Chapter 8 #2
"A pass-the-parcel situation," she agrees breathlessly.
"Infinite layers. I'm going to find you eventually," I promise, kissing her neck.
"Bold of you to assume I'm not just sweaters all the way down," she teases.
"Like a textile nesting doll," I suggest, finally making progress.
"Exactly. You open the last sweater and find a smaller, angrier sweater," she laughs, then gasps as my hands find skin. "Oh."
"Found you," I murmur.
She pulls me down onto the rug in front of the fire, and I have immediate regrets about the location.
"This rug is terrible," she complains as we try to get comfortable.
"Your rug is an assault on comfort," I agree, shifting to avoid what feels like embedded gravel.
"It came with the apartment. I think it's made of recycled steel wool," she says, then pulls me back down. "Don't care. Kiss me again."
I comply enthusiastically, though my foot gets tangled in what turns out to be a scarf she was wearing as a belt. She laughs when I curse creatively at a stuck zipper.
"This is the least sexy seduction in history," she gasps, trying to help.
"Seduction implies planning. This is more like romantic fumbling," I correct, finally conquering the zipper.
"Fumbling implies we don't know what we're doing," she points out.
"Do we?" I ask, pausing to look at her.
"I know you're still wearing pants, and that seems wrong," she says, tugging at my belt.
"Valid point," I agree, fixing that problem while she laughs at my graceless hopping.
The firelight paints her skin in warm amber tones, and when she reaches for me, her hands are steadier than mine. We move together with the awkward grace of people who are trying too hard not to overthink things and failing spectacularly at it.
"Is this okay?" I ask, my hand sliding along her hip.
"Very okay," she breathes, arching into my touch. "Don't stop."
There's nothing smooth about it—my elbow catches on the blanket, she laughs when I accidentally knee her thigh, and we have to readjust twice because the rug really is made of pure spite.
But it doesn't matter because her mouth is on mine and her hands are mapping my chest and shoulders like she's memorizing coordinates.
I kiss down her neck, tasting salt, and the faint scent of cinnamon from whatever candle she lit earlier. She makes a sound that's half laugh, half moan when I find the sensitive spot just below her ear.
"Ticklish?" I murmur against her skin.
"Sensitive," she corrects breathlessly. "There's a difference."
"I'll keep that in mind," I promise, filing away every gasp and shiver for future reference I shouldn't be planning.
My hands explore the curve of her waist, the softness of her stomach, the places where she's self-conscious even though she has no reason to be. When I tell her she's beautiful, she tries to deflect with humor, but I kiss the protest away until she believes me.
"You're wearing too many clothes still," she complains, tugging at my thermal shirt.
"You're the one who dressed me in layers," I point out, but I'm already pulling it off.
"Past me was an idiot," she declares, running her hands over my chest. "Present me has better priorities."
The rug situation reaches critical mass when a particularly uncomfortable lump threatens permanent damage.
"Okay, we need to move," I decide, starting to shift.
"Don't you dare," she warns, wrapping her legs around me. "I'm comfortable."
"You're lying," I accuse.
"I'm committed to the bit," she insists.
"The bit is going to put us both in traction," I argue, but I'm laughing as I gather her up and move us to the couch, which is marginally more forgiving.
"Better?" I ask, settling between her thighs.
"Much," she agrees, pulling me down for another kiss.
We take our time despite the urgency humming through my veins. Every touch is an exploration, every kiss a question. When I slide my hand between her legs, she gasps my name—the wrong name—and it should bother me more than it does.
"Yes?" I ask, fingers teasing.
"Yes," she confirms, her hips lifting to meet my touch. "Please."
She's warm and ready, and when I finally press inside her, we both freeze for a moment, adjusting to the intimacy of it. The connection. The reality is that this crossed every boundary we'd drawn.
"Okay?" I manage, holding still despite every instinct screaming at me to move.
"Perfect," she whispers, her hands gripping my shoulders. "Move. Please move."
