Chapter 21
[Saint]
As much as I wanted to just wander into the woods and chop down a fir tree like I do at home, Lumi warns that most land around Hideaway Harbor is private or protected, and we cannot simply walk into a wooded area and take down a tree.
Instead, we go to Pine & Dandy Christmas Tree Farm, where I cut down a seven-foot Fraiser fir Lumi swears is too big for her living room.
I don’t believe her until we cut the netting snugly holding the branches, and they spring apart.
The tree is huge inside the smaller room and takes up an entire corner of her living space near the front window, even after we trim the top and saw off a portion of the bottom.
It looks ridiculous, and beautiful, and smells heavenly.
“Just what this room needed,” I state, proud of our purchase, while standing back and giving the monstrosity another glance.
“You think my living room needed an extra-large, live tree?” Lumi teases.
“This room needed more holiday cheer.” Just looking at the naked tree is bittersweet. A reminder of obligations yet deepening emotions about how wonderful this time of year can be.
“You don’t like my house?” she counters next, and I turn to face her.
“I love this house.” I hold her gaze because I mean it. This cozy two-story home is so full of love and touches that scream all-Lumi, and although I live in a house three times larger, I wouldn’t give up this house unless I had to.
Which I have to do.
But that thought is for another day, so I turn back to the tree and clap my hands once. “Okay, what’s next?”
At home, we have staff who decorate all the trees around the factory, and Ma has helpers who set up many of the trees within the house. Because I’m so busy with work, I no longer participate in decorating the family tree. Which makes tonight’s activity all the more exciting and meaningful.
This moment will be for Lumi and me.
“Lights. Ornaments. Garland.” Lumi sighs like it’s all too much, but I’m all in.
“On it.” I turn toward the boxes she had me bring down from her attic earlier in the day. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a more organized attic than hers, with everything labeled and similar items stored near one another.
“Music and beverages, snowheart.” I point at her, doling out her mission.
Despite rolling her eyes, her smile is warm and sweet. As much as the endearment might sound awkward, it works. Like I told her the other night, admitting a little too much perhaps, she owns my heart. Lumi Snowe plus heart. And now I sound like a love sap, as sticky as the needles from this tree.
When music fills the living room from Lumi’s phone, I turn toward the tree, eager to begin with the lights.
Twenty minutes later, I’m frustrated. “Who the hell rolled up these lights?” The delicate cords are a tangled mess, wound like a ball of yarn, only not nearly as neat or as easy to unravel.
“I think Danny did it.” Lumi sighs beside me, managing her own issues as she works on a twist of fake cranberries and plastic popcorn garland. At the mention of her son, I power on because I want this Christmas to be special for Lumi with or without Danny.
I can only imagine how difficult it must be when parenting transfers from the trials and tribulations of child-rearing to the release of one’s child as an adult.
I’m certain Lumi’s raised a good man. He’s grown up and left home, as one does when raised well, encouraged to dream, and given the opportunity to fly.
Still, I can feel her quiet sadness, amid her understanding. Her son won’t be home for the holiday.
I don’t like to think of her alone, especially as I cannot stay with her.
The resolve in her voice further breaks my heart. She isn’t upset to spend the holiday with her sisters as she always does. She’ll just miss those who won’t be present. Like Danny. Her sister Icelyn. Maybe even me.
For the next fifteen minutes, we work without speaking, allowing the cheerful holiday music to fill the space, but on the sixth rendition of “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”, Lumi stands and picks a new selection of songs.
The playlist includes famous artists singing holiday originals about home and family, winter and love.
When we finally have the lights strung and the garland secure, we start on Lumi’s ornaments and she shares little anecdotes about each one of them.
The golden-plated Santa image with Danny’s name engraved on it for his first Christmas.
His Bob the Builder phase, which abruptly ended and moved on to Batman.
His obsession with every sport imaginable. His love of cars.
Lumi also had ornaments that remind her of her mom, who died in a car accident, and her father who eventually succumbed to a broken heart nearly two decades after his wife’s death.
