Chapter 14

CYAN

On the eighth day of Christmas, holiday book porn

The morning starts with me attempting the walk of shame from Crispin’s room.

My family notices straight-off that I spent the night with him. I can see it the minute I tiptoe out and freeze in the den, wide-eyed at the small crowd that’s gathered in here to play charades. I was not invited to join them which isn’t unusual.

With family like this, who needs enemies?

“Did you really—” my sister, Helen, begins, pausing when she sees Crispin appear behind me, a mountain of muscle and rumpled sleeping pants. He’s tugging a shirt over his head, the fabric catching on his lips as he flicks his tongue against the inside of his cheek and gives her a nasty look.

Until yesterday, I’d never seen a mean look from that man. Not when I pepper sprayed his lead singer. Not when I screwed his guitarist on his tour bus. Not on any interview or paparazzi photo or reel. Nothing. Never.

“Did she really what?” he asks, unconcerned by the fog frosting my father’s glasses (from his angry, panting breath). Unconcerned by my mother’s ice queen stare. Crispin is deathly cold himself, like a different person. “That’s what I thought.” He ruffles my hair affectionately as he passes, pausing to plant a kiss on my cheek.

I can’t move, rooted to the spot like I stumbled into a spiky holly bush. What do I do now? How do I deal with this?

“Hey.” Vale appears in the nick of time, a pair of mugs in his hands. He lifts them up in invitation. “Told you I could figure out that espresso machine.” He heads in the direction of the sunroom, and I follow, ignoring my family’s collective expression of shock.

Grandma was my best shield against them, but now … I could have a new shield.

I love that.

“Vale,” I begin, and he murmurs a sleepy affirmative, feet tucked up in the chair. “I don’t want you to be celibate.”

He looks up and nearly drops his coffee.

“What?” he asks, eyes wide as he stares back at me like he didn’t hear me quite right.

“I want to have sex with you.” I tuck my hands in my lap and purse my lips tight, waiting to hear his response. He made it seem like this was the sort of deal he was offering, to try it whenever I was ready. Well, there’s no time like the present. I’m nervous for the blizzard to end because I’m not sure how much further this will go.

More than that, Vale is beautiful. I’ve thought that every day that I’ve sat here writing with him. Eight days of quiet, frosty mornings with warm coffee and bare toes that sometimes bump under the table. The scent of pine from the Christmas tree, and Vale’s gold eyes like the bulbs that line its branches.

He’s got a slash of red pen on his right dimple, arms covered in music that might never play outside his head. His lips often move as he writes, like he’s trying out the songs in advance. He gave me that card with the lyrics in it, tried to cheer me up when he’d only known me for a few hours. None of that went unnoticed.

“I thought you guys were bastards, but you’re sort of green flags, not red ones.” I make myself look at Vale, because if I can’t do that then he’ll never take me upstairs like I want.

He puts his coffee down, closes his laptop, and then looks up at me.

“Crispin is a green flag.” Vale puts an elbow on the table and leans forward, resting his head in his hand. He has his black beanie on today, the one with the white snowflakes. He was wearing it when we first met at the rest stop. “Maybe Aspen. Me and Frost? I’m not so sure.”

“Red-flag guys often don’t believe they’re red-flag guys. You’re green for sure.” I gesture at him with my remaining coffee, and then take a long drink to give myself something to do. He hasn’t really responded to my bizarre declaration.

“When?” Vale finally asks, still studying me. Our bare toes touch beneath the table, but neither of us moves away this time, and I get butterflies. “When do you want to have sex, is what I mean.” He raises a brow. “Eventually? Next week?” His smile is sharp. “Now?”

Ahem.

“Yeah, uh, I did mean today.” I gesture at the windows with my cup. “Just in case the blizzard lifts and you guys take off. I figured I’d … sample you like chocolates.” I take another drink, squinting at the tree in the corner and its diminishing pile of presents as my siblings desperately try to appease the kids in the absence of the Internet.

