Page 28 of War on Christmas

“He wants to know if I’ve seduced you yet.”

“Youtoldhim that?”

She must have becauseIdefinitely didn’t. Rule number one of the Bro Code is “Don’t fall for your friend’s sister.” I’m a miserable failure at that one, and Thad knows it. Keeping the ugly, pathetic details to myself has always seemed like the least I can do, so I was hardly going to tell him about Freya’s intention to seduce me.

She shrugs. “I like freaking him out. It keeps him on his toes.”

Her fingers start to fly over the keys, and, too late, I recognize the glint of dangerous glee lighting up her face. I lunge for my phone in earnest, one hand grabbing for her hip to keep her in place, but she wriggles away and scrambles to her feet, sprinting to the other side of the room. There’s no place for her to go. I’m too fast and the room is too small to offer any kind of real escape. But she doesn’t need to escape. She just needs enough time to finish whatever horrendous message she’s typing and press “Send.”

Which I’m pretty sure she does.

She’s giggling—giggling!—when I trap her against the wall between a bookcase and a wicker hamper, and the sound sends chills of horror down my spine. My heart races, the adrenaline of the chase pumping through my veins, and when she looks up at me and bites her lower lip, I plant my hands above either side of her head and lean in close. The floral scent of Freya spiked with whiskey makes my head reel.

“Freya Estelle Nilsen.” She’s clutching my phone to her chest, shaking her head as if even she can’t believe her own nerve. “What have you done?”

As if answering my question, my phone emits a series of manic dings.Ding, ding, ding!Oh god. It’s bad. Whatever she wrote, it’s really, really bad. We stare at each other, her eyes going wider as the notifications continue.Ding, ding!

“Burning your phone and getting a new one might be your best option,” she says, tucking it behind her back.

“Give it to me,” I say, surprised at how deep and rumbly my own voice is. God help me, she smiles as she shakes her head.

“That’s supposed to be my line,” she whispers, the devil in her eyes.

Fuck. Me.

Strategy, strategy, strategy,I remind myself, grasping wildly for some semblance of self-control. I need to play the game—sheobviously is—and brunch this morning felt like a win. I’d opened up with her, and the gamble had paid off. There’d been a new vulnerability between us. I have no clue whether it had been friendly or romantic. There isn’t anything overtly sexual about holding hands, but I sure as hell don’t do that with Thad when we talk about hard shit. And the truth is, I don’t really care if the morning went in the Friends column or Seduction column; I care that it was real. A moment of genuine connection.

But right now, my body is in the driver’s seat, and the connection it’s most concerned with is one that would be a hell of a lot easier without clothes on.

Friendly, Friendly, Friendly,my head chants. My head, sadly, is utterly overpowered by my cock, which chants,Closer, closer, closer.

I step closer, so my body presses her into the wall. At first, I keep my hips tilted back so she can’t feel the hard-on I’m sporting. I’m not, after all, an animal.

Then Freya slides her body against me, one long, slow, feline roll that presses her soft breasts into my chest as her eyes hold mine. And something in me…snaps.

Maybe it’s the two decades of wanting. Maybe it’s that throbbing in my bones, like the missing her has finally bled over into physical pain. Maybe it’s the flash of something hot in her eyes when our bodies make contact. Whatever it is, it tips me over some invisible ledge, and the next thing I know, one arm is wrapped around Freya’s tiny waist and I’m pressing closer. Every soft curve of her body is yielding to me, and my hand grips her ass, hard. I’m supporting her weight, dragging her up against me until her toes leave the floor, and without prompting, her legs wrap around my waist.

Her arms are pressed between her back and the wall. The phone is literally brushing my hand. I could let go of her bottom and grab it at any second, but the phone isn’t my goal anymore. My single goal iscloser, and with her legs wrapped around me, she’s right fucking there. The heat of her. The core of her. My hips surge forward, pinning her to the wall, and she gasps, a breathy little sound that has my cock twitching against her. I grunt, pushing forward again, and again, and I know that she can feel every inch of me pressed between her legs. Her eyes are closed now, her red lips parted, and with a moan, she presses back, tightening her legs so that she’s inching up my erection, only to let herself slide down again.

Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

I’m going to lose this seduction battle eventually—thank god—but I need to think. This physical pull we have toward one another…it’s not going away, and right now, she’s the one using all that momentum while I’m flailing like some dumbass fighting a rip tide.

And I’m flailing because I haven’t been honest with myself.

I don’t want Freya as just a friend. I wantallof her. I want her earnest, penetrating looks that see into the darkest depths of me. I want her sassy red lips that continuously taunt me. I want her authenticity, bold and unapologetic, that refuses to bend to societal expectations. I want her passion. I just want…her.

I can see my mistake now. In my desperation to have her back in my life, I’d been willing to compromise. I thought I could play it safe. I thought I could guarantee a relationship with her by going back to before attraction complicated things between us. By being “just friends.”

Clearly, I was an idiot.

“What are we doing, Sunshine?” My mouth lowers to her jaw, her throat, then nips along her collar bone. Her scent fills my nostrils, overtaking every short, desperate breath, and the clean, salty taste of her skin is on my tongue. All the while, my hand grips her bottom, supporting her as she rides up and down my cock through our clothes, and I try valiantly not to pass out on the spot.

“I’m about to have a very friendly orgasm,” she pants, her cheeks flushed. “From how hard you’re friending me right now. What about you?”

I squeeze her ass harder—she’s so sassy—and she laughs low and sultry as she wiggles against me. Not good. Not good at all.

My vision goes dark around the edges, and I clench my jaw, my muscles starting to shake. Not from the strain of supporting us against the wall, but from the effort it takes not to strip off her leggings, drop my pants, and sink into her. She’s ready for me. I know it. She’d take every inch of me, wrapping me in her wet, silken heat. And I need it. I need it like a drowning man needs air. My hand kneads her ass as she rides me, and she makes a soft, needy sound in the back of her throat as she leans forward to run her tongue along the length of my neck.

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