not.
She wondered whether that guilt had anything to do with those reasons he’d mentioned for not wanting a relationship. Not that it affected her either way. She’d been as clear with herself as she had been with Rufus that this was a strictly time-limited offer. Whether or not he was going to make something work with someone else once she was just a fond memory was none of her business. She had to make sure that she remembered that, otherwise she was going to find herself in trouble.
Rufus dropped beside her on the sofa and she leant into him without taking her eyes from the screen. It was just so...perfect...that he was there and she could do everything that she’d been wanting to do since he’d fallen so dramatically into this house and into her life.
Well, almost everything that she wanted to, until they’d put the brakes on things earlier. As if she wasn’t at breaking point already. They’d studiously avoided touching each other while they’d taken the rest of the photos that Lara had requested.
She’d got Rufus in front of the camera as often as she could. He was the one who had wanted to show this house with personality, and heart, and he’d done just that. Had shown just how much he was a part of the structure of this house, and how it was a part of him. And the results were stunning,
and bittersweet, because this wasn’t Rufus’s home any more, and might never be again.
But they’d done exactly what Lara had asked of them, and they had to hope that it would turn the business around, and that Upton Manor would at least stay in the family rather than having to be sold off. She highlighted the pictures that she wanted to send and synced them with Lara’s cloud account.
‘Are we done?’ Rufus asked, pulling up the list and scrolling through.
‘Everything but Christmas dinner. I’ve already told her that will have to wait until tomorrow, so I think we’re officially off duty.’
‘That is very good news,’ Rufus said, his arm dropping to wind around her waist, and then dragging her onto his lap until she was as close to him as she’d been desperate to be for the past few hours. ‘I’ve wanted this. You. All afternoon.’
‘I thought Christmas Eve was all about anticipation,’ Jess murmured.
Rufus groaned and glanced at the clock above the mantel. ‘It’s hours until midnight. Well, at least let me feed you, because I’m pretty sure that you’ve completely missed the fact that it’s dinner time. And then we could actually watch the movie that we said we were going to several hours ago.’