“Okay.” Vale sits up straight in his chair, smile a bit softer. “Let’s go.”

“Well, not like now-now but today. Maybe in a few hours?” I don’t know how to do this. I was just with Crispin. This isn’t like cheating, is it?

“Hey, overthinker.” Vale leans forward, giving me a gentle flick on the forehead with his finger. “Don’t worry about it. The only rule is that we all have to want to be here, doing this. Nothing else matters. Do what feels right.”

I put my mug down, tracing my finger around the rim as Vale sits back, retrieving his own coffee in his left hand. He always uses his left, never his right, to drink it.

“I bet you’re the type that usually tells girls: I’ll fuck you, but I don’t want a girlfriend. ” I make myself look at him to gauge his response. He’s not angry. In fact, he nods, shrugging his shoulders a bit, too. “But you said the exact opposite to me. Be my girlfriend, and we don’t have to fuck.”

Vale laughs and adjusts his beanie with his right hand, drinking coffee with his left again.

“Because most people make me feel like I can’t write anything.” Another sip. Another smile. “You make me feel like I can write everything.” He scoots to the edge of his seat, like he’s eager to tell me this. “You make me want to write. You make me overflow.”

“That’s not pervy at all,” I joke, but it doesn’t land because there’s already so much tension between us.

“Anybody need a refill?” Crispin asks, appearing in the doorway and leaning his shoulder against the jamb. He has his slippered feet crossed at the ankles, a knowing smile on his face. “Thought I’d let you know that your daddy absolutely did threaten me with a knife. It was a jam knife or somethin’ blunt, but the implication was there.”

I cringe, but Crispin isn’t done.

“I let him know that I’ll treat you like you deserve to be treated, which is pretty different from the way he does it.” Crispin grins, and I pray fervently that this new relationship pans out because if these guys abandon me after this, my family will roast me alive.

“I feel safer already.” Aspen saunters in with Frost on his heels. The former slumps into a white wicker chair covered in angel stuffies while the other pauses next to the table where Vale and I are sitting. “See? This is why group dating works so well. I have this weird urge to get your dad to like me. Crispin will beat him up.”

“Oh, please.” Frost rolls his eyes, pulling a third chair up to our table, a cookie in his hand. I really should bake some myself, prove that I can outdo my dad in taste even if I can’t do it in looks. His cookies are pretty, but mine are fucking delicious. “You’re nice until you blow up, and then you go way overboard.”

“Better than just being an asshole all of the time,” Aspen replies as Crispin gives them both meaningful looks.

“There’s not a lot of time for alone moments when we’re on the road. Cyan, enjoy your time with Vale today. We have work to get done anyway.” Crispin ruffles up Frost’s hair, and the grump sighs like he knows that’s the case but doesn’t want to acknowledge it.

We look at each other, and I know Frost wants me. He wants me naked, probably. He also wants my attention. But since we’re running out of time—how much longer can this blizzard really last?—I have to take this opportunity and see if Vale and I work as a couple, too.

Aspen is already on his feet, bouncy and full of energy that may or may not be related to caffeine. He stops to press a kiss to my right cheek. I’m surprised by that, and he can tell, pausing with his lips still very near my face.

“Tomorrow, let’s make sure we’re all together, okay?” Aspen gives me another kiss before standing up.

Frost does the same on my left cheek, and I curl my toes—right over Vale’s. He tries to hide his expression, but Frost doesn’t. He’s blushing, but he’s also cursing, the legs of his chair scraping the sunroom’s stone floor as he runs away with Aspen following.

Vale waves them off with the word thank you written on his palm, and Crispin puts a fancy truffle on the table in front of me.

“We’ll be in the office if you need us.” He leaves, and the snow globe effect is back in place.

Me and Vale, alone. Eight days of this and I’m addicted. I could do this every morning, write with him.

“You said you knew the best Christmas book porn,” Vale says, interrupting my thoughts. I glance over at my own writing. Surely not the best Christmas book porn, but a distant relative. “Want to read some to me?”

