Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The next couple of weeks went by in an absolute blur. Mostly because we were so busy at the shop. Summer had been hectic, fall had been slow until hunting season had started, but everything had gotten kicked into high gear once the snow came and schools started closing down for holiday break.

We were slammed with rentals and sales, and Clara had given me a crash course in helping customers select skis and snowboards the day I’d gotten my own rental. Everything else I needed to know—questions that customers could or would ask—I made a list of and asked some of the locals I’d gotten to know since working at the shop. Amos, surprisingly, answered a lot of them on the nights we had dinner together. Fortunately, there was only one resort close by, so there weren’t too many things people could ask, except where they could take the tubes they rented for sledding.

With work being so busy, I was grateful that I’d bought all my Christmas presents in advance on my lunch breaks, shipping most of them straight to my aunt and uncle’s, and having a few sent to my PO box in town. If it hadn’t been for those presents I had sent to my box, I might have totally forgotten about the plane ticket I’d booked back in October to go to Florida for Christmas.

Even back then, I hadn’t wanted to leave Clara alone for too long, so I’d reserved my ticket to leave early in the morning on Christmas Eve and come back the twenty-sixth.

When everyone started talking about a big storm that was supposed to roll in the day before Christmas, I didn’t think much of it. We had been getting steady snowfall every few days for a while. I’d gotten more confident driving in it, even though any time he could, Rhodes came to the shop and followed me back home.

Just thinking about Rhodes made the funniest feeling fill up my chest.

I wasn’t sure if it was because I had been raised by people who believed in me too much or just weren’t the helicopter-parenting type, but his overprotectiveness just did something to me. Big-time. I swear it lit me up from the inside out like one of those Lite-Brites I used to have when I’d been a kid.

We hadn’t gotten to spend any time together by ourselves again, and there hadn’t been any more real kisses since the day I’d basically thrown myself at him after Mrs. Jones’s visit, but that was mostly because of how often he’d been working late. There were all kinds of issues he had to deal with that I had no idea were even a thing. From problems with snowmobilers, to ice-fishing issues, to illegal hunting. He’d explained to me one night, when he’d gotten home early enough and brought pizza with him, that after summer, winter was the busiest season he had.

To be fair, any time he got home early enough—with the exception of a night he’d gone over to Johnny’s to play poker—Rhodes invited me over.

And of course I went.

Sitting as close to him as possible on the two nights we’d watched a movie with Amos sprawled in a recliner. We’d smiled at each other from across the table on another day when, after dinner, we’d played an old version of Scrabble that no one knew where it had come from. But the most special part was how he walked me back to the garage apartment every night we spent time together and he gave me a long, lingering hug afterward. Once and only once, he kissed me on the forehead in a way that made my knees tingle.

I didn’t think I was imagining the sexual tension every time my breasts got pressed against his chest.

So all in all, I was happier than I’d been in forever, in so many different ways. The hope that I’d gotten so many glimpses of over the last few months had grown bigger and bigger in my heart with every passing day. A sense of family, of rightness, wrapped around just about every part of me.

But on the twenty-third of December, when Clara and I were closing up the shop, she turned to me, seriously, and said, “I don’t think you’re getting out of here tomorrow.”

Covered in a down jacket I’d had forever that didn’t have enough filling for the temperatures we were having, I shivered and raised my eyebrows at her. “You don’t think so?”

She shook her head at me as she turned the lock on the door; we’d already set the alarm right before heading out. “I saw the radar. It’s going to be a big storm. I bet they’ll cancel your flight.”

I shrugged but didn’t want to worry about it. It had been snowing a lot, and tourists were still coming into town. Plus, it wasn’t like I could do anything about it. My superpowers didn’t extend to controlling the weather.

Pulling down the security gate that went over the door, Clara still wasn’t looking at me as she said in a funky voice, “I forgot to tell you . . . someone . . . some . . . charity, I think . . . paid off my dad’s medical bills for Christmas.” One dark brown eye caught mine before she focused back on the gate. “Isn’t that a miracle?” she asked, sounding just a little funny.

“Wow, that is a miracle, Clara,” I answered her, trying to keep my voice even and steady. Normal. Totally normal. Even my face was blank and innocent.

“I thought so too,” she said, peeking at me again. “I wish I could thank them.”

I settled for nodding. “But maybe they don’t need any gratitude, you know?”

“No,” she agreed. “Maybe not, but it still really means a lot to me. To us.”

I just nodded again, averting my eyes until she wrapped me in a hug and wished me a safe trip and a Merry Christmas. We’d exchanged presents yesterday. I had sent Mr. Nez and Jackie a gift too.

But that evening, after driving slowly home, I was upstairs in the studio apartment, folding some clothes so I wouldn’t leave the place a disaster zone that would give neat-monster Rhodes a migraine, when there was a knock downstairs, a creaky door being opened, and an “Angel?”

