It’s aggressive. It’s intrusive.
And I don’t hate it.
Burl Ives is crooning about a holly jolly Christmas from the surround sound speakers I haven't turned on in years, and Blair is swaying her hips to the beat as she circles the twelve-foot Noble Fir.
She looks ridiculous.
She looks like everything I’ve been missing.
I dismissed the staff an hour ago. Jaxon and his team are patrolling the perimeter, but inside these walls, we’re alone.
"It needs more lights," Blair says.
She’s climbed up a ladder, stretching up to drape a string of white bulbs over a high branch. Her coat is gone. She’s wearing a sweater dress that hugs every curve and ends mid-thigh. When she reaches up, the hem rises.
It’s torture.
It’s the best show on earth.
I’m sitting in the leather armchair near the fireplace, a tumbler of whiskey in my hand, watching her.
Watching the way the soft fabric rides up her legs.
Watching the smooth, pale skin of her thighs exposed to the cool air of the room.
I haven't turned the heat up. I like seeing her shiver. I like knowing she’ll come to me for warmth later.
"We have ten boxes of lights on it already," I say, taking a sip. The burn of the alcohol is nothing compared to the fire in my blood.
I can’t look away from her.
"It’s not enough," she insists, looking over her shoulder. Her cheeks are flushed. "It needs to be perfect."
She turns back to the tree, humming some tune that’s been stuck in my head since we left the lot.
She’s happy.
It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I shouldn't want to ruin it. I should let her have her moment. I should let her decorate this massive, ridiculous tree and listen to her terrible music and drink the hot chocolate she made.
But I’m not a good man.
I’m a starving one.
And seeing her up there, vulnerable, unaware of the predator sitting ten feet away... it snaps something inside me.
I set the glass down on the side table. Blair doesn't hear it. She’s too busy trying to get the lights perfectly straight.
I stand up.
I don't make a sound as I cross the room. I move like a ghost. Like the shadow I am.
I stop right behind the ladder.
My eyes trace the line of her legs up to where they disappear under the gray knit.
"Gabriel?" she asks, pausing.
