Chapter 4 Roman #2
“Uh.” The guy—Gabe, I guess—looks between me and Noelle like he’s not sure how to respond.
But Brittney takes his arm in a firm grip and starts to drag him away.
“We’ll see you guys around,” she calls brightly.
Then they’re gone, leaving us alone, and I make a mental note to send the girl a Christmas fruit basket or something.
“Pin the take on naked-Rudolph?” I ask, once they’ve disappeared into the crowd.
Noelle giggles—fucking cutest sound ever—and points to a group of people across the lounge.
There’s a man and woman, both naked except for fur underwear and antler headbands.
Blind folded party-goers approach them one at a time to stick a red paper circle somewhere on their body.
“Uh…” I mutter, and Noelle giggles again.
“Not exactly how I remember that kind of game being played when I was a kid,” she says, and I can’t help but chuckle.
“I don’t think they’re even trying to get the noses in the right spot,” I say, watching as Jane, a terrifying Domme dressed all in red leather, approaches and goes straight for the naked man’s crotch with her red circle.
“I think that’s kinda the point,” Noelle says, grinning. Then she gestures around the room. “In fact, I’m pretty sure all these party games are designed to encourage people to cop a feel.”
I look around the room and notice for the first time all the activities set up around the lounge.
An oiled-up man in red latex briefs is walking around with a sprig of mistletoe on a stick, raising it above random people’s heads and cajoling them to kiss.
There’s a very graphic game of Pictionary happening nearby, some people playing a filthy version of charades, and only a few yards away a man is lying naked and face down on a table while the people around him attempt to throw rings onto what appears to be a dildo sticking out of his—
I turn back to Noelle and see she’s cracking up. “You should see your face right now. Did you seriously not notice all this stuff going on around you?”
No, I think, watching the way her eyes sparkle when she laughs. I was too busy staring at you.
“I guess this is Christmas Club Wyld style,” I say drily.
“You haven’t even seen the guy dressed as Santa handing out free spankings when you sit on his lap,” she adds, grinning.
The idea of Noelle stretched out on someone’s lap, her ass bare to the room while he spanks it red, has my dick hardening in my pants. Why the fuck don’t I own a Santa costume myself? Clearly an oversight on my part.
“You look good like that, you know,” she says softly, and I force myself to focus on the woman in front of me and not the dirty thoughts in my head.
“Like what?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Smiling. You don’t do it very often.”
“Hmm.”
Her expression goes tense. “Not that I’m complaining. That whole stoic thing can also look very nice, you know, and—”
I put my hand on her shoulder to stop her from babbling, and she closes her eyes, seeming to melt into the touch, the tension draining from her face.
“I’m not offended,” I tell her, once she’s looking at me again. “I know I’m a grumpy bastard.”
She giggles. “I didn’t say grumpy. I said stoic.”
“Oh, I’m grumpy all right,” I mutter, and she laughs some more. I shake my head. If I’d known all I needed to do to make her giggle like that is to be self-deprecating, I would have been doing it from the start.
“Ooh,” she says, pointing down the bar to where some employees are setting up a table with a large punch bowl and glasses. “Eggnog. Let’s get some!”
“Seriously? That stuff is disgusting.”
But she grabs my hand—she willingly touches me—and starts to drag me to the table. I don’t even think about pulling away. “It’s not disgusting,” she says. “It’s creamy and sweet and delicious.”
I have to close my eyes as I follow her down the bar like a pathetic puppy dog. I doubt she has any idea what images she just inspired with that description, but now all I want to do is spread her out in front of the punch bowl and take my fill of her own creamy sweetness.
I don’t argue when she picks up two glasses, though there’s no way I’m going to actually drink the crap. And when she heads over to a table to get away from the crowd around the bar, I don’t argue with that either.
Danger, a feeble voice in my head protests. I tell it to shut the fuck up.
I sit across from her, even though all I want to do is pull my chair right up next to hers.
Maybe pull her into my lap. She would feel so good cuddled up to me, all warm and soft and small in my arms. Even from here I can smell her perfume, something different than she usually wears, notes of cinnamon and vanilla that make me think of warm Christmas cookies and cozy evenings.
I bite back a laugh at that. When in my entire life have I enjoyed a warm cookie and a cozy evening? This girl does something to my brain.
