Kissing Jenna

by Kristen Proby

  “I’m sorry to intrude,” Christian begins, but Max waves him off.

  “You’re not. It’s cool.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll show you,” he says and gestures for us to follow him down to the basement.

  I can smell it halfway down.

  “Well, shit.”

  Max laughs humorlessly. “Not funny.”

  “Your sewer is backed up. Did you call someone?”

  “Yeah, I called you.”

  I sigh and glance back at Christian. “We’re going back upstairs. This is disgusting.”

  “You can’t leave,” Max says, and I just laugh.

  “I’m not leaving, I’m going to make some calls where it doesn’t smell like I’m swimming in a sewer.”

  I settle at Max’s massive kitchen island and make my way through my phone.

  “No one is open on Sunday,” I murmur, then remember that a friend of mine owes me a favor. “Wait. I know someone.”

  Five minutes later, I have Fred on his way over to take a look.

  “I pretty much just saved the day. But why didn’t you just make some calls? Rather than to me?”

  “I didn’t know who to call,” he says with a scowl. “You’re the one who does the construction stuff. I design software.”

  “And run an empire,” I add, then lean in and kiss his cheek. “Fred will fix it.”

  “Thank God. It’s fucking gross.” He glances over to Christian. “What did you think of the park property?”

  “It’s ridiculous,” Christian says, shaking his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “It’ll be better once she works her magic on it.” He points his thumb at me and then winks. “She’s good for something.”

  “I’m good for lots of things, I’ll have you know.” I push my nose into the air like I’m offended and march in the direction of my coat. “Now, we’re going up to the tree house where we plan to spend some naked time in the hot tub.”

  “That’s way more information than I ever need.”

  “You deserved it.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  ~Jenna~

  “YOU GUYS LOOK AMAZING,” I say the following evening as the girls and I sip wine and open our presents to each other.

  “I love the tiaras you got us,” Willa says with a giggle, touching the pretty crown on her head.

  “A girl needs a tiara,” I reply with a shrug. “Besides, I’m running out of ideas on what to get you guys. We already have everything.”

  “I feel very royal,” Grace says, her face sober as she gives us all a stoic wave, pretending to greet her subjects.

  “Isn’t Jacob a royal?” I ask and reach for a box of Milk Duds. We’ve decided to have movie night in Grace and Jacob’s home theater, so we have all of the movie essentials; candy, popcorn, soda, and possible diabetes.

  “He’s a cousin of somebody or other,” she says with a frown. “I don’t think he has an official title.”

  “Well, I’d say we all made out like bandits,” Hannah says as she slips the scarf Willa got her around her neck. “And I’m just grateful that y’all include me.”

  Our circle isn’t big, but it’s tight.

  “What do you think of my present?” Willa asks while hiding a laugh behind her hand, and I glance over at the life-sized cutout of Christian Wolfe sitting next to me. He’s in a tux, but the tie is undone, along with his shirt. We can see his spectacular chest and abs.

  It’s actually kind of hot.

  And funny as hell.

  “He’s hot,” Grace says with a sigh. “No disrespect intended.”

  I laugh and drag my hand down his flat, cold stomach. “It’s better doing this in person.”

  “Now you’re just bragging,” Grace replies, making us all laugh.

  “Is he nice to you?” Hannah asks as she pours popcorn kernels in the old-fashioned popper of Grace’s.

  “Of course, he is. I wouldn’t have talked to him after that first conversation if he was a dick. He’d be on his own.”

  “And the sex,” Willa says, pushing her long, dark hair over her shoulder. “On a scale of meh to what the fuck was that?”

  I bust out laughing and throw a Milk Dud at her, but she isn’t deterred.

  “Seriously,” Hannah says. “We need to know.”

  “So, you know the man can dance,” I begin, and they all nod, staring at me as if I’m about to tell them the secrets of the universe.

  And maybe I am. The girl secrets, anyway.

