“Come on,” I arched a brow, reaching for the bedroom door. “Before we miss our flight.”
twenty-two
Daphne: A Christmas Memory
A Memory
“Thay,” I smiled against the spot where his dimples rarely showed. “Come on.” I nudged him, trailing my teeth along his jaw. “It’s Christmas.”
“Goddammit, witch,” he grumbled, turning toward the wall with a heavy thud. “Christmas doesn’t exist for our kind. Go back to bed.”
“I could do that, but…” I hooked my hands over his shoulder, binding his hips against me. “I got you a present.”
“With all that money you have?” he teased, tugging the covers tighter over us. “I hope we can eat it or use it to keep warm.”
“You know what they say?” I whispered into his ear, catching the scent of soap and sweat along his hairline. “The best gifts come from the heart.”
“Yeah, well, look around you, pretty girl,” Thay groaned. “This is all the heart Seattle ever did for us.”
I pressed into him, sliding my palms over his chest, until he gave in, folding into me and letting me take more of him.
“Does that mean you don’t want it?”
“What I want is for you to go back to sleep.”
“But Thay,” I breathed, brushing my lips along the nape of his neck. He swallowed a moan I felt straight in my stomach before swatting me away. “It’s Christmas.”
“Ugh,” he growled into the wall before finally turning to look at me. “You’re so goddamn annoying.”
“Why?” I cheesed a grin in his direction, determined to make him feel the sparkles illuminating beneath my ribs.
“Because we are creatures of suffering, Daphne. All this Christmas shit should have been the first thing it took from you.” He grinned, biting at me before pulling me into his chest. Leave it to this asshole to tell trauma jokes on Christmas morning and actually make them funny.
“It is like a double curse,” I sank into him, peering up through the storm of skin and muscle that held me.
“Holiday fuckery at its best,” he snarled, pausing for a moment to breathe me in. “But I’m glad it didn’t,” he breathed, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “Take it from you, I mean.”
“Thay?” My voice went soft, pirouetting in the dust motes playing in the half-light. His eyes darted around my face, reading my expression until his breath shifted.
“What is wrong?” His chest hit mine, causing my legs to spread wider to accommodate his hips. He was always hard in the morning, but I couldn’t help but notice the way it pulsed whenever he pressed up against me.
“Do you ever think about it?” I asked, running my fingers through his hair.
“What would it be like to sleep in without you constantly waking me the fuck up? All the time!”
Even his fake smiles did things to me.
“No, um,” a strange heat hit my cheeks, and I squeezed my eyelids shut, attempting to hide my embarrassment. Thay’s dick jumped, and I did not know what it meant.
“Stop being so fucking cute,” he nudged at my face with the edge of his nose, smiling against me until I felt safe enough to reopen them.
“I mean, what would it be like if we… What would itfeellike if we…” Thay waited, his piercing eyes burning holes into the center of mine. “You know. Made love.” I said in a whisper, immediately making a face at my chosen words.
Sexseemed too simple.
Fuck? Too cold.
But making love was something hairy people did to each other in the eighties.
