Letter Twenty-Six #10
“The most important things,” you murmured against my skin. “And now I want the missing pieces of you.”
“Even the darkest pieces?” I breathed.
“I want those the most,” you whispered, lips sweeping across my jaw. You drew back, gaze drifting over the tight white tank I wore underneath your cardigan, along with the slice of bare stomach above my pajama pants. Your eyes sparkled black. “You’re cold.”
“Then warm me up.”
Your hot gaze searched mine, fingers roaming tentatively up my top. “May I?”
I swallowed, heart pounding. “You may.”
Slowly, your hand coasted up, fingertips skating—tentative and feather-soft—over my bare skin. You often touched me like that. With reverence. As if touching me were a privilege.
You brushed your thumb over my nipple. Let out a deep groan. Dropped your forehead to mine. And I thought about how that reverence might break me and how I wanted it, anyway. Wanted it to crack me wide open and fill me whole.
“You don’t want the darkest pieces,” I whispered against your mouth. “Trust me.”
“I want all the pieces,” you whispered back, gently palming my breast. “This one in particular happens to be a perfect fit. I knew it would be.”
My chest crackled. “You say that now, but you don’t know how dark they are.”
“Don’t care.” A soft kiss. “Let go.” A deeper one, more urgent this time, your tongue stroking mine. “Be vulnerable with me.”
My throat went dry when you drew back to look at me, withdrawing your hand from my shirt. I ached to pull it back.
“Show me what you showed him,” you said.
“Showed who?”
“Willoughby. Show me what he didn’t like.”
“It’s Christmas.”
“What happens to you?” you asked with a perplexed little smile. “Do you morph into something?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Are you a siren? Drawing me ever closer to complete ruin with each kiss? Am I halfway there, and I haven’t realized it yet?”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Too real. Too possible.
“Are you like the female praying mantis? During the middle of it, will you have to behead me?”
I laughed. “Oh my God. Stop. And during the middle of what?”
You dragged your nose down the bridge of mine. “You know what.”
Heat pooled between my thighs. “Mighty bold of you to assume we’ll make it that far.”
“We’ve been over this, Elliot. I know. I feel it.”
I felt it, too. Against my knee, actually.
A firm promise that made my body thrum with anticipation.
Could I truly let go with you? The dazzling glow of the Christmas tree—the rich clove-orange scent clinging to the air, your body pressing into mine, my lips still tingling from your kiss—made it easy to believe I could.
“Wait,” you said, eyes sparkling with mischief. “Are you a dominatrix? Do you have a whip? Will you try to punish me?”
The darkness within me stirred. “What if I said yes? Is that something you’d be into?”
You laughed, unsure. “I don’t know. You already dominate me as it is.”
“Since when?”
“Since always. How do you not know?”
“Know what?”
You pressed my hand to your heart. “How much power you have over me.”
“I don’t feel like I have any power at all,” I confessed. “Not over you or anything.”
“Someday,” you whispered, lifting my hand to your mouth, “I’ll drop to my knees and gladly prove you wrong.”
My heart spiked as you planted a kiss to the bottom of my palm, looking up at me through those long, dark eyelashes.
“But your answer’s no,” I said with some effort, “to the dominatrix thing.”
“You can have me however you want me,” you said, voice deliciously dark, full of meaning and promise.
“Or you could just tell me what you want,” I said, pulling my arm from your grasp, then pushing my hand down your stomach.
But you caught my wrist before I could get very far. “Not right now,” you rasped.
“I want to touch you.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve just had a head injury.”
“So?”
“So no one’s having a wank while you’re recovering, Elliot.”
“It was a week ago, and there’s nothing at all the matter with my hand.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” you muttered, briefly tossing your head back.
“Is it possible for a girl to even be wanked?”
You suppressed a smile. “To be wanked off? Yes.”
“Want something else true?”
“Strangely,” you said, peering past me, “I’m afraid to say yes again.”
“That time I was sick, and you were all sprawled out on my bed in those thin black joggers you have? Oh my God. They’re very revealing, you know.”
You lifted a brow. “So it wasn’t the fever talking.”
I shook my head. “And the little black swim trunks you wear every summer? They make me hot and tingly all over.”
“Yeah?” It had come out breathless.
“Yeah. I frequently wank off to the memory of you in those shorts.”
“Jesus Christ.” You squeezed your eyes shut. Made a deep, rumbly sound in the back of your throat. Swallowed hard. “It’s time for us to stop talking and go to sleep now.”
“Not nice of you to get a girl going, then tell her to go to sleep.”
