The kiss deepens, and my brain decides this is the perfect moment to stage a hostile takeover of my rational thinking.
Jake's mouth moves against mine with a deliberateness that makes my toes curl into the couch cushions. He kisses like he does everything else—thoroughly, without rushing, like he's got all the time in the world and plans to use every second cataloging exactly what makes me gasp.
I'm gasping a lot, for the record.
His hand slides into my hair, tilting my head back to give himself better access to my throat, and the sound I make is embarrassing enough that I should probably relocate to another continent. But then his teeth graze my pulse point, and I stop caring about embarrassment or continents or anything that isn't the solid heat of him beneath my palms.
"This okay?" His voice is rough against my ear, breath hot on skin that's already oversensitive.
"Define okay." I pull back just enough to see his face—flushed, pupils blown wide, that steel-gray gaze dark with want. "Because if you mean am I conscious and participating, then yes. If you mean am I making rational decisions, the jury's very much out."
"I'll take conscious and participating." His hands find my waist, thumbs pressing into the curve of my hips. "We can workshop rational later."
"Later sounds perfect. Later sounds like a problem for future Kelly, and current Kelly has other priorities."
The smile that crosses his face transforms him—cracks open that stoic exterior and shows me the man underneath. The one who laughs at bad jokes and worries about his daughter and carries guilt he doesn't know how to set down.
I want to know that man better. I want to know him with my hands and my mouth and every nerve ending currently screaming for attention.
So I swing my leg over his lap and straddle him, settling onto his thighs with a gracelessness that would horrify the deportment instructor my mother hired when I was twelve.
Jake's hands grip my hips hard enough to leave marks, and I hope they do. I hope I wake up tomorrow with bruises shaped like his fingerprints, evidence that this actually happened and wasn't just a fever dream brought on by pregnancy hormones and emotional desperation.
"Hi," I breathe, looking down at him.
"Hi yourself." His voice has dropped an octave, and the sound vibrates through my chest. "You comfortable up there?"
"Getting there." I shift deliberately, and his sharp intake of breath is the most satisfying sound I've heard in months. "Might need to adjust a few things."
"Take your time." But his fingers are digging into my hipbones, and his jaw is tight, and I can feel exactly how affected he is through the thin barrier of my leggings. "I'm not going anywhere."
I lean down to kiss him again, and this time there's nothing slow about it. His mouth opens under mine, tongue sliding against my lower lip, and I press closer until there's no space left between us. My fingers tangle in his hair—shorter than I usually prefer, but thick and soft and perfect for gripping when his hips roll up against mine.
The friction is devastating. I'm already embarrassingly wet, have been since the first kiss, and every movement sends sparks shooting up my spine. I rock against him, chasing the pressure, and Jake groans into my mouth like I'm killing him slowly.
"Kelly." My name sounds like a prayer and a curse wrapped together. "If you keep doing that—"
"What?" I roll my hips again, shameless. "This?"
"You're a menace."
"I prefer 'enthusiastic participant.'" I kiss the corner of his jaw, the sensitive spot below his ear, the tendon straining in his neck. "Also, you started this."
"I absolutely did not. You climbed into my lap."
"After you kissed me."
"After you stared at my face in firelight and called it interesting."
"That was a compliment."
"That was foreplay disguised as—"
The thunder cracks directly overhead, loud enough to rattle the windows, and I jolt so hard I nearly headbutt him in the chin.
The lightning follows half a second later, flooding the room with white light that bleaches the color from everything. The fire hisses as rain somehow finds its way down the chimney, and the thunder rolls on, building and crashing like the sky is caving in.
I'm frozen on Jake's lap, heart hammering against my ribs, the mood shattered into approximately ten thousand pieces scattered across the cabin floor.
"Well," Jake says after a long moment. "That's one way to kill a vibe."
A laugh bursts out of me—high and slightly hysterical, the release valve on pressure that had been building to dangerous levels. Jake's chest shakes beneath my palms as he joins in, his head falling back against the couch, and we sit there laughing like idiots while the storm rages its disapproval outside.
"I think the universe is trying to tell us to pace ourselves," I manage between giggles.
"The universe has terrible timing."
"The universe is a cockblock. I'm saying it." I wipe tears from the corners of my eyes. "First the double-booking, then my identity getting blown, now this. Someone up there has strong opinions about my love life."
"Maybe someone up there thinks you deserve better than a couch hookup during a thunderstorm." Jake's hands have gentled on my hips, stroking instead of gripping. "Not that I'm complaining about the couch. The couch was working for me."
"The couch was working for both of us." I rest my forehead against his, catching my breath. "Rain check?"
"Worst pun you've made yet."
"I stand by it."
Another roll of thunder, softer this time, moving away. The storm is passing, or at least pausing to reload. Jake's heartbeat thumps steadily beneath my palm, slowing back to something resembling normal.
"We should probably get some sleep." He doesn't move to dislodge me. "Tomorrow's going to be long. Oscar wants to tackle the transmission."
"Oscar knows about transmissions?"
"Oscar knows about everything. It's his most annoying quality." Jake's thumb traces circles on my hip bone. "Also his most useful one, depending on context."
I should climb off his lap. I should retreat to Jake's bedroom—my bedroom, temporarily—and process what just happened like a functional adult. I should probably have a minor crisis about making out with a man I've known for a week while pregnant with another man's baby.
Instead, I stay exactly where I am, listening to his heartbeat and the rain, wrapped in warmth that has nothing to do with the dying fire.
"Five more minutes," I murmur.
"Take ten." His arms wrap around me, pulling me against his chest. "I've got nowhere to be."
The thunder rumbles in the distance, too far now to startle. I close my eyes and let myself have this—the steady rise and fall of his breathing, the solid heat of his body, the improbable comfort of being held by someone who knows exactly who I am and hasn't run yet.
Future Kelly can deal with the complications.
Current Kelly is exactly where she wants to be.
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