“This is mine, by the way.” She reaches up and pokes an indentation on my cheek. I’d almost forgotten I had dimples after years of never using them.
I grab her hand and put it over my heart. “All of this is yours, silly girl. Haven’t you figured that out by now?” Crimson dusts her cheeks and I brush my thumb over her freckles. “God, you’re beautiful,” I say, stuck in her orbit.
Her eyes widen slightly and then, like it’s something we’ve done a million times, she presses up on her toes and kisses me. Hard. Urgent. Searching.
For a second, I forget how to move. I stumble back, heart thudding, before my brain can catch up with what’s happening. We’ve kissed a handful of times now, sure, but this one feels different. This one feels like she’s confirming an answer to a theory she’s had for awhile, and maybe the answer is in the way our mouths fit together, or our bodies mold softly into each other.
My hands fall to her waist and I pull her in closer, anchoring her to me. She makes a soft sound in the back of her throat. I love that sound so much my knees almost give. She shifts and hooks a leg around me, like she knows this kiss is wrecking me and she’s trying to support us both.
I find my grounding and palm under her thighs, lifting her easily until she wraps her legs around me. She deepens the kiss, exploration, questions, conversations—they’re over now, and she’s urgent with the pressure in her mouth. Need. Want. Mine. That’s the answer.
I feel her everywhere. In my hands, in my chest, in spaces I didn’t know were empty until now, until she filled them. For a second, the rest of the world disappears.
The lights. The room. The pressure.
The years I’ve spent loving her from just out of reach.
Suddenly none of the past matters.
Because right now, she’s here, kissing me like maybe she’s starting to feel it too.
Something pokes my back.
The room stills.
Natalie’s mouth freezes on mine.
A deafening creak fills my ears.
The tree.
“Shit! Shit!” I put Natalie down at the same time the Christmas tree tips backward. I try, but it’s already over. The tree crashes to the ground. Santa paws’ head rolls to my feet, as if the universe wants to taunt me just a little more.
We both stare at the carnage of pine needles and shattered glass in silence.
“I don’t care where you go, but get out of the living room.” Her mother’s voice booms behind us.
“Yeah, that’s totally fair,” Natalie says, peeking at me with a naughty glint her eyes. “Come along hungry boy, let’s feed you.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
NATALIE
A soft knockon my bedroom door wakes me up on my birthday. I rub my eyes, still heavy with sleep. Unfortunately, shortly after I jumped Cole yesterday and murdered the Christmas tree, my period started. It came three days early, because I swear it’s sentient and a bitch and wanted to ruin my birthday, and what would have maybe been a fun makeout session. I had to take my serious painkillers to get the pain somewhat under control and sleep, but it’s left a groggy mess of a human in its aftermath.
The rap on my door happens again. “Natalie, dear, we thought we’d bring you your breakfast in bed so you could stay near your heating pad and be cozy. Can we come in?”
“Sure,” I mumble, pushing the drool off my cheek.
Something at the foot of my bed lets out a panicked cough.
Shit. Cole is sleeping on the floor. A very un-boyfriend-like thing to do.
Hewasup here last night. After we were banished from the living room, we sat in bed and watched another terribly wonderful Christmas movie. I still wanted to try to jump his bones, but the endo was like “endo or do not, there is not try,”which was a terrible joke for the endo to make, but endo isn’t funny and makes terrible jokes like that. Then, I faded off to sleep. He must have moved down to his bed after.
“If you could just give us a second,” I panic as the doorknob twists. “We uh?—”
