“I’ll gleefully ignore you,” I declare, and impulsively, I grab his hand as it leaves the steering wheel and squeeze it. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome,” he looks like he wants to say something else, but he doesn’t. He just gets out of the car, and I jump out and almost sprint toward the gates, tugging him with me by his hand, which I’ve grabbed again.
Two hours later my heart is so full I think it might honestly burst. The lights Twinkling and blinking in time to Michael Bublé’s Christmas tunes, while penguins and otters and polar bears swam in their pens and tanks is simply magical. And so is the chemistry between Nolan and me. We laugh together, we share poutine, and he mocks me for not putting condiments on the hot dog he bought me. I like them plain, sue me. And I mock him when he gets cotton candy, like a toddler. It’s easy. It’s fun. It feels just as right as it did when I was kissing him.
We come to the last row of displays way sooner than I would like, so I slow down and pretend to be enamored by the Christmas trees wrapped in rainbow lights and the eight-foot glowing Mr. and Mrs. Claus. He walks up and stands next to me, and without a word, takes his hand from his pocket and covers mine. His long fingers slip in-between mine, and I suddenly hate myself for wearing gloves. I want to feel our fingers tangled together.
“I hate Christmas because I’ve almost always spent it alone,” he says quietly. “My moms live in Alaska. They own a construction business and run a lodge for my grandparents and never really get time off. They also don’t have a lot of money.”
I turn my head up to look at him, slowly, like moving quickly might scare him and stop this open door he’s giving me into his life. He’s not looking at me, he’s staring straight ahead at the display. I gently squeeze his hand to show support but say nothing. He clears his throat and continues. “Alaska hockey leagues weren’t my best shot at making the big time, so they used whatever spare money they had to get me into a fabulous private boarding school in Minnesota with an incredible hockey program. But we didn’t have the money to fly me home on holidays. Any of them. So I spent it with whatever teammate’s family took pity on me. It was always awkward, watching kids with their families, opening gifts that were picked by people who knew them so well and put so much thought into it while I opened boxes of chocolates or socks or whatever generic thing they’d wrapped so I wasn’t empty-handed. And I was grateful for their kindness, but it was hard watching them hug their grandma and share inside jokes with cousins or whatever.”
“I get that. I do,” I say softly. Suddenly, all the pressure I put on him to just get into the spirit feels as mean-spirited as the joke gifts he sent me. “I’m sorry for giving you grief about it.”
He finally pulls those golden eyes of his off the display and looks down at me, shaking his head. “No. Don’t apologize. I need to get over it. Truth is, I have enough money to charter a plane now and go see my moms if I wanted to, even though we get less than a week off from hockey. Or I could fly them here, but…I don’t know, it’s almost like I refuse to let Christmas be good. It’s like fuck that. I don’t want to want it to be better.”
I smile ironically. “I get that. I went in the opposite direction but for the same sort of reason.”
His eyebrows raise. “Are you actually going to tell me why you’re such a rabid little reindeer?”
I roll my eyes. “Yes. So shut up, walk with me, and listen.”
He lets me tug him down the path, toward the exit. And I take a deep breath and continue to share my Christmas secret. “Two years ago, I was supposed to get married on December twenty-seventh.”
I feel his step stutter a little, but I keep walking, eyes ahead like his were when he shared. “But on Christmas, I found out my fiancé was sleeping with another woman. He was my college sweetheart, and I even took the baseball job in Seattle to be close to him. He… worked in Washington State. Anyway, the other woman he cheated with, was my cousin.”
“What a piece of shit.”
Nolan’s voice is thick with anger and the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard. I look up at him and the way his eyes are narrowed, and that very talented mouth of his set in a hard line is also making me wet. This is the best I’ve ever felt about what happened with Chet. “Oh and it gets better. You know how I found out? I woke up Christmas morning before everyone to make cinnamon rolls. My parents have a parrot. It’s a heinous little bird that repeats whatever it hears. And it heard my cousin Jennifer and my fiancé, Chet, who snuck downstairs the night before when we were all supposed to be sleeping and were getting it on in the laundry room off the kitchen.”
“Wh… what?” He sputters and he looks genuinely horrified, and a little bit stunned too. Because who wouldn’t be when you find out a parrot blew up an engagement?
“Yep. I’m making cinnamon buns two days before my wedding, and Gonzo is squeaking ‘oh Chet… that’s it… oh. Promise me you’ll leave her. Promise me. Oh Chet.”
“Holy shit.” Is all Nolan can say. “Is he still with your cousin?”
“Yeah and my parents… well they kind of think that we all just need to let it go for family’s sake and other reasons,” I mutter.
“Oh Felicity,” he’s switched from angry to sad, and I don’t like it as much.
“Anyway, Ellery told me about the position with the Comets when she showed up for the wedding that wasn’t going to happen. She was supposed to be my maid of honor. I didn’t want to move home, and I was not going to go back to Washington with Chet.” We reach the parking lot now, and his car is a few paces in front of us. “Anyway, I decided that Chet had ruined enough of my life. I wasn’t going to let him ruin Christmas. So I’ve been on a mission to make every Christmas since a magical fucking wonderland of cheer and merriment.”
He stops walking. I have to turn around and look up at him. He’s staring at me like I’m insane, and honestly, maybe I am. But then after blinking a couple times, he breaks into another one of those big, bold, beautiful smiles I didn’t think he was capable of just one week ago. “I’ll never bug you about being a rabid little reindeer again. I promise.”
I’m pressed up against him now, chest-to-chest, and he cups the back of my head and claims my mouth in a kiss that blows the doors right off our last kiss. Because this one is fueled by a fire stronger than anger. The fires of truth. We stand there in the parking lot, Christmas lights twinkling all around us, making out like hot and heavy teenagers for a very long time. It’s me who breaks the kiss first. “Can we go somewhere private so we can do things to each other that will put us on Santa’s naughty list?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Chapter 13
Nolan
Somehow, even though it feels like all the blood in my body is now living in my throbbing cock, I manage to drive us safely back to my place. As soon as I’m parked, I can’t keep my hands off her. Luckily, she doesn’t seem to mind, and we grope each other and make-out all the way to the elevator and all the way up to my penthouse. As soon as we step inside, I have her jacket off and am trying not to just rip the buttons off her top.
Her hands are undoing my belt and jeans. Her mouth is on my neck, lips and tongue sucking and sliding along the side, making my balls tighten and tingle. And then she speaks words so fucking hot my mind melts. “Every time I see you in the locker room, I have the urge to lift my skirt, climb into your lap, and fuck that gloomy look off your fabulous face, and I hate myself for it.”
I have enough of her blouse undone now that I can yank her bra down a little bit and cup her breasts. “Every time you smile or bellow out a cheery good morning, I want to haul you into a dark corner of the building and do this.”
I dip my head down and suck on her left breast. She shudders and lets out a breathy expletive. I bite her nipple and she gasps. Her hand cups my cock and squeezes. I grunt and wrench my mouth from her tits and take her mouth in another hard and dirty kiss.
