Page 43 of A Guardian for Christmas

Sagan and I have decided to stay in the TV room and sleep on the sofa close to the tree, in front of an actual working fireplace.

“I’m sorry I doubted you,” I say when we’re all seated under the tree.

“Don’t ever apologize to me again,” Sagan says.

“What a ridiculous thing to say,” I say. “If we’re a couple now, I’m bound to commit a myriad of sins for which I’ll need your forgiveness. I’m told that I’m quite a handful.”

“Be quiet and open your present,” he says, pushing a box with a red satin ribbon into my lap.

“You didn’t have to.”

“Shush.”

“Okay, okay.”

I unwrap the box, and inside is an application for a membership to Costco. I let out a squeal. “Oh my god! I love you!”

“I love you too, baby.”

It’s been a whirlwind of a week, and that word still turns my insides into liquid.

“How do you feel now?”

I kiss him like my life depends on it. “Like I want to live every moment I’ve been missing.”

I kiss him to wash away everything that’s been done to me, what’s been done to my family.

His kisses erase the tiny irrational bit of guilt I feel at having an old man arrested.

I kiss to forget the look on Frye’s face when the truth came out. I had a part in that, and I know that he felt terrible that hecontinued to let Dr. White have access to me, and he’ll have to process that on his own.

“And what have you been missing?” Sagan asks, the glint returning to his eye.

I want everything I never wanted while I was feeling like shit. That’s what I want. I want the thing that everyone had told me I could not have.

“I want you to fuck the daylights out of me, Sagan.”

He blows out a slow, even breath.

“Baby girl, we gotta build up to that.”

“No, we don’t. Believe me.”

He eyes me darkly. “I’m going to do something else first, okay? I’m gonna make you ready to take me.”

“But…”

“Do you trust me?”

Do I trust him? I trust him with my life.

Chapter Twenty-One

Sagan

I can tell her pretty thighs have grown a slight bit thicker as I open her up.

My Esme is on the floor, spread out on the plush blankets in front of the roaring fire.

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