Page 174 of A Merry Mountain Christmas

“It’s just…” Suddenly I’m glad I’m facing away from him. “I think we need to keep this arrangement casual. Because of Aidan. He’s attached to you, and I don’t want to be the one to come between that. I was thinking we could maybe be…”

Fuck buddies. Fuck buddies. Fuck buddies.For a moment, I can’t remember there’s another word for it, maybe because his dick is so hard against me, his hand stroking my naked flesh, the heat of him engulfing me, and my mind is uncharacteristically silent, my body deciding it’s past time she got her turn at the wheel.

“Friends with benefits,” I finish, clearing my throat. God, my whole body must be flushed pink from need and embarrassment.

He doesn’t speak for a long moment, but his hand starts moving again, cresting my breast. Tweaking one nipple, then the other, fingers sliding down the slope of my stomach.

“I don’t want to hurt him either, Mary,” he says in my ear. “I’ll take what I can get.”

I should be relieved, but a little feeling of disappointment stings me, like I’d hoped he would argue. Which is beyond ridiculous, so I squash the bug and ask, “I’m hoping one of the things you can get is another condom.”

His laugh rumbles through him, and for a moment, a terrible moment, he lifts away from me. But then he’s back, lying behindme again, his fingers circling that spot that Glenn only found a few times but which Jace seems to have a road map to.

“I want to take you this way,” he says. “I’ll be able to touch all of you.”

“Now,” I say, my need spiraling higher as he plays with me. “I need you now.”

He withdraws for only a moment, and then he’s easing into me again—the heat and heft of him filling me, one of his hands on my breast, the other on that spot that drives me wild. The first thrust is almost enough to make me come again. His dick is…it’s a work of art. If it were socially acceptable, I’d commission Adalia to make a painting of it so I could hang it on my wall, right besideThe Fortune-Teller Series #3.

I’m surprised to feel tears in my eyes, because this feels so unimaginably good—and I just told him I only want to be his friend.

Friends have sleepovers,right? Because that’s what I found myself telling Jace when he asked me if he should leave after our second time. Actually, what happened is that he started getting dressed, and a wave of wild, irrational fear washed over me. I felt certain that if he left like that, in the night, I’d never see him again. And I grabbed his shirt from him so hard I almost ripped it.

“I like this side of you,” he said with a smirk.

I told him it was dangerous to drive so late on a Friday, because people drank and then drove, and that’s sort of true. The real reason, though, was that I wanted him with me, with a need that frightened me.

His answer was to throw the shirt on the floor. I would have folded it, but I was surprised to find I kind of liked the look of it there. Like we couldn’t be bothered to make it neat and tidy.

When I woke up before him, I actually pinched myself, because the whole thing seemed too wild to be true—the painting, my drinks with Nicole, dancing, and Jace. Just everything to do with Jace. Then I tried to sneak into the bathroom so I could put on makeup and do something about the mess of my hair, but just as I went to leave the bed, he pulled me to him, his grasp firm.

Friends do brunch too, don’t they? Because I still didn’t want him to leave this morning, and we both needed to eat, and I didn’t have anything else to do while Jace was in the bathroom washing up, and…

I started making some pancakes, and now I’m so busy mooning they’re on the verge of burning.

Jace must be finished in the bathroom because I hear footsteps behind me, and then he wraps his arms around my waist. Even though we’ve spent hours wrapped up in each other, literally, it still sends waves of wanting through me.

“Are you aware that you gave them Mickey ears,” he asks in amusement, “or were you running on autopilot?”

Autopilot. Definitely autopilot.

My default is to be embarrassed by this sort of thing, but I find myself laughing instead. Because it’s funny, and I can tell it’s not meant as a criticism. “I hope you like cartoon mice.”

“It’s not every day someone makes me breakfast,” he says, squeezing my hip. “I’m not about to critique your food design choices.”

Not every day.I’m tempted to take that as a sign that last night wasn’t his typical Friday, but it would be dangerous to believe that.

He steps away to pour himself some coffee. I watch him in my peripheral vision—I literally can’t help myself—so I see when his gaze lands on the Charlie Brown tree, just visible from the open threshold of the kitchen.

I feel a twinge of something at the memory of Aidan insisting he won’t decorate it unless Jace helps. To erase it, I blurt out, “I was seven when I figured out there was no Santa. My mom always used this special wrapping paper for our Santa presents—it was red and shiny, and she said they made it in the North Pole. But my dad forgot the rule that year, and he wrapped my birthday present in it. When did you find out about Santa?”

His smile is soft and sad, and I realize I shouldn’t have said anything. This is probably another of those personal questions you don’t get to ask when you’ve told someone you can’t be in a relationship with them. But then he says, “My mom loved Christmas. She always made a big deal of it. We’d put up our tree the weekend after Thanksgiving, and for the next month, there’d be Christmas music, cookies, and wrapping presents. But when I was a little younger than Aidan, my dad sat me down in his workshop. ‘You’re becoming a man,’ he said, ‘and it’s past time you learned the truth. The only kind of workshop that exists is like this one here. The only kind of magic is the kind we make with our hands.’ He told me our family business was the best gift he could give me, better than anything a jolly man in a suit could bring.”

I gasp. “He didn’t.”

“He did,” he says with a small smile. “That was my dad, though. He meant every word. My sister was only a couple of years older, but he didn’t include her in our talk. I guess she found out from the other kids at school.”

“But you were so young! Kids need to believe in magic. They need to hang on to it for as long as they can.”

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