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"Getting very presumptuous, are we?"

"I figured we better put my gift to good use before I leave tomorrow. I can't fit twenty-four of those into my wallet."

He kills the lamp. Now the tree is the only thing burning in the house, red and green and gold going down the wall and across the floor and over the quilts. The room smells like cedar from the old chest, and the quilts are still cool when I kneel on them.

Down the hall, Hildie's white noise machine hums. I turn my head in that direction as he pulls my hand down to the makeshift bed we just made.

"Don't worry. She can't hear and sleeps hard. We're good right here."

I straddle him, putting a knee on either side of his hips, and he stops moving entirely.

"Problem?"

"No, ma'am. Not one single problem."

He puts his hands flat on my thighs and leaves them there.

I pull my shirt off and drop it somewhere behind me. The tree light goes red across his chest and green along his shoulder. His hands come up my ribs, slow enough that I feel every callus catch on the way.

I get his shirt open and shove it back off his shoulders. He sits up to get it the rest of the way.

His hands are enormous on me. There's a split across two knuckles. I put my mouth on the inside of his wrist where the skin is still soft, and he makes a sound in the back of his throat.

"Is that your secret spot, cowboy?"

"Everywhere your lips touch on me is my secret spot."

We get the rest of it off between us, and it takes longer than it should because I keep stopping to look at him in this light. He reaches over to the coffee table for the box, which takes some real acrobatics in the position we're in. Before he opens it, he puts his mouth on my breast.

"You taste so good."

"It's the red sprinkles."

I'm already starting to shake when he pulls his mouth away.

"You cannot possibly be stopping now."

He tears into the box. "Not stopping. Just getting started."

He opens the packet with his teeth and rolls a condom onto his huge cock, his fist rubbing against me as he does it. By the time he looks back at me, I'm so wet I can feel it against him.

His hands close around my hips and he lifts me just enough to line us up. I lower myself slowly, letting him stretch me as he fills me.

It's a completely different sensation from this angle. He's thick, and it takes me a second. My breath catches halfway down, and his goes rough against my neck.

His hands stay on my hips and hold on, not pushing, just holding. When I finally come all the way down, he says my name into my collarbone, and then licks up the side of my neck.

I set the pace. I have never once set the pace in my life, and it turns out I am excellent at it. He lets me have it until his hands start to help, and my knee finds terrazzo through three quilts.

His grip tightens on my hips.

"Like that?"

"Exactly like that."

"Oh, yeah. You're so tight, so wet."

We're chest to chest with the tree burning behind him and his mouth working down my throat. The leather cord is caught between us. I can feel that tooth press into my skin every time he pulls me down onto him.