“The one I like best has a long lead-up. You sure you can handle the anticipation? Crispin stayed up late reading and didn’t get to the sex scene.” I smile into my coffee, and Vale laughs, tearing his beanie off and clutching it in his lap.

“We have time to get there. We can read to each other over the phone if we don’t finish while we’re both here. Or …” Vale stands up and raises both blonde brows at me. “You can join us on the bus. We have one concert left, and then some time off. Since you’re sort of between places, it’s maybe not a bad idea?”

He says that with zero judgment, maybe a dash of excitement. He holds back which makes me not want to hold back at all.

“If you’ll let me read to you, I’m down for anything. There’s nothing like reading aloud to someone, or having them read to you. It makes me think of campfires and ancient humans.” I stand up, trying to remember where I left my book and then … oh. In Crispin’s room. It feels impossible to stop smiling today.

Vale doesn’t tease me for the weird things that come out of my mouth. He looks up at the windows, a wistful expression on his face, and then uncaps his pen with his teeth, taking my wrist and writing something in red ink.

Snow and stories, he jots.

“Well,” he begins, talking around the pen cap in his mouth, “what do you think humans did while trapped inside in this sort of weather? Back when they didn’t have devices to play on.” He winks at me, slipping the cap back on with a snap. “Besides have sex, that is.”

“Murder is also an option,” I add, but that’s not directed at him, and he knows it. We can both hear my mother yelling in another room. “That probably fills the time well.”

“Are you sure it’s safe for us to date you? Frost is still convinced that you’re a stalker.” Vale steps aside so that I can lead the way, taking him to Crispin’s room for the book (and finding my attention locked on the mess of flannel sheets).

“Not a stalker, only a fangirl. Huge difference.” I tear my gaze away from the bed and turn, the book clutched to my chest.

“Synonyms,” Vale retorts, taking his pen and writing something on the wall. “Sorry,” he says, glancing over his shoulder with a grimace. “I wouldn’t normally disrespect someone’s house like this, but your family makes it difficult to not want to retaliate on your behalf.”

I bite the edge of the book and scoot out of the room, leading the way to the staircase.

My mother is there in the foyer, watching me with a pie in her hand, like she’s considering braving the cold to see if she can find Wi-Fi out there somewhere in this desolate landscape. Good on her, taking initiative like that. Hope she doesn’t freeze to death.

“Excuse us.” I slip past her, pretending like I don’t feel her eyes on my back as we ascend the stairs. Vale almost stops to look at that horrible Madonna painting, but I won’t let him, taking him by the wrist and guiding the drummer of Inked Pages into my bedroom.

We’re several chapters in and Vale already has plenty of thoughts about the story, sharing some of them aloud and then writing others on his skin. He looks down at me, sprawled on my back to his right. It was weirder climbing into bed with him than any of the other three, and I realize that I’m nervous.

“What’d you do with the guys?” he asks when I take a break to grab a sip of cold apple cider. We’ve been resupplying with snacks, hours and hours of uninterrupted reading with a crackling fire, a snowy backdrop, and the Christmas tree with Vale’s collector’s edition ornament cracked in half and re-glued. Oh, and the guitar pick that Frost threw at Aspen’s head in retaliation for being naughty in my bedroom.

“What did we do?” I blush, but this is probably part of their deal. If I were them, I’d want to be able to ask and hear everything. “Crispin went down on me, and—”

Vale laughs at me again, burying his face in one of my ugliest pillows.

“No,” he breathes, teeth scraping the glass beads on the outside of the sham when he talks. He cants his gaze over to me. “Before the sex. Or after. Like, we’re reading together. What did you do with them?”

Oh.

Should I laugh? Run away? Jump out the window and let the blizzard take me?

“Ah, non-sexual things.” I think about that for a second. “Aspen and I decorated my tree. Crispin and I slept in the same bed. Frost and I … bickered with each other?” That last one’s a question. That’s all that we did, isn’t it? Argue. I smile and make sure my bookmark is tucked firmly between the pages. It has a little Santa Hat tassel on the end, and I don’t want to lose it.

