10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Christmas Day

Nellie

C hristmas Day

“Meowy Christmas.”

Austin rubbed the sleep from his eyes and moved closer to me. “What did you do?” he asked, voice rich with humor.

“You wanted the traditional Wheatley family Christmas, and that begins with jolly jammies, so . . .”

I gestured toward the couch full of cats.

“That includes the whole family.”

As it turned out, picking out holiday outfits for cats was a lot more fun than shopping for myself. And since I didn’t believe in half-assing any task, I had gone a little overboard.

Buddy and Marley were decked out in matching red sweater vests, both of which came with remote powered lights. Technology had come a long way when it came to petwear. A small silver chain collar completed Marley’s look—a nod to her namesake—while Buddy sported a striped elf hat with bells on the ends.

I had even found something for Ralphie, Austin’s chonkasaurus of a feline, who had taken a special liking to me over the past few days. The green-and-red sweater with gold pom-poms was actually meant for small dogs, but neither Ralphie nor his daddy— my daddy, too —needed to know that.

Austin’s husky laugh lit up the room, making my heart grow three sizes bigger. Mission accomplished. Sometime in the past week, in between large quantities of both breakfast sandwiches and orgasms, it had occurred to me that my new mission in life was to make Austin laugh.

And so far, my brilliant plan had worked out swimmingly.

He laughed while we cuddled on the couch and watched sappy holiday movies together. He laughed while watching me try on my new onesie pajamas, an early Christmas present from Leighton. He even laughed during sex, when he wasn’t pounding the shit out of my pussy, that was.

That was another first for me—laughing during sex.

With Austin, sex was fun and messy, sometimes awkward. Not in a way that made me feel uncomfortable or self-conscious, except for maybe the one time my thigh cramped up while riding him reverse cowgirl. He could bend me in half and fuck my face for hours . . . so long as he did it with me on my back, preferably on a firm mattress.

#PillowPrincessForLife.

“I got you something, too.”

He looked down at the wrapped box in my hand like it was a bomb instead of a gift. “You already gave me the pajamas.”

Seeing as Austin and his family wouldn’t be celebrating Christmas until February, I had invited him to join my family’s festivities. Naturally, I had picked out a matching PJ set featuring holiday cats which showed off his belly and bulge beautifully. We would be lucky if we somehow made it through the day without me pulling him into one of the eight thousand closets at Killian and Leighton’s place to suck his dick.

“Those don’t count,” I told him. “Everybody is required to wear pajamas. This is something just for you.”

I waited eagerly as he unwrapped it, silently wishing that he loved it as much as I thought he would.

His eyes shot to mine when he rolled it over in his hand. “Nellie, I—” I waited patiently for him to find the words. “It’s beautiful.”

Relief flooded my body. I had spotted the vintage Santa toy in a secondhand store last week and known right away that Austin needed it in his collection. The toy’s once snow-white beard had faded to a rusty brown identical to Austin’s. Even more uncanny was the cat sleeping by his feet that looked just like Ralphie.

This was Santa, but it was also Austin.

Father Christmas, daddy dom, and the sweet, sensitive neighbor I had been falling for since day one, all wrapped into one.

“Get it? Because he looks like you.”

Strong arms swept me up, nearly knocking over his tacky purple tree in the process. I squealed and wrapped my legs around his waist.

“Thank you so much, baby.” He placed a soft, yearning kiss to my mouth. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”

I couldn’t contain my very unladylike snort. “We’ve been over this. I am not perfect.”

“You’re perfect for me.”

I blinked back the tears forming in my eyes. Damn this man and the power he has over me. He squeezed a handful of my ass when I didn’t respond right away.

“This is the part where you say, ‘You’re perfect for me, too, Austin.’”

“And miss out on an opportunity for you to punish me?”

The hardening cock against my center was all the answer I needed.

“How long before we need to be at your sister’s house?”

“Forty minutes.” Rather than ravage me then and there, as I expected him to, he closed his eyes. “What are you doing?”

An adorable crease formed between his brows. “I’m calculating all the ways I could make you come in less than forty minutes.”

Mmm, sexy math.

I hummed when his palms kneaded my ass, rubbing me against his burgeoning erection. “And what did you decide on?”

His eyes sprung open.

“I decided we’re going to be late.”

Austin

The Wheatleys kicked ass.

Literally. They were kicking my ass at every fucking game.

Even Nellie and Leighton’s parents, Hank and Wanda. The pair had at least two-and-a-half decades on the rest of us, and yet here they were, running circles around both Killian—a retired, professional soccer player—and me.

Time to haul my ass back to the gym.

Christmas looked a lot different here than it did in the Amato household, starting with the matching pajamas over brunch and ending with the Minute-to-Win-It-style tournament, aptly named the Wheatley Winter Games. For two hours, we had stacked cups, flung candy canes, and used straws to blow jingle bells from one end of the coffee table to the other.

One by one, I had lost them all. Hell, I had nearly taken an elbow to the groin during Holiday Nutstacker.

Talk about a great “meet the parents” story.

Despite my humiliation and utter lack of athleticism, I was having the time of my life.

Wanda had taken to me immediately, insisting that I be her partner for the first two games. At first, I’d thought it might have been because of how much she loved her gift. Nellie and Leighton had turned the photos we had taken together into a calendar for their parents, each month featuring side-by-side then and now pictures. Wanda had opened the present after breakfast and promptly burst into tears. Hank, on the other hand, had simply nodded his head and said something akin to, “That’s nice.”

Nellie assured me that that was as good as a standing ovation.

During a brief boozy coffee break, she had also confided in me the real reason her mother wanted to be my partner.

“She thinks you look like David Harbour, her celebrity hall pass.”

“The guy from Stranger Things ?”

