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Chapter 5

5

I catch hold of his elbow, and so much for me being smaller and slighter than him—Reece comes back nice and easy, and Christmas does come early.

We kiss, and maybe mistletoe still swings above us. I don’t look up to check. Reece is my entire focus, and the world might as well stop turning the second his kiss shifts gears and his mouth opens to prove he was right.

Kissing is intimate—when it’s with him.

His tongue slides beside mine to confirm it, and I crowd closer, like in the movies Gran used to watch when I stayed at Christmas. Gramps grumbled, but he’d hold her hand as if she might really run off and leave him for a film star. So what if him loving her that much was mushy? I just remember them being happy while I got busy organising my Christmas crayons into size and colour order.

Very satisfying.

So is this.

I go up on tiptoes in a way I always thought was only acting. It did feel fake every other time I tried it, and believe me, I put in plenty of practice. But I guess disappointment is what you get from having cinematic expectations of people who aren’t even close to hero material, unlike Reece.

He can’t have seen the same scenes play out as often on a TV screen as me. Reece goes off script, and I like that even better when he lets me go but doesn’t back off. He pauses, and it takes a moment to register that he’s waiting for me to choose what next happens.

That’s so easy.

I climb him, and he huffs out the same kind of laugh as when I spun in a circle for him. He also hoists me higher, and I hook my legs around him as the study door swings closed behind us. Reece settles onto a sofa I’m pretty sure is hairy. I’m not about to fuss about dog dander like I would with Rex though. I’m way too busy straddling someone who will soon be above me.

Organisationally, I mean.

If I stay.

Plus, it’s too dark in here to notice dog hair or any stray glitter left between us, and I twine my arms around Reece’s neck to keep up this close contact.

Here we go again, making a perfect pair, only not via text message.

He holds me just as tightly, and our next kiss is as intense as I daydreamed all too often while cradling my phone in bed each morning.

Reece’s mouth slides on mine, deliberate and devastating. Our tongues touch again, and that’s all kinds of electric. So is his touch after getting my coat unfastened, and I regret wearing winter layers. He makes small inroads, battling through buttons to pull my shirt free from my suit trousers as he kisses his way along my jawline.

He also rumbles a question against my throat, I think.

I don’t need details. I go ahead and tilt my head back and groan out a rough yes , followed by another when he finds entry.

He slides warm hands up my torso. The breeze was icy on the way here. Now I melt, and I want so much more of this hot contact that I fight with his coat buttons. His sweatshirt is next. I shove it up and wish we’d stopped to turn on the study light so I could see if his chest hair is as golden as the rest of him.

My hands span where he’s so much broader than me, and it’s his turn to sound rough. He lets out a low rumble I feel everywhere we’re connected, and if I wasn’t already well on my way to hardening, that sound does it for me.

I need to know if he’s as affected.

I grind against him, and?—

“Jack.” His mouth pulls away from my throat, and despite this room’s dimness, I see myself reflected in the wide ink of his pupils, right down to the hat Rex gave me. I shake it off, my hair a disaster, but I can’t shake the fact that Reece looks as wrecked as I do. He’s as into this— into us —as I am. I also get to see what crosses his face when I rock down again, slower this time, and harder.

“F-fuck, Jack.”

I swear too, only at another kind of vibration.

This one comes from my phone, and Reece freezes like he did in the hallway, only now I’m on his lap and both of us have boners.

We’re also both in demand—his phone rings too.

I pull out mine first and see who’s calling. “Sebastian.”

Reece rumbles one last time, which I feel in all kinds of tingly places. “Patrick.”

I almost slipped on the marble floor tile in the hallway. Now I come down to earth with a real bump.

His brother.

My other bestie.

We both answer at the same time.

“Hello?”

Sebastian speaks fast over a backing track of restaurant noises. “Are you okay, Jack?” He spits more questions like bullets. “Do I need to send Pat to meet you? Did something happen to you on the Tube again?”

“Yes, no, and no.” I’m aware that Reece mouths the word again at me, although to be honest, it’s hard not to be aware of him, full stop, when I’m only a few layers of fabric away from his penis.

I don’t rock in his lap again on purpose. It’s instinctive, but deliberate or not, his breath still stutters, which his brother interprets and relays to Sebastian.

“Remind me to work on a new conditioning programme for Reece, babe. He sounds out of breath, but I can hear Jack is with him, so he’s definitely safe.”

It’s weird to hear that in duplicate through two phones like this. Even weirder to nod as if Patrick can see me, but what he stated is true. I am safe, and Reece nods back as if in confirmation before saying, “See you soon,” to his brother.

He pulls me in for another kiss as my phone still eavesdrops on a housemate conversation about whether they should wait or start their meals without us. I break off for just long enough to gasp, “Don’t wait. Eat mine. Eat everything.” Then I gasp again because Reece gets a hand between us.

He unzips my fly, fingers finding my erection, his pause asking another silent question.

I’ve never nodded faster. And I’ve also never had more trouble threading words together when Sebastian asks, “How close are you?” He means to Penny’s restaurant. There’s no way he can know his question comes hot on the heels of Reece exploring where I’m so hard it’s almost painful. Even with my boxers still between us, his touch is amazing.

I scramble to sound coherent. What I actually do is yodel, “I’m almost there.”

Embarrassingly, I am.

I’m also slow to process what Sebastian says before his call cuts off.