More importantly, it has my bookstore’s logo on it, metallic and hopeful and heavy with promises unfulfilled.

With a sigh, I drop back into the pillows and close my eyes. Vale’s fingers ghost over my hip, on the span of skin between my sweater and my pants. I jump and flick my eyes open, and he draws back, like he isn’t sure if I wanted him to do that or not.

“I’m … nervous, for some reason.” I admit it to him, and he smiles.

“Like I said, celibacy is fine. I can deal with it.” He rolls over and picks up one of the mini pecan tarts on the plate next to him, taking a delicate bite, like he’s trying not to get crumbs in my bed. I already told him he could eat in here, but I appreciate that he’s trying. “I could also take off all your clothes and write on you.” He takes another bite of tart as I stare at him.

“You want to … write on me?” I lift my arms up, sweater sleeves falling to my elbows so I can examine my naked skin. I only have a few small tattoos, so there’s plenty of space. “Okay, but only if you’re naked, too.”

“You want me naked?” Vale asks, pausing with the remaining tart halfway to his mouth. His eyes slant to mine. “That’ll be a challenge, if we’re both not wearing clothes.” I exhale at the sound of his voice, the strain in it. “But okay.”

Vale finishes the tart and stands up, tearing his shirt off and chucking it aside (luckily not onto the fireplace hearth this time). His pants come down, and it’s like the hot tub all over again. I see everything, and I can’t help but stare. He squats down and digs through his pants, finding his red marker and bringing it over to the bed with him.

“Want me to take your clothes off for you?” he asks, completely comfortable with himself while I’m over here wondering if I should unplug the lights on the tree so that he can’t see me as well. “Or would you rather do it yourself?”

Vale takes my foot, and I gasp as his thumb rubs against the arch. He uncaps the pen and then leans over my foot in his lap, writing something across the top. The scrawl of the soft marker tip feels so good, especially when combined with the heat from his hands and the sight of his naked body. Good Time is written over his knuckles, a testament to his personality.

“Why do you like to write on random things? What if you lose the words?” I ask, my voice breathy as he pushes up my pant leg, continuing to write on my calf. He doesn’t press me about taking off my clothes, his beautiful form silhouetted by the fireplace and the windows. The curtains are open, but we’re on the second floor and it’s pitch-black outside, punctuated only by the falling snow. There’s nobody that can see us.

“Writing on something that isn’t a laptop or a notebook makes me think differently. My brain is always cycling over ideas, and I’d rather get them out than let them hide forever inside my head. Sometimes I do transfer them over to my phone or something, but other times, they disappear. I’m still exercising my craft when I come up with stuff that doesn’t make it into the final version of a song. It’s all part of the process.”

Okay, so quiet artist wasn’t a marketing scheme designed by Vale’s record label. Aspen isn’t the leader of the group, but he thinks he is. There’s a nobility to him that fits with his public image. Crispin is that perfect mix of naughty and nice, definitely qualifying him as a ladies’ man. Frost is like a day-old cinnamon roll, crusty and impenetrable on the outside and gooey underneath. All partial truths.

Vale finishes at my knee and then caps the pen, forcing me to hustle out of fear that he’ll stop. I’m up and kicking off my pants before he can leave, tossing my sweater and revealing the secret that I’m not wearing anything underneath it.

“Keep writing,” I beg him, lying back on the bed and feeling every inch of skin that his eyes roam. And they roam it all. He takes in every part of me, that honeyed gaze growing hotter, dripping. He licks his pen again, and I truly hope that it’s a non-toxic variety. It’s sexy as fuck when he does that.

“Let’s write a Christmas rock opera, like the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.” Vale continues up my leg, beautiful cursive on my inner thigh. On my stomach. Over the swells of my breasts. I’m panting, eyes closed as he covers me from my head to my toes. Writing on my cheeks. On the side of my neck. My palms. “There.”