I startle to attention when I realize she’s looking at me expectantly. “Sorry,” I mutter, running a hand through my hair. “I didn’t catch that.”
She leans across the table, like the problem is me not hearing her rather than me being lost in fantasies about her. Doing so makes her tits practically spill out of that damn green dress and I have to bite back a curse, forcing myself to focus on her question so she doesn’t have to ask again.
“I asked if you aren’t even going to try it.”
I blink at her for a second until she pushes the eggnog across the table. “Angel, I really don’t—”
“It’s good,” she cajoles. “It’s not Christmas without eggnog.
” I’m about to tell her that I haven’t actually celebrated Christmas in years, but she continues.
“My dad and I used to have eggnog every year when we decorated the tree. We’d get it all set up, all the lights and ornaments perfect, then he’d turn off all the lamps and we’d sit there in the dark with just the tree, drinking eggnog. ”
Her expression shifts as she talks, going from happy, to wistful, to something that looks a little like despondent.
Without thinking, I reach across the table and take her hand.
It doesn’t look like it belongs in mine, all soft and small next to my huge ugly, calloused mitt, but fuck if it doesn’t feel amazing.
“Sorry.” She shakes her head a little. “I always miss him most this time of year.”
My stomach drops. “He’s not around anymore?” I don’t tell her that I already know the answer to this question. That in a weaker moment after she first showed up at the club and my obsession was fresh, I ran a full background check on her—pretty easy to do when you own a security company like mine.
“He died four years ago,” she says, and I get the feeling she’s working to keep her voice even.
Four years ago. My report had told me that she’d only been eighteen when he succumbed to cancer. She’s been on her own ever since.
Suddenly, she gasps, looking down at the hand holding hers.
I move to take it away but she grips my fingers tighter, her other hand reaching for my sleeve, which has begun to slide up my forearm.
A full body shudder goes through me when she pushes it up further, her fingers dragging over my skin.
“Dagger and arrows,” she murmurs as my tattoo is fully revealed.
Her wide eyes jump up to mine. “Were you special forces? A Green Beret?”
I nod. Just like her father.
“Wow.” Her voice is soft and she shakes her head, giving a watery laugh. “This is 7th Group, right? That red tint on the dagger…
I nod again, already knowing why she recognized it so easily.
“My dad’s team was out of 7th Group, too,” she says in a shaky voice. “A couple of his friends had tattoos pretty similar to that.”
“Best guys I ever knew came out of 7th Group,” I tell her.
Her returning smile is more than a little sad, and I want nothing more than to gather her up in my arms and kiss it better.
I guess that’s why I relent when she once again pushes the eggnog in my direction. I manage a decent size sip but there’s nothing I can do about the grimace of disgust on my face. She cracks up, her laugh so loud a few people look in our direction.
Worth tasting that shit to make her laugh like that.
And I don’t shut down when she starts asking me questions—about my time in the Army, what I’ve been doing since I got out, whether I keep in touch with any of my former team members.
I probably tell her more in fifteen minutes than I’ve ever told Cam, and he’s the best friend I’ve made since moving here five years ago to start a security company with an old Army buddy.
I just can’t bring myself to go quiet and cold on her, even if it’s what I know I should do. Not when I saw that look in her face when she talked about decorating the tree with her father. It had broken something in me, seeing that level of heartache in her beautiful blue eyes.
I know from my research that it had been just the two of them, no mother in the picture, no extended relatives except for an aunt who watched her when her dad was on deployment.
They moved around a lot, typical life of an Army brat.
That kind of shit bonds you with a person—being the only one each other knows in every new town.
She must have been devastated when he died.
I know the feeling. I don’t have much family myself.
I first joined the Army to get away from my shitty, abusive parents and give myself a chance to get out of that town, out of that dead-end life they lived.
But the guys on my team had become my family, the only brothers I’d ever had.
And I’ve had to bury far too many of those brothers.
Suddenly, her friend Brittney and that asshole from earlier are next to our table.
“They’re starting,” Brittney says, all excited.
I don’t even try not to glare at the pencil dick, even though I should actually be grateful at him for interrupting.
Nothing good can come from this level of intimacy with Noelle.