Chapter Seventeen
Bix had been weirdly chatty at the end of the work shift today, and Denver didn’t have the patience to go and check on the
bar when all was said and done. He knew Sheena wasn’t there anyway, since she had been out doing the baking for most of the
day, and after that had apparently gone to run errands. Bix had been vague on what.
When he went into the house, though, it all became clear. There was a Christmas tree in the living room.
All lit up and bright. The tinsel on it was ragged, and didn’t match; the ornaments were just as eclectic, but it made him
smile. Created a deep tug of nostalgia in his chest that he hadn’t realized lived there.
There were other twinkling lights around the room, a tiny red truck with a little Christmas tree in the back, sitting on the
doily on that little side table by his great-great-grandfather’s favorite chair that he had banged Sheena in. He would always
think of it that way now.
He didn’t see any sign of Sheena, though. He walked into the kitchen, and saw an apple cake on the table.
That dessert was his favorite thing that the Sullivans made, and they did not do it often enough. And there it was, right in the center of the table, like she knew.
Like she knew him.
He went back out into the living room, and turned toward the stairs, where he stopped. There was a condom on the bottom step,
in its wrapper. Another one three steps up, and another.
Desire tightened his stomach.
If she wanted to leave a trail of protection to lead him to her that was fine with him. Though, he was thinking he was going
to use every single one of these tonight.
Another one, then another. All the way down the hall to his bedroom.
He pushed the door open, already anticipating the sight that would greet him.
Maybe she would be lying on the bed, totally naked. That gorgeous tattoo on display, her legs . . .
“What the fuck.”
Because lying on the bed, surrounded by condoms, posed in a very suggestive position, was an elf, not currently on the shelf.
And that was when he heard riotous laughter coming from the bathroom.
He turned and opened the door, and found Sheena, standing there in nothing but a black lace bra and panties. “I was hoping
for a threesome tonight,” she said.
“Absolutely not,” he said.
“Come on,” she said. “It’s funny.”
“It’s disturbing as hell.”
“He’s watching you, Denver. Making sure that you’re being a good boy.”
“I am not a boy,” he growled. “And I think we both know that I have been very bad.”
“Works for me,” she said.
He dragged her out of the bathroom, and grabbed hold of the elf. Which he threw into the bathroom, and shut the door. “I don’t
want it in here.”
“It’s a Christmas tradition,” she said.
“Not in my house.”
“Come on,” she said. “It is the season of—”
He cut her off with a kiss, and she started to laugh as he parted her lips and slid his tongue against hers. The last laugh
turned into a groan.
He couldn’t say that he had ever made a woman laugh during sex before.
Then she looked up at him, her green eyes mischievous, and it was his turn to laugh.
And he knew for a fact he had never laughed when he was this hard, this turned on.
“Thank you,” he said. “For the cake.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “I made it myself. Is it poison? You’ll find out later.”
“Brat,” he said, lifting her up and throwing her down on the bed. Because he knew exactly how she liked to be touched. Exactly
how she liked to be handled.
And that meant he could push boundaries with her in fun and interesting ways.
He grabbed a handful of the condoms on the bed. “You’re ambitious, Sheena. I like it. But you should know better than to challenge
me.”
“You have work tomorrow,” she pointed out. “I don’t think there’s that kind of time.”
He groaned. “Wouldn’t it be nice if there was, though? Nothing but days to do this?”
He had certainly never expressed that sentiment once in his life.
“I like that fantasy,” she said.
He growled, and took her bra off. It had been stunning, seeing her breasts for the first time. Seeing that tattoo. He saw
her naked casually quite a bit now. But it hadn’t lessened the impact of her. Her beauty. Her body.
And the way it made him feel.
He took his time pleasuring her. Kissing her over every inch of her body. Making her cry out. Bringing her to the peak, over
and over again before letting himself inside of her. And when he did, he went deep. He lifted her thigh up over his hip and
thrust, slow and measured, trying to draw it out. Trying to satisfy and torment them both.
She shuddered, shook beneath him.
The feel of her fingernails on his shoulders was as familiar now as the sight of the mountain range out his bedroom window.
The scent of hay on the air.
A part of who he was. A piece of the life he lived.
The feel of her, tight and hot around him, was the same. Something he’d gone a long time without, but now couldn’t imagine
ever losing.
When she arched beneath him and cried out his name, he gave himself permission to let go.
He buried his face in her neck and said her name, over and over again.
And then he held her.
Secure in the knowledge that tonight she would sleep in his bed, and they would wake up together.
“Do you ever do a quickie?” she asked, huffing as she lay there.
