Forever Wild (The Simple Wild #2.5) - K.A. Tucker Page 0,38

resort, claiming he’d be bored, lying around a beach all day. As usual though, he’s been scheming behind my back.

“Oh my God, this is amazing! Thank you!” I throw myself at him, seizing his face and dropping hard, feverish kiss after kiss against his lips.

I finally relent, only to be pulled back, his hand firmly gripping my nape. The kiss he treats me to is not feverish or quick, but long and slow and deep, his tongue coaxing my lips apart.

My hands wander of their own accord, over that sexy, sharp jut of his throat, over the ridges of his broad chest, along his powerful thighs and up, in between, to where he has grown hard. Warmth instantly floods my core, the anticipation of his touch making my pulse soar. I stretch my body across the console in my bid to get closer to him.

“That’s a big extended cab back there,” he murmurs against my mouth.

I feel the insinuation deep inside. “You should probably test it out.” My voice is breathless as I blindly paw at the truck’s dash, searching for the heat controls.

He inhales sharply, his intense gaze boring into mine. “Good idea. We should.”

I shed my coat, kick off my boots, and scramble to the back seat. By the time Jonah has shucked his coat, exited the driver’s side, and is opening the back passenger-side door to climb in, I’ve already shed my outer clothes and got my pajama pants tugged down to my ankles, my bare skin impervious to the cold.

“I seem to recall having one in this shade a few years ago.” Simon holds up the robin’s egg sweater vest for all to see. “It mysteriously disappeared.”

There was nothing “mysterious” about it. My mother takes it upon herself to purge his wardrobe of anything she deems “ratty.” I used to think she was overstepping when it came to managing her husband’s attire, but half of Jonah’s closet consists of things I’ve ordered, and I’m constantly filtering through his drawers, tossing threadbare socks and shirts.

“And now you have a new one!” my mom exclaims, inhaling her bottle of perfume and humming with delight, as if it’s the first time she’s ever smelled it. Simon buys her a new one every year. That’s what their gift exchange consists of—sweater vests and a year’s supply of perfume.

I smile as I wonder what Jonah and I will be exchanging on Christmas morning ten, fifteen, twenty years from now. Likely not vacations and bodily fluids in the back of a brand-new pickup truck.

Astrid stoops to search beneath the tree. “All that’s left are gifts for Muriel and the men. I think that’s it.”

“In our household, we had a two-gift limit.” Björn eyeballs the mountain of strewn paper and ribbons littering the floor. I heard him mutter the same Norwegian word several times as he sat back and watched parcel after parcel change hands for nearly two hours. My guess is it wasn’t anything positive.

“It’s not your household, though, is it?” Jonah murmurs before devouring a shortbread cookie.

“Thank you, everyone!” Mabel is all smiles as she sets her pile—mainly clothes and gift cards—on the floor beside the couch. With that tucked away, she climbs from her seat and bolts for the coat rack, her phone in hand.

Jonah frowns after her. “Where’re you going? Where’s she going?”

“Out for a ride with Kelly, while it’s not snowing.”

Jonah opens his mouth—to complain that it’s Christmas and Mabel’s place is here, no doubt.

I stuff the shortbread cookie I was about to eat into his mouth. “Leave her alone,” I whisper, giving his knee a squeeze. “Plus, she has a small gift for Kelly that she wants to give her.”

He chews the cookie while he thinks. “Take the blue one. It has more gas.”

She smiles.

“And be back in an hour.”

“Okay, Jonah,” she says, drawing out his name. At least she doesn’t seem irritated.

“Oh, what’s that in there? I think we missed something.” Agnes sticks her hand into the branches of the tree to retrieve a small box that I suspect she put there. She holds it out to pretend to read the label—there’s no label from what I can see—before trekking over to hand it to Jonah. “This one’s for you.”

Jonah looks curiously at it, then at me—I shrug, because I have no clue—and then at her. “What is it?”

She shrugs. “Open it and find out.”

He picks at the corner of the tape until he manages to catch it. In seconds, he has unraveled the paper and