My hand dips past the waistband of her underwear, my slick fingers finding her wet and hot and waiting. It fills me with something potent to know it’s for me, it’s all for me, these wild feelings. It’s been so long since I’ve been this close to another person, and she’s the only person I want to be close to. I refuse to think about what this is, what this means, what we’ll do tomorrow.

I sketch a finger around her, up and down the length of her, until she clenches her teeth together and doesn’t unclench them. “Goddamn you,” Jack growls. “Please. I’m not going to beg.”

But she does. She begs until I burrow through her coarse hair and rub my two fingers over her swollen clit. I’m met with a yes and a thank you and an oh my God. I swallow a litany of curses with a graceless kiss. A yes and please and yes, like that. Because of course I remember how she likes to be touched.

I remember every damn thing about that night.

“Yes, Elle, holy shit.” She grabs onto my hip for balance, and she arches into the pressure of my fingers, and she fucks herself against my hand. It’s hot and messy and quick, but I get to watch her face the whole time. I get to watch the feigned indifference melt away. There’s no shiny Airstream to hide herself away in. It’s just her and me, perfect imperfections on this ratty couch.

Her bottom lip pinned beneath two white teeth; the flutter of her thick lashes as she closes her eyes and throws back her head; the way her hair falls over her forehead and the way the heat climbs up her throat and the way her mouth wrenches open with sudden, guttural moans. She’s so pretty. “So fucking pretty.”

And so fucking loud. I love every sound she makes as she grips my hip tighter and comes from my two fingers and a trail of kisses left along her hairline.

As she pants and coughs and swears some more, I stare at the freckles and the white scar, all the pieces of her I memorized last time. She presses her forehead to my shoulder and wraps her arms around my waist; I wrap my arms around the back of her neck, trailing a fingernail through the short hairs there. We sit like that for several minutes—her trying to catch her breath, me trying to remember every damn detail about this time, too.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Well.” Jack laughs into my shoulder. “That was… unexpected.”

I sigh. “No, it wasn’t.”

She peeks up at me and squints one eye bashfully. “No. I guess it wasn’t. I’ve basically wanted you to do that every minute of every day since Paul Hollywood knocked you into my mother’s centerpiece.”