on the bed. “You want to be in charge?”
Now this was a dilemma.
She did want to be in charge. Kyle had never let her be master of the remote, even though his taste in television was terrible. (No, Westworld was not that good. Everyone had just been brainwashed into thinking it was as good as early seasons of Game of Thrones. They wanted it to be as good as Game of Thrones. It wasn’t. Not by a long shot.)
But being in charge meant sitting next to him in his ridiculously sexy gray sweatpants and keeping her hands to herself because he’d promised not to touch her today.
Stupid honorable man. Why couldn’t he be a selfish jerk and just take advantage of her already?
It’d been a really long time since she’d been taken advantage of in a satisfying way.
She couldn’t stand here like a fool all night, though. So, she pulled up her big girl panties (metaphorical panties, of course, because she was currently naked under her big, fluffy robe) and climbed into bed next to him. Fortunately, the bed was big enough that they weren’t crammed together. There was plenty of room for a nice pillow retaining wall between them. And she built that wall with ruthless efficiency.
She needed all the help she could get, and every possible impediment to nudity would helpful at this point.
Taking the remote from his hand, she turned her attention to finding something decent for them to watch. Finally settling on an old, season one rerun of Monk, she snuggled into the pillow wall and tried to ignore how good Jackson smelled.
This was going to be a long, long night.
Chapter 25
Kendall made it through about twenty minutes of Monk (which was a great show) before she was snoring away next to him.
Even her snores were cute. Like little sleepy puppy snuffles.
It took another ten minutes for sleepy Kendall to tunnel her way through the pillows she’d placed between them, and another five for her to burrow into his side and fling one arm across his chest, and one leg over his.
He froze the second she touched him, sure she’d wake up at any minute. But she didn’t. So eventually, he just tucked her more snugly into his side and let her head rest on his shoulder.
It felt entirely too right having her this close.
And at the same time, it was pure, unadulterated torture.
She was warm and soft and soapy-smelling, and if things were different, if he hadn’t promised not to touch her today, he would not be laying here, suffering through a hard-on that refused to subside. Nope. If things were different, he’d ease her onto her back, gently open that obnoxiously fluffy robe, and trail his tongue over every inch of her body, until she woke up coming and screaming his name.
And now that there was absolutely zero chance of sleeping anytime soon, especially not with her warm breath feathering across his neck, Jackson turned his attention back to the television.
That’s when he saw his own damn face on the nightly news. The national nightly news.
“Kendall,” he said, shifting his shoulder slightly to jostle her. “Wake up. You need to see this.”
She grumbled and snuggled tighter into his side.
He kissed her temple and jostled her again. “Wake up, darlin’.”
When that still didn’t get a response, he tried a little louder. “Kendall.”
She startled awake with a noise somewhere between a snort and a yelp, sitting straight up, hair falling out of her bun, partially obscuring her face. “Wha? Whaz goin’ on?”
He gestured to the television, even though he wasn’t entirely sure she could see through that mountain of hair. “The news, Kendall. Look.”
Jackson grabbed her glasses from the nightstand and handed them to her. She slid them on and blinked owlishly at the glowing screen for a second or two, before saying, “Holy shit! That’s you!”
God, she was adorable. Even half asleep and only moderately coherent.
She rolled to her knees and leaned forward. “Turn it up!”
Jackson did as he was told and shifted his attention from the expanse of bare, smooth thigh Kendall’s gaping robe had just exposed to the screen, where a young reporter in a severe black suit dress was narrating footage from the Pals for Paws benefit.
“The event, run by former Maelstrom lead singer Jackson Hale, raised over four hundred thousand dollars for animal shelters across the country, and led to the adoption of over 800 dogs.”
Now it was Jackson’s turn to blink owlishly at the screen. They’d raised that much money?