He caps his pen again, and my eyes open, sitting up on my elbows to study my body. This is so fucking cool. He’s written more than just words, musical notes on my knees and above my ankles. Across my peaked nipples.

Vale is breathing hard, too, but he tries to keep it to himself, standing up and yanking his pants on like he’s worried he’ll take this farther than I want to go.

“Should I get us something to eat? Smells like dinner is ready.” He just stares at me, and I look right back, unsure what to say to that. He’s trying to be respectful to what I said, but I also don’t want him to go.

“Yeah, okay.” I drag my own clothes on, but I don’t follow him to the kitchen. I won’t be able to go out until I scrub all of this off (which might be a difficult task). Then again, Vale must know the trick to getting it off because he has fresh skin every day. A blank canvas.

Vale returns with two plates, passing one over, and sitting on the bed beside me.

We eat in silence, staring out the window at the snow, like we do in the sunroom in the mornings.

“I’m going to miss this,” he says finally, putting his fork down. “When the blizzard lifts and we leave, I’ll get nostalgic for this past week. I just know it.”

“More writing material?” I ask, gesturing at my skin. I see a pen sticking out of his pocket, but it’s a green one this time.

I get an idea.

“My turn?” I ask, and Vale gives me a look of surprise before allowing this knowing grin to break over his handsome face.

Once again, we shed our clothes. This time, I straddle his thighs so that I can write on him. My heart is pounding, and I’m having trouble processing that this man is underneath me. He’s completely relaxed, lips gently parted as he waits for me to do … something.

My mind blanks. I can’t think of a single word to write. All I can do is fixate on the heat of him against the insides of my thighs and the shape of his jutting erection, just inches from my hand.

“It doesn’t matter what you write. Put anything down. Anything at all. Otherwise you’ll have nothing.” Vale puts his palm against his lower belly, fingers tapping gently. This hand says Good. So that’s what I write. I start with that, and then I just go crazy and scribble the most random things. Mostly holiday words.

Winter. Storm. Lights. Glitter. Red. Green. Trees. Stars. Cookies.

I don’t leave a single spot untouched, encouraging him to roll over, writing on his taut ass as he lays with his head pillowed on his arms. The last word I write is boyfriend over his butt cheeks.

“You guys are unbelievably fun to hang out with.” I toss the pen onto the nightstand, straddling his thighs again, but while he’s still on his stomach. There’s a temptation there to grind against him, to hump his ass, but we don’t know each other. Maybe I shouldn’t do that?

“Likewise.” Vale looks over his shoulder, trying to meet my eyes. “This isn’t a game I’ve ever played before.” He turns, and I make a sound, sitting up on my knees as he rotates underneath me. Our bodies come together in all sorts of interesting ways until I’m on top of him with his cock pressed between our fronts. “Do you want me to sleep in a chair? Go back to my room? I want you to tell me what we’re doing next.”

I drop down and press a kiss to the edge of his lips, savoring the moment before I let myself discover what he tastes like. Crispin taught me that last night. I’m going to put his wisdom to good use. Anticipate.

“Why did you have the word anticipate written on your cheek the other day?” I ask with my lips near his mouth. He has his eyes shut, like he’s struggling to survive the torture of being trapped between my hot thighs. He’s the one that wrote that song, A Gift of Starlight. Maybe we both have thigh fetishes? “If you remember, that is. You always have stuff written on you.”

“I remember.” Vale’s mouth curves up, and I’m privileged to feel the shape of it against my own. That’s amazing, feeling and enjoying somebody else’s smile. He wraps his arms around me and tugs me more tightly against him, crushing his own dick between us. I wonder if I could make him come like this? I shift around, and Vale groans, like he’s in pain. “Hold still for a second, and I’ll tell you.”

I can feel how stiff my body is, how nervous I am. He’s the last one. What if he decides he doesn’t like me? What if he stacks me up against all the other women he’s slept with and finds me lacking? This arrangement of theirs only works if everybody is in. It’s hard enough to get my family to agree to a restaurant, so I can barely imagine four dudes agreeing on one girl.

