21. Holden
TWENTY-ONE
Holden
AN ARMCHAIR TO REMEMBER
I give her my best Irish accent. “May your troubles be less and your blessin’s be more, and may nothin’ but happiness come through your front door. Sláinte .”
Her jaw drops as she clinks champagne glasses with me. “ Sláinte! ” Piper is sitting across my lap, in an armchair, in front of the fire. We’ve already shared the take-out sandwich I brought from the restaurant and moved on to chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne. She has changed out of my sweater and into one of my plain white T-shirts. She looks so pretty in the warm glow of the firelight and this feels so right, I have to keep reminding myself we only just met in person today. “Wow. You sound exactly like Nolan.”
“I don’t know who Nolan is, but cheers.”
“Nolan Cassidy is the hottest Irishman in America! You can’t fact-check that, but it’s the truth.”
I scoff at that. “I guess we’re operating under the assumption that Brendan Gleeson isn’t in the States at the moment.”
“I don’t know who that is, but he does sound hot.”
“Exactly.”
“Why are you so good at doing an Irish accent?”
“Well, first of all, I am an actor. Secondly, I’m good at most things once I decide to be good at them. Thirdly, I decided to be good at doing an Irish accent because I studied twentieth-century Irish lit in college and I found that girls like an Irish accent. That’s it.”
I search her face, watching for some indication that she doesn’t like that I just referenced other girls in general, because in my experience, the girls I’ve been with don’t like to be reminded that there are other girls in the world that I want to like me. But she doesn’t shut down. There’s no twitching or huffing. Piper is so very unlike every other woman I’ve ever been on a first date with.
She appears, instead, to be pensive as she studies me, and maybe a little bit amazed. “This is so weird.”
“What is?”
“It’s almost like you’re a combination of all of the best men in my life… Well, except for Billy, I guess? How do you feel about ‘Tubthumping’?”
“No one’s ever gonna keep me down—I’ll tell you that much. But I haven’t added that song to any playlists or anything. Why?”
That beautiful smile that I’ve been seeing for hours radiates across her face again, and I wouldn’t be surprised if all the snow around this cabin has melted because of it. She shrugs. “I just think you’re kind of great. I probably shouldn’t say that, but it’s true.”
“I’m pretty sure you should say that—when you’re talking to me anyway.” I brush strands of hair from her face and kiss her cheek. “If it wasn’t clear already, my little sister isn’t the only fan of yours in my family.”
She sits up straighter. “Has your mom read my fanfic too?!”
“No.” I laugh. “I don’t think so. I meant me—I’m a big fan of you. As a person and as an author of elevated fanfic.”
She lowers her head, laughing. “Okay, okay.”
“I’m serious. In fact, I would like to do a reading of one of your works, if I may.” I hand Piper my champagne glass so I can reach into the back pocket of my jeans to pull out my phone. “I actually have it bookmarked—hang on.”
She is trembling because she’s suppressing her laughter and if she didn’t have a glass of champagne in each hand she’d be covering her pretty face. But she isn’t telling me not to do a reading, so…I load up one of her stories on FictionAxis and read aloud from my phone.
The table lamp is the only light that’s turned on in the living room now. It starts to flicker. We both turn our attention to it, but ultimately it stays on. “Uh-oh,” Piper says. “You should probably save your battery in case the power goes out.”
“I can charge it in the car if necessary. This is happening.” I proceed to read aloud. “Seven a.m. in Arena Seven. In which organized storm rider Zephyr meets chaotic fire rider Ember over a scheduling conflict in Arena Seven, their dragons conspire to get them together, and love blooms at an unreasonably early hour. A spicy rom-com AU of Riders of Storm and Fire . Forced Proximity/Enemies to Lovers/Slow Burn/Meet-Cute Fluff by PiperThanFiction.”
I pause to clear my throat and snake one arm around Piper’s waist as she adjusts herself on my lap, leaning into me, her cheek pressed against my temple as we both look at my phone screen. This is the only way I want to look at my phone from now on, with her face pressed against mine.
“The only seemingly chaotic thing about Zephyr was the pattern of silver flecks in the tiny, mesmerizing oceans that were his irises. But he made it a point not to allow anyone to stare into his eyes long enough to notice this—plus he was so tall, most people just stared directly at his firm pecs or his rippling abs. What people did notice about Zephyr was his sense of duty, his precision, his laser-like focus, his aforementioned pecs and abs, and his amazing butt.”
Piper buries her face into the crook of my neck. The power in the cabin dims and surges, but I continue my dramatic reading.
“The ever-organized storm rider had a strict schedule for training flights with his dragon. Training Arena Seven, at exactly seven every morning. He had filed all the paperwork for a permanent reservation of that time slot. Fire-riding Ember couldn’t care less about paperwork. She was as laid-back as her hair was red. She would just show up whenever, wherever there was an empty arena. She assumed seven was free now, because who trained at seven a.m. ?! Not her. Not usually, that is. But today was different. She had been unable to sleep after waking up from a dream about a certain perfectly-groomed storm rider. What kind of a dream? Let’s just say that his hair was severely tousled and his ocean-blue eyes were foggy by the end of it, and Ember had a lot of confused feelings to work through…”
I scroll down, past the part where Zephyr and Ember’s dragons get tangled up midair while showing off. Past the part where Ember’s fire dragon accidentally singes Zephyr’s perfectly organized flight manual. To the part where they end up in the Rider Administration Office, bickering over arena scheduling.
