Page 64 of War on Christmas

And just like that, I can picture her, stripped down and exposed, hips and breasts swaying to a hypnotic rhythm that holds the audience enthralled. Her arms circling, wrists twirling like each person’s attention is a string that she’s wrapping, wrapping, wrapping around her pretty fingers, pulling them in whether they want to be or not. She’s a storm, a hurricane, a force of nature, drawing them to her with a finality, an inevitability, they can’t escape.

Scylla, indeed.

She lifts her head so she can meet my gaze, her red lips parted, and these unspoken things between us snap—thwip—like a broken guitar string. The longing ache, rooted deep in my chest. The jealousy and the protectiveness and themine, mine, mine. The rightness of cradling her close and the way our bodies fit together.

And for once, she’s not denying it. There are no deflections. No sassy, snappy responses designed to make me lose my everlasting mind. Just her clear, slate-gray eyes, open and vulnerable, then the hard press of her lips against mine.

Forty

JEREMY

Iwasn’tpreparedforFreya to launch herself at me. But I’m definitely not opposed to it.

She’s pinning me to the bed, so I’m sinking into the pillows propped against the headboard. Sinking into the sensation of being consumed by her. By her flowers-and-patchouli scent. By the press of her fingers against my ribs under my shirt. By the quick, panting breaths she takes as her mouth captures mine.

I’m drowning in her. And it’s glorious.

“Frey?” I ask between long, searching kisses, her face cupped between my palms. I don’t know what I’m asking. There’s something that’s shifted, something disorienting, and I need her to anchor me. To make it all make sense.

“What?” She peels my shirt over my head, and I lean forward to help her.

The Henley goes sailing across the room, along with all the questions racing through my mind.Do you feel it too? This pull? Is the game over now? Have you given up on the whole fling idea? Did you ache for me like I ached for you all those years?

“Nothing,” I mutter against her lips. My fingers clutch her hips and I move to roll her over, to change positions so I’m on top, controlling the momentum.

“Please.” Her hand presses into my chest, and I freeze. Physically, it would be too easy to keep moving. I’m stronger than her. But her gaze, so serious and pleading, has me relaxing back into the pillows, my muscles going limp at her single uttered request. If I’m Samson, she’s Delilah, rendering me weak and useless, and all it takes is that soft, huskyplease. No haircut necessary.

Freya pushes me back and slowly trails her poison-apple lips down my jaw, my neck, my chest.

“Why did you have to be so beautiful?” she whispers as her tongue flicks over my belly button like liquid fire. My abs twitch in response, even as I choke out a rough laugh.

“I’ve asked myself the exact same thing about you, Sunshine.”

She’s taking her time, her lips trailing along every curve of muscle and bone, and I’m trying not to think about her fingers working deftly at the straining fly of my jeans. I started my whole strategy of staying in control to separate myself from the fuckboys she’s used and discarded over the years. It was a lucky coincidence that it also allowed me to pace myself. I could slow things down and pull back whenever I felt my passion outpacing hers.

Now that Freya’s finally in control, she’s having none of that.

She leans back as she lowers my zipper, and I grunt as my cock springs free from the denim, only the thin material of my boxer briefs between her warm hands and my skin. But her fingers barely brush against me before she moves back up, shifting her attention to my collar bones and shoulders and slowly, slowly down each arm.

No inch of bare skin goes untouched, first by her fingertips, then those red lips, and I’m mesmerized by the sight of them trailing over my torso and arms, her kisses as soft as silk. The whole thing is sexy as hell, slow and hypnotic, but there’s something else there too. A tenderness. There’s no urgency in her touch. Every graze of her fingers or lips is an end in and of itself. By the time she reaches my hand, pressing a kiss to the center then cupping it around her jaw, I’m a mess. A trembling, goosebump-covered mess who’s about to punch a hole through his boxer briefs with his erection.

“Can I tell you a secret?” she asks as she presses her cheek harder into my palm.

I swallow. With Freya, I could be signing up for anything. A “four more days” reminder. An “I just want you to know this is still hate fucking.” (That would be a lie. Obviously.) But I want it. Whatever it is.

“You can tell me anything, Frey,” I rasp out.

“I’ve always loved your hands.” She turns her head and drags my thumb over the sharp edge of her teeth, then nips the pad at the end. My hips jerk underneath her, driving my cock into the cradle of her hips, and she sinks into me, letting me feel her heat through her jeans. “They’re the first thing I noticed about you. Noticed likethat, I mean.” She wiggles her eyebrows in case I didn’t pick up on her meaning, and I huff out a laugh. “I’d watch you drawing in these books for hours, obsessing about the shape of your fingers. The strength and speed of them as you sketched.” She flicks the tip of her tongue over the spot she bit on my thumb, and I squeeze my eyes shut tight at the sheer pleasure of it. “Idreamtabout them, Jeremy.”

I’ve never noticed anything remarkable about my hands. I could draw Freya’s from memory—every delicate, fine-boned finger and the freckle at the base of her thumb—but if somebody asked me to describe my own, I don’t know that I could. But watching Freya kiss and nibble and torture each fingertip transforms them into powerful erogenous zones. They’d just been waiting for her to wake them up.

“What—” The sight of my pointer finger getting sucked between her lips distracts me for a second, but I soldier on. “What did you dream