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He heads down the hallway and I watch him go, cursing myself and wondering if crossing a line with him wouldreallybe so terrible after all.
“So, it looks like the snow has cleared off for now. I’m going to shovel the driveway and they’re already clearing the roads. You should be all set to leave in a couple of hours.”
I shouldn’t be disappointed, but I can admit that I am. Just a little. It’s been fun playing house with Connor and Ollie, pretending, just for a couple of days, that this is my real life, that we’re this happy little family unit. It’s been more than fun. It’s made my heart ache in a way I don’t even really understand, a longing to have all of this and more rearing up inside me so forcefully that it’s startling. I force it all away. I know it’s just the strange magic of the snow and my biological clock ticking as Kelly had oh-so-tactfully pointed out when she interrupted Nat and I eating lunch a week ago, discussing one of the guys on the team who had just announced that they were having their fourth baby.
So, as much as I’ve loved it, I can also admit that it’s probably a good thing it’s all over because if I spend another night here, I know I won’t be able to stop myself from doing something stupid. After the almost-kiss the night before and the way I’d stayed up half the night wondering if I shouldn’t have just said fuck it and given in, my self-restraint is hanging on by a thread. Not even a thread—a fuckinghair. When we’d come in from the snow earlier, I’d accidentally walked in on Connor changing in the laundry room, and that hair had nearly snapped completely.
His back was to me, and he’d just been pulling his damp shirt over his head. I’d never thought of a man’s back as being sexy before, not really, but Connor’s was mouthwatering. Smooth skin and sculpted muscles that moved in intriguing ways as he took his shirt off. More tattoos covered his back—an angel, a Celtic knot, some script that I couldn’t make myself stop and read—and I had the intense urge to press my lips against them, run my tongue along the black, swirling lines. I’d dropped the bundle of wet clothes I’d had in my arms and he turned when he heard them thump to the ground. I’d gotten a brief glimpse of the front view before, but it hadn’t done it justice, not by a mile. Not by a fucking light year.
I couldn’t seem to pry my eyes away from his chest…and his abs…and those daggum dips beside his hip bones. Why do those exist?? They shouldn’t exist. It isn’tfairthat they exist. But they might be my favorite things to ever exist. It’s complicated, ok?
My gaze flitted upwards again, roving over the tattoos covering his torso, to his chest. A dagger and rose covered the upper part of his left peck, converging into more roses and what looked like a snake wrapping over his shoulder and down his arm. They were works of art, so painstakingly detailed and beautiful. And did I mention sexy?
But then my eyes snapped back to his chest and my eyes widened: a metal bar was shoved through his nipple. I’d known it was pierced, had seen the bar pressing against the fabric of his shirt in the past, but I’d never actuallyseenit before. It was surprisingly…enticing. I had the strange urge to flick my tongue over it, wondered what it would feel like. Would the metal be cold? Or warmed by his skin? Would he like that? Would he tangle his hands in my hair and hold my mouth to him, urging me to keep going, silently begging for more? Or maybe not so silently—Connor struck me as the vocal type, which made my toes curl in my soon-to-be-stolen wool socks.
He raised an arm to rub the back of his neck and my mouth actuallywatered,the movement so fucking sensual. So sexy. So unfair.
"Jesus be a river," I muttered, still staring, and shaking my head.
"What does that even actually mean?" he asked, and I could hear the amusement in his voice.
"I don’t rightly know,” I said honestly, “a friend of mine used to say it.”
He'd laughed at that, his stomach muscles contracting and adding a whole new layer to the sexy picture before me, but his laughter finally made me lift my gaze up to his. He was smirking, that cocky, crooked smile that melts panties and breaks hearts and makes women want to do really, really stupid things.
“My eyes,” he said in an amused voice, tinged with just a bit of sexy flirtation, “are up here, Mac.”
“Oh fuck off,” I said.
“You’re thinking about kissing me again, aren’t you?” he teased, crossing his arms over his chest. I rolled my eyes, but was secretly thankful that he could be so nonchalant about the almost-kiss, could let it just roll off of him like it wasn't a big deal.
“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”
He grinned shamelessly. “Nope,” he said, popping the “ope” part loudly. I bent down and grabbed the first thing from the pile—a handful of sopping socks—and hurled them at his face. He caught them easily, of course, but he sputtered as the water splashed over him. I cackled and he wiped his face slowly, giving me one of those looks he got sometimes, playful and intense.
“Payback is a bitch, McNamara.”
Payback comes later when he drops a huge snowball—a snow boulder, really—directly onto my head, sending snow and ice skittering down the back of my coat and shirt. I scream and twist, trying to escape the freezing droplets dripping down my spine, and he and Ollie double over with laughter.
“You look like you’re dancing,” Ollie giggles, copying my moves and jumping around like a monkey. Watching her, I can’t help but join in the laughter, though I do promise my own payback at some point.
“But mine will come when you least expect it,” I warn Connor with narrowed eyes. “Sleep with one eye open, Shepherd.”
The rest of the day passes with board games and movies and naps by the fire. As promised, the plows have come through, the snow has stopped for the time being, and Connor dutifully clears the driveway. Ollie and I cut out snowflakes to hang around the playroom while he works, and she tells me about everything she’s putting on her Christmas list: a mini 4-wheeler, a life-sized T-Rex (I’m not sure she knows whatlife-sizedactually means), new ice skates with purple and pink laces, and a handful of other things. I’ve already picked out a bunch of books for her, but peruse the list for some additional little treats I can toss in, after checking with Connor, of course. I’m not usually a gift giver, but there’s no way I cannotget Ollie a present. That would be a crime against nature. Part of me acknowledges that this in and of itself is a victory for Connor’sOperation: Destroy Dreaded December, but I won’t be admitting that to him.
"What are you asking for?" she asks, bobbing her head to the playlist we made earlier as she pours blue and silver glitter onto her snowflake, getting more glitter on the floor and on herself than the paper.
"Oh, um, I haven't really thought about it."
She looks up at that, eyes wide and mouth open in abhorrent shock. I barely stifle a laugh. "You don't have a list?" she asks, truly incredulous. I shake my head. "Well, we need to make you one, otherwise Santa won't know what to bring you!" Her little face is pinched with determination and worry, and it makes my lips curl. She's so dang sweet, wanting to make sure that Santa has my list so I can have a good Christmas.
So, we make a list. I tell her things to write down for me like books or new sweaters, but the only thing I really want is for this December to truly be different than any others. For most of my life, I had zero expectations or hopes of Christmas being good, and I was honestly ok with that. I didn't really care or mind after a while. But now, with Connor determined to make me have a happy holiday season for once, I actually want things to be different. Iwantto have hope.Please let this be better, please don't let anything bad happen, please let me just enjoy this time with this great little makeshift family I've found in Connor and Ollie, with Sara and Bobby and Nat and the entire team really. Just give me one fucking good Christmas. Please.
Ollie pouts when it comes time for me to leave, but I promise that I’ll see her again in a couple of days and she reluctantly accepts it and gives me a hug before flouncing off to find Pickles. Connor walks me to my car, not bothering to put on a coat.Crazy former polar bear.
“So, does being snowed in still count in the negative column for December?”
I tap my chin, pretending to think it over. “Iguessit can shift over into the positive side, though my toes may never be fully-thawed again,” I say with a mocking scowl. Half mocking anyway. They do seem to be permanently cold now, despite the socks that I did, in fact, steal.