“Did it have something to do with me?” I tease, but I don’t really mean it. My nerves make me say it. With my chin tucked under Vale’s and our bodies a mess of red cursive and green chicken scratch, it feels like we’re old friends instead of a stalker fangirl and her celebrity crush.

“I gave Frost my pen and told him to write on my cheek what he was seeing in my face. Anticipation wouldn’t fit, so he shortened it.” Vale pauses, smoothing a hand down my back. Raucous laughter breaks from downstairs, my family doing something else without me. I’ve never fit in with them. Just built a little differently, I suppose. But it hurts. I’ve gotten numb to it, but the pain is still there.

My breath hitches, and Vale catches the emotion in that sharp inhale. He’s good at that. A true artiste, with the extra ‘e’.

“What were you anticipating?” I ask, closing my eyes and enjoying the slide of his warm palm down my spine. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I invited you to be my girlfriend. If you want to ask questions, ask them. We’re covered in Sharpie and lying naked together.” Vale runs his fingers through my hair and my scalp prickles with awareness. Soon enough, I’ll know what he feels like inside of me. Maybe, eventually, we could learn everything that’s written on the inside, too, all of the words that we hide underneath.

It won’t be today, but I can anticipate it.

I place my lips just beneath Vale’s ear and kiss him with a softness that’ll either freak him out or set me apart from other people he’s slept with. My inner fangirl is the person who got me into the bus bathroom with Frost, who was open to Aspen touching me in the kitchen. But it can only be Cyan who propels me forward from here on out.

If Vale is going to be my boyfriend, he has to be so much more than the drummer/songwriter for Inked Pages. That’s how I kiss him, like the man I’ve been getting to know in the sunroom every morning. The one who reads my smutty scenes and offers kind suggestions without judgment. He’s the person who saw me sad in the hallway outside the garage that first night and gave me a Christmas card with no expectation of anything in return.

I like him. A lot.

“I was anticipating what might happen if we were snowed-in here,” he admits, stroking his fingers through my hair again and letting it slither through his grasp until it feathers against my upper back. “Being stuck somewhere with a person you don’t know usually only ends in one of two ways.” He gives a soft laugh, and I respond with a little wiggle that makes him groan again. I sit up and he lets me go, staring up at me and folding his arms behind his head. “Very quickly, you find that you either can’t stand them or you realize how much you like them.”

I blush, tucking some hair behind my ear. Vale looks awfully pretty with his pale hair catching the glow of the Christmas tree, his cheeks and forehead consumed by my handwriting and all of the ridiculous words I scribbled on him. I drum my fingertips on his chest, attention slipping down to his erection and how intriguing it looks against the writing on his stomach. I did not put Sharpie on his penis or balls, I’ll have you know.

“My anticipation was in getting to know you. I thought you were funny, in the rest stop bathroom. On the bus. When you got the wrong idea and invited me in here for sex.” Vale sits up suddenly, and I scoot back, rubbing myself along his legs. His eyelids droop and this time, when he grabs my hair, he keeps his hand where it is, bringing me in for a kiss that doesn’t quite happen. We’re left hovering, mouths touching. “If you’d wanted, we could’ve played with each other for the last eight days. If you still want, we can play with each other for however many more we have left and then some. But only if you want.”

“I want,” I admit, and he finally closes the distance between us.

Vale is an expert at this. It’s obvious from the first second our lips brush. The way he tilts his head. The way he uses his hand in my hair to move mine. It’s all lips at first, warm and gentle, making my skin pebble underneath the red writing. Vale can feel that, and he laughs at it, keeping the sound trapped between our mouths.

“I love that,” he admits, kissing each corner of my lips. Kissing the lower curve. Kissing the upper. Rubbing his cheek against mine. “Your reactions are what make this fun.”

