13. Hotaru
“Are you kidding me?” I snarl at my dick. The goddamned thing will not take a hint. After going to sleep with it rock hard, I woke humping my mattress. A cold shower later and I’m still saluting the sky.
My nipples are so tight, I could cut my way out of the shower. Hell, my teeth chatter and goose bumps litter my skin.
“Fuck.” I grab the conditioner, squirt some into my palm, and grab my icicle. Only it’s not cold at all. It’s hot and ready. One stroke and I groan.
My eyes shut, and I’m back in Arlo’s living room with my wildest dreams at my feet and around my cock. I can still feel his hand on me, shuttling up and down my length. Then there’s Hailey’s impossibly deep throat and her moans.
“Yes. Fuck.” My desire echoes off the large glass enclosure, smacking me in the face.
I think of Arlo’s face, his determination to drive me abso-fucking-lutely insane. He drank my fucking cum.
“Shit.” That’s it. I’m on fire. Pleasure burns its way through my veins. My balls tingle, and I shoot stream after stream down the drain. I imagine Arlo and Hailey with their tongues out, taking it, begging for more. “Fuck."
I bury my face in the frigid torrent of the shower, praying for a moment's peace. My fucking brain decides to catch up with my body and torment me with the sorrowful sound of Arlo’s voice as he called after me.
“Dammit.” I turn off the shower, step out, and dry off.
I have one leg and my hair left to do when my buzzer screams.
“On fucking Christmas?” I bellow.
Then my stomach lurches. It can only be one person.
Well, two now.
I wasn’t ready to jerk off to thoughts of them. I’m certainly not ready to face them or my desperate need to believe this is real, that this could be more than a big fucking mistake.
Sure, Arlo was hard up last night and totally into it, but he was also scared. No matter his bravado, I could see it in his eyes right up until he demanded Hailey give him my cum. There was no reservation left in him then, just want.
It scared me.
The thought of actually having everything you ever wanted is enough to level anyone. When you’ve wanted it for as long as I have, the prospect of having it is terrifying. Once you have it, it can be taken away.
And that is worse.
I dry the rest of my body, and the buzzer hollers once more. Tucking the towel around my waist, I head for the door.
My bare feet whisper against the black granite. My stupid heart, on the other hand, thunders, tossing itself against my ribs. Arlo has clearance to enter the building. Which means he’s on the other side of the door. Still, I press the intercom instead of opening it.
“Who is it?” I snap.
“Santa Claus?” Arlo tries.
“You’re on the naughty list,” Hailey adds.
“I don’t believe in Santa Claus.” I smile despite myself.
“Well, great. Now, how will we get back to the North Pole?” Arlo huffs.
“What?” I laugh, and it mingles with Hailey’s perfect chortle.
“When someone doesn’t believe, a reindeer loses its ability to fly,” he explains.
“Looks like we’ll just have to spend the night.” Hailey’s voice gets softer but closer to the intercom. “We’ll just have to keep at him until he believes.”
The double meaning isn’t lost on me or my dick. I draw a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Doa o akeru. Warugaki.”
I flip the lock and jerk the door wide as he demands, “I’m not a brat. Uzai.”
Arlo’s triumphant smile turns into a serious line. “I’m not annoying.”
Droplets of water cling to their clothes and hair. Several clumps of snow nestle in Hailey’s flowing red locks while a thin blanketing of it sits atop their coat-covered shoulders.
“Why are you covered in snow?” I hadn’t noticed it snowing. Then again, I haven’t been the master of my surroundings this morning.
“The North Pole, obviously.” He offers me a light eye roll and half smile. Then it dies and vanishes and is replaced by a pretty pout. “I’m not annoying.”
“So you’ve said. You’re also at my door unannounced and uninvited before I’ve had my morning tea. Sounds synonymous to me.”
“It’s almost eleven o’clock and not my fault you’re lazy,” Arlo shoots back.
