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“So, what do you girls have planned for the weekend?” Aidan asks as he dishes a large portion of the savory lasagna for him and a slightly smaller portion for Lindsey.
“Well,” Kasey begins. “I thought today and tomorrow we could hang around the house and relax, and I made massage appointments for us the day before Christmas Eve.”
“Oh, I could use a good massage,” Abigail groans, taking a long sip of her wine and leaning back into her chair.
Finding Abigail’s foot under the table, I nudge it with mine. Her questioning gaze meets mine, and I wiggle my brows in her direction. Feeling a sharp kick to my shin, I choke on the beer I’m sipping while Abigail looks on with a triumphant gleam in her eye.
Wench.
“Was your family disappointed you weren’t going back to Charleston for Christmas?” Lindsey asks Abigail.
Abigail clears her throat, clearly uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. “There isn’t much that doesn’t disappoint my family about me these days,” she replies flatly.
Abigail doesn’t talk about her family much, but from what I’ve gathered, they aren’t very close. We don’t discuss those kinds of feelings during our moments together. It’s mostly her telling me harder and not to stop. Seeing her stony expression when Lindsey mentions her parents makes me wonder if I should bring it up to her later. Or if she’d kick me in the balls for trying to get personal. Probably the latter.
Dinner wraps up, and we’re sufficiently stuffed from the lasagna Donovan made and the salad that Kasey chopped the vegetables for. Everyone makes sure to tell her what a good job she did, but she just smirks and laughs at us trying to placate her. Gotta love a woman who has a good sense of humor about her lack of culinary skills.
Abigail offers to do the dishes while everyone heads to the living room in a food coma, so of course, I volunteer to give her a hand.
“What are you doing in here, Prince?” Her eyes narrow, and suspicion laces her tone.
“What does it look like?” Pretending to be confused by her question, I scrape the plates into the trashcan.
She turns her body toward me and watches as I work. “Well, it looks like you’re doing manual labor, which really isn’t your style, now is it?” She’s not buying it for a second.
“Maybe I just wanted to harass you for a few minutes while we’re alone,” I reply, a faint smile playing on my lips. No use trying to deny it at this point.
She snorts out a laugh. “Yup, that sounds more like it.” Abigail looks at the pile of dirty dishes and back at me. “I can do this. Why don’t you go hang out with everyone in the living room?” She nods her head at our friends, who are sitting in front of the fire and enjoying an after-dinner cocktail.
“Nah, I’m good here.”
“Suit yourself.” She shrugs her shoulders and goes back to rinsing the plates.
We work side by side quietly. I scrape the plates as she rinses and loads the dishwasher. Being this close to her and smelling her light, citrus perfume conjures memories of being in her apartment, wrapped in her sheets. Fuck, that was a good night.
Abigail does her best not to look me in the eye and concentrate on her task at hand. I’ve decided it’s my mission to get her a little flustered and see if I can get her claws to come out. I brush her hair from her shoulder, and her body goes rigid at my touch.
“What are you doing?” she asks through clenched teeth.
Giving her a heated look, I trail my fingers down her spine. “You have no idea how hard it is for me to be this close to you and not touch you,” I whisper.
She whips her head toward me, fire in her glare. “Everyone is right there in the living room, Jackson. You can’t touch me like this where everyone can see,” she hisses.
“No one is paying us any attention, Red.” I look toward the living room, where Donovan, Kasey, Lindsey, and Aiden are setting up a game of cards on the table in front of the fire. “If you don’t want our friends to see me touching you, then come to my room tonight,” I murmur in her ear.
Her jaw clenches as she inhales a deep breath through her nose, then slowly lets it out of her mouth. “I told you we aren’t doing that again, Jackson.”
Dammit, I see we’re still at the obstinate stage of the evening.
“Red, I don’t know why you fight this attraction so hard.” She opens her mouth to argue, but I hold up a hand, effectively cutting her off. Her eyes narrow, obviously not appreciating me stopping what I’m sure was going to be an empty denial of our chemistry. “But if that’s how you want to play it, just know my door will be unlocked if you change your mind.” I give Abigail her personal space back, and we finish doing the dishes in silence.
Joining the others in the living room, we decide to play gin rummy, my personal favorite. Donovan and I have played this game with our dad since we were kids and are pretty good. Of course, I should have known Abigail would have us all beat hands down.
“Where did you learn to play cards like a shark?” I ask Abigail.
“Growing up, I spent a lot of time at a bar just outside of Charleston. After our homework was done, my best friend and I would play cards with the regulars.”
“What were you doing at a bar—underage—after school?” I’m shocked her parents would let her hang out in a bar. The few times Abigail’s talked about them, I’ve always had the impression her parents were image-obsessed stiffs.