I smiled. “Hi, Rhodes.”

The sound of him on the stairs kept the smile on my face, but when he cleared the top and stopped right at the landing, it went a little bigger, about as big as I could muster.

The corner of Rhodes’s mouth twisted. He was in his uniform, but he must have gone inside his house first, because instead of his winter work jacket, he had on a dark blue parka with a fleece hood. It was pretty chilly outside. “Couldn’t fit your clothes into the suitcase balled up so you’re folding them?”

I gave him a flat look. “I used to wonder if Amos got his sarcasm from his mom, but now I get where it came from, and actually, I was folding them so you wouldn’t go into cardiac arrest if you came up here while I was gone so . . .”

He walked over and stopped beside the table, his cold, bare hand settling on top of my head. He eyed my small stacks of clothes—underwear in one pile, bras in another, mismatched socks over there.

I tipped my chin up and earned myself a rare smile. I swore he was handing them out to me left and right lately, and not like the precious currency they’d once been.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re something else, Buddy,” he said.

I set the T-shirt I’d been in the middle of folding down and squinted. “Can I ask you something?”

“What do you think?”

I groaned. “Why do you call me ‘Buddy’? I’ve never heard you call Am that, or anybody else.”

His eyebrows crept up his forehead at the same time as his mouth stretched into an even more rare supermoon of a smile. “You don’t know?”

“Am I supposed to?”

“I thought you would,” he replied cryptically, still grinning.

I shook my head. “No idea. I used to think you called me ‘angel’ because you thought that was my name, but now I know you just . . . whatever.”

Rhodes chuckled, laying a hand on top of the table, the tips of his fingers millimeters from the lace trim of my green underwear. Those gray eyes were totally hung up on them for a moment before he glanced back at me, color rising along his throat as he said, “Because you are one.”

My mouth gaped, and I was pretty sure I was just staring up at him blankly.

One side of his mouth rose a little higher. “Why do you look surprised? You’ve got the sweetest, kindest heart, Buddy. It wouldn’t matter what you looked like, you’d still be my angel.”

His angel?

Was my chin quivering?

Was that my heart losing its identity for a new one?

Did Rhodes literally just say the nicest thing anyone had ever said about me?

His expression was so fond, so open, all I could do was gape at him as he looked down at me. “You remind me of Buddy the Elf. You’re always smiling. Always trying to make things better. I thought for sure you would get it,” he explained.

My chin was quivering.

And the softest smile swept over his hard face. “Don’t tear up. We have to talk. Have you seen the forecast?”

I blinked and tried to focus, wrapping up that explanation and setting it beside my heart because otherwise I was about to get naked right then and there. “The forecast?” I croaked, trying to think. “You mean because of the storm?”

He nodded, apparently over paying me any more compliments that could make me feel like maybe, just maybe . . . he might love me.

Because the truth was, I was totally in love with him.

Just looking at him made me happy. Being close to him made me feel calm. Safe. There was nothing about this man that was hesitant or withdrawn. He was quiet, yeah, but it had nothing to do with him holding parts of himself back. I loved how serious he was. How deep his thoughts and actions went.

No one in my life, other than my mom, had made me feel the way he did. Like I could trust them completely. And it was when I’d accepted that—seen it for what it was—that I’d understood the depth of my feelings.

I was in love with him.

“Yeah,” I confirmed, making sure my mouth was closed and scrubbing under my eyes even though I was pretty sure no tears had actually come out. They’d just hung out right at the rim. “Clara told me, and I looked too when I got home.”

He dipped that chin with its cute cleft. “Your flight is supposed to leave early, isn’t it?”

I confirmed it was, swallowing hard once to make sure I was keeping it together and not blubbering—much less telling him that I was stupid in love with him.

“It’s supposed to drop ten to twelve overnight,” he kept talking, his words careful.

“The plane is supposed to leave at six.”

He didn’t say anything, but those hard, blunt fingers went to my jaw, touching from right behind my ear to the center of my chin and back.

“You think it’s going to get canceled?” I managed to ask, mostly to distract him so that hopefully he’d keep touching my face. He hadn’t been shy about touching my shoulders or my wrist. Sometimes he’d touch my fingers, and I’d swear it was better than anything I did to myself at night in bed.

He did—keep up his touching, that was. “I think you should be ready for the possibility it will,” he answered quietly, his lids heavy over his eyes.

“Oh, that would suck, but it’s not like I can do anything about it if it happens. I have—”

Those gray eyes met mine, and he dropped into a crouch at my side, bringing that handsome face and beautiful hair to basically eye level with me. “Come stay at the house with us.”

“Tonight?” I pretty much croaked.

The hand that had been on my throat for all of thirty seconds landed on my thigh. “I’ll drive you in the morning if your flight is still on. You won’t have to walk back and forth across the driveway,” he said, like it was a half-mile walk from the garage apartment to his house.