“‘I submitted form DR-107 in triplicate two months ago,’ Zephyr told the clerk behind the counter. Ember lounged in a waiting room chair behind him. Here I thought he had a perfect butt because he was so athletic, she mused to herself, but it looks like it’s from clenching around the very orderly stick up his ass. ‘I submit my winning smile to the arena supervisor every time I see him,’ Ember said, smirking. ‘That’s not a real form of submission, and you know it!’ Zephyr snarled. Ember stood up languidly, sauntered over to Zephyr, draped herself over the counter next to him, and said, ‘Actually, I’ve been told my kind of submission is called being a brat. But I do respond surprisingly well to being restrained. Under the right circumstances.’ Zephyr’s golden skin turned rose gold. His jaw tightened. His nostrils flared. Beneath his uniform, his nipples hardened.
“Ember stared up into his eyes, readying herself for an epic battle of wits and stubbornness, but her brow softened momentarily. She straightened her spine and declared, ‘The silver flecks in your right eye are in the form of the Stradivarian constellation. The flecks in your left eye form the outline of a scorpion. Whaddya know?’ Zephyr felt his heart softening as another traitorous part of him, not just his nipples, was getting stiff.”
And that’s when the cabin finally goes dark except for my phone and the light of the fire and totally silent, except for our breaths, and it stays that way.
“Shit. Just when things were getting really stiff—I mean good.” I put my phone to sleep and then take my glass from Piper and polish off the rest of the champagne. “It’s really a clever take on Zephyr and Ember.”
“Thank you. That was a very entertaining reading.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you warm enough?” she asks.
I’m so taken aback by the question because I’m not used to girls my age asking me that kind of thing. “Yeah. For now.”
“How long do you think the power will be out for?”
I blow out a breath. “Well, I didn’t hear a transformer, so I guess it depends if the weight of the snow broke a power line or if there was ice buildup that caused equipment failure. Who knows. Probably overnight.”
She does that thing again—where she looks at me and I can tell she’s making some kind of decision. She takes my empty glass from me and stands up. “Be right back.” She places the glasses down on the coffee table. I hear the scratch and hiss of a match being lit. In the darkness, the rough scratch of the match against the box is louder than usual, more intimate in the silence. She lights a bunch of pillar candles around the living room, candles that she brought for someone else, and I’m reminded that I actually agreed to meet Shay Nicholls here instead of Piper.
It’s already so hard to believe there was ever a time when I wasn’t under the same roof as this person. I’m not ready to think about what it will be like when I won’t be. And there are still so many things I want to do with her before that happens.
She’s disappeared into the bedroom, and the air around me is cold without her nearby, even though I’m four feet away from the fireplace. Piper emerges from the bedroom doorway, wrapped in the white comforter from the bed. She pads across the hardwood floor in her socks, stopping right in front of me. Her hand pokes out from under the blanket. “Here. Hang on to this.”
I take a condom packet from her. Another one from Shay’s stash, I guess. “You got it. And what are you going to do while I hang on to this?”
She opens her arms as if spreading her wings, revealing that she is completely naked beneath that comforter, except for her very long socks. I can barely see the curves and shadowy, dark places of her body in the fire and candlelight, like a dirty secret she’s whispering, but it’s enough to spark me to life like that match. My jaw tightens, my nostrils flare, my nipples harden, blah blah blah… I’ve gone from ruminating by the fire to horny as fuck within seconds, and she does the cruelest, most awesome thing. She covers us both with the comforter so I can’t see her anymore. The top of my head and the back of the armchair hold the comforter up like it’s the roof of our blanket fort. And she kneels down on the rug, in front of me.
“I don’t think I’m ready to do this when you can see me yet,” she says, almost apologetically. “But there’s something I’ve been wanting to do.”
She undoes my jeans, and I help her remove them.
I manage to take off my shirt too, because fuck this shirt.
“You’re so hard already!” she says from between my legs, not in some porny way—it’s just pure delight and surprise.
That. Just that. I’m so turned on.
I lean back in the chair, head tilted up, the down-filled comforter resting over my face. I grip the arms of the chair. And I feel Piper leaning in. My cock drags against her skin, bounces between her tits as she kisses my abs, my chest, my abs again. She sends shivers down my spine by trailing her fingers up the inside of my thighs.
“Is that good?” she asks, genuinely inquisitive.
“Yeah, baby. It’s so good.”
She strokes my cock really gently. Licks up the shaft, lapping at first, base to tip, and then, flattening her tongue, she bathes it with her saliva. Like she’s trying to cover as much of the surface as possible. And then she grips the base with both hands and carefully sucks the tip as she moves her hands up and down and around, so slowly.
After years of receiving either obligatory or performative blow jobs from women, I can barely handle this woman exploring me with her mouth and her hands and her tongue. Generously. Like she’s actually giving me something.
