Cory
We didn’t decoratethe house until Christmas Eve. I ordered a nice pre-lit one and had it delivered, along with several different kinds of ornaments to hang on it. Reese’s former apartment had been too small for something as frivolous as Christmas decorations, and I’d been a nomad for too many years and hadn’t bothered to participate in many of the holiday traditions.
This year was different. This year I was building a life with Reese, and that life deserved to have celebrations in it. Traditions we chose to have. So we sipped whiskey and decorated the tree; then Reese made me sit down and watchThe Muppet Christmas Carolwith him.
Neither one of us had wanted to bother cooking our own Christmas dinner, so I’d purchased a catered dinner to be delivered tomorrow. Tonight, we dined on exotic cheese, fancy crackers, decadent meats, pickles, and olives to round it out.
As much as I loved Morgan, I was grateful for Reese agreeing to let me pay for a flight home for her so she could spend the holidays with her family. It might have been a gift from the both of us, but truthfully, it was selfish of me. I didn’t want to shareReese with anyone. It was the reason I’d turned down Kale’s generous and rather insistent invitation to spend the holiday in New York.
New York had nothing for me but ghosts and friends who were rich enough to come see me anytime they wanted. I had everything I needed right here.
“What are you thinking about so hard?” Reese asked. He shifted his position so he could kiss my cheek. He’d spent the past hour curled up against my side, using my chest for a pillow. The movie had wrapped up a while ago, but I’d just turned the television off, and we enjoyed the quiet and the flickering light from the fireplace.
“I’m thinking of all the things I want to do to my husband-to-be.” Reaching for him, I captured his chin with my fingertips and pulled him closer. First, just close enough to graze his mouth with mine. Then I grabbed him and hauled him into my lap, my heart fluttering at the sound of his laughter and how fucking gorgeous he was when he smiled at me like I was the top of the Christmas tree. The star of the show. The center of his universe.
In reality, he was mine.
“Mmm. What kind of things?” Reese ground against me, the glint in his eye nothing short of mischievous.
The simple truth was that I wanted to savor him. To taste him and tease him. To map every contour of his body with my mouth. To kiss him breathless until he was a quivering mess. Myquivering mess. I wanted to pin him down and fuck him so deep he’d feel me right up until the wedding next month. But most of all, I just wanted to crack myself open and pour all the love I felt for him out and cover him in it so maybe he’d know what it was like for me to look at him and lose my breath. What it was like to have found someone I had never dared dreamed of.
“All the things,” I said, my voice hoarse and husky.
“Cory,” Reese breathed in that lovely, needy tone of his.
“I love how you say my name,” I told him, cradling his cheek in the palm of my hand. He leaned into my touch. His eyes closed, lashes fluttering against his cheeks. I leaned closer, brushing my lips against his, barely tasting him. He chased me as I pulled away.
“I’ll be cursing it in a minute if you keep teasing me.” Reese tried to sound tough, but mostly he sounded like he was riding the edge of desperation and wasn’t happy about it.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” I ran my hand down his body, relishing the way he arched up into my touch.
Sometimes I wished I’d found Reese sooner so I could have had more time to love him. But then I worried that the older versions of ourselves wouldn’t have been ready for each other. I might not have been ready to commit, and Reese might not have been ready to explore his submission. We might have ended up right men, wrong time, so I stopped wishing for things I couldn’t have and started focusing on what I could.
I could have cozy Christmas Eves with him in our house. I could have New Year’s at Rapture and maybe a summer vacation so I could see how Reese’s skin tasted under a tropical sun or how he looked bathed in the glow of aurora borealis.
“There goes that big, beautiful brain of yours,” Reese said, dragging a finger down the side of my face to get my attention. “Lost in thought again.”
“Lost in thoughts of you.”
Reese sank his hands into my hair and gently scraped his blunt fingertips over my scalp. “Less thinking, more touching,” he whispered, pulling me down to kiss him.
“Consider it an early Christmas gift,” he said, making me laugh against his mouth.
“You deserve a lot more than kisses,” I told him between kisses.
“Say Merry Christmas, Cory.”
“Merry Christmas, Cory.”
Reese pinched my side for that bit of smart-assery. “Be serious.”
“I am.” I held his gaze. “Seriously in love with you.”
He rolled his eyes, but he blushed at the same time, and I loved that about him. That sometimes the simplest things got that reaction from him. I hoped he never stopped.
“Shut up and kiss me.” Reese tugged me down to him.
“Merry Christmas, Reese,” I said, then slanted my mouth over his and licked my way inside his mouth, kissing him slow and deep because we had all the time in the world.