My own mouth twitched. “Sure.”

Rhodes stood and set that same palm on top of my shoulder. “Want to come over now? I’ll help you carry your things.”

“Sign me up.”

His warm expression fueled my spirit. I really was totally in love with him. But the most surprising part was that the knowledge and acceptance of it brought no terror into my heart. None. Not a fragment of fear. Not a whisper of it.

This knowledge, this feeling, reminded me of concrete in its endurance, in the strength of it. I had told myself a hundred times that I wasn’t afraid of love, that I was ready to move forward, but the future was scary.

But Rhodes had earned every inch of what I felt with his attention, with his patience and overprotectiveness and just . . . with everything that made him up in general.

Feeling pretty damn ballsy, I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek quickly and then started getting my stuff together. It didn’t take me long to get another change of clothes and pajamas together while Rhodes took the initiative and finished folding my laundry. When we were done, he carried my big suitcase down the stairs, not crying at all about how heavy it was even though I was only leaving for two days, as well as the grocery bag I’d stuffed with my extra clothes for tonight and tomorrow. I had already hidden their presents inside the hallway closet by Amos’s room yesterday when I’d gone over there before work. I had planned on calling them Christmas Day and telling them where to look for their gifts.

We were crossing the driveway when Rhodes carefully said, “This storm is going to be big, sweetheart. Don’t be too disappointed if your flight gets rescheduled, all right?”

“I won’t,” I assured him. Because I really wouldn’t be.

“Are you sad?” Amos asked the next night as we sat around the table. Rhodes had pulled out a set of dominos an hour earlier, and I’d played one game against him before Am had wandered out of his bedroom and apparently decided he was bored enough to join in too.

“Me?” I asked as I stretched my arms over my head.

“Yeah,” he asked before taking a quick sip of his strawberry soda. “Because your flight got canceled.”

The notification had come in the middle of the night. The beep of the app had woken me up, and I’d rolled over—in Rhodes’s bed, where he’d slept on his side and I’d slept on the other because he’d reminded me about the mice and the possibility of bats again—to find that my flight had been rescheduled from six in the morning to noon. By nine in the morning, it had been rescheduled to three, and by ten thirty, it had been totally canceled.

If I had felt even a little bit disappointed, the way that Rhodes had massaged my nape when I’d given him the news would have made up for all of it.

That and how he’d stripped down to his boxers in front of me before crawling into bed mere inches away, his fingertips brushing mine more than once before we’d fallen asleep.

I wasn’t sure how much longer we were going to be able to sleep in the same bed together—even though it had only happened twice—but I was ready for something. And from the look in his eye, I could tell he was ready for something too. Something deeper than a three-letter word that hung between us even though we had barely kissed each other.

But that was something to ponder over later when Am wasn’t sitting across from us at the table.

“No, it’s okay. As long as you don’t mind me hanging out with you guys . . .” I trailed off.

He made a face behind his can. “No.”

“Are you sure? Because my feelings won’t be hurt if you just want to hang out with your dad and your mom’s family.”

“No,” he insisted. “It’s fine.”

“It’s fine” from him was pretty much a blessing that I wouldn’t close my eyes to. “Are you two sad your dad had to cancel coming because of the snow?” I asked Rhodes.

Father and son looked at each other.

I hadn’t heard much about Randall Rhodes, but I did know that he had been invited to come over and spend Christmas Eve with them, since he definitely wasn’t invited to the get-together on Amos’s other side of the family, which might also be canceled now depending on road conditions. Personally, I thought it was a small step that the man had called and apologized for not being able to make it. But I was pretty sure I was the only one impressed by it.

He was trying. I thought.

“I’ll take that as a no,” I muttered. “Maybe we can find a scary movie to watch after this?”

That perked Am up, and I didn’t miss the slight snort out of Rhodes’s nose at the idea of watching something scary on Christmas Eve. I glanced at him and smiled. His sock-covered foot nudged mine beneath the table. I swore that was better than most kisses I’d gotten over my life.

“Yeah, I guess,” Amos said, also in a way that was pretty much a “hell yeah” from him.

“Do you care?” I asked Rhodes with a hopeful look on my face, fluttering my eyes at him.

The older man side-eyed me. “Quit being cute. What do you think?”

I thought he wouldn’t, and I was right to think so. We all sat around the television and watched Brightburn, and they ignored me when I closed my eyes or pretended to have something really interesting to look at beneath my fingernails. By the time the movie finished though, it was midnight, and I couldn’t wait until morning any longer. We had always celebrated Christmas at midnight—with my mom, at least. That tradition had seemed to be the only one she’d kept from her Venezuelan family.

On the couch, beside Rhodes where I’d watched the whole movie, I scooted forward and asked, “Can I give you two your presents now?”

