My body is pleasantly sore when I wake up. A fire roars in the fireplace, the logs crackling a merry rhythm in the background.
I smile when I smell vetiver and smoke, this time with a tinge of mint.
Elias. Kian. My husband.
After getting out of bed, I pull on a silk robe and fasten it at my waist. Images of our lovemaking last night keep me company as I head into the bathroom to freshen up. I rode him, and then he bent me over, ass up. He took me against the shower wall and then again in front of the full-length mirror.
He was insatiable, and so was I.
My face glows pink, my lips swollen, my hair knotted at the ends.
I look gloriously fucked, and a delicious ache pulses in my pussy.
He’s not Kian anymore. He’s Elias, a criminal mobster, a murderer.
My mind tries to rationalize, but my heart doesn’t care.
Instead, it thumps a more righteous rhythm, like this is the direction I’ve been searching for. Like my future is supposed to be beside this man.
And I don’t want to think anymore.
I finish my business and head toward the bedroom door, eager to find the enigmatic man himself, when a small object on the nightstand stops me in my tracks.
Silver. A small chain affixed to it. Delicate carvings.
His lighter.
Curious, I pick it up and lift it to the light. It’s beautiful—an antique from what I can tell—with intricate markings similar to his tattoos of vines and roses etched on the side.
I thumb the ridges—small indentations I can’t make sense of. It’s heavier than it looks.
Then I flip it open. A small flame sparks to life.
Why does he carry this thing if he doesn’t smoke? And why does it look so familiar?
The answer perches on the tip of my tongue, a nagging, invisible itch.
I set the lighter down, step through the door—and stop.
Multicolor Christmas lights line the hallway. Classic holiday songs blare from the speakers downstairs.
It’s mid-January. What is he up to?
A smile tugs at my lips as I follow the music down the steps, gaping at the explosion of Christmas greeting me in the dark marble hallways.
A twelve-foot Christmas tree, complete with sparkly garlands and mismatched ornaments—like a toddler with the help of a unicorn oversaw the decorations—sits at the corner of the foyer.
More Christmas lights twinkle along the crown moldings.
A tower of Geraldine’s Chocolate boxes stacked in the shape of a Christmas tree rests beside the real one.
Everywhere I look is Christmas. Ridiculous, over-the-top Christmas.
It’s absurd and gaudy and so specificallymethat my throat goes hot for a second.
Cuckoo clocks with Santas popping out. Candles burn, wafting peppermint and vanilla. A small pear tree sits by his office. A tiny wooden drummer boy on a Roomba rams the tree like it’s enemy number one.
And you’ve got to be kidding me, is that two white doves flapping their wings in a birdcage?