I do my best to kiss him back, but I have nowhere near his level of experience. I surrender to him, but he doesn’t like that. He stops and pulls away to watch me.

“Do you want me to take control?” he asks, but I’m not sure how to respond to that.

“I want to stick my tongue down your throat.” I’m really blushing now, but I’m thinking he can’t see it underneath the red pen. Not true. Vale chuckles again, reaching up a thumb and tracing my cheekbone with it.

“Then let’s do that.” He slams his mouth to mine, and it’s my turn to moan. His tongue parts my lips, and I open for him, giving him space to explore before he relaxes and lets me in. My hands land on his shoulders and I lift up on my knees, pressing in hard and kissing him the way I’ve fantasized about doing for eight days.

The culmination of my anticipation.

He’s got his arms around my waist, and we’re both making these greedy movements with our hips, searching for connection and friction that just isn’t there. A warm space of air rests between us, my wetness on his upper thighs, his cock untouched and naked between us.

He rolls us over, and I let out a sound that makes him laugh again.

“See what I mean? So much fun.” Vale snags a condom from his discarded pants, sitting up and using his hands to open the package like a civilized person. It’s a candy cane one. Aha. Better than Santa for sure. Or the yeti.

He unrolls the red and white stripes down his dick while I watch, admiring the way the story written on his skin clashes with the one written on mine.

Somebody knocks at the door, reminding me that someone also knocked at the door last night when I was with Crispin. Uh. I wonder who that was? Then the doorknob jiggles, and I realize one of my siblings is probably picking the lock.

It swings open and there’s Tina, smirking at me. But then she sees the precarious position I’m in, naked and covered in a Christmas rock opera, and she screams. The door slams shut and the glass in the windows rattles, snow spinning through the darkness outside.

What in the everloving sleigh bells is wrong with these people?! I should probably be embarrassed, but really I’m only ticked off. Tina is one-hundred percent at the top of Santa’s naughty list. Hopefully also at the top of Krampus’ so she can be dragged screaming up the chimney.

“Your family doesn’t treat you with respect,” Vale tells me, sitting up on his knees with his candied cock between us. My hand wraps around it and he releases a sigh of pure relief, letting his head fall back. “You deserve better than that.”

He’s right. I do. And I’m going to have it.

Inked Pages seems like the right place to start.

My hand works in a corkscrew motion around his cock, the slick lube from the condom getting my palm all sticky. I have some more in my nightstand, a bottle of peppermint flavored lube that I thought I’d be using all by myself.

Vale is so right: it’s his reactions that make this fun. He’s completely different from his bandmates, confident but vulnerable, too. I wonder if this is how he always is with partners, or if he’s trying something different tonight. Either way, I’m into it. The soft exhales from his lips, the clench of his graffitied stomach muscles.

The shape of his mouth. The droop of his lids. The heat of his dick in my hand and the twitch of his hips when I do something he really likes.

“Lay down for me?” I ask, and Vale drops his chin to study me, nodding and switching places. He reclines in my hideous pillow collection and spreads his arms wide across the bed, like an angel. The word is written right there on his bicep in my terrible handwriting.

I crawl over him and reach into my nightstand drawer for the lube, cursing as I take the cap off and then struggling to peel away the little foil wrapper underneath. My teeth come in handy for that one, and Vale has to cover his mouth and look away to keep from laughing again.

He won’t be laughing for long.

I use a small amount of lube to wet his candy cane cock, and then I settle myself between his legs to suck it. The peppermint flavor isn’t bad, and the sight of his erection dressed up like a Christmas treat is doing it for me. We’ve been flirting with this candy cane shit since day one, me and these guys. Mostly Crispin, but I hope he doesn’t mind. This is the best candy cane any of them has offered me yet.

Vale can’t maintain that relaxed, give-no-shits pose for very long. He takes both hands and rakes his fingers through his hair, arching his back and pushing his hips up toward my face. I have one hand wrapped around the base of him, my mouth greedily sucking the taste of peppermint off the upper half.

