Page 112 of Christmas Criminal

I can't move. I'm somewhere between numb and nerve damage.

And then I feel a trickle of warmth run down my thigh.

"Fuck me, that's hot," he says, running his thumb through it and following the trail back up. He presses his thumb briefly inside me as if to put it back where it came from, and it sends a little shiver down my spine. He slaps my ass again. "Naughty Noelle looks so fucking good with my come dripping out of her."

I groan as I straighten and another drop descends. "I have to go clean myself up."

"Let me do it," he says, and I only look at the surely sensitive skin of his face and raise my eyebrows.

"You're going to clean me up?"

He nods. "Come shower with me. I can soap you up, soap you down. Maybe give you a little massage."

I raise my eyebrows. "Yeah?"

"I love you, Noelle. Of course."

I don't know why his words hit my chest in the violent way that they do, but I feel them viscerally.Hewants to take care of me. And it gives me this warm feeling like whatever I have to do to makeuswork will be worth it.

He follows me into the bathroom and starts the water, leaving little kisses along every bare inch of skin he can find. And once we're inside, he lathers me up with shampoo and gives me a scalp massage. Rubs body wash all over me and makes good on his promise to massage me. He gives me wet kisses whenever his hands aren't on my body, and afterward he rubs a towel all over me and pulls the pinkI heart mathT-shirt over my head.

And I take that ice pack and affix it to his head again because his eye looks absolutely terrible.

We settle in bed, and he picks the Christmas movie, me warm and cozy in the nook of his arm. I grow sleepy almost immediately, and with every minute that passes, curl tighter into him.

He leaves a kiss on my forehead, and before I finally drift off to sleep, he whispers softly, "I love you, Noelle."

24

NICK

Five Weeks Later

Iwake to Noelle's hair strangling me. She's snoring softly on her side, her nose twitching in her sleep, and I weave an arm around her waist, tugging her back into me as I struggle to arrange her hair in some way that allows me to breathe. Early morning sun shines through the windows of my bedroom, giving her skin a warm glow.

I press my face into the back of her neck, savoring the moment. I've started doing that a lot lately.

Noelle is transitioning into an apartment about half an hour from Snow Falls. She still gets frazzled on occasion when she can't grab her things and run into the office, but she's getting used to the distance. Dare I say, enjoying that she's not always so available to other people. She officially broke her lease last week, and although she still has a lot of unboxing to do, she is officially closer.

Not close enough for me, but that will come in time.

Over the past few weeks, she's slept here more than she hasn't. The first few weeks she had the excuse of a long drivebetween here and her old apartment, but once she got the new one, nothing really changed.

I'm not going to goad her about it yet and risk her leaving just to prove a point. As frequently as she tells me she loves me, I know better than to give that girl a challenge.

So instead, I relish in these moments. Having her here with me and hearing her gentle snoring.

She twists toward me, as if she can hear my thoughts, her eyes blinking open as her hands drift across my chest.

"Why are you awake?" she asks.

"Because your hair was attacking me."

Her brow furrows. "No, it wasn't.Youwere attackingit. Stand down, Nick."

I roll my eyes, pressing a kiss to her forehead as she grumbles about being awake before dawn.

It'safterdawn, but I don't tell her that. Noelle is crabby in the morning before her coffee and best left unprovoked.

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