Am said, “Okay,” at the same time Rhodes asked, “You got us something?”

I eyed Rhodes again. “You saw how much garland I had up in the garage apartment. This can’t surprise you.”

He shrugged, and I believed him. He’d looked genuinely surprised when boxes from his brothers had arrived with Christmas presents for him and Amos. The only box that he hadn’t been too surprised by was the one that had made it from Amos’s parents.

“Of course I got you something. Wait, wait, wait, let me go get it. I love giving presents on Christmas Eve, sorry if this is messing everything up, but I just get so excited. I love Christmas.”

“Your mom celebrated Christmas?” Rhodes asked as I got up.

I shot him a smile. “She probably would have hated how commercialized it is now, but she didn’t back when I was a kid, or if she did, she hid it from me.” I had a lot of fond memories with my mom on that holiday, and just thinking about it made me miss her a lot, but not in a bad or sad way. More grateful that I had those moments to look back on.

Because Christmas was about spending it with people who mattered, and even though I wasn’t with my Florida family, I was still doing that.

And truth be told, I was glad I was with Rhodes and Amos. It felt right.

It took a minute to haul the huge box out and set it in the doorway into the living room; then I had to go back and grab the two bags I’d stuffed behind all their old jackets and vacuum. They eyeballed me as I moved everything else closer in trips.

I went straight to Am and set the heavy gift on the floor in front of him. “I hope you like it, but if you don’t, too bad. All sales were final.”

He gave me a weird look that made me laugh but ripped the paper off.

He gasped.

I knew Rhodes had bought him his guitar because I’d helped get him a discount. And pick out the woods and the stain. He hadn’t asked questions about how I’d gotten the discount or how I knew so much about guitars, and I wondered, not for the first time, if he truly had no idea who Yuki was when they’d briefly met. Amos had brought her up a few times in his presence, but he hadn’t batted an eyelash.

Anyway, Am didn’t know he was getting a guitar yet.

“This is vintage,” he gasped, running his hands over the weathered orange leather around the amp.

“Yeah.”

He looked at me, gray eyes wide. “For me?”

“No, for my other favorite teenager. Don’t tell my nephews I said that.”

Am’s shoulders slumped as he ran his hands over the amp that I’d bought from a small shop in California and had shipped here, which had ended up costing as much as the amp had.

“Your other one is a little buzzy, and I thought it would be nice to have matching stuff,” I told him.

He nodded and gulped a couple of times before looking back at me. “Wait a minute,” he said, getting up and disappearing down the hall toward his room. I met Rhodes’s eyes and made mine go wide.

“I wanted to give him his gift before you give him you-know-what and he doesn’t care,” I whispered.

“You spoil him. Even Sofie said it.”

Sofie was his mom, who, as I’d learned the day of Thanksgiving, was just a lovely fucking woman who loved her child more than I could have ever imagined. She had whispered to me no less than three times that Amos had been conceived artificially and that she loved her husband very much and Rhodes was a wonderful man.

I shrugged. “He’s my little buddy.”

He smiled.

“I’m sorry for messing up your traditions . . .” I trailed off, and he shook his head.

“Billy and Sofie both celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. I’ve only gotten to spend a couple with him, but he’s seemed pretty happy to me today considering I know he’s missing his mom and dad. He’s only been trying to act like he doesn’t.”

“At least he’s got one dad here though.”

His face went somber. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

I’d almost screwed that up. “You’re not making me sad. I’m okay.” I stopped talking when Amos came back out, holding something in a Happy Birthday bag in his hand. I recognized it as the one that Jackie had given him his present in months ago.

He held it out to me. No warning, no explanation, no nothing. Just: here it is.

“You thought of me,” I said, even though in the back of my head I wondered if he’d run into his room to get something old he didn’t use anymore and regift it. But honestly, I wouldn’t care. I had just about everything, and if there was something I wanted, I could buy it. It was just rare that I did. I had traded in my car out of necessity; I hadn’t even splurged on buying the “right” winter clothes or shoes yet, despite Clara giving me a hard time when I complained about my toes being cold from my too-thin hiking boots.

I opened the bag and took out a heavy yellow leather notebook with an A on the front.

“So you can write new songs in it,” Am explained as I traced my finger over the engraved letter.

I swallowed.

My chest hurt.

“But if you don’t like it—”

I raised my gaze to his, telling myself I wouldn’t cry. I had cried enough in my life, but these tears wouldn’t be ones of grief. I wouldn’t mourn the words I had lost, the ones that had arced through my head for years, nearly endlessly . . . until they hadn’t.

Amos had no idea. Because I hadn’t told him yet. I had to. I would.

A tear pooled right at the corner of my eye, and I wiped it with my knuckle. “No, I love it, Am. I love it a lot. That’s so thoughtful of you. Thank you.”

