Her legs tighten around my hips, anchoring me to her, pulling me closer until there’s no space left to hide.
The lights from the tree twinkle around us, tiny galaxies spinning wildly as we find each other, piece by piece.
Clothes fall away in a trail of heat and fumbling hands, neither of us able to move fast enough now. Not when the need is this sharp.
This deep.
I press her down into the rug, the fire casting us in molten light, every brush of skin a brand.
Her body arches to meet me, wild and wordless, and when I finally sink into her, we crack open.
Every seam, every scar, every hidden place giving way not to break us, but to make room for everything we’re about to become.
Shattered sighs, whispered names, raw urgency. She fits around me so perfectly it feels like the earth could tilt on its axis and I’d still find my way back to her.
Our rhythm is slow at first, reverent, savoring every grind of skin on skin, each breathless hitch, and the soft, pleading sounds that fall from her lips.
But it builds, inevitable, and unstoppable, just like us, until we’removing in a messy, almost hungry rhythm that makes the whole world fall away.
I cup her face in my hands, our foreheads pressed together, sweat slick between us, our mouths brushing, breathing each other in.
“I love you so much,” I groan against her lips.
Her nails dig into my back, pulling me deeper, closer, until there’s no telling where she ends and I begin.
And when she comes, it’s silent and violent, her walls clenching tight around me, her body trembling from her release and her head is thrown back, hair tumbling.
I follow her over the edge a moment later, falling with her, for her, because of her?—
Because there’s no other choice.
We stay tangled together on the floor, breathless and spent, the fire crackling beside us. Her head rests against my chest, her hand curled over my heart, tracing the constellation there.
I kiss her hair, her forehead, the damp skin of her shoulder, every kiss a silent promise:
I’m here. I’m yours. I’m home.
“It was always you,” she whispers.
I hold her tighter, like I can imprint the feel of her against me, until there’s no separating us.
Until there never will be.
The Christmas tree lights paint the room in quiet wonder. The snow thickens beyond the windows, wrapping the world in white.
But here, by the fire, in her arms, there’s only warmth.
Only forever.
Only us.
EPILOGUE
JEREMY
Look,in my defense, nobodyexplicitlysaid:
“No getting your dick sucked by the hot server in the linen closet before the ceremony.”
