“Are you doing it today?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s raining.”
“So?”
“So…” I go to the studio door and go to shut it in his face, kicking his booted foot aside. “It’s not gonna raintomorrow, and by then Bhodi will have had some sleep.”
“Scared he’ll say yes by accident?”
“Fuck off.” I shut Sab out and wait for his laughing footsteps to retreat before returning to my desk and the unexploded bomb I’ve been keeping in the drawer for the last few weeks.
I pull out the small wooden box and open it, revealing the ring I had made by the fire dancer who lives on Firefly Hill. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting it to be so fucking perfect, but with the way my life has gone since I met Bhodi, it fits, and I love how the light catches the silver almost as much as I love him. As much as I smile through missing him as I go to bed early knowing he’ll be there when I wake up. Most nights he works, I wait up for him, but it’s been a long month, and I’m tired. And someone has to be up at the crack of dawn to cook the literal fuckinggooseSab brought home yesterday and dumped in my fridge.
It’s hard to sleep without him, though. Bhodi, not Sab. I’ve grown used to his life-affirming presence in the bed that’s been resolutely ours since Bhodi accepted a permanent position at the hospital. His muscular frame curved around mine, or me curled around him. Like sex, we swap spoons depending on the mood, and I like both.
I like itall, and I love him.
It’s late when I wake to soft lips at my neck. Or maybe it’s early, I can’t tell. And it doesn’t matter. Nothing does as Bhodi rolls me over, his skin wet from a recent shower, and lowers his tight heat onto my dick.
Merde.If I had to pick a favourite, it would be this: Bhodi dominating me while taking what he wants at the same time. Watching him ride me is every fantasy I never knew I had, and I come so hard and so fast it’s almost embarrassing. Except, he comes fast too. And we laugh, and after a quick clean up, I’m asleep again with another smile on my face.
I’m still smiling when I wake up to the most perfect Christmas morning. Stardust Lane lives up to its name and glittery frost stretches as far as I can bring myself to look while Bhodi is in my arms.
I let him sleep for a bit, grateful Sab took Rudy to the annex for the night. They’re not exactly friends, but Rudy likes to guard the baby, and Sab isn’t sad about it.
“Mornin’.”
Bhodi’s sleepy voice erases all thoughts of Sab from my mind.
I turn my head and he’s right there, those eyes still jewel-bright no matter how tired he is. “Morning. You don’t have to be awake yet.”
“Maybe I want to be.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He kisses my neck with far less heat than he did in the early hours, but with just as much love. “I want to see Esme open her presents.”
My heart swells impossibly bigger. Thanks to the money Bhodi lent Sab, and a drug raid on Charmaine’s house, Esme lives with Sab full-time with only supervised contact with her mum. It’s the best possible outcome, even though my brother is living with a baby in a studio apartment until he can sort something else. And one ofthebest things about it?
I get to see Bhodi and Esme bond on an almost daily basis and I love that so much it hurts.
We get up and Christmas Day unfolds like a fucking fairytale. I cook Sab’s goose with minimal heckling from him, while he does everything else and Bhodi plays with the baby.
When present time hits, he gives me a pot of jewel-blue ink to go with the handwritten note he’s been working on for a week, and I give him a tea mug with filthy French words inscribed inside. Because we decided last year that loving each other was the best gift we’d ever have. Staring death in the face, whether it’s your own or a stranger’s, does that to a man, and I’m okay with it as long as I get to keep Bhodi.
At midnight, I kick Sab out. He’s so excited he can barely contain himself and Bhodi’s starting to notice.
“Did he drink all that brandy your mum sent?”
I spy the half-empty bottle on the counter and swipe it, taking a healthy swig. “No, that was me.”
Bhodi laughs. “Fair enough. You want to watch Die Hard in bed?”
“In a minute.”