“Thanks for my amp,” he replied, watching me closely like he was expecting me to lie or something.

“Can I get a hug?”

He nodded again and stood up, wrapping me up in the tightest hug he’d ever given me. I kissed his cheek and he surprised me by kissing mine back. Am took a step back, his face more than just a little bit bashful.

I almost cried, but I didn’t want to embarrass him. When I was able to, I bent down and handed Rhodes the two bags I’d gotten for him. “Merry Christmas, Tobers.”

He took them with a lift of his eyebrows at his nickname before saying in his bossy voice, “You didn’t need to get me anything.”

“You haven’t needed to do half the nice things you’ve done for me, but you did, especially today. It’s snowing, and dinner was so good, and we played dominos, and I think this might be the best Christmas Eve I’ve ever had. But don’t be disappointed because your present isn’t as cool as Amos’s.”

Those gray eyes met mine as he shoved his hand into the first bag and pulled out a frame.

“I hope you like it. You’re both so cute. The other one I took off your Facebook page,” I explained.

His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he nodded. The first picture was the one I’d taken of him and Amos on the hike to the waterfalls so many months back. They had been standing close together at the bottom of the falls and had grudgingly agreed to let me take a picture of them being too cool to purposely be shoulder to shoulder. But still good enough.

“I didn’t know what to get you, and you don’t have any pictures of you two together in here.”

He slipped his hand back into the bag and pulled out a second frame. This one I hadn’t been sure about. I didn’t want to overstep my boundaries. It was a photograph of a young Amos with a dog.

Rhodes swallowed hard once, those eyes lingering over the photograph for a long moment. He pinched his lips together, then got up and pulled me up and into his arms so quickly and tightly, I couldn’t breathe.

“There’s a gift card to the shop too. I had to give the store your business,” I managed to mumble out around his sweater and pectoral muscle.

Then I stopped talking and let myself snuggle into that incredible body holding mine hostage. My cheek was against his chest, arms wedged against my body from his hold. He smelled just like his laundry detergent and clean man.

I loved it.

I loved him, this quiet man who took care of the people around him. In little ways. In little actions that meant everything. He had a heart bigger than I ever could have imagined. It wasn’t like it had snuck up on me. It didn’t hit me on the back of my head. What I felt for him had walked right up to me, and I’d watched it happen.

“Thank you,” he murmured, smoothing his hand from the crown of my head down my back to settle right at the small of it. His chest filled with air, and then he released it. It was a content sigh.

And I loved that too.

“I’m going to my room. What time are we leaving tomorrow?” Amos asked.

He was referring to his aunt’s house. “We’re leaving at eight. If you want breakfast before we go, get up early enough, Am.”

He wasn’t going to, and I was pretty sure we were both well aware of it, but Rhodes wouldn’t be a dad if he didn’t remind him anyway.

The teenager huffed. “Okay. ’Night.”

“’Night,” Rhodes and I both replied, and I took that as my moment to pull back a little. Just a little. Tilting my head up, I smiled at the bristly face aimed down at me.

“Thank you for letting me spend Christmas with you two.”

His hand did that thing again where it cupped the back of my head and went down my spine, except that time, I think it might have gone a little lower, a little closer to my butt.

I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind at all.

“I know you wanted to see your aunt and uncle, but I’m glad you’re here. Real glad,” Rhodes admitted in that tough, quiet voice. His eyes were on mine, intense and hooded, as he said, “I’ve got your Christmas present upstairs. Come with me.”

Upstairs, huh? The tingling was back . . . just not exclusively in my chest anymore. Was this happening?

I wouldn’t know unless I went with him.

I nodded and followed, watching him flip off the lights downstairs as we passed them. They hadn’t put up a tree, and Am and I had trudged back to the garage apartment to grab the tiny one I’d bought and decorated with dollar-store ornaments, and we’d propped it up on top of some books beside the TV. The lights were battery-operated, and neither of us bothered turning them off.

Rhodes kept holding my hand as we got into his room, but it was me who kicked the door shut behind us. He glanced at me with surprise, and I smiled at him.

“Sit. Please,” he said after a second, before ducking into his closet.

I took a seat on the edge of the bed, tucking my hands between my thighs as he rooted around and produced two boxes. He’d wrapped them in brown paper, all nice and neat just like his ironing. He held out the smallest one first, stopping to kneel directly in front of me with the other box in hand.

“Here,” he said.

I smiled at him and slowly tore the paper, pulling out the gift inside and noticing the name printed on the top. My mouth formed an O.

“Since you won’t buy your own,” he explained as I opened the box, moved the tissue paper aside, and pulled out the tall slip-on boots with fleece-like lining around the tops. “Now your toes won’t be freezing every time you leave the house.”

I hugged the boot to my chest. “I love them. Thank you.”

