The flames caught in his eyes. His face held none of the performance polish I'd first noticed two weeks ago—the calculated charm and reflexive deflection. What remained was candid and authentic.
"I made my decision."
My breath stopped somewhere behind my ribs. I didn't dare move.
"Ben." He said my name like it meant something. Like it had weight. "I'm staying. Here. With you. With all of this."
The words hit me hard.
I'd prepared myself for the other answer. Told myself it would be enough to have had these two weeks. I'd told myself I could survive watching him leave.
It was an ongoing lie.
"You're sure?" I didn't mean the question to be as harsh as it sounded. "Claire's offer, the audition—everything you built in New York—"
"Was never mine." His voice was calm. "I was performing a life I thought I was supposed to want. Hitting marks someone else set." He reached for my hand where it rested on my knee, threading his fingers through mine. "This is the first thing that's ever felt like a choice I made for myself."
I cupped his face with my free hand, needing to feel the reality of him. The slight scratch of stubble. The warmth of skin flushed from the fire—the steady pulse at his temple.
"Say it again."
A smile began to spread across his face. "I'm staying."
I kissed him before he could say anything else.
The kiss started as gratitude, a way of sayingyesandthank you, andfinally, without fumbling for words that wouldn't be enough anyway.
Then his lips parted, and gratitude became hunger.
Alex made a sound—soft, a little like a whimper, the kind of noise that bypassed thought and went straight to the base of my spine. His fingers curled into the front of my flannel shirt, not pulling, just holding and anchoring himself. Anchoring us both.
I cradled the back of his head, feeling the shape of his skull beneath my palm, the silk of his hair between my fingers. He tasted faintly of Holly's tea and the peppermint someone had pressed into his hand backstage hours ago.
The kiss deepened. His tongue slid against mine, and I forgot about the fire, forgot about the cold beyond the windows, and forgot about everything except how he was pressing into me like he couldn't get close enough.
A log shifted in the grate, sending up a shower of sparks. Alex pulled back just enough to laugh against my mouth, breathless and bright.
"The house has opinions," he murmured.
"The house can wait."
I kissed him again, harder this time. He responded in kind, his hand sliding from my shirt to the nape of my neck, fingertips pressing against my skin. We turned into a tangle of angles on the old rug—knees bumping, elbows finding new arrangements, and neither of us willing to break contact long enough to figure out a more comfortable position.
His thigh pushed between mine, and the friction pulled a groan from somewhere deep in my chest. Alex swallowed the sound, kissing me deeper, his hips rolling forward.
When we finally came up for air, his chest was heaving beneath the thin henley he'd worn under the Santa padding. My flannel had come completely untucked, and his hands had found their way beneath it, palms flat against my stomach.
"Ben." His voice was low, husky, edged with want. "Take me upstairs."
Three words. That's all it took to undo whatever restraint I'd been following.
I rose and pulled him with me. He came easily, fitting against my side as if we'd been navigating doorways together for years instead of days. The stairs rising ahead of us into shadows.
We made it halfway to the landing before he pressed me against the banister and kissed me again—urgent, demanding, grinding against me. I gripped the hem of his shirt with one hand and slid the other beneath it, tracing his muscles and ribs.
He shivered and pressed closer, letting me feel the stiff shaft of his cock against my thigh.
Alex pulled away just far enough to look at me. His eyes had gone dark, hungry, and his breath came in short bursts.