I do, slowly at first, finding a rhythm that makes her breath catch and her fingers dig into my back. The couch protests our activities with creative squeaking, which makes us both laugh even as we're gasping.
"Your furniture is judging us," I point out between thrusts.
"Everything in this apartment is a critic," she agrees, then loses her train of thought when I angle differently. "Oh. There. Right there."
I focus on that spot, that angle, watching her face as pleasure builds across her features. Her eyes squeeze shut, her mouth falls open, and small sounds escape that I want to record and replay for the rest of my life.
"Look at me," I ask, needing to see her.
She does, her eyes hazy but focused on mine. The intimacy of it steals my breath more than the physical sensation.
"Don't stop," she pleads, her body tightening around mine.
"Not planning on it," I promise, though my control is fraying at the edges.
I can feel her getting closer—the tension coiling through her muscles, the way her breathing changes, how her nails rake down my back. When I slip my hand between us to add pressure where she needs it most, she makes a sound that's my name and a prayer and a demand all at once.
"Come for me," I murmur against her ear. "I want to feel you."
She does, her whole body arching as pleasure crashes through her. The sensation of her contracting around me, the sound of her crying out, the way she looks at me like I've given her something precious—it's enough to undo me completely.
My own release follows, intense and overwhelming, and I barely have the presence of mind to muffle my groan against her shoulder. For a moment, we're just breathing, tangled together, sweaty despite the cold, the fire casting dancing shadows across the ceiling.
"That was..." she starts, then trails off.
"Yeah," I agree, because words seem inadequate.
"The couch survived," she observes.
"Barely," I counter, noting the concerning angle of one cushion.
"Worth it," she decides, running her fingers through my hair.
Afterward, we lie tangled together on the world's worst couch, covered by a blanket she found that has Santa's face on it.
"Santa's judging us," I observe, pointing at his knowing expression.
"Santa's seen worse. I remember the year Mrs. Patterson spiked the eggnog." She says, tracing patterns on my chest.
"What happened?" I ask, playing with her hair.
"We don't talk about Christmas 2019," she says seriously.
"That bad?"
“The reindeer display gained sentience. Or seemed to. Turns out Teddy was stuck in the Rudolph costume," she explains.
"How do you get stuck in a Rudolph costume?" I wonder aloud.
"Enthusiastically," she says, and we both dissolve into laughter.
We watch the fire die down to embers, neither of us acknowledging that this changed everything. That practice became real somewhere between the third sweater and the Santa blanket.
"The power will come back on," she says eventually, her voice small.
"Probably," I agree, tightening my arms around her.
"The heat will work again," she adds.
"Eventually," I confirm.
"We'll have to go back to pretending," she whispers into my chest.
"Will we?" I ask, pressing a kiss to her hair.
She turns to look up at me. "Won't we?"
I should say yes. Should remind her of the contract, the committee, the plan. Instead, I trace her face with my fingertips, memorizing every detail.
"The storm's not over," I say, which isn't really an answer.
"No," she agrees softly. "It's not."
We lay tangled together until she falls asleep. She shifts, burrowing closer, and my arm tightens around her automatically. The contract is somewhere in her kitchen, laminated and official and completely irrelevant now. Section 3, subsection 2a might as well be written in disappearing ink.
My phone buzzes again—Sterling, always Sterling—but I don't even look.
Outside, the blizzard keeps raging, but in here, wrapped in Santa's questionable judgment and her warmth, I finally understand what I've been running from all these years.
Not my father's legacy or corporate spreadsheets or Sterling's endless calls.
I've been running from this—this terrifying feeling of wanting to stay.
Wren mumbles something in her sleep, her hand clutching my chest like she's afraid I'll disappear. And maybe I should. Maybe I should leave before she discovers who I really am, before I destroy everything she loves.
But I don't move. I can't move. Because somewhere between the terrible rug and the googly-eyed reindeer sweater, I stopped pretending.
And that's the most dangerous truth of all.