pillow with my arms underneath, facing him. He turns his head towards me, his gaze contemplative.
“Tell me a secret.”
I’m not sure why I ask. It’s more than I need to know, isn’t it? This is just a one-night thing. I don’t need his secrets or anything else. Yet here I am. Asking. I’m not ready to fall asleep yet. I’m not ready for this night to end. And maybe I want to know a little bit more. Just a little.
The mattress moves as Teddy moves to his side, one arm propped beneath his head as he looks at me. “A secret?”
“Something dumb.”
He nods, acknowledging the challenge. “Mechanical pencils freak me out. I want them banned from society.”
“I have to keep the volume on the television on an even number because I think an uneven number is bad luck. But this only applies to the volume on the television and nothing else.”
“Whenever I’m stuck at a stoplight I add up all the numbers on the license plate of the car ahead of me.”
“When I was a kid I always ate the broken animal crackers first so the unbroken ones could live a little longer.”
“That’s pretty dark. Have you been keeping that one to yourself for a long time?” Teddy’s got a hint of a smile on his lips when he asks and he’s running his fingertips over my hip and I never want him to stop touching me.
“I know,” I agree, dragging out the word on a long sigh. “I’m quite twisted.”
“I’ll walk out of my way to avoid stepping on a manhole cover.”
“Very manly.”
“I’ll work on it.”
We play this game until my eyes are drifting closed and then I tell him my silliest secret of all.
“Sometimes I secretly pretend I still believe in Santa.”
“Pfft.” He smiles softly. “Who doesn’t?”
Chapter 6
Rolling over, I groan, keeping my eyes shut against the sunlight filtering in through my blinds. I have a series of thoughts before I even open my eyes.
1. I did a thing last night. With Jillian’s unexpectedly hot brother, Teddy.
2. Jillian’s unexpectedly hot, wildly attractive, good-in-bed brother, Teddy.
3. Jillian’s unemployed flirt of a brother whom she specifically warned me away from, Teddy.
4. The very delicious ache between my thighs reminds me that I don’t really care about Teddy’s employment status. Or who he’s related to. Perhaps I could hire him to be my sex elf, then he’d have a job and I’d have a sex elf.
5. I wonder if it would be asking too much to expect my sex elf to do laundry during the day while I’m at work and possibly also make dinner?
6. Having a sex elf would be really cool but is starting to sound a bit too much like prostitution for me to be entirely comfortable with the idea.
7. Sex elves are notoriously unreliable and best returned after one night.
8. My sex elf—I mean Teddy—is still here and I need to open up my eyes and deal with last night like an adult.
Except when I open my eyes I find I don’t want to. Deal with it, that is. I don’t want to have a conversation about how he’s just rolling through town and crashing in his parents’ basement because he’s a misunderstood creative type.
A creative type in finance. Ugh.
The Teddy I spent last night with is nothing like the Teddy Jillian described and honestly, I’d like to remember this version of Teddy.
He’s sound asleep and gorgeous. He looks so perfectly relaxed and at ease in my bed. Hair tousled from last night but in that perfectly just-fucked way that is so hot on a man. Sprawled on his stomach, arms wrapped around a pillow with his head turned in my direction. Shoulders exposed as the blankets are only drawn halfway up his back. I could lie here studying his physique all morning. I’m tempted to draw my fingertips along the muscles but I refrain lest I wake him. Dark eyelashes fan across his cheeks, his lips slightly parted, still delicious.
The thing is, he looks really peaceful. Like he needs the sleep.
I glance at the clock over his shoulder. It’s later than I thought, much later. I’m supposed to meet my sister Ginger for a bit of Christmas shopping this morning. So really, I don’t have a lot of time to talk to Teddy. Hardly any time at all.
He doesn’t stir as I slide out of bed. Nor when I get dressed more quietly than a teenager preparing a late-night escape out of their bedroom window.
Of course,