  “He can move his body in ways that just defy comprehension. And I’m not talking about being flexible or weird here. Like, he constantly hears a beat in his head and he moves with it all the time. Whether he’s walking or cooking or making love to me, it’s just effortless.”

  “Wow,” Grace breathes, rubbing her round belly. “That made the baby kick.”

  “And I won’t deny that he’s hot. I mean, look at him.”

  “I have to interject here and just say,” Willa says, “that the two of you together is just ridiculously beautiful. It’s kind of not fair to those of us who are just average-looking.”

  “Shut up.” I roll my eyes, but they all nod their heads in unison.

  “I know you don’t love that people only see your face,” Willa adds. “And you know that’s not all we see. We love you, inside and out. But I just want to remind you that he’s not the only hot one in this relationship.”

  I eat a Dud and ponder what she’s saying. “I appreciate that. You’re sweet.”

  “I can’t wait to see you walk a red carpet together,” Grace says and gives an excited dance.

  “There are no plans for that.” I grimace and set my Milk Duds aside.

  “Are there plans at all?” Hannah asks.

  “The plan is to enjoy him for the next twelve or so days, and then we’ll see. But we said the L word yesterday.”

  “What?” Grace screeches, then flings her arms around me and hugs me tight. “Oh my God, that’s so great.”

  Willa holds my gaze from across the room and sips her wine. She looks happy for me and apprehensive at the same time.

  And I get it. So, I offer her a small shrug.

  “Now, we have one more surprise for you,” Hannah says as she begins to hand out fresh popcorn to the three of us. “We’re doing movie night like we said.”

  “But it’s all Christian Wolfe movies,” Grace says with a laugh as we walk into the theater. There are ten massive leather recliners and two loveseats in front of a giant screen. Vintage movie posters line the walls.

  “Christian would love this room,” I murmur as I take a seat in the middle row, settling in with my goodies.

  “He’s here,” Willa says, stationing the cardboard cutout at the end of my row, facing me.

  “Why does he have to watch me? It’s creepy.”

  “Good point.” She turns him so he’s facing the screen. “There. Now he can watch the movie, too.”

  Grace gets the movie queued up, the lights dim, and soon, Christian comes on the screen, working a crime scene.

  His hair is darker in this role. He’s clean-shaven like he was the day he arrived not that long ago. He’s since let his stubble grow.

  I like it both ways.

  There’s action, suspense, and even some romance.

  “Oh, boy, look away,” Hannah says, shoveling popcorn into her mouth. “Your man’s gonna kiss that floozy.”

  “We’re rooting for her,” I remind her with a laugh.

  But then his lips are on her, his hands gripping her shoulders the way he sometimes grips mine, and I tip my head to the side, studying it.

  It’s just a kiss between two fictional characters. No big deal. They’re interrupted by something sinister, and the movie progresses with more action.

  About an hour later, the mood of the film changes, and it becomes much sexier.

  Like, get naked and roll around sexy.

  And I don’t love it.

&
nbsp; “Uh-oh,” Willa says, watching me. “She doesn’t like this part.”

  “I was okay with the kissing,” I admit, and have to look away when I can see his fully naked backside covering her supposedly naked body, and he’s moving as if he’s inside her. “But, no. I don’t like the sex.”

  “It’s not real sex,” Hannah says, then swallows hard. “Although, he’s a good actor. It looks pretty real.”

  “There are dozens of people watching,” Grace reminds us.

  Thankfully, it’s over quickly. The movie ends shortly after, and the lights come up.

  “Are you okay?” Willa asks.

  “Of course,” I reply. “It’s a movie. It isn’t real.”

  “One more,” Grace says. “And this one is a comedy, and if I remember correctly, Christian doesn’t take his clothes off. Much to my dismay.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Halfway into this movie, Christian asks a woman to marry him. Is it sweet and fun? Yes. Is it also a bit weird?

