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She had grown up celebrating Christmas, but it was hard to feel festive when the majority of the community did not, and she was so far from her family.You should go to the Christmas party this year, she told herself. There was a secular celebration of the holiday, with several family-friendly events organized by the community planning committee, one of the many community-wide events the town hosted that she’d never attended, one more reason she felt so disconnected from her neighbors. Sorben had always grumbled about the crowds, and in the two years since she’d been on her own, she hadn’t wanted to go and intrude on the happy family celebration, knowing herself well enough. She would see little kids opening presents and proud parents holding their hands, and she would fall to pieces in public, one more mortifying thing to contemplate.
“We do. My family does, at least. A lot of the werewolves we know also do the secular side of the holiday. There are plenty of wolvish families who follow human religions, we’re not really one of them, but yeah, we do Christmas. My mom loves doing the whole decorations and tree thing. She didn’t grow up with that, so she goes all out. And my brother isalwaysextravagant; that’s not me being a brat! Spending money is his love language. But if you kill me in a business class hotel, I’ll never have a chance to find out what he would have bought me, so please don’t.”
“I grew up celebrating Christmas,” she murmured against his chest, pressing her cheek to his warmth. He wassowarm, as if there was an inferno under his skin, heating him from the inside out, but rather than be uncomfortable, she snuggled into him, feeling cozy and comfortable and complacent. “My ex didn’t celebrate anything, though, so we really didn’t do anything during the holidays. I guess I’ve fallen out of practice.”
Lowell’s dark eyebrows drew together, but he said nothing.
“Do you live in a human neighborhood?”
Moriah swallowed. She wasn’t ready to take that step, cross that line. It had less to do with feeling unsafe or not trusting him and everything to do with the fact that if she told him about her home and her life and invited him in to see her office and her little French café breakfast nook, she would want him to stay forever, and she’d only just met him a few hours ago. It felt impossible to believe.It’s the situation. It’s forced intimacy. You’re doing something huge with him, and you will be connected to him forever, whether he’s in your life or not. That’s why it feels this way.
“It’s not all human. I have a lot of neighbors of different species, so there’s a pretty good mix. It’s weird, though; I don’t feel that connected to the community, even though I love living there. I don’t know if I really belong there. Especially now. When my ex left, he literally just picked up and left. He left me the house, no contest. But in all the years we lived there, we never really did muchinthe community, so . . . I don’t know, it’s odd. And it’s a super gossipy place, everyone is very into the community and everyone else’s business and local politics, and I feel so removed from all of it. I don’t leave my house enough to keep up with the who’s who. I love it, I don’t want to leave. But I feel very disconnected at the same time.”
“That’s how I feel about the town I’m from.”
She hadn’t expected the confidence from him, but she supposed he was feeling their situation’s forced intimacy as well.
“There’s just so much expectation built into living there. Everyone I know hopes I’m going to be something I’m not. It’s how I feel about my family half the time too. I love them. I miss them, desperately sometimes, but they’re just living their lives, and me not being there is the norm. I don’t think they notice I’m gone most of the time, and then when I’m here, it’s like . . . I don’t know. An annoyed surprise. The brother I’m staying with right now is the only one who ever checks up on me; he’s the only one who remembers I exist. And I’m pretty sure that’s just out of obligation.”
She turned her head up as he spoke, noting how his dark eyes were fixed on a point above their heads, his eyebrows still drawn together. She wanted to reach up and kiss away the furrow between his eyes and had to remind herself that was the action of a girlfriend and not someone who’d only met him hours earlier, who was only sharing a temporary medical procedure with him. Instead, she dragged her nails lightly down his chest.
“I don’t think that’s true at all. If he checks up on you, it’s probably because he misses you and is thinking of you. He wouldn’t care about you dying in a business class hotel if he didn’t miss you. So sorry to burst your bubble, but you are not someone I would consider easily forgettable.”
When he tilted her chin, she was ready to meet his lips. The slow drag of his mouth against hers, her tongue meeting his, and their teeth glancing off each other as their bodies molded together, the long, hard line of him against her slight frame . . . it was, without question, the most intimate thing she had shared with another person in at least a decade. And none of this is real. He’s your sperm donor. He signed a contract, and so did you. Moriah tried to memorize the silky heft of his slightly over-long hair between her fingers, the heat of his skin pressed flush to hers, the soft tickle of the hair on his chest against her nipples.
She was lonely. She’d been lonely for the last two years, and she’d been lonely in her marriage for countless years before that.That’s all this is. She was lonely and desperate for a connection with someone, and he was sweet and lovely and eager.It will be different when you have a baby,she reminded herself. She needed to refocus and remember why she was doing this. His cock was hard against her, and her heartbeat pulsed between her legs. When he turned her, her legs fell open easily, more than ready for round two.
* * *
Lowell
By the time he gothome that night, the sky was black.
“You know we have the room until morning,” he’d hesitantly offered as Moriah searched for her underwear on the hotel room floor. “I-I don’t mean that we have to stay, only if you didn’t want to —”
“We should probably go, don’t you think?”
He’d enthusiastically nodded his agreement, even though he wanted to shake his head no with vehemence. He didn’t want them to ever leave the hotel room, but as she slipped her arms through the straps of her bra, he resigned himself to getting dressed. She was right. They had only met for the first time that afternoon. It was premature to be spending the night together. It was stupid to do so in any case, and it wasn’t as if this was a relationship, no matter how close he already felt to her, despite the intense attraction they clearly shared.
There were specific memories emblazoned on his brain, every detail captured in crisp perfection. The advice he’d been given by his brothers nearly two decades earlier, on a Friday night when he’d been leaving to pick up his girlfriend for a school dance, was one such moment.
“Any pointers?” he’d asked Gray and Trapp, both in their twenties, home for the weekend to attend a mutual friend’s wedding. He’d been at the kitchen door, the sun shining as brightly that spring evening as it had done in the middle of the day, hardly a romantic backdrop for a dance. His brothers had been musing over their plans for the evening, debating over where they would go if the wedding festivities were deemed boring.
“When you lick her pussy, don’t act like you’re doing her a favor. It’s a five-course meal and you’ve been starving. That’s how you treat it.”