“Thank fuck he hasn’t been trapped on the Tube again?—”

I’m dazzled by the lamp Reece abruptly turns on and by the speed he withdraws his other hand from my fly. That lamp sheds enough of a glow that the bulge of his own hard-on is obvious. I’d trace it if this lamplight didn’t also show something else in short supply in this city—Reece’s expression is as concerned as his question.

“What happened to you on the Tube, Jack?”

Lord knows what I look like at that switch of focus. Probably like a goldfish, the same way I did for far too long after realising Valentin was recording me mid-sorting session. I gawp again now before getting my shit together. “Nothing happened.”

Apparently, Rex isn’t the only one who can arch an eyebrow. Reece can too, as if there’s aristocratic blood in his veins, so I tell him, “It was just a drunk.”

“Who…?”

“Wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“And?”

“Wouldn’t let me off the train.” I swallow. “Cornered me so I missed my stop.”

“Cornered you?”

Forget what I said about Reece being a comfy, cosy version of his younger brothers. Now he’s anything but, and if this is what Patrick will look like in ten years’ time, Sebastian is a lucky duck. Reece could give any movie heroes a run for their box-office money. His jaw squares and clenches, and this comes out gravelly with feeling. “Jack, you’ve spent the last three years telling me how much you love it here.”

I blink.

“You have,” he insists. “You’ve told me in so many ways, morning after morning. If that drunk is why you want to leave all of a sudden, I’m not sure New York will be any safer. Just know… Just know I’d never do that if you chose to stay.”

Of course he wouldn’t. Right now, I can’t verbalise that. I also can’t explain how much I don’t want what Reece does next—he slides me from his lap to stand us both up just as I blurt, “I’m not scared of anything!”

I’m not.

Okay, maybe I am a little.

I’m pretty bloody terrified of people I love being unhappy.

Fuck.

I wilt, cornered all over again, only I’m the one who did it to myself by mentioning NYC to Gran without thinking. It’s where she spent her honeymoon with Gramps and is full of places she was happy that I can make her smile with, like I have for the last few years with photos of where she met her Prince Charming.

My phone buzzes with another plaintive i am starving message. “Let me… Let me go grab those papers.” I quickly gather them from where they scattered across flooring I can’t believe I spun across to make Reece smile too.

He isn’t smiling when I return with papers and find a pen for him to sign with. “I’ll witness your signature.”

He neither smiles nor speaks until I hand the pen over. Then he doesn’t take what I offer. I mean, yes, he takes the pen but only to set it down on top of papers that will make him one of my employers until I serve my notice period. What he won’t accept is me changing the subject.

“I’m sorry some arsehole made you feel trapped again and scared you.”

I don’t deny a feeling I just watched kids be brave enough to draw on Post-its. Instead I say, “I’m strong enough to look after myself just fine.”

He doesn’t answer, and it takes me far too long to register that he’s tidying clothes for me that he had a hand in rumpling.

I should do that myself.

Instead, I let him.

Reece takes care of me, and forget everything I just said about being strong. I’m so weak for this kind of slow and careful treatment that I don’t realise my fly is still open until he gently zips it.

He finishes by retrieving a stupid hat I should shove deep into my coat pocket. I let him adjust it for me because apparently slow and careful really does it for me. Then he does pick up the pen, and Reece reminds me of another rule I’d forgotten for the last few hot and hurried minutes.

He makes a husky statement.

“No repeats, Jack?”

That was our text-based agreement.

I hear it over and over on the way to Penny’s restaurant, where we find our dinners cooling and a table full of more friends than I expected.

Ian is here with his husband, who smiles around a mouthful of pasta.

Rex is here too with his better half, who raises his glass. “New York’s gain is London’s loss,” he says as if I’ve scored that job already. “But congrats on getting to PA for someone new before you leave.”

“Before I leave?”

Rex says, “Yes,” and my heart sinks.

Has he farmed me out early to one of the other partners at the bank?

They’re fine if boring. They just aren’t Rex.

I’m nowhere near ready to say goodbye to him, so this comes out strangled. “What do you mean I’ll be someone else’s PA?” I slump, the bell on my Santa hat tinkling. “For how long?”

“Just until Christmas.” Rex promises. “Don’t worry, Jack. You’ll like him.” His eyes sparkle. “I’m pretty sure you do already.” He raises his voice next, as well as his glass, which he uses to get the attention of the whole table.

All heads turn at the ting ting ting of his fork against crystal, every glass rising to join in the toast Rex makes.

“To Jack. An irreplaceable PA. And an irreplaceable friend.”

Oh my God. Is he about to blub?

That’s my first assumption when his eyes gleam even brighter. But here’s the thing about my boss: He’s a nightmare, remember? One who can’t be left alone for a single moment, or trusted not to fall on his Heligan sword given the slightest reason. That’s what he does by raising his glass one more time, only it isn’t himself that he sacrifices.

It’s me.

“But Jack is even more irreplaceable to the foundation, and the amazing fundraising project you announced this afternoon is a good example.”

“Project?”

Rex is wreathed with smiles. “Yes. The foundation celebration,” he says, as if what I fabricated in a phone call to someone slimy wasn’t a complete work of fiction. “Even if it is too late to hold a party this year, you should have just long enough left in London to create a template we can use going forward.”

He raises his glass even higher.

“To Jack.” Then he tags on an addendum. “And to Reece. I’ll swap shifts with him on Monday so he can learn from the best of the best while we still have him.”

He raises his glass one more time, and Rex’s eyes don’t only sparkle. They glitter.

“Congrats, Reece. Jack’s all yours until Christmas.”

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