She smiles with fond memories, though, not every smile reaches her eyes.
For half a second, I worry this might have been a bad idea. The memories. The reminders of those missing from her home, but not her heart.
“You okay?” I eventually ask as she stands back and admires the hanging ornaments she worked to arrange and rearrange, so they look just right to her.
“Yeah,” she whispers, turning from the tree to glance at me. “Thank you for this.” She tilts her head toward the evergreen with ornaments only on the front three-quarters because it’s so large.
No one will notice the back, I’d told her, because it was tucked into the corner.
“Anything for you, snowheart,” I state, wishing I could make that statement one hundred percent true. I’d love to give her anything she asks of me, but there are a few things I cannot offer.
When she swipes at her cheek, I notice a single tear has escaped her eye.
“Hey.” I set down the final ornament I hold in my hand and step closer to her. “Hey, hey, what is this?”
I swipe at a second tear while she presses at the corner of her opposite eye.
“I don’t know.” She chuckles, the sound awkward and uncertain. “It’s such a beautiful tree. And getting one was such a thoughtful idea. And you’re such a good man.”
My cheeks heat with the compliment and the sincerity in her voice. I press a kiss to her forehead, lingering a moment, while she takes a few seconds herself.
Eventually, I lean back. “One final thing to do.” I point toward the cord beneath the tree. There’s a giant button to press with your foot to switch on the lights. “Want to do the honors?”
Lumi shakes her head and steps back, pressing the corner of her other eye, but the tears are gone for now. I practically skip to turn off the lamp in the room and quickly return to the power button for the tree lights.
With ridiculous pride, I tap the button with my sock-covered toe, and the tree illuminates.
While I’ve seen hundreds of trees lit in my lifetime, there is something extra special about this large tree in a small living room, decorated with worn-out garland and sentimental ornaments.
“It’s a good tree, Saint,” Lumi says, her voice soft as she stares at the lights. The selection is mini bulbs in multiple colors, and in the darkness, they reflect back on her face, giving her a rainbow glow across her nose and cheeks.
“It’s beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful,” I whisper, unable to take my eyes off her, and the mosaic display over her skin.
And as a new song begins, I step closer to her, slip my arm around her back and tug her toward me.
“Dance with me.”
“Here?” she laughs, the sounds like miniature bells, lighter than minutes ago. She sounds equally surprised by my request.
“Here,” I confirm, taking her hand in mine and pulling it upward. Under the masculine crooning of Michael Bublé, singing “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas,” we sway to lyrics that are not traditionally meant for dancing until the next tune begins.
“Ah, the Pentatonix,” I groan, recognizing the beat of “White Winter Hymnal”.
“Got something against them?” she teases as I reach for the hem of her sweater.
“Nope. Just want you against me.” I tug the sweater up and over her head, revealing a fitted long-sleeve shirt.
“You’re very corny tonight.” She smiles and continues the pause on our dance to remove my flannel shirt.
“And you . . .” I reach for the hem of the second shirt on her. “Are overdressed for this dance party.”
“Now we’re having a party?” She is pure flirt.
With her long-sleeve shirt removed and dropped to the floor, I tug off my Henley by reaching behind my neck and pulling it up and over my head. It meets the pile of clothes beginning to build near our feet.
I’m in no hurry to undress her. I just want her skin against mine, but she beats me to it by running her palms over my belly and then across my pecs. Her gaze follows the trail she treads, taking her time to feel my abdominal muscles contract.
“Ticklish?” she slowly grins while retracing her pattern over my flesh.
“No.” I hadn’t ever considered myself ticklish but something about her tender touch sends a shiver down my spine.
“Cold,” she whispers at the evident shiver.
“Nope.” I rub my hands over her shoulders and along her back, pulling her closer to me to unfasten her bra, then drop it to the floor as well.
Bringing Lumi against me, I wrap my arms around her, feeling her naked breasts pressed to my sensitive chest. Our hips gently sway as we move in a slow circle that doesn’t match the snaps and claps of the song. Which doesn’t matter in the least.
