Chapter 16
Chapter sixteen
All I Want for Christmas Is an Orgasm
Miranda
Istrip off so fast I nearly trip over my own jeans.
Underwear stays on. I’m not completely deranged. But I do swap my jumper and trousers for a soft bathrobe that feels like a hug I don’t deserve. Then I stare at myself in the mirror and immediately hate everything.
I undo the ponytail so my hair falls around my shoulders—too fluffy. I smooth it back into something sleeker—too harsh. Then I compromise by doing what I always do when I’ve run out of options: messy bun. Slightly chaotic. Arguably charming. Matches the rest of my personality.
The kittens are watching from the bed like they’re rating my life choices out of ten. Thor yawns. Twinklesocks blinks in slow disapproval.
“Oh hush,” I mutter, digging around in the bathroom cabinet for something vaguely spa-like. “You’ve both licked your own bums in front of houseguests. You don’t get to judge.”
I spritz a little perfume into the air like it’ll fix the general air of panic, then glance down at my toes. Chipped polish. Disaster.
Do I have time to paint them?
I crouch, rummaging in the basket under the sink for that emergency nail varnish I’m pretty sure expired back when the Princess of Wales was still Kate Middleton—
The doorbell rings.
I freeze.
Twinklesocks leaps off the bed and bolts for the door like she’s about to collect a prize.
Fuck.
He’s here.
I open the door with a kind of breezy casualness but I am not sure he is buying it.
Jasper stands there holding a large foldable massage table like it’s the most normal thing in the world. He looks calm. Infuriatingly so. Meanwhile, I’m half-dressed, half-panicking, and fully aware that I haven’t exhaled properly in about ten minutes.
“Evening,” he says, voice low and steady.
I try for a smile and probably land somewhere between polite and electrocuted. “Come in.”
He steps inside, gaze flicking around like he’s checking for exits and soft furnishings, then glances back at me.
“So… the living room?” I say, gesturing vaguely. “Feels like the least risky option.”
“Living room works,” he agrees, following me through.
The kittens are already there—naturally. Twinklesocks is perched on the arm of the sofa, eyes fixed on Jasper like she’s been waiting to pounce. Thor is lying on his back under the coffee table, contemplating the ceiling with philosophical intensity.
Jasper sets the table down and starts unfolding it without comment. Calm, capable, quietly professional. The kind of man who could probably deliver bad news while simultaneously fixing your sink and keeping your grandmother calm.
Twinklesocks trots straight over and headbutts his leg.
“Hey gorgeous,” he murmurs, crouching to greet her. She purrs, tail flicking once, then hops onto the sofa and settles like a tiny, furry chaperone.
Once the table’s up and adjusted, he pulls out a small speaker and scrolls through his phone. A few seconds later, soft, spa-adjacent piano music floats through the room. Not too cheesy. Not too romantic. Just the right side of safe.
Then he turns to me, pulling two small candles from his pockets. “Final decision before we begin. Lemony or flowery?”
I blink. “Lemony.”
He nods, sets the other aside, and lights the wick. The sharp, clean scent starts to cut through my nerves—like someone’s trying to disinfect the atmosphere.
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly very aware of every thread of my bathrobe.
He looks over again, voice gentle. “Ready when you are.”
I nod, throat dry.
Then I step towards the table, heart pounding loud enough to drown out the piano.
Getting onto the table turns out to be less “elegant spa client” and more “panicked squirrel trying to board a kayak.”
“Right,” I say, eyeing the table like it’s about to challenge me to a duel. “So I just…?”
Jasper gives a small nod and steps back, very deliberately turning away. “There’s a cover in the middle—just slip under it. Take off the robe, keep your underwear on. I won’t look.”
“Better not,” I mutter, already undoing the tie and trying to keep some level of dignity as I shuffle towards the table like a contestant in a deeply unglamorous reality show.
Twinklesocks watches with interest from the sofa.
I manage to shrug out of the robe without strangling myself, then quickly dive under the sheet like it’s a security blanket and the floor is lava.
Jasper waits a beat. “Ready?”
“Define ready,” I mutter from under the linen, one leg still tangled and very much not where it should be.
There’s an ungainly pause as I try to hoist myself onto the table. My foot slips. My knee knocks the edge. I let out a sound like a startled badger.
“Careful,” Jasper says, not moving but definitely trying not to laugh.
“I am careful,” I say, now half on the table, half flailing, fully betrayed by cotton.
Eventually, with a groan, a flop, and an accidental elbow to the face-rest, I get myself into position. Facedown, covered, and praying he didn’t see as much as I fear.
“I’m in,” I mumble into the padded hole. “I’m all yours.” I regret the words the minute they are out.
Behind me, there’s a very quiet chuckle. “Alright then. Close your eyes and try to relax.”
The first touch is light.