She nodded. “He also did a movie where he dressed like Santa.”

I laughed when she wagged her brows suggestively. Apparently, she wasn’t the only Wheatley woman who had a thing for the big man in red.

We had just moved on to playing the last game, Snowballing , when my phone vibrated across the table. Nellie smiled when I flashed her the name on screen. “Tell her hi from me.”

I excused myself to the patio and answered Sloane’s call.

“Merry Christmas, buddy.”

“Merry Christmas, boss.”

A slurp from the other end of the phone gave me pause. “What are you doing?”

“Eating ramen and watching football. Duh.”

“Since when are you a football fan?”

“Um, since forever. Have you seen how tight their pants are?”

I rolled my eyes and peeked through the sliding glass door. “I can’t talk long, but I’m glad you called. Nellie says hello. She just landed that account I told you about, so she wants to throw a little celebratory dinner thing next week. You’re invited.”

“Count me in.”

Bennett Studios had officially inked their deal with Wilson, Treger, and Faison two days ago, just in time for Christmas. In addition, all three partners had unanimously decided that Nellie would lead the account. Obviously, she was thrilled, and I was thrilled for her. She was the hardest working person I knew, so she deserved to be recognized for the fruits of her labor.

“Damn, Brooks Bennett,” she said wistfully. “He was my first celebrity crush. I used to kiss his poster every night before bed.”

“You want me to hook you up?”

“I wish.” She laughed through the phone. “On second thought, ask me again in six months.”

“What about Laric?”

From what she had told me before, Laric already had Christmas plans with family. Sloane was going to join them in Joshua Tree for New Year’s Eve.

“He’s fine.”

I waited for her to elaborate. The pit forming in my stomach snowballed out of control when I heard her sniffle instead.

“Sloane—”

“I’m okay, big man. We can talk later. You have your girlfriend’s parents to impress.” I couldn’t help but smile when she used the word girlfriend. I had a girlfriend. Fuck, I sounded like a gangly preteen. “I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas and tell you I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks, Slo.”

We said our goodbyes, and I made a mental note to check in with her again tomorrow. Something was off with Sloane, and I needed to know what.

But there was something that had to happen first.

I snuck back inside the house and grabbed my camera, returning to the living room just as Killian tossed the final snowball—aka, a plastic Easter egg painted white—to Leighton. She jumped up and down when the timer went off, excited yet unaware of what was still to come.

When Killian’s gaze found mine from across the room, I nodded.

“Check the egg, princess,” Killian said, his voice shaking. I had never seen the man so nervous before.

“You know perfectly well it’s a snowball, killjoy.”

“Check it,” he repeated.

Her eyes widened when she snapped the egg open, and then filled with tears when Killian removed the diamond ring from inside and got down on one knee.

“Leighton, not a day goes by when I don’t find something new to add to the list of reasons why I love you.” Tears of joy streamed down her cheeks. “Please, do me the honor of giving me more time to love you, hold you, and, hopefully, spend the rest of my life trying to make you as happy as you make me. Will you marry me?”

“Yes!” she screamed, wrapping her arms around his neck and tackling him to the floor. Nellie and her parents cheered, peppering the couple with tearful hugs and kisses when they finally came up for air.

And all the while, I watched it through my viewfinder.

Later, after Hank and Wanda had retired to the guest room to take a postgame nap and Killian and Leighton had disappeared for a private celebration, I pulled Nellie aside for a private moment of our own.

“You know,” she said once we were safely tucked away inside the laundry room. “As much as I love where your head’s at, there are much better rooms in the house. Bigger rooms with padded carpet.”

I couldn’t contain my shit-eating grin . . . or the erection straining against my boxer briefs. We could christen every fucking room in the house if she wanted to, but it was going to have to wait.

Her eyes sparkled with interest when I handed her the leather-bound album. “This is for you.”

“Austin, you didn’t have to—”

“Get my girlfriend a present for Christmas?” She rolled her eyes. “I meant to give it to you this morning when it was just the two of us, but then we got a little distracted.”

She opened the album and froze. “How did you—”

“I had a little help.”

I didn’t need to look at the photos again. They were already permanently etched in my brain—all sixteen of them. Instead, I studied Nellie, absorbing every emotional reaction as she experienced them for the first time.

There was the one we had taken on my living room floor the night we’d first had sex. I had cropped her pert nipples out of the frame, but it was hard to miss the beads of sweat dotting our skin. She turned the page, smiling when she reached our photo in the snow globe. Sloane deserved a fucking bonus for that one. Much to my surprise, she had adjusted the focus, effectively blurring the rest of the background and drawing your eyes straight to Nellie and me, who only had eyes for each other.

There were candid photos, too—from our photo shoots, the rage room, even one or two from the pet store. I watched as she flipped through page after page, smiling ear to ear as she relived a series of snapshots in time that, collectively, told our story.

When she reached the last page, her eyes widened, twinkling with lust. “Holy shit,” she whispered. “That is so fucking hot.”

I didn’t need to see it to know that she was talking about the one of me jerking off in her chair. Going through the film had been an enlightening experience. Nellie had been . . . thorough, to say the least. This particular photo, though, had called to me. It was the perfect blend of dominance and submission, a man hungering for control but beholden to the woman he loved.

Damn, I was getting hard just thinking about it.

“Thank you, so much,” she said, clutching the book to her chest. “You don’t know what this means to me.”

I kissed a fallen tear from her cheek. “You don’t know what you mean to me.”

There was nothing left to say after that. Not with words anyway. We let our tongues do the talking. I snaked a hand underneath her skirt, teasing the crease of her panties. She was already wet for me. She whimpered when I pulled my hand away, then jolted against my lips when I brought it back down, lightly slapping her clit.

“Now,” I said between kisses. “What were you saying about padded carpet?”