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“What’s your week look like?” I asked.
He tore a sheet of paper towel off the holder on the island, wiping his mouth with it. “’Fia’s got a case she wants me to look at. Nothing urgent, though. And classes are following an alternate schedule this week, so I’m free.”
“I’ve cleared my calendar for most of the week. That means I’ll be booked solid next week, but as of now, I’m all yours.”
“What should we do?” he said, the mood lighter.
“I was thinking about Christmas tree shopping,” I answered. Selene had implemented the family tradition. Prior to her, my father would hire the hassle out. She even managed to secure his participation in hunting down the perfect tree, even if he grumbled through the whole ordeal.
We hadn’t had a Christmas tree since she died, and from the unease written on Jasper’s face, neither had he. “You could come. Help me decorate it along with the rest of this place. Please,” I added.
“We haven’t even made it past Thanksgiving yet.”
I hadn’t mentioned Thanksgiving because I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that he’d be spending it with me, not Daniel. Not so soon after his upset about the marks I’d left on his body, and then shipping his husband away to cover it up. I didn’t want him seeing what I had done as a premeditative way to have him to myself for the holiday, because it wasn’t. But I was ecstatic about it and already working plans out in my head. And maybe by some miracle, I’d get him for Christmas, too. “Since when did that stop us?” Christmas season started when Selene said it did, which was usually any time after Halloween.
“True enough,” he said, surprisingly not making his Thanksgiving without Daniel a talking point. “Okay.”
We were too far apart, and when I prowled to his side of the island, he followed my advancement with a leeriness I hated seeing. One I helped put there with my disregard for his wish to keep our affair prudent. In my defense, I didn’t know how to touch him in a nonproprietary way. I didn’t know how to mate with him and not brand him, too. And he’d loved it. Wanted and needed it as much as I had. His body would always betray his denial. But in the light of day and thinking with a lust-free head, he needed to pretend I was the bad guy. He needed someone to share the burden of blame.
He spun around on his stool, his gaze falling between my legs and the tent pitched there. I crowded in between his thighs, directing his stare to mine with a hold on his chin. “Ignore it,” I said. “It can’t be helped.” I examined his neck, angling his head accordingly, then kissed the angry scars. “I’m sorry,” I said, nailing myself to the cross for him.
He bowed his head, releasing the tension he’d been storing in his shoulders since leaving my bed. “I wanted it,” he admitted unnecessarily. “I still want it. Fuck, I wantmore.I want you to do whatever you want with my body and…my heart. But I won’t let myself have you, Cole.” He looked at me, then, a sorrowful expression mingled with his beauty. Pure innocence and vulnerability. The two things my fantasies of him were built on. “This is the best I can do. But I can’t rein you or myself in when we’re like that, Cole. You’ve always been the one in charge of the control.”
I forcibly locked him into a smoldering kiss, agreeing without words, leaving us both short on air at its conclusion.
“And don’t ever tell me to ignore this,” he said, slipping his thumbs into my waistband and skimming the soft cotton below my ass and balls. He stared at me from below lush brows, blinking lazily.
“Do you remember what to do with it?” I asked.
“I think so,” he said timidly, standing and then getting to his knees. My head sloped to the side as his mouth wrapped me up in its warmth.Of course he remembered.
Mark found us a tree farm upstate, and we spent the long, snowy drive entertaining him with stories of our childhood Christmas shenanigans.
“…he vandalized Christmas!” I said, ending the story of how Jasper’s first holiday with us went. Mark laughed, meeting my amusement in the rearview mirror.
“You’re so full of it,” Jasper chimed in, elbowing me.
“So you’re saying you didn’t sneak downstairs in the middle of the night and tear apart every gift looking for your own?Andate Santa’s cookies?”
“Okay, maybe that much is true, but I grew up poor. Our Christmas tree was a potted plant my mother nearly suffered an aneurysm trying to keep alive. We’d hang these macaroni earrings I’d made for her in class one year on it as ornaments,” he said nostalgically. “I was overwhelmed that first Christmas at Franklin’s house—”
“Our house,” I corrected, and he squeezed the hand I kept secretly pressed to his thigh under the coat I’d artfully draped between us. To Mark we were nothing more than reconnected family. To the rest of the world we weren’t even that. No one in New York, other than Leland, Daniel, and Mark, knew of our connection. And only Leland knew the truth of it.
“Just the sheer size of that tree,” he said in wonder. “I might’ve gone a little crazy.”
“You think? The least you could have done was read the name tags to ensure it was your gift you were opening. Poor Mom turned beet red at seeing the skimpy lingerie my father had gotten her dangling like an ornament from a tree branch.” The car went silent, and Jasper smiled at me. I retraced my words, catching my slip. “I loved her, you know.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said.
I often worried he believed I got over her, as if I ever could. Or that my pain couldn’t possibly match his. I’d lost two mothers, and had a hand in both of their deaths. The pain had nearly killed me.
“I smartened up after that,” he said to Mark. “Not only did I check the tags, I’d open my gifts so carefully, making sure I didn’t tear the paper, that no one even noticed they’d been rewrapped and taped.”
“Are you kidding me?” I doubled over laughing within the confines of my seat. “You thought you were getting over with those botch jobs? We were three years into his antics by then, Mark. Everyone gave up. Stopped caring. Why do you hate surprises so much?” I asked, but he shrugged, his mossy green eyes shining animatedly. Without thought I dragged a thumb down his top and lower lip, then withdrew it as if the plush pink pillows contained flames. Our eyes flashed to Mark, who’d been too busy making a left turn to notice us.
Jasper’s face heated from the innocuous touch, his perfect row of teeth peering through his parted mouth, his body so responsive to me. He looked so scared and so innocent, and I’d have given up anything to take advantage of that right then. To seat my cock inside him while whispering he had nothing to be afraid of.
“So how did your parents meet?” Mark asked, folding down the sun visor. “Doesn’t sound like they ran in the same circles.”
