Chapter 18
The next two days are packed full of all the holiday things we missed out on before Christmas.
We bake cookies and other desserts with Mom, we make our gingerbread houses, we drive around and look at all the holiday lights in the neighborhoods that go all-out every year, and play games and watch movies. My heart is so happy.
Felix and Teddy leave tomorrow. The Valley U football team’s season is over, but the guys are attending bowl games with some of their teammates and coaches.
I swear they’ve been done for only a few weeks and they’re both talking about off-season practices, summer camps, and going all the way next year.
Stella and I are planning to spend a few more days at home and then we’ll all meet up at Valley. Felix and his roommates are having a New Year’s Eve party at their apartment. I can’t wait to spend more time with the guy lying next to me.
We’re taking up one couch. My head rests on his chest and one of his big, beefy arms is slung around my waist. Felix is in the recliner, and Stella is sitting on the love seat.
Teddy’s chest rumbles with laughter at the movie.
I glance up at him, the goofy smile on his face and the way the lights dance across his face and darken the shadows of his dimples through the light scruff that’s appeared since he got here.
He catches me staring at him instead of the movie and dips his head to kiss me. “You’re not watching the movie.”
“Now neither are you,” I quip back.
His laughter spills into my mouth. Soft kisses turn a little hungrier, and then something soft collides with the side of my head.
I pull back in time to see the pillow land on the floor next to the couch.
Felix holds another up like he’s ready to launch it. “I’m cool with my best friend making out with my little sister, but you know, not in front of me.”
Teddy runs a hand down the back of my head, tangling his fingers in my hair. “Noted, bro.”
I look at him with outrage. “Just like that? He says stop and no more kissing?”
“Later.” He winks.
“You’re missing the best scene,” Stella says. She turns the volume up as Kevin runs through the snowy park to give the pigeon lady a turtle dove.
She cries every single time.
After the movie is over, Felix gets to his feet. “I’m going to bed.”
“Same.” Stella pushes the throw blanket off her.
“Eight tomorrow morning?” Felix asks Teddy.
“I’ll be ready.”
“Night, Holl,” Stella says. “See ya later, Theodore.”
They go upstairs and it’s just the two of us hanging out in the living room. Mom and Dad went to bed hours ago.
Last night was the same, we stayed up for hours talking and kissing. I didn’t make it to my own bed until well after three in the morning.
I get up and go grab the present I wrapped and placed under the tree earlier today. I bring it back to the couch and sit it in front of him. “I have something for you.”
“You didn’t need to do that,” he says, but smiles.
He tears into the paper with the biggest grin.
“It’s just something silly,” I say when he has the tin completely unwrapped.
He gives it a little shake and his brows rise in question. He pries the top off, and when he looks inside, his mouth falls open in surprise. “No way. You made gingersnaps!”
“Well, I tried.”
He picks one up and takes a bite.
“Are they anything like what your mom used to make? I tried one before I iced them, but I wasn’t sure.”
He nods as he chews. “Exactly. You even got the icing right. One half-dipped in icing, the other plain.”
Before he’s even finished the one in his mouth, he picks up another. “I forgot how good these are.”
“Let me taste.” I reach for one, but Teddy moves the tin, holding it up where I can’t get any, and takes another bite.
“Hey!” I exclaim playfully.
He keeps the tin up high as he makes a big show of throwing his head back and closing his eyes as he chews. A sexy groan escapes. He mumbles around the cookie, “So good.”
Instead of making another attempt at reaching the cookies, I crawl into his lap. I wrap my legs around him and press our chests together.
“You don’t share very well.”
“They were a gift,” he says when he’s done chewing, “from my girlfriend.”
My brows lift.
“I mean, if that’s what she wants to be.”
“She wants to be.”
His mouth descends on mine. He tastes like ginger and sugar.
We kiss until my body trembles and we’re both panting, then we move to the floor in front of the Christmas tree.
Mom was so tickled that Teddy brought us a tree, she moved the artificial one we had in the living room to the dining room, and put his in its spot.
I love how it smells and the way it looks, but mostly, I love how he knew the perfect thing to get me.
He was paying attention that day at the tree lot. Maybe he always was.
As he lavishes me with long, sweet kisses, he pulls my shirt over my head. The way he looks at me, my desire mirrored back, makes my body flush.
His hand slides around the back of my neck and draws me closer. “You’re so beautiful, Holly.”
He fingers the necklace, running his thumb over my name.
We fall to the ground. Our kisses are more urgent as we strip each other down.
I climb on top of him. His dick nudges my entrance, and he shifts, so he isn’t poking me. “I don’t have a condom.” His hands roam over my side, back, and up to cup my breasts. “Think your brother is asleep yet?”
“You are so not asking my brother for a condom.”
He scrunches up his nose. “Yeah, that’d be weird.”
I lean over him, my boobs are conveniently in his face, and he takes advantage of the position to capture one in his mouth. Reaching under the tree skirt, I pull out the strip of condoms I put there with the cookies.
I sit back and hold them up, letting them dangle from my fingers.
His chest moves in a quiet laugh. “Under the tree?”
“I couldn’t think where else to stash them.”
“What if someone else had found them?”
I lift one shoulder and let it fall. “I would have blamed Felix.”
Laughing, he pulls me back down to him and then rolls us, so he’s on top.
“Are you sure?” he asks, staring down at me with those soft gray eyes.
“Positive.” I beam up at him. “I’ve dreamt about this for so long.”
He dips his head to place a kiss above my belly button. While his mouth travels lower, his gaze flicks up to mine. “Me too, sweetheart.”
He leaves a trail of wet kisses down my stomach and on my inner thigh. His broad shoulders push my legs apart. He hooks an arm around one, opening me wider to him, and his mouth covers my sensitive core. His tongue flattens and then flicks across the bundle of nerves.
My body is liquid heat as he brings me closer and closer to the edge. Only when I’m panting and muttering his name on an endless loop does Teddy roll on a condom and position himself.
He slides in slowly, disappearing inside me an inch at a time. He stills when he’s fully buried. I hold my breath and dig my fingernails into his forearms. It’s so good. Too good. And the man hasn’t even moved.
He drives in gently at first, but we’re both too close and too amped up. We won’t last long, no matter how slow and sweet he goes.
I come with his name on my lips, and he follows a second later, swallowing my words and kissing me like he’ll never get enough.
He falls to the floor beside me, immediately finding my hand and lacing our fingers together.
“That was . . .” I trail off as I gulp in air.
“Yeah,” he rasps.
I let my head fall to the side, so I can stare at him. His happy, satiated smile re-energizes me.
“Again?”
He barks a laugh. “Yeah, sweetheart. Again.”
“A million times more?”
“A million and one.” He drags the pad of his thumb along my lower lip, leans closer, and then gives me a soft kiss.
“A million and two?”
His smile widens.
“A million and three?”
“Mhmm.” He chuckles. “But first, I need another gingersnap.”
“Are you finally going to share?”
We sit up, and Teddy grabs the tin of cookies. While he’s distracted by my bare chest, I steal the tin from him. His arms wrap around me a second later. He whispers petty threats for all of two seconds before his mouth finds my neck.
I finally get a bite of his precious gingersnaps. And he gets me. Again.
And again.