Just his warm, steady hands pressing gently onto the towel covering my back. No movement yet. Just weight. Intentional. Anchoring.
And yet somehow, my breath stutters.
He starts slow. No oil. No digging in. Just smooth, gliding pressure through the fabric—up my spine, down again. Over my shoulders. His thumbs pause at the base of my neck, where tension clings like guilt. He presses, not hard, but deep enough to make something unravel.
I exhale. A long, quiet sigh that tries not to sound too much like relief.
He says nothing. No small talk. No awkward commentary. Just quiet music, the faint scent of lemon, and his hands moving with maddening patience.
I close my eyes.
It’s fine. This is fine.
Just a massage. From a friend. A very attractive, unnecessarily competent friend who smells like soap and man and is currently pressing into the sore spot under my shoulder blade with surgeon-level precision.
I shift slightly and his hand adjusts with me, never straying. Always respectful. But still—oh, fuck, still—
How is this so hot?
Jasper’s touch isn’t demanding. It’s not even particularly sexual. But it’s attentive. Focused. Like he’s listening with his fingers.
My skin tingles.
Stop it.
My thighs press together under the sheet, instinctively, embarrassingly. I try to relax. Breathe deeper. Pretend my mind isn’t staging an entirely inappropriate one-woman show inside my head.
His hands shift lower, to the middle of my back, and then—slowly—he peels back the towel just enough to expose my shoulder blades. I freeze for half a second.
Then he speaks, softly: “Just this bit, if that’s okay.”
God. Even his voice is considerate.
“Yes,” I mumble into the face cradle. “Fine. Yep. All good.” The scent of whatever oil he is using is engulfing me.
My bra strap is moved with the most delicate precision, and then his fingers are there—skin on skin now. Kneading, sweeping, gliding over knots I didn’t know I had. He finds the one under my right shoulder blade and circles it gently, coaxing it loose.
I actually groan.
Out loud.
A horrible, involuntary, low little noise that sounds like I’m auditioning for a very different kind of massage.
Jasper doesn’t comment.
Of course he doesn’t. Because he’s a grown-up. A professional. A man who probably has given hundreds of women a massage and doesn’t see anything sexual in this.
Meanwhile, I’m lying here like a Victorian widow discovering the joys of hysteria treatment.
His hands move to my arms. My forearms. My hands. He presses each palm in turn, working his thumbs in little circles near the base of my thumbs, and somehow that’s worse—gentler. More intimate. Like he knows how tired I am.
His thumbs circle one last time at the base of my palm, then gently release it back onto the sheet.
I feel the absence like a gust of cold air.
There’s a pause. A flicker of stillness in the music.
“Would you like more of your back done?” His voice is soft. Low. Still perfectly neutral—which only makes my body react more.
I swallow. “Yes, please.”
Bloody hell. I sound so prim it is laughable.
He shifts behind me. I hear the faint rustle of fabric, and then feel the sheet slowly sliding lower. He tucks it in just above the base of my spine—just enough to give him room to work, without exposing anything I’d need therapy to recover from.
“You okay?” he checks.
“Mm-hmm,” I manage, my voice doing that tight, squeaky thing it does when I’m lying through my teeth. I am not okay. I am one well-placed sigh away from spontaneous combustion.
He starts again, this time with more oil—his hands warmer, slower. Gliding from the middle of my back to the dip of my waist in long, hypnotic strokes. There’s more skin contact now. More silence. More… everything.
My clit tingles.
My heart does something unhelpful in the region of are you falling for him? Which I ignore forcefully.
Then, as his fingers pause at the band of my bra, he asks innocently “I can’t work around this bit easily without getting oil on it. Do you want to unhook it?”
It’s not a question with a hidden meaning. It’s practical. Professional. A standard part of any massage.
But still, my brain short-circuits.
“Right. Yes. Sorry.”
I reach back, awkwardly fumbling with the clasp like a hormonal teenager. It takes two tries—because of course it does—but eventually it pops open, and I lie flat again, trying not to combust.
Jasper doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t hesitate. He simply resumes, hands pressing and sweeping over the newly freed area—the space between my shoulder blades, the top of my spine, the place where tension knots like bad memories.
And suddenly I’m melting.
Not just relaxing—melting. Like everything tight and wired in me is loosening, bit by bit, under the steady rhythm of his touch. There’s something quiet in it. Something careful. And that quiet starts to make me feel something very close to safe.
Which is ridiculous.
Because I’m half-naked under a towel and he’s technically my landlord.
But also, he’s Jasper.
And right now, Jasper is undoing me in slow, steady increments—without saying a word, without crossing a line, without needing anything from me except permission to keep going.
It’s unnerving.
It’s addictive.
And somewhere, in the middle of all that slow release, a realisation blooms—soft and inconvenient:
I don’t just want his hands.
I want him.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fuck!