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I peeled off my stockings and dress and put on my pajama pants and top. They were cute. I made sure, since Jake would be over soon. I flipped through the movies until I found the one I wanted, even though I didn’t really want it.

It was my absolute favorite, Sense and Sensibility,the one with Kate Winslet as Marianne. I put it in and started watching. And, even though I didn’t want to, I felt a wave of sadness when Willoughby rode up and saved Marianne, holding her in his arms with such outright chivalry. The scene is really romantic, but it’s also tragic because Willoughby isn’t going to be Marianne’s true love. He’s going to spurn her in favor of a rich heiress so that he can keep his lifestyle. And he winds up leaving Marianne crushed. I know this story by heart. I’ve thought about it a thousand times. Because someone got it in my head and now I can’t get it back out.

That someone was Saxon Maclean. Earlier in the year I thought I might fall in love (or lust) with Saxon. Then I thought I would hate him forever. Then he told me something about Jake that changed everything, and since then, I haven’t been able to get Saxon out of my head.

On my birthday he left a book on my windowsill. It was Sense and Sensibility, and before I had a chance to read it and make my own judgments about it, I read his inscription to me. Which basically said that I was Marianne and he was Willoughby, that our love was true, but ultimately wouldn’t work. That Austen was smart for sticking me with Colonel Brandon (Jake? Not really a great fit.), and that I should be smart enough to stick with my fated role.

He had fallen off of the radar just before my birthday. For a while, he didn’t even show up at school. We were supposed to spend the day together as part of a government assignment, but I wound up going with another girl who won third place in our class competition. He was gone for almost three weeks, then he was back and no one knew where he’d gone or why. He hardly looked my way, didn’t talk to me, and closed his Facebook account. He left me the book on my birthday and other than that, it was just a look once in a while that let me know he was working really hard at keeping his distance.

The problem was that I couldn’t keep myself from thinking about him. He had almost driven a permanent wedge between me and Jake, but then backed off. He took the heat when Jake could have been mad at me, and then he told me the thing that shook me to my core; he and Jake had the same father, a fact Jake was still in the dark about. Saxon also told me that he didn’t want Jake to know, didn’t want to disappoint him as a blood brother in addition to disappointing him as a friend. He told me that if Jake wasn’t with me, he’d fight for me. And he’d vanished.

I never told Jake. Beyond the whole problem of Saxon liking me, Jake and Saxon had grown up close, and Saxon had exposed Jake to a lot of vices. When Jake finally had enough of that crazy lifestyle, he cut Saxon completely out of his life, and he hadn’t dealt with him again until I came into the picture. It would make sense for me to stay as far away from Saxon as I could.

There was just one problem.

I could never quite wriggle out of Saxon’s grasp, no matter how hard I tried. And something in me didn’t want to. There was something about him that drew me in, whether I liked it or not. I wanted to talk to him more, specifically about the whole Jake thing, but he just avoided me or flat-out ignored me. It sucked, but there was nothing I could do about it.

I cried a little at the scene where Marianne sees Willoughby at the ball and he brushes her off. It wasn’t that I wanted Saxon to want me or fight for me; it was just that if he felt that way and was open about it, we couldn’t even be friends. Jake hated him so much it wasn’t even an option to bring it up to him. It was a lost cause.

Before I knew it, my phone rang. I slid my window up and helped him in. He smiled and put a finger to his lips.

Jake had snuck in before, but he didn’t like to make a habit of it. Especially since he met my parents. He knew they didn’t really approve of him, and doing anything to make that sense stronger didn’t work for him at all.

But there was the undeniable attraction between us that always managed to skew his judgment and force him to bend his rules. Which worked for me.

I had never been much of a rebel, but Mom’s new tactics were teaching me something I don’t think she expected; I was learning that I had to do what I needed to do without worrying about who I was hurting. I had to be a little selfish.

I knew Mom would have freaked out if she knew that was how I interpreted her speech.

Jake shed everything down to his boxers and slid the neat pile under my bed. He wiggled in between the covers and snuggled up to me. His clothes and skin were still icy cold from running in the night air, across the fields and through the woods. He didn’t park close because he was afraid someone would recognize the truck. I put my hands on his body, ran them up and down his back and along the muscles of his shoulders and arms. He pulled a long piece of my hair and brought it to his nose.

“Your hair smells like cinnamon.” He breathed it in and hummed with contentment low in his throat.

“It’s my holiday shampoo,” I whispered.

He laughed quietly. “Holiday shampoo. You’re a weird girl.”

“Just because you don’t celebrate at all doesn’t mean that I never want to.” I poked him in the ribs under the blankets.

“I’m sorry.” He brushed his fingertips over my face. “Next year I’ll get candy cane deodorant and mistletoe aftershave.”

“I think mistletoe is poisonous.” I giggled.

“I’m willing to sacrifice to get into the holiday spirit. I want to be a hardcore Christmaser like you.” He kissed me softly. “Maybe you can snag me one of the pictures Thorsten took of you today.”

“It was a great dress, wasn’t it?” I sighed.

“I guess.” He kissed me again. “I just think you looked amazing. I don’t know if you realize how pretty you are.”

“Oh, I do.” I put my hands on either side of his face. “I totally use it against you. Bat an eyelash, get you to carry my lunch tray. Toss my hair, you run over to my house and jump in my window.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, I’m just your little monkey on a string.”

“You’ve got that right,” I said.

And then we were kissing again, and then the kisses got deeper and Jake’s hands were all over me. I relaxed back into the mattress and closed my eyes in the dark. I loved the cool, scratchy feel of his skin on mine. He touched me where I was softest and where I was most sensitive, and I loved it. It was like he had an instinct about how to make me feel incredible. I touched back, and soon the world had narrowed in exactly the way I loved it to. It was just me and Jake in my bed, all roving hands and kisses.

And then, in the middle of it all, I heard someone in the kitchen.

Jake snatched back from me like I’d burned him. I righted my pajamas and pushed at him.

“Under the bed,” I whispered.

He was off the bed and scurried under in a few silent seconds. I could hear him breathing, and I was positive it was the loudest sound in the world, but I couldn’t tell him to stop.

My heart hammered, and I tried to relax my own breathing, but, in the midst of pure, palpitating panic, I couldn’t remember how people breathed when they slept. Trying to breath too slow made me need to gulp bigger breaths. I suddenly had an itch on my nose that I didn’t want to scratch, but I realized I must scratch my nose in my sleep sometimes. I felt like the seconds stretched out forever, as I lay on my bed, breathing erratically and trying not to scratch what had become the most unbearably itchy nostril in the world.

I imagined getting caught. I imagined my mother’s extreme disappointment. I imagined what it would be like if she made me dump Jake. How the house would light up on this otherwise peaceful night and be full of arguments and accusations, disappointment and crushed trust. My stomach clenched, and I felt sweat break out under my armpits. I bit the inside of my lip and willed this whole thing to be over.