Frosting Her Christmas Cookies - Alina Jacobs Page 0,43

in a tent during my internship. That cool? Cool. That would be…well, it would be weird. It would be love-potion-level weird. It would be restraining order–level weird.

“Yes,” I lied, “for the Instagram.”

“Where’s the alcohol?” he asked, studying the gingerbread house scene.

“The alcohol?”

The alcohol, Morticia, because for an Instagram account for the alcohol company, you need alcohol.

“Dorothy has it,” I said.

Jonathan laughed. “Of course you’re friends with the old broad!” he said affectionately.

“I’ll be right back.”

Crap! I hoped she was awake. I knocked tentatively on the door. Her pet geese honked in irritation.

“I have condoms and a dental damn,” she said when the door opened.

“I need alcohol,” I said in a rush.

“Not the best lubricant, but it will do in a pinch.”

“To photograph,” I said. “We’re not, uh, you know.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been around the art community for decades. Let me tell you, if you’re making the kind of art I think you are, a few shirtless pics are not going to cut it. People can see that shit on Instagram any day of the week. You need to get on the wild stallion and ride. Or should I say reindeer. It is Christmas,” she mused. “Would you like vodka? Schnapps? What about this nice dark rum? Who doesn’t like a little rum in their eggnog?”

Me, I would!

I needed to calm down. It was my crush on Justin all over again, when I would spend hours making scrapbooks using the pieces of paper with his handwriting I had stolen and the clandestine photos of him I had taken.

Oh god, I’m recreating my childhood nightmare!

But Jonathan didn’t look like anything out of a nightmare when I returned with the rum and a few glasses. He was already half-undressed and was peeling his white undershirt over his head when I walked up.

I paused, holding up my phone to capture the movement in slow motion. With the snow falling, he was hot enough to turn winter in New York into a tropical paradise.

And now we’ve come to the part of the evening when Morticia makes clichéd comparisons.

“Found the rum?” he asked, sauntering over, his muscles flexing, seeming not to mind the cold at all even though I was shivering. He wrapped his arms around me. “Are you sure you need this shot right now?” he asked, lines of concern forming around his eyes.

“Yep, Christmas is coming. Can’t dillydally.”

Get it together.

This was why I tried to put men, especially hot ones, in the “stupid and useless” box, because if I didn’t have them tightly contained, my mind would latch onto them like an internet stalker.

Jonathan hugged me tighter. The warmth from his bare skin flowed through me. Then he stepped back, grabbed his suit jacket, and draped it around my shoulders. “Take pictures quick,” he said. “I don’t want you to freeze.”

“You’re going to freeze first,” I retorted, ignoring the way his jacket smelled like him, like mountain spring water, winter air, and fresh pine.

“Nah. I was made for the cold,” he said. “So what do you want me to do?”

Ride him like a reindeer!

He ran a hand through his hair, and it fell over his forehead in loose waves. The billionaire casually picked up the bottle of rum and twisted the top off, his forearms and the muscles in his torso flexing. Then he poured out a glass and took a sip. I reveled in the lines of his body. I’d done nude figure drawing classes but none with anyone like him modeling.

“Do you want a sexy perfume shot?” he asked me after I had enough pictures of him staring off moodily into the falling snow.

“A what?”

“You know how on all those celebrity perfume commercials,” he explained, taking my hand, “they have his and hers perfume. Then there are two people practically having sex on camera.”

“It’s Instagram not Only Fans,” I said. “Besides, I don’t have a female model.”

He pulled me to him. “I have one right here.” He took my camera and held it up. “Look at the camera,” he whispered. “Sexy eyes.”

His arm was strong around me. All I could think about was that I was this close to his mouth. He had said look at the camera, but all I could look at were his eyes; they were mesmerizing.

Was he going to kiss me? Did I want him to? Who the fuck was I kidding? Of course I wanted him to.

He’s your employer and, more importantly, the subject of your artwork. There’s probably some sort of ethical rule that