“Make sure they fit,” he said, already reaching down for my foot and lifting it up. I didn’t say a word as I handed him the shoe and watched as he slipped it on me, giving it a couple jiggles to get it over my heel.

His irises flicked up. “Good?”

I nodded, my heartbeat starting to pound away in my throat, and he did the other one. I scrunched up my toes to make sure they had the perfect amount of room, even though I was having a hard time paying attention to anything other than him kneeling on the ground in front of me, putting my boots on for me. “Perfect fit. Thank you so much. I love them,” I breathed, giving him another smile.

He reached to the side and handed me the second box.

“You really didn’t have to,” I told him, already opening it.

“I only got you things you need,” he explained.

I smiled at him as I finished ripping the paper off and then the tape holding the box closed and opened it to find something tangerine-colored inside. It was a down jacket. I recognized the brand as one of the most expensive ones we carried at the shop.

“It’s winter here a third of the year, and you’re always shivering when you come rushing in since that jacket of yours is too thin,” he said quietly. “We can return it if you’d rather get something else.”

I set the jacket aside.

And I threw myself at him.

Literally.

My arms went around his neck so fast he didn’t have time to brace, but somehow managed to, my cheek to his, my legs straddling his hips from where he’d been kneeling. And I hugged him. I hugged him just as tight as he’d hugged me after opening his frames.

The jacket wasn’t a diamond bracelet or a ruby necklace. It wasn’t some expensive purse picked blindly just because it was expensive. It wasn’t a new laptop I didn’t need because my old one was only a year old.

These were things I needed. Things that he knew I needed. Things to keep me warm because that mattered to him.

They were two of the most thoughtful gifts I’d ever been given.

“What’s this big hug for, huh?” he asked against my cheek as his arms went around the middle of my back, holding me steady on his lap as he rocked back to rest on his heels like we’d been in this position a hundred times before. “Are you getting upset?”

There were tears in my eyes, tears that snuck onto his neck and the collar of his sweater. “I’m getting upset because you’re so nice. It’s your fault.”

He hugged me a little tighter. “It’s my fault?”

“Yes.” I pulled back a little, took in the heavy lines of his bone structure, his brows, that adorable chin, and I kissed him.

Not like before, when they’d been pecks that had fed my soul with their sweetness, but really did it.

Rhodes groaned as he kissed me back—our first real-real fucking kiss. His lips were as soft and perfect as I remembered, and I doubted there was a mouth in the world better than his. Tilting his head to the side, Rhodes kissed me slowly, softly. Still so sweetly. He took his time, his warm lips plucking at my bottom one, sucking the tip of my tongue and starting all over again, the palms of his hands going up and down my back, holding me to him and touching me all at the same time.

There was no awkwardness. No hesitation. His hands mapped my body like they already knew it.

We kissed and kissed, and that big palm slipped up the back of my sweater, fingers stretched wide, touching everything possible. So I did the same, sneaking my hand up under his side, palming the solid mass of muscles there and the skin over his ribs, earning a soft groan that I swallowed because I sure as hell didn’t want to stop kissing him again any time soon.

Or ever, if I had the choice.

I knew Rhodes cared about me like I knew the sky was blue, and some part of me thought he might be at least a little in love with me right back. He was affectionate in his own way. He taught me how to do things. He went out of his way to spend time with me. He never hid that he cared about me in front of other people. He supported me. He worried about me.

If that wasn’t love, then I could still easily settle for all that the rest of my life.

But for now, today, in this room, stroking his warm skin, all those hard muscles . . . with two of the most practical and sweet gifts I could have ever asked for . . . I wasn’t going to worry about more than what I had then. Which was more than I’d ever had.

He wasn’t my ex. This man wouldn’t lead me on or use me. He liked having me around, because he liked me.

And he just made me happy. His subtle smiles. His touches. Even his bossy britches voice. It all meant the world to me.

He made me happy. And I had decided I was ready. More than ready.

And I whispered those exact words to him as that callused palm snuck so deeply under my sweater his fingertips brushed that tender spot right between my shoulders.

Rhodes growled, tilting me back in his lap just enough so he could look right into my eyes as he said, with that ferociously serious expression from the first night I’d walked into his life, “You have no idea.”

Then he kissed me again, slow and deep and sweet. Not asking me if I was sure. Not hesitating. Showing me again that he trusted what I felt and what I wanted.

And I had no idea that kiss was going to be the last of the sweetness.

“Can I see you?” he asked, all husky and ready.

I glided my hand as far up his back as I could possibly reach, his skin smooth. “You can do more than that.”

His growl was deep in his throat as his other hand went to the bottom of my top, and he pulled it over my head. Those lips went straight from my mouth to my neck, leaving open-mouth kisses and nips there that had me instantly rolling my hips against his.

Against his hard, hard dick.

