Chapter Seven #3
It was much later that night, before they finally got around to the boxes.
Astrid had connected her phone to his sound system and put on some of her favourite Christmas carols.
Jazzier than at the event the night before, these songs were performed by a Canadian artist she’d seen perform many years earlier and had loved ever since.
Astrid found herself humming along as Javier removed a bottle of champagne from the fridge and uncorked it, his fist muffling the sound so it gave only a muted celebratory pop before he filled two glasses with the liquid.
Though Astrid rarely drank, she was in a celebratory mood this evening.
She’d thought sleeping with Javier once would get it out of her system, but she’d been so wrong.
Each time had been different. Not better, necessarily—it was hard to quantify the kind of euphoric delirium he was able to possess—but more profound.
Deeper. More of an education and insight into herself.
And on this night, he’d pushed her to her limits, forcing her to confront her desires, to recognise them and then ask him to address them.
He’d made her not just his lover, but a part of his team.
They were working together to seek maximum pleasure.
She was no longer just an innocent, passively being made love to, but his partner.
Not his real partner, she hastened to remind herself, her smile dropping in the smallest degree.
But in bed, they were becoming equals. Her curiosity and insatiable interest were growing, minute by minute.
When she looked at him in the kitchen, wearing only a pair of boxer briefs, her mouth went dry and a new wave of desire began to crash against her.
She jerked her gaze back to the tree quickly. If she wasn’t careful, they’d never get around to hanging a single ornament, and there was no way she was having him spend Christmas Eve without a hint of festive frippery.
He closed the distance between them, champagne flute held towards her. Astrid took it, her fingers sparking when they brushed his. A hint of mockery in his gaze showed he saw it and understood.
‘So?’ he prompted, nodding towards the boxes.
She sipped her champagne then placed the glass down on an occasional table, weaving across the room to the packages. ‘Well, you have a tree,’ she pointed out.
‘Thanks to you.’
‘Indeed. And now, we get to decorate it.’ Astrid was surprised by the excitement in her voice. She was usually so careful to keep her feelings carefully concealed—even the positive ones.
‘You are like a kid in a candy store.’
She turned on her heel to face him and ignored any impulse to downplay what this meant to her. Why bother? They both knew the limitations of what they were doing; there was no risk here.
‘I haven’t decorated a tree myself for a long time,’ she confided. ‘I’m probably very out of practice but, so far as I can remember, we string the lights first.’
‘Your palace is filled with trees,’ he pointed out. ‘Surely there’s one you could have decorated yourself?’
Her smile slipped slightly, as she shook her head, the familiar pang of grief somehow richer and deeper when experienced so close to Javier. As though he had a hotline into the heart of her suffering and the ability to make it seem so much deeper somehow.
‘The staff do that,’ she said, waving a hand through the air. ‘There are protocols, you know.’
‘And yet you’ve decorated a tree before,’ he said thoughtfully, coming to stand at her side. ‘Even if it was a long time ago.’
She sucked in a breath, because he was right.
He’d paid attention and heard the revealing phrasing.
‘When I was a girl,’ she said, proud that her voice was cool and calm.
‘We would have a tree in our family apartment. My mother loved Christmas,’ she murmured.
‘In private, we started to celebrate much earlier than is generally acceptable.’ A wistful smile touched her lips without her knowledge.
‘From the middle of November, my mother would start to put little decorations out, here and there, to begin soaking fruit and making gingerbread cookies.’
She turned away before he could see the way sadness shaped her features. By pure luck, she happened to open the box with the lights first. She removed them, trying to focus on the task, rather than her memories.
‘You don’t continue to put your own tree up in your apartment?’
She glanced at him, then looked back to the tree, shaking her head once.
‘Why not? It seems like a simple thing you could do, to keep that tradition alive.’
She grimaced. How could she admit the truth? That it was simply too hard to echo her mother’s movements, knowing she’d never see her again. ‘I have plenty of trees in the palace,’ she said, stiffly. ‘You have none. This was not optional.’
He seemed to accept her explanation, or at least decided not to push her on it, and Astrid was glad.
She could feel her insides twisting. The sadness she always carried spreading through her in a way she resented.
This situationship with Javier was about her having something good and happy, all of her own, just for a small time.
She didn’t want her grief to tarnish it, even when she knew how much it was a part of her.
But then, his hands were wrapping around her from behind, taking hold of the lights and staying right there, so she was virtually enclosed in a cage of his creation. ‘It’s okay to miss them, Astrid. Especially at Christmas.’
She didn’t trust her voice to answer.