December 22, 8:31 a.m.
I wake slowly, like a snowflake drifting lazily from the sky, and find my cheek pressed against a warm, hard, naked male chest.
His dusting of hair on smooth skin, the beating of his heart, the rhythmic inhale and exhale gently pull me awake.
However, once I’m there, I fling back the covers and jump back like a scalded cat. My cheek burns, the hand that was resting on him tingles. I scramble off the bed, adjusting my flannel nightgown, yanking it down.
He blinks at me, then stretches and says with a yawn, “So it wasn’t a nightmare. Too bad.”
I scowl at him, my cheeks burning, my whole body tingling and demanding that I jump back in bed and cuddle up with the warm, sleep-mussed man.
I scrunch my toes in the cozy socks my mom knitted for me last year and pull myself together. I have a mission, and that mission starts now.
“Nope. You’re still here. And I know exactly what we’re going to do today.”
“Right. Sure.”
He sits up in bed, displaying miles and miles of golden skin, taut muscles and a dusting of dark hair that leads down toward the blanket covering the rest of him.
I definitely didn’t think through the sleeping situation, I was just concerned about him running off and freezing to death.
He swings out of the bed, stretching his arms over his head. I get an eyeful of his long, lean torso, the lines of his back and the thick muscles in his shoulders.
No wonder he was hard to drag, he’s built like a lifelong athlete.
I’m five six and strong, but he wasn’t joking when he said he could overpower me. It would be like a wolf tackling a puppy, not even a contest.
He’s the exact opposite of Jason, the man I was supposed to be bringing home this Christmas. In every single way.
And then I realize something that’s really depressing. I haven’t thought about Jason at all. I thought he was proposing, I was going to say yes. Yet since he’s broken up with me I haven’t given him a thought.
Which means…that wasn’t love. That was like. A comfortable, pick-up-the-milk-on-the-way-home, spend-time-together-on-holidays-because-its-convenient like. I thought he was the reliable, always there, Christmas kind of love. He wasn’t.
And apparently I’m not too broken up about that.
Gabe turns then and takes me in, standing there, ogling his backside. He shakes his head. “I hope your plan includes breakfast. I’m starving.”
Of course it includes breakfast. Who does he think I am?