“Lazy? It’s Christmas morning. I can sleep in if I want to.” After wandering the city until the early morning hours, I needed to more than wanted. Walking always clears my head. As does boxing and fucking. Usually.
With the dynamic duo in front of me…nothing seems to work. They haunt my thoughts, even in sleep, hence the mattress humping.
“Gentlemen?” Hailey rasps. Her green eyes are narrow and as serious as I’ve ever seen them. “If you two don’t feed me pronto, I’m going to rip out your hearts and eat them.”
“Move.” Arlo barrels inside. I’m forced to lift the hand I have braced against the doorframe. Still, his trench-coat-covered shoulder brushes against my chest. He shucks his shoes by the hall closet, dumps his coat in a hurry, and carries two reusable bags toward the kitchen.
“I don’t have any food,” I call after him.
He doesn’t acknowledge me. Just keeps walking. At least he’s walking in and not away. Guilt twinges my belly.
“What do you think is in those bags?” Hailey slips inside and stands directly in front of me. She toes off her shoes, tosses them by Arlo’s, and lifts her chin to study me.
“I have no idea.” I close the door and lock it, and then stare into her fresh face. There isn’t so much as a smudge of mascara on her lashes.
I’ve only ever seen her with a full face of makeup, which is the stuff of my fantasies. I love the art of it. And I want to make it run down her cheeks.
A dusting of freckles plays across her nose and the slant of her cheeks. I have trouble taking a full breath.
“Dinner from last night. Board games. Wine. A deck of cards. Dessert.” She counts them off on her fingers but pauses on the last. “And if you’re a good boy, another surprise.”
“I’m the best boy.” I smile. The corners of her mouth tip up, warming me from the inside out. “Good morning, sunshine.”
Her cheeks go pink, which is a feat for a woman who took my dick into her fucking esophagus with no hands or control, without even batting an eye. She gestures to all of her. The mop of hair knotted atop her head. The tattoos peeking out from the V-neck of her sweatshirt. Then her makeup-less face.
“I’m hardly sunshine material.”
“You’re beautiful material.” I pluck the snow clumps from her hair, melt them in my hand, and soak the water into my towel.
“Thank you,” she whispers. Her fierceness takes a back seat for something deeper.
“Your sunshine doesn’t come from your stunning face or banging body.” I press a finger to her dragon. “It comes from in here.”
She sucks in a deep breath, holds it for too long, then lets it free. Her head shakes, and her gaze roves my body, face to feet and everything in between. “You better be glad I’m starving. Otherwise, I’d make you pay for being so damn sweet.”
“I’m not sweet.” I wink.
“Keep lying to yourself.” She steps forward and presses her lips over my heart.
I swear the thing stops.
Then, too soon, she steps back. “Go put on some comfy clothes before I change my mind and map every gorgeous line of your tattoos with my tongue.” With that, she turns and follows the sound of food prep in the kitchen.
I watch her go, my mouth agape. I listen to the soothing banter of two people in love for far too long, my heart doing funny things inside my chest. Those two people could have stayed cozy in their perfect home.
They came to me instead.
“Hurry up, warugaki,” Arlo’s tattered voice rumbles.
The stupidest smile I’ve ever worn morphs on my lips, and I hurry to my room. I toss on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, then hurry to the kitchen. But it’s empty.
For the briefest of seconds, I wonder if I’m going insane if my mind conjured the things I want most.
Then my gaze snags on the handles of the reusable bags sticking up from the leather bar chairs lining my island.
“Hotaru, we’re in the Tatami room. Isogu. Onakagasuita.” Hailey’s sweet voice calls to me. The mix of English and Japanese makes me warm down to my toes. Like cozy warm. Giddy even.
My mom learned Japanese because she had to. It was the only way my father would communicate. But I would speak to Hailey in whatever way she wanted. English. German. Sign. Body language.
Down, boy. This is lunch, not a munch.