  Sort of, yes.

  His hair is much blonder in this film, and he’s got his scruff going on. The actress is cute and quirky, and when he asks her to marry him, she clutches her heart and starts to cry.

  “I want the have-you-seen-the-way-he-looks-at-her kind of love,” Willa says with a sigh. “I think I’m there, you guys. It’s been years, and I miss being part of a we.”

  She has that, she’s just too damn blind to see it. My brother is a wreck every time he looks at her.

  I wish they weren’t both so stubborn.

  ***

  “Where are we going?” I ask Christian the following afternoon.

  “It’s a surprise.”

  I smile and lean in to kiss his cheek. “I like your surprises, but I need to know something so I can dress accordingly.”

  His eyes skim over my mostly naked body.

  “Maybe we should skip it and stay here,” he suggests, his hand gliding over my ass.

  “No way. You promised me a surprise.”

  He laughs. “Okay. Dress warm.”

  “Are we going outside?”

  He nods, and I can tell I won’t get much more information out of him, so I pull on some jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a red flannel.

  “You know, it’s that time of year when most women look cute in their flannels. I look like I’ve misplaced my ax.”

  He lets out a surprised laugh and wraps his arms around me from behind. “Stop it. You’re beautiful.”

  “I can’t wait for summer,” I murmur. “Okay. I’m about ready. Am I driving?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m driving.”

  “Do you know where you’re going?”

  He frowns, pretending to look hurt. “How could you question my natural sense of direction?”

  “Come on, then, I want to see what the surprise is.”

  We walk out of his tree house and down to his rental SUV, which is already running.

  “Fancy,” I comment, wiggling my eyebrows.

  “It has an app, so my lady doesn’t have to get into a cold vehicle.” He opens my door for me, then shuts it when I’m inside and settled.

  He drives us down toward town. The roads are treacherous today after a heavy snowfall last night and today.

  “They plowed, but it’s icy,” I murmur. “Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”

  “I’m sure,” he says. He has both hands on the wheel and he’s watching the road carefully. “I have precious cargo with me, and I’m a trained driver.”

  I’m quiet as he works his way down the mountain, silently holding my breath and praying that we don’t slide.

  Am I a bit of a control freak?

  Maybe.

  But we reach the bottom safely, and he turns toward town.

  “You can breathe now,” he says and tosses me a wink.

  “It’s not that I don’t trust your driving skills. It’s just that you’re from L.A. and you don’t drive in snow and ice very often.”

  “Or ever,” he agrees with a nod and pats my leg. “But I won’t take chances or get cocky.”

  Once in town, he drives past downtown and behind the post office where there’s a pond. Every winter, the city makes it an ice skating rink, and I immediately know what we’re about to do.

  “Ice skating?”

  He smiles excitedly as he parks, throws it out of gear, and hurries around to my side to help me out of the SUV.

  We are the only car here. Someone strung lights between the trees above the pond, and as the sun is setting, it casts a soft glow over the space.

  It’s dreamy.

  He takes my hand and leads me to the edge of the pond where there’s a blanket laid over the snowbank. Two pairs of skates are set out for us, along with a thermos and a cooler.

  “Where is everyone else?”

  “I rented it out for the evening,” he says nonchalantly as he leans on the snowbank and trades his boots for skates. “Come on, I’ll help you.”

  I lean on the blanket, and he gets to work trading my boots for the skates, then puts his gloves back on, stands, and holds out a hand for me.

  “So, I have a confession,” I say, looking around at the empty rink, the lights overhead, and everything that he had done for me.

  “What’s that?”

  “I can’t dance. I can’t find rhythm, and it’s not easy for me.”

  He shakes his head, but I hold up my hand, stopping him so I can continue.

  “But I can skate.” And with that, I push off of the snowbank and set off across the ice, loving the cold against my cheeks, and the smell of the snow as it falls lightly around me.

  Christian catches up with me, wraps his arms around me, and we skate together, turning and laughing.

  Laughing so hard.

  “I didn’t expect this,” he says, his painfully handsome face lit up. “You’re amazing on skates.”

  “Winters are long in Montana,” I remind him and then spin around. “We played on this ice all the time growing up. It’s been a couple of years.”

  “It looks like you were born on it,” he replies.

  “How are you so good at it?”

  He just laughs and skates away from me, back to the blanket. He fiddles with something, and the next thing I know, there’s music in the air.

  “Where are the speakers?”

  He returns to me and pulls me against him, front to front. Our breath is coming fast and in soft puffs of air around us, and he’s gazing down at me in that way that Willa was talking about last night.

  And you know what I realize? He never looked at those other women in the movies like this. He’s an excellent actor, but he didn’t look at them as if they hung the stars.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “How did you do all of this?”

  His gaze flicks down to my lips, then back to my eyes. “Brad helped.”

  “I always liked him best.”

  He smiles and pulls me into a slow dance around the ice.

  “You’re good at this, too.”

  “Athletic things have always come naturally to me,” he admits as he leads me around the ice. “I’m not afraid of it. I know I can do it.”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  He blinks rapidly, his eyebrows pulling together slightly as he stares down at me.

  “Honestly, not much. But I’m afraid of losing this, with you. Of leaving here and never having a moment like this with you again.”

  Tears threaten as I press my fingers to his lips.

  “We have it now,” I whisper. “And it’s so good, Christian. You’re not going to lose me after you leave. We will figure something out.”

  He kisses me fiercely, then takes my hand, and we skate around the pond as fast as we can. It’s thrilling, exciting. And after the third time around, we return to the blanket.

  “I have hot chocolate,” he says, breathing hard. “And we have some hot soup and sandwiches, too.”

  “Oh my God, this is amazing.” I
sit on the snowbank, and he passes me the goodies. “Thank you. This might be the best date I’ve ever been on.”

  “Then my work here is done.”

  He bows deeply, then takes a bite of a sandwich. I’ve never been treated so…well. And that’s not to say that I’ve been treated poorly in the past. It’s just that no other man has even come close to making me feel as pampered, as important as Christian has done in just the past thirty minutes.

  Trust me when I say the city doesn’t pay for twinkling lights and speaker systems at this little ice rink. No, this is something Christian had done, just for this date.

  And he had it catered.

  “How did you know my shoe size?”

  “I looked at your shoes,” he says. “And I have a confession of my own.”

  “Oh, good, I can’t wait to hear this.”

  He laughs and takes another bite of his sandwich. “I have a shoe fetish.”

  I stop chewing and stare at him, then work on swallowing my food. “If you tell me that you want to lick my shoes while we fuck, we’re going to need to have a serious conversation. Because while I’m all for everyone having all the safe and consensual sex they want to, I’m not into anyone licking my shoes. That’s just not sanitary.”

  He’s laughing, squatting in his skates because he can’t stand anymore from the laughter.

  “No,” he cries out when he can breathe again. “I don’t want to lick your shoes. I might lick your feet, though.”

  “That’s different altogether.”

  “But I wouldn’t mind if you wore the shoes sometime when we’re making love.”

  I sip my hot chocolate. “My snow boots aren’t very sexy.”

  His lips twitch. “I’ve seen some pretty heels in your closet.”

  “True, I do have some pretty heels. I usually only get to wear them in the summer, and it’s a treat. I like shoes, too.”

  “All I’m saying is, if you should want to wear said shoes in the winter, now you have a reason.”

  “It’s a pretty good reason.” A vision of Christian holding onto the heels of my shoes as he fucks me from behind enters my head, and I smile slowly.

  Yes, it’s a good reason indeed.

  “Keep thinking like that, and you’ll melt that snowbank,” he says conversationally as he packs up what’s left of our dinner. “Are you ready to go?”