I sure didn’t until I came here to Christmas Notch—and now here I was riding Kallum Lieberman like I was in the KentuckyDerby, our Mr. and Mrs. Claus costumes half torn off, my makeup smeared, repeatedly fucking myself not just on his erection, but his finger too. And it felt so good, and more than just good, it feltrightand gorgeous and sublime. Like my body was made for this... and how strange was it that I used to think of sex like I was giving parts of myself away? Because there was nothing subtracted here, nothing stained or marred. There was only Kallum and me giving gifts to each other—the same gift multiplied many times, the same gift made more and more wonderful by our sharing it together.
And what ifthiswas virtue? What if this was purity? The raw generosity of sharing space and pressure and pleasure, the honesty that came with each moan and every breath? What if good sex only made memorelike Winnie Baker in the end... happier, more hopeful, closer to my own soul and the soul of the person I was with?
I wasn’t soiled by this. I wasn’t dulled. If anything, the sex I’d had before—within those all-important bounds of marriage—had done that.
But this. This made me brighter, shinier, a lamp with the bushel basket pulled right off. And when the orgasm finally tore through me, clawing up from my belly to my chest and to my throat, I felt downright incandescent. A burning sun right there in that Santa chair, in Kallum’s lap, glowing with pumping blood and joy and life and love for the person right here with me.
Love.
The word burned brighter than the pleasure even, and—as my center seized and released and my belly fluttered and myhips jerked in instinctive, eager movements to wring every last second out of my climax—my heart was on fire with it.
But no... that couldn’t be right? I couldn’t be in love after only three weeks; I couldn’t be in love with my costar who was also my sex tutor who was also the king of short-lived flings. It didn’t matter that he was sexy and silly and warmhearted, or that when I was with him, all the ideas of Old Winnie and New Winnie melted away, and there was onlyNowWinnie and she was enough.
No, I couldn’t be in love, because I wasn’t ridiculous enough to believe in all that anymore. This was just hormones and affection and maybe some kind of lingering surfboard-injury-induced Stockholm attachment. It was just being here in Christmas Notch, where everything was sparkly and unreal and filled with artificial hope and wonder.
But the fire in my chest never stopped. Not when I slumped against Kallum after my body finally went still, spent and panting. Not when he grabbed my hips and fucked up into me like I was his brand-new toy from the Toy Shop 2 and I climaxed a second time, screaming into his Santa coat.
Not when he said my name in a voice that curled my toes all over again.Winnie, as his cock pulsed inside me;Winnie, as he held me flush against him and gave me every last throb of his release.
Winnie, baby, as we both came down together, his arms so tight and warm around me and his lips in my hair.
No, my heart still burned, and the flames weren’t flames, but echoes of that one absurd, childish lie of a word.
Love.
I ended up nailing the next take in the sleigh.
And then Kallum nailed me that night in his hotel room, my hair still damp from the snow from the new snow machine, my core still wet and slick from earlier in Santa’s Workshop.
The next three days after that were a blur of fake sex and not-so-fake sex, and I couldn’t get enough of it. And despite thesignificantamounts of fornication, the sky didn’t fall in on me. I wasn’t riddled with diseases, I wasn’t scandalously pregnant. I was just happy.
Deliriously so.
And so maybe my guard was starting to slip. Maybe that burning in my chest didn’t scare me so much anymore.
Maybe, I thought on the second-to-last night in Christmas Notch as I lay nestled against Kallum’s shoulder, petting the hair on his naked belly and feeling him rumble like a pleased bear,maybe this doesn’t have to end when we leave.
Maybe... maybe we didn’t have to say goodbye after all.
Chapter Sixteen
Kallum
Winnie lay back in bed, fully nude with the blankets draped across her hips and her arms folded behind her head. We were both spent, but I’d be ready to rebound in no time at all. For Winnie, my body could recharge faster than a fucking Tesla.
I lay there next to her, propped up on my side, memorizing every freckle and birthmark and the way her breasts spilled gently to the side. She sucked in a laugh as my index finger circled her belly button and the faint scar just above it.
“What’s this from?” I asked.
She peered down to see. “Oh... that. A navel ring.”
I nearly choked. “What? Did you say a belly button ring? Rebel, rebel, Winnie Baker.”
“For a full seven hours,” she said. “I was sixteen and Addison convinced me to pierce my navel with a sewing needle. But then it got red so quickly after, and I was terrified it was infected, and then I broke down and confessed it all to my parents. My dad was so mad he put my cell phone in his gun safe and my mom cried like I’d been murdered.”
“Wow. There’s just so much to unpack there.”
“The gun safe, the belly button piercing, or the fact that my work was actually paying all of our cell phone bills?” she asked.