As the rhythm comes to an end, I press at Lumi’s leggings, shoving them down her thighs before squatting to help her step out of them. Her cabin socks are in the way, and I tug them off as well.
Standing to my full height, I shuck off my jeans and step out of my socks too.
“A naked dance party.” Lumi giggles.
“No party,” I confirm, pulling her body back against mine, breasts back against my chest. Securing her in my arms, I press a kiss to her temple. “Just us, Lumi. You and me.”
The music shifts to something more somber, almost mournful. “Winter Song” by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson fills Lumi’s living room, and she looks up at me.
“I love this song. There’s something so sad but beautiful about it.”
I don’t know if I’ve ever listened to the lyrics, so while we dance, I concentrate on the soulful song about winter wishes and keeping memories inside my heart.
Pulling back, I kiss Lumi, slow and sweet, taking my time to memorize the curl of her lips.
The slight pout to the lower one, the perfect bow of the upper one.
I savor the taste of wine and peppermint on her tongue as she sucked on a candy cane between sips of the holiday blend we bought at the winter market the other night.
I drink in the quiet sound of her. A soft purr as we bring our lips together.
As with all things with Lumi, I cannot stop time, though, and the kiss begins to heat.
Tongues meet, hesitantly at first, as if trying once more to savor the flavor of the other.
Our tongues connecting only edges the pleasure.
As they swirl together, I draw her closer.
My knee slips between her legs, and her arms tighten around my neck.
I’m hyperaware of the coarse hairs on my thighs meeting the silky smoothness of the inside of her leg. The heat of my palm spreads over her bare lower back. The curve of her jaw against my other hand, cupped on the edge of her face.
Lumi lifts her leg, entangled between mine, gently nudging at my balls. The evidence of what she does to me is long and hard and poking at the waistband of my boxer briefs, eager to be set free, but I’m in no hurry.
I just want to drink her in, freeze the moment, and store the memory . . . inside my heart.
When the song finally ends, Sia begins singing “Snowman,” and I tug Lumi down to the floor, littered with our clothing and the discarded tissue paper previously wrapped around her ornaments.
Beneath the Christmas tree, the only illumination in the room, I marvel once more at the kaleidoscope of color over Lumi’s skin. The blue on her breast. The green near her belly. The red on her face.
She’s so beautiful and I slip my hands between her thighs, watching her eyes roll back and her back arch at that first touch. The one that confirms I turn her on. I make her wet. I cause her to hum and eventually beg for more. Of me.
When I sense she can’t take anymore, I slip between her legs, spread open and welcoming my cock at her entrance. Slowly, I slide into her, filling her, treasuring her.
“Lumi,” I whisper. Depending on the language, there are anywhere from forty to seventy words for snow.
There is only one word for love.
Lumi.
“Saint,” she counters, running her hand along the side of my head, as I take my time to glide in and out of her. Teasing that I’ll leave her body. Assuring with a gentle rush forward that I want this to last as long as it can.
I want us for as long as we have.
Her hips roll in response to how mine rock, and we write a new holiday song. One sung about an oversized tree, childish ornaments, and two bodies beneath evergreen branches, making love and memories.
I cup the back of Lumi’s thigh, pressing her bent knee toward her shoulder, opening her wider for me. Her head turns to the side as her mouth gapes.
“Come, snowheart.” Fall apart around me like the flutters inside a snow globe. The downy flakes that float from the sky. The swirl as it drifts across open fields.
Lumi lets out a long moan of relief as she clenches around me, pulling from me a release only she can provide.
An explosion of color painted on skin. The twinkling of bright blue lights against a pine tree. A blast of holiday music, full of cheer and excitement and enthusiasm.
Faith. Hope. Love.
As I come down from my own ride through the sky, I collapse over Lumi’s body, blanketing her while she hugs me to her chest like a beloved pillow.
And we hold tight to this moment. One lived to the fullest, drawn out to the end, until there is nothing that remains but just Lumi and me.
Pure magic.