I’d felt . . . traces of it before, all sleepy or semi-sleepy in his jeans and sweatpants when he would give me a hug, but never . . . never like this. Ready. Waiting. Excited and fully awake.

It had been so long. We had taken our time. Built this up.

Because he sure wasn’t indifferent at all as he groaned while I pressed against him as his mouth gave a hard suck at a spot between my neck and collarbone that had me whimpering. Rhodes leaned away for a moment, his throat bobbing, his breath heavy, that gaze moving from my face down to my breasts, held up by the green balconet bra I’d thrown on that pushed my breasts up to the top. The underwire sucked, but I’d never been gladder to have put that specific bra on in that moment until then.

“Jesus,” he whispered. “Take it off.” His throat bobbed. “Please.”

“You got it,” I whispered back, letting go of all his soft skin to reach back and pluck at the hooks, shimmying my shoulders to let the bra drop between our bodies.

I was ready, I was so fucking ready.

And I was pretty sure he groaned “fuck” under his breath a split second before his hands were at my waist, and he was lifting me up just a little off his lap at the same time his mouth dove down and those pink, wonderful lips sucked a nipple between them.

I moaned and arched my back, pushing my breast deeper into his mouth before he gave it another suck and moved over, suckling at that nipple too, hard and then softly, two hard pulls and then one gentle one. Not wanting to break our contact but wanting to see him too, I grabbed at the bottom of his sweater and pulled it over his head.

He was just as beautiful as I remembered from the times I’d perved on him through the window. His stomach was flat and hard with muscle, his skin tight and covered with a V-shape of light hair across his pecs and down to his navel. I wanted to lick him right there, but instead, I ran my hands over his chest, over his shoulders, lowering myself back down onto his lap so that I could settle on top of him again. On top of his dick.

His mouth met mine at the same time my breasts brushed his chest, and I swore my nipples got even harder when they grazed the hair on his pecs. I touched him everywhere, and he touched me everywhere. And at some point, my hands went to the snap of his jeans and the zipper, and his snuck under the layer of my leggings and underwear, grabbing a handful of my bare ass and squeezing it, pulling me in even closer to his erection.

Sneaking my hand down into his underwear, my fingertips brushed hair there. The wide, hard base. The smooth, smooth skin covering it all, and he grunted, his laugh unexpected and rough. “Not too much of that.”

I kissed the line of his jaw, the tip of his chin, and gave him a squeeze anyway.

He pulled out one of the hands he had inside my underwear and cupped my breast with it, taking its weight. “How am I so goddamn lucky?” he groaned. “How can you feel this good already?” His mouth gave my neck a soft kiss that had me shivering.

“I’ve been thinking about this for so long,” I told him, stroking both hands up and down his spine, nipping at his chin in a way that had his hips rolling straight against the seam of my body. “You don’t even know how many times I’ve made myself come thinking about you sucking on my nipples.”

He groaned, broken and loud.

“Or just pushing deep, deep in me.”

He panted as I circled my hips into his.

“And pictured you coming in me, every inch of you stuffing me full.”

He growled.

Those big hands went to my butt, and then we were up and he was dropping me in the middle of his bed. He yanked my leggings off and threw them over his shoulder before sneaking his fingers beneath my undies and pulling those right off too.

I smiled at him, arching my back and reaching for his jeans when he crawled over me. I kept on smiling at him as I pushed his pants down over his butt, copping a handful on the way back up, and then doing it again, but this time under his boxers, stroking once, twice.

He groaned deep at the touch, then groaned even deeper when I wrapped my hand around him too.

I wasn’t sure who was more surprised, him or me.

Because I looked down at what I had my fingers on. I’d only gotten to touch the base of him. I hadn’t gotten . . . the whole thing.

His laugh was husky as he dipped down and kissed me before saying, “I’ve thought about this every night too.”

It was my turn to gulp as I risked a glance down at the thick cock I was holding.

It was perfect.

I gave him a squeeze, and he gave me another groan, a dreamy look in his eyes. He kissed me again, and I gave him yet another squeeze that had him swiveling his hips like he wanted me to do it again.

So I did.

“I’ve got places I want to put my mouth . . . my fingers . . .” He dipped his mouth back toward my breasts and sucked a nipple softly, slowly. “It’ll be so damn good for you . . .”

Patience had never been a virtue of mine.

So as he sucked and licked at my breasts, I stroked up and down the thick cock bobbing between our bodies, rubbing my thumb through the drop of precum that pooled at the deep-red tip I wanted to put into my mouth at some point, and jerked him off slowly, kissing the parts of his head I could reach. His hair. His ear. My other hand stroked his back as he kept on sucking the tips of my breasts before eventually easing a hand to the side of mine and stroking the pads of his fingers up and down the seam of my body.