“Hush,” you said, laying your fingers over my lips, “before I pick you up and carry you back to your sofa.”
“Sounds hot.”
“You think I’m joking, but I’m—Elliot, I’m actually quite serious.” The way you stumbled over those words, Casey, made me think I had some power after all. “You’re making it exceedingly difficult for me to behave right now.”
“That’s kind of the point.”
You brushed your thumb across my lips. “This mouth.”
“Merry Christmas, Casey,” I said with a smile.
“Happy Christmas, darling,” you said, lowering your head for a kiss.
I pushed you back as something bright and warm settled inside my chest, filling me full. “Darling?”
“Yes,” you said, voice especially deep, your rapidly beating heart pressing against my palm. You leaned forward again, fingers sliding across my leggings, gripping my hip. “Don’t make a thing of it, okay? Let me call you darling.”
“I’m not making it a thing. It’s just…no one’s ever called me that before.”
“Good.” You nipped at my jaw, your day-old stubble scraping my skin. “That’s the way I prefer it. I can be the first. The only one.”
The rough, possessive tone of your voice made my heart skip as I captured your mouth with mine and kissed you back, hard enough to make you groan.
When you broke the kiss, I shimmied down the sofa, tucking my head underneath your chin and tossing my leg over your hip.
You grabbed my thigh, pulling me closer still. I almost rocked my hips against yours, but I figured that’d get me banished back to my sofa for sure. So I resisted.
Want something else true?
If it were possible to crawl inside a person and bask in the warm glow of their heart, I’d crawl inside you.
That’s what I thought as I drifted off to sleep, tucked safely in your arms. With my hand pressed to your chest, it felt like the essence of you was flowing into me, and for a little while, I wasn’t bad or broken or anything. Just whole, peaceful, and—for once in my life—perfectly content.
What a privilege it would be to feel like that forever.
Christmas morning, we were awoken by a noise.
We slowly untangled ourselves, but I got up too quickly, making myself dizzy, the floor rushing out from under me again.
I went straight to the powder room, feeling emotionally hungover.
Your thirteenth birthday rushed back, each devastating detail slicing through me anew, tears streaming down my face as I brushed my teeth over the marble pedestal sink.
My morning took a turn for the worse when my dad caught me trying to sneak upstairs. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I need to grab something from my room.”
“Not happening,” Nic said, reaching out to me. “Tell me what you need. I’ll get it.”
Your footsteps sounded behind me as you walked down. “What are you doing on the stairs?”
I closed my eyes. “I need something.”
“What is it?” you asked, taking my arm. You walked me down from the third step. The third step, Casey. “I’ll go grab it for you.”
While you both stared back at me and waited, I shifted uncomfortably, crossing my arms with a sigh. The discomfort must’ve been evident on my face, because you narrowed your gaze. To my dad, you said, “She maybe needs…you know.”
Nic blinked at you a moment before it dawned. “Oh. Yeah. Right.”
“Tampons,” I said. “My stupid tampons. Jesus Christ.”
Nic gave the end of my braid a gentle tug as he slipped past me for the stairs. “No problem. I’ll get them.”
I huffed all the way to the powder room, where I leaned inside the doorway, trying not to cry.
“Do you need anything else?” you asked, approaching slowly.
I stared past you, biting the insides of my cheeks. Being treated like an invalid sucked. “To go back in time and never walk down to the basement?”
“Hey,” you said softly, taking a strand of my hair between your fingers. “What if we put on a Christmas movie? Will that make you feel better?”
“I can’t watch a stupid movie. No screen time. Doctor’s orders.”
“It’s been long enough. Why don’t I make us a cup of tea? Light a fire?”
I nodded, the tears finally giving way—again. Honestly, I should’ve seen my period coming a mile away, even despite the head injury. “Can I also have some pain medicine?”
“Coming right up.” You planted a kiss on my forehead, your arm brushing mine as you headed for the kitchen.
A few minutes later, my dad handed me the box of tampons. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“I…don’t understand the question.”
“I’m glad Casey’s here for Christmas,” Nic said quietly, “but the last thing I want to see is him getting hurt.”
“Why would he—?”
Your footsteps sounded close, cutting me off.
I held the box of tampons in one hand while I plucked the pills from your palm with the other, followed by the water glass you offered me next.
You guys watched me swallow the pills, a stern look of disappointment on my dad’s face. Not my favorite moment that Christmas.
But later, when the Harrises arrived for brunch, a new development would eclipse that one. Because, as I’m sure you remember, Michael hadn’t arrived with them.