Page 47 of Christmas Cheer

“I could get a restraining order, I bet. I didn’t think I’d need to look into it, but here you are.”

He yawns and spreads his arms over the back of the seats, hugging me in one smooth gesture. “What do you think of Shelby?”

“I don’t know Shelby.”

“No, I mean for our daughter’s name. Have you picked any out?”

My body turns into his. It’s only been a few months, but I swear his chest has bulked up some. I lift my feet up onto the seat and curl my body into him. His gigantic arm covers me almost completely. Every one of his touches today has brought a pop of unbidden euphoria, but letting myself be eclipsed by him is like drowning in the sunlight on a warm summer day.

“We can workshop it,” I mutter. Too late, I catch the fact that I saidwe, and he’s already grinning.

We get off several stations away from my home, which I mention to him as he attempts to drag me into a hotel. “I told you I have two options,” he reminds me. “One is the Adler. And despite what McCloud said, I’ll be happy with that. But now I need to tell you about the other option.”

“Let’s go to the restaurant,” I suggest.

“There’s confidential information I really shouldn’t discuss in public.”

“Let’s go to my place then.” I feel like I’m going to get into trouble in his hotel room. My place is tiny and awkward. He won’t be comfortable attempting any funny business there.

“Ryan says you don’t have kitchen counters.”

“Oh. Yeah.” I don’t. Germany’s weird with stuff like that. Since I’m going to have to get some place bigger before the baby comes, I didn’t want to buy anything extravagant.

Like kitchen counters. Ryan and Mark were like walruses in a china shop in my folding-table kitchen the one time they were in my apartment. Evan will be worse.

He leads me to the elevator bay and, true to Evan form, hits the button to the top floor. We stand next to each other, our arms brushing but nothing else, our eyes trained to the counter as the elevator climbs. When the door finally opens, he rests a guiding hand on the nape of my neck as he directs me to one of only two doors on this floor.

In the entire time I’ve known Evan Allore, I’ve never lived anywhere as big as the room the door opens up to. The ceiling is tall enough that I want to attempt some of the basic trampoline flips I’d do at the gym, as much to test the springs as to give Evan a mini-heart attack. I get that his constant touch today has been mostly a blend of missing me and marking his territory, but there’s also been a fair amount of unwarranted protection.

The thought has barely had a chance to settle in my mind, I’ve just started to smirk but haven’t actually laughed, when suddenly Evan is in front of me and lifting me off my feet as he sandwiches me between his body and the door. I’m simultaneously startled and also expecting the same rough kiss I got in the doctor’s office, so I don’t bother protesting.

But then I’m just pinned there, his face so close to mine I feel his breath on my parted lips, my legs naturally molding to his hips so they’re not simply dangling there. His hands are on either sides of my head, his fingers tugging lightly at the roots of my hair while his thumbs brush the fuzz on my cheeks, but that’s as intimate as he goes.

And every single warning bell goes off within my body, untouched by anyone but myself for months, fully aware that these are the fingers, those are the lips, that is the tongue, and there between my legs, beginning to swell, is the cock that knows exactly how to make me detonate.

“Allore,” I whisper, needing that thinnest line of distance between us.

He will never do what I want him to do, so he hums the deepest, most resonant, “Keira,” along the shell of my ear.

My pussy clenches so forcefully he must feel it through the layers of my clothes, but I have to say, “This isn’t appropriate.”

“You’re my lover, my forever, my wife whether you accept my proposal or not, the mother of my child. The mother of mychildren. The only thing inappropriate about this is how long it’s been since I made you come all over my cock.”

His lips go to my earlobe, warm and damp, tickling the rarely handled flesh enough that I squirm in his embrace.

I’m not breaking my resolve. What he did was unconscionable, but he took from me what he wanted, and now I’m taking from him what I want.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” I say before I grab him right back so I can dig my nails into his scalp and chomp on his earlobe.

He needs no additional encouragement, but of course he has to fire right back with, “It means everything,” before he peels me off him and tosses me onto my back on the leather sofa.

I watch, panting, as he unknots his tie, his eyes molten as he works through the full Windsor. It’s unfair how sexy that is. I taught him how that knot in high school because he only knew the four-in-hand and wanted something fancier and pestered me until I broke, and now I swear he’s using it against me.

Once it’s off, he marches past me, grabbing my arms without hesitation, bundling my wrists over my head, and tying them to the only thing available, the leg of the end table.

He removes his belt with a quick snap before tossing it aside unceremoniously. “I was going to wait to seduce you until you’d already decided what you wanted to do,” he explains as he works down the buttons of his shirt with dexterous flicks of his fingers. “It was going to be your reward. And my way of showing you that whichever you decide, I’m happy.”

He tosses aside his shirt, revealing that not only was I right and he’s definitely gained some mass the last few months, but he’s also gained some ink. Not just a little, either. It covers most of his right pec and shoulder. Most of it is loose geometric patterns, but it incorporates both a bear and a dragon, our high school and college mascots. The most curious part is a series of small icons forming a narrow arc over his sternum. It’s not until he’s fully naked, staring me down hard as he strokes his cock, that I realize what the icons are.

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