It’s so hot under this comforter already. I never want to leave this erotic cocoon, but I also want to breathe. And fuck her. I say her name, or I try to. It comes out like a groan or a growl or a plaintive wail.
“Are you okay?” Piper’s mouth and tongue are no longer on my cock, which is sad, but she’s still holding it, which is wonderful. “Where’s the condom I gave you?” she asks, like she’s talking to a little kid she’s babysitting.
I feel around the cushion by my leg and produce it for her. There’s a sudden rush of cool air when she stands up. The refreshing slap in the face I needed. “C’mere,” I say to her, reaching out to cup the back of her head and bring her in for a kiss that is so inadequate at thanking her for what she just did and praising her for how she did it. “You made me feel really good,” I say when I pull away.
“Really?”
Again, I can only express myself with a groan.
She opens the package and kneels between my legs again. The comforter covers my face again. I hold it up over her. “I’ll put it on you, okay?”
I nod and try to watch her, even though it’s dark and her hair is in the way. I have a terrible feeling I’ll always want to be able to see and feel and hear her and I’ll always be thinking about tasting and smelling her and just thinking about her. It’s not that terrible, actually. I have someone to want now. I’m twenty-five and I know who I want.
I suppose it’s possible that this snowstorm and this cabin and this firelight and this white comforter-cocoon could cast a spell on me in the same way if it wasn’t Piper who was in here with me. But I doubt it. I found her journal, I found my way to her eventually, she shared something even more special with me, and I don’t think it’s crazy to believe that this is the woman I’ll be sharing everything I have with for the rest of my life. It’s still more believable than all of those movies she loves.
I think this was meant to be.
We were always going to connect, in the same way that Piper is slowly, patiently, trying to connect with me right now. Lowering herself down onto me as I hold myself steady for her. It’s just the crackling fire and her sighs and gasps as she sinks down, down, down, and my grunts and groans filling the room. And it’s just me filling her.
She’s straddling me, and she is finally, finally still when she has taken me in as far as she can. When she’s ready to move, she moves. The comforter is wrapped around our shoulders and we’re staring at each other in the warm glow of the fire, and it’s intense but it also isn’t. I’m gripping her waist, and she’s leaning back, resting her hands above my knees. It’s comfortable but tense, and I’m just waiting for that moment that I know is coming.
When Piper’s breaths get louder and faster and more ragged. When her hips start to rock and gyrate with more confidence and determination. When there are sudden jerks and tremors. When my fingernails scrape down her back, ever so lightly, thrilling her in a way that she didn’t know she could be thrilled. When I spank her ass just once and she responds with a shudder and a sharp squeeze and an explosive surge of movement. When I fist her hair and her neck arches back and she loops her arms around my neck and I thrust up and up and up and then sit back and let her ride me until we both come. Holding onto each other so tight.
It’s too much and not enough and exactly right.
The sexiest kind of surprise, under a cloak of comfort.
I can feel her breaths on my upper back. Other than that, it’s so quiet, I swear I can hear the snow falling outside. She kisses me. All over my face. And I kiss her mouth and then I clean myself up in the bathroom. It’s getting cold, but I walk to the kitchen, naked, to get us a glass of water.
She gulps it down, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and then says, “What time is it?!”
I find my phone and tell her, “It’s after midnight.”
We both look over at the big screen TV, which isn’t on, because there’s no power. There’s no one around outside with noisemakers, no one yelling or singing. It’s just us. And that’s perfect.
Piper arranges the comforter on the armchair and gets up so I can sit in it, and she sits on my lap again, facing the fire, and we cover ourselves up.
I feel the need to sing to her, softly. “ Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind. Should auld acquaintance be forgot and auld lang syne. ” I kiss her cheek. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop kissing her. “Happy New Year, Piper.”
“Happy New Year, Holden… Somewhere over Times Square, there’s a piece of confetti paper with the words I meet HEA face-to-face, and he figures out it’s me he’s been texting with floating down from the sky.”
“I saw what you wrote. Did I tell you that?”
“What? You mean after I pinned it to the wall?”
“Yeah. I had no idea the beautiful girl I saw was you, and I had no idea you meant me.”
She smiles. “I meant you. What’s your New Year’s wish?”
“Well, they were called resolutions in my family. When I was growing up, my dad always had us write them down and then at dinner on New Year’s Eve we’d all read them aloud, for accountability. And that forced us to really think about what we wanted and how to articulate it. And I forgot to make a list this year, actually. But I can think of one very new resolution I have for this year.”
“Tell me.”
I’m not going to tell her the real resolution, which is to spend every New Year’s Eve with her from now on. It’s too early to say that one out loud. But I know it’s what I want and I know I’ll do whatever it takes to make it happen. I’m her first and I want to be her last, but I can be so many different men for her that she won’t feel like she’s missing out.
What I will tell her is this: “I’m going to make sure that every single day this year you know how much I like you.” Placing her hand over my heart, I say, “And I hope to make the same resolution for next year too.”
One more kiss on her upward-turned lips. “Let’s get back in bed.”