“I feel like the time we were attempting to beat the potpies we went pretty quick.”
“You know what I mean. You destroy me every time.”
“Good,” he said. Because she destroyed him.
And he was never quite sure what to do about it.
He got off the bed and went into the bathroom, then jumped, because he had forgotten he had thrown the damned elf in there.
“You’re going to torment me with that every day, aren’t you?”
“That is my plan,” she said.
“Great.”
“I do what I can.”
He discarded the condom, and washed his hands. “Yeah. Thanks for the cake. It’s my favorite.”
He remembered then, a defiant thought he’d had only a couple of weeks ago. That she didn’t know him. Didn’t know his favorite
food.
“My favorite dessert,” he said. “My favorite food is brisket.”
She smiled. “I actually probably could’ve guessed that.”
“What’s yours?”
“Brownies. And . . .” She wrinkled her nose. “I like noodles in any form. Italian, Asian. Noodles. When I worked in Mapleton
and I had to grab myself dinner I would always get Thai or Italian. And I really don’t care what the sauce is, or what all
is in it, I just love it.”
“I’ll take you out,” he said.
It came out very intense, and he hadn’t meant to.
“Okay,” she said, looking away from him.
She got up off the bed, and walked toward the bathroom, past him. And even though he wasn’t looking at her, he could feel
her freeze.
He turned and looked into the bathroom, and saw her, standing there at the sink, staring.
She was looking at her toothbrush, which had been sitting there since she had come to stay two nights ago.
“My toothbrush is in your bathroom,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. “It makes sense.”
He felt something like panic tighten his stomach, except Denver King didn’t panic, so that definitely wasn’t what was happening.
“That’s . . . I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s a little bit too much for me.”
“You . . . you baked me a cake. You tried to molest me with your elf. And the toothbrush is too much for you?”
“This wasn’t supposed to be a toothbrush-on-the-bathroom-counter thing.”
“Why not?”
And right then, he felt resolved. Right then, he realized what all this was. It was a relationship. That he wanted it.
“Let’s try it,” he said.
“I . . . I don’t see any possible good way that it could go.”
“Was today good?”
He ignored the disquiet inside himself. All the things that were inclined to agree with her. That were oriented toward running,
rather than staying.
“Yes,” she said. “Today was good. But you know that can’t go on like this forever. Things don’t just stay the same. They get . . .
they get tense. And angry. And difficult.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I know that. Because I know that’s how life is. It doesn’t get steadily better. Any more than it stays in a sweet
spot. It’s always changing on you. And it’s kind of a bitch.”
“All right. You have a point. And that’s definitely been true in my own life. Though, overall it’s better now that it was.”
“Yes. Because we both worked hard to set clear boundaries and live our life according to certain rules.”
“But today was good,” he said.
She nodded. “Yes, Denver. Today was good.”
“So let’s do this until it’s not good anymore. Haven’t we had enough bad days? Why don’t we . . . why don’t we try it? So that we can have more of this.”
He believed himself. It was a really good sales pitch. He thought he sounded totally reasonable. They were both naked, and
he could see she wasn’t immune to that. He could see that she was distracted by it. He considered that a point in his favor.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. We’ll . . . we’ll give it a try. For now. While I’m here. Because you know I’m not staying. And chances
are, it’s going to go south on us before I leave. You realize that, right?”
“I mean I have some real concerns that that elf is going to kill me in my sleep,” he said.
“Entirely possible, because I actually don’t know how the elf feels about men. He’s been perfectly benign for me and my sisters.”
“Sheena,” he said. “We had so much shit piled on us. You know that. You really know that. And now we have this good thing.
I like you.”
“I like you too,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “It sounds so middle school.”
“This is not middle school,” he said, moving to her and putting his arm around her waist. “We don’t have to know what the
future is.”
Except, she was right about one thing. He knew that there would be an end. Because . . . that really was how things went.
Life moved in waves and phases.
And he didn’t want to marry her. Didn’t want to have kids. So it could only ever be . . . this. But it was such a damned good
thing.
He was willing to take the consequence for however sharp it would be at the end.
He didn’t say that, though, because he didn’t think it was a particularly compelling sales pitch.
“Yeah. Okay. Let’s see what this is like, I guess.”
“How often am I going to have to talk you down?”
“Probably every day,” she said, turning to face him, forcing a smile. “I’m skittish.”
“You said you weren’t skittish,” he said.
“I also said that I didn’t do relationships. But here we are.”
“Yeah,” he said, bringing her in close and kissing the top of her head. “Here we are.”