“I wish you were bare,” I admit, using my hand to pump his shaft while my tongue flicks against his tip.

“I wish you were bare,” he retorts, and then he grabs me and I let out a little scream. Vale flips our positions, pinning me to the bed underneath him. He’s panting as he looks down at me, pale hair hanging on either side of his face. He kisses me, and I hope he can taste the sting of peppermint on my greedy tongue. He’s panting now, but he’s still patient, rocking his knee against my wet pussy and getting his skin dirty with my want. “We’ll make that happen,” he promises, both to me and himself I think. “Soon.”

“Soon—” I’m not sure what I was going to say. Vale retraces every word he wrote on my skin with his tongue, humming the notes he penned over my knees, on my breasts. That hum is a game-changer when he does it with my nipple in his mouth. I gather his head to my chest, encouraging him.

I’ve already forgotten about Tina’s intrusion. The snow globe effect is back, and it has nothing to do with the snow-frosted windows or the decorations. It’s Vale. He makes me feel like we’re in a world of our own, like we’re safe from everything outside these walls. That is why I’m so nervous, because I like him so much and I love the way he makes me feel when I’m around him.

Despite his vigor with my nipples, Vale is gentle when he encourages me to spread my thighs. It’s easy to do that for him because I know that even if this doesn’t work out, he’ll treat me with respect. So I yield to him, and it’s glorious when he meets my eyes and slips inside of me. I’m so wet that it’s not a stretch, just a perfect complement, his body and mine.

I sigh and play with his hair as he moves nice and slow, watching my expression for cues that he then takes to heart. Deeper. Harder. A grin as he finds a spot that makes me whimper and slam my eyes shut.

“All of that anticipation,” he pants out, nice and husky, running a hand down the outside of my thigh. “It’s such a high when I get something better than I expected.”

Vale is a wonderful lover, thorough and patient. He doesn’t forget about the rest of my body, stroking my pussy with his cock while he uses his mouth and hands to remind me that there’s more than one erogenous zone on my body. He makes me come for him twice, sweating as he struggles to keep himself together through the contractions of two strong climaxes.

“My body is designed to wreck yours,” I pant, and he bites his lip like he thinks I’m cute or something. “How can you hold back when I grab onto you like that?”

“Anticipation,” he confesses with another smile, shoving hair off his sweaty forehead and moving inside of me until I’m breathless, and he’s having an orgasm with my arms wrapped tight around him. Green-inked arms on a red-inked back.

We’re quiet for a little while after, lying in the dark and staring at each other.

The next knock at my door is Crispin, with a pair of hot cocoas in his hands. Vale answers, entirely naked, and accepts them with a nod of thanks. The door closes as I sit up, blushing again as I tug a decorative fur throw over my nakedness.

“He truly isn’t upset?” I ask as Vale sets the drinks down and pauses by the bed to study me. “About us.”

“If he were, he’d say something. I promise.” Vale raids my closet, snagging a pair of robes. He gives one to me and slips the other over his shoulders. I pull mine on and cinch the tie at the waist while Vale drags the chairs from the corner of my room and maneuvers them carefully around the tree. Thankfully, he doesn’t notice his broken ornament.

I scoot past the tree to find my seat, the pair of mugs on my windowsill.

Vale tucks his legs into the chair and leans forward to grab one, sitting back in his seat with his gold eyes downcast. There’s a private smile on his lips, one that I want to claim as my own. I want that smile to be mine. Anticipation.

The white silk robe he borrowed slips down one shoulder, revealing my handiwork. I see the word celebrate etched into his pale skin. He’s backlit with the glow from the tree and the shimmer of all the beautiful, eclectic ornaments that my grandma collected throughout her lifetime.

His eyes lift to mine, and I smile back. A private smile that I wear just for him. We sit there in silence for hours watching the blizzard, hot mugs cupped in our hands.

The dance of snowflakes out the window isn’t nearly as pretty as the shape of our red-and-green inked fingers holding those cups. Not even close.