The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Is it terrible that I hate knowing other people have seen you like this? That I’m jealous I’m not the only one who knows how big you are? What you feel like in my hand?”

The noise Rhodes made in the back of his throat was fucking savage. His breathing was deep, his fingers not stopping their petting movement up and down my lower lips. But his voice was harsh and deep as he said, serious, “They don’t matter. They’re never going to again. Understand me?” Rhodes pulled back and met my gaze with his stormy, bright one. “And you’re not the only one jealous.”

“There’s nothing for you to be jealous about,” I promised.

That must have been the perfect thing to say because then we were kissing again, and I’d licked my palm before going back to teasing him slowly when one of those big fingers finally dipped between my lips and pushed inside. I’d been wet from the moment he started kissing me, groaning as he pulled that long finger out and pushed it back in, pumping slowly, steadily.

“I’m on birth control,” I whispered. “I went to the doctor and I’m good,” I told him, needing him to know.

His voice was hoarse as he replied, “I go every year, and I haven’t done anything in a long time . . .”

“Good.” I bit his throat. “Then you can come in me as deep as you want.”

Rhodes growled in his throat before he slid another finger deep, his sawing motions consistent before they started scissoring. And finally a third finger joined the rest, and I whimpered at the stretch, at the fullness that somewhere in the back of my mind I recognized was necessary for what we both wanted.

Rhodes whispered into my ear what he was going to do to me—telling me all about how he was going to bottom out, about how good he knew we were going to be together, about filling me up with more than just his dick. But what I loved the most was what he said about how much he wanted me, how good I made him feel, about me molding to him. With that bristly face between my thighs, my hand buried in his soft brown and silver hair, his tongue dipped as deep into me as possible, lapping and twisting, his lips sucking and possessive. And Rhodes told me all about how he loved the way I tasted, and how he already couldn’t wait to do it again.

Eventually, his hips dipped down between my legs, and I wrapped them around his hips, and with my hand around his root, guiding him where we both wanted him, he pressed all of those inches in me.

I was grateful for those three fingers he’d used, but I was more grateful for the gift he’d been given because, even though it took a minute to get used to the magnitude of his girth and how long he was . . . it was incredible.

His dick twitched the second his slow pumps had our groins completely meeting, and he groaned against my neck, his body covering mine completely except for where my legs anchored him to me. Rhodes was breathing hard as he pulled a couple inches out and pushed back in. The mattress squeaked lightly. His voice was savage as he growled, and his hips pumped him in to the root.

I squeezed his sides tight, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and tilting up my hips a little. The mattress squeaked again, and I swore I’d never heard anything so erotic in my life. That soft creak, creak, creak burned itself into my brain, especially when he moaned into my ear. His breath was hot, his body hotter.

Dragging my palms up and down his back, I loved everything about him.

And that’s what I told him.

His dick twitched in me, and he breathed heavily. “You want to end this before we’ve even really started?”

“It sure feels like we’ve started,” I panted as he retreated and then pushed back in with a smack of his balls against my ass, earning another louder creak of the mattress. And that was how he moved, slowly, then hard, teasing me with the girth of his tip before pushing fully in and then starting all over again.

We kissed and kissed. I bit his neck, and he sucked hard at my shoulder, at my ear. The hair on his chest abraded my nipples, and I loved it. At some point, he slipped his hands under my ass and tilted my hips up even more, his pelvic bone hitting me perfectly. We were sweaty and quiet; I muffled my mouth against his shoulder, and he kissed his groans across my lips.

“You’re incredible,” he said.

“You’re perfect,” he whispered.

“You feel so damn good,” he growled as his hips picked up speed just as I started to feel the heat building and building at the center of my body.

Rhodes pounded inside of me, holding me off the bed and on top of his thighs, and I squeezed my legs tight around him as he ground and ground right against where I wanted him. I cried out my orgasm against his cheek. His hands gripped my butt hard as his hips became erratic and he came, pulsing and groaning so deep from his chest, I felt it against mine.

That big, sweaty body slumped against mine as he lowered us onto the bed, still inside of me, between my thighs. Rhodes laid his cheek against the top of my head, his lungs pumping for breath. I wrapped my arms around him, sliding over his slick back, breathing hard too.

“Wow,” I panted.

“Jesus,” he said, kissing me right above my breast.

“Merry Christmas to me.”

Rhodes’s sudden laugh filled my chest and heart, and I swore he cuddled me closer, lifting my head to brush his lips against mine. His gaze met mine, and he was smiling, this bright thing that made my chest fly, that made those three little words flare deeply in my chest. “Merry Christmas, Aurora,” he whispered tenderly.

“Merry Christmas, Tobers,” I repeated, and in some small part of my heart, I hoped this would be the first of many. “You’re the best, you know that?”

I felt the curve of his mouth, felt the smile he made against my skin.

It really was the best Christmas I’d ever had.