Page 38 of Never Pucking Ending

He walks over to me, swiping hair away from my face and grazing the pad of his thumb down my cheek. Jesse doesn’t say a word to me. He just steps back and walks out of the room to do exactly what he said he would.

But I still feel that touch on my face the rest of the day.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Belle

It takes two days to get back to normal, and Jesse spends both with me despite knowing he has a million other responsibilities. I’m sure he has better things to do on his days off than lay around like a couch potato with me.

We rewatch episodes of Heated Rivalry, then binge the entire season of Off Campus where Jesse realizes how popular hockey romance is. I make him take the Buzzfeed tests to see which main characters from the shows he is (he got Kip Grady and John Tucker), and he cooks breakfast and dinner for us with a little help from me. And by help, I mean my supervision from the kitchen counter while I snack on chips.

By day three, I wake up earlier than Jesse does which is a miracle since he’s an early bird. I decide to do something nice for him since he’s been taking care of me so much, and I make his favorite breakfast—veggie omelets. I also make him a protein shake using the last of the fresh fruits and coconut milk in the fridge and have it all ready by the time he comes downstairs.

He’s surprised when he sees me setting the plate of steaming food on the island in front of the stool. I’m almost done plating my food—the same omelet but with hashbrowns because I’m not a heathen—and smile at him.

“Morning.”

He blinks, studying the food. “Morning,” he greets, grogginess thick in his words.

He slept in today. Only by twenty minutes, but still. He needs it since he goes nonstop whenever he can. He’s only got a few days left of his week off before he goes back to practice, so he deserves to catch up on sleep.

Stepping up to the island, he smiles down at his plate and shake. “You made breakfast.”

I lift a shoulder casually. “You’ve been so busy making sure I’m okay, I wanted to return the favor. I even added mushrooms.”

His smile turns into a frown. “You’re allergic, you shouldn’t have touched—”

“I wore gloves,” I cut him off with an amused laugh. “And I cooked mine in a separate pan. It’s fine. You should have things you like. It isn’t fair if you don’t just because I’m here.”

He watches me for a moment longer before pulling the stool out and sitting. “Thank you,” he says softly, pulling the chair next to him out for me.

I wonder if he thinks about what’s fair and not fair. If he’s going back to the night we shared but haven’t talked about. Is he afraid to bring it up too? Or am I the only coward?

I sit with a smile, grabbing my fork and poking at the food that’s made my stomach growl since I started. I go for the hashbrowns first, moaning at the salty goodness until I feel his eyes on the profile of my face.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” I tell him playfully, pointing at the hashbrowns with my fork. When I stab another forkful, I have no idea he’s going to divert it to his mouth until he’s grabbing my wrist and feeding himself using my utensil.

I watch his mouth a little too carefully as he steals the bite of food. There’s a small smirk on his face as his tongue drags across his lip to catch a piece that tried falling out. Who knew watching him eat could be so hot?

He hums thoughtfully. “You’re right. It’s good,” is all he says, before going back to his own plate.

We eat in silence for a few minutes with nothing but our silverware scraping against the ceramic plates sounding between us. I refuse to think about is mouth being on my fork as I work on my omelet, and I definitely don’t think about what it would look like wrapped around my nipple.

Nope.

When we finish, I turn and try racking my brain for something to say. But before I can, he dips his head in and drags the tip of his tongue along my bottom lip. Inhaling sharply, I try not having a heart attack as his hot breath radiates off of me. I feel everything. And I feel it everywhere.

I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I don’t say a word in fear of what noise will come out. It feels like a lifetime when he finally moves away, that smirk even bigger as his hooded eyes remain on my mouth.

“You had ketchup,” he says, sliding off his tool and collecting his plate. “I got it off for you.”

With that, he grabs my plate and sets them both in the sink to rinse off. Then he loads the dishwasher nonchalantly, like he didn’t just lick me. That did happen, right? I’m positive it did.

I touch my lip, feeling it tingle under my fingertips. Jesse turns and catches me, grinning as I quickly drop my hands to my lap. I fight the flush of being caught, swallowing down the garbled words that want to rise past my throat like ‘why did you lick me’ and ‘can you please do it again?’

I scrape back my stool and stand, flattening my hands down my red plaid pajama pants. Jesse has a matching pair from Christmas a couple years ago. Our parents also had pairs for family photos that are hung up at their house in the small town we lived in New York. It’s a tradition, which is why we all have a ridiculous number of pajamas that most of us won’t ever wear more than once or twice.

Now would be a good time to discuss what happened. Not the licking. Although maybe we should bring that up too. But the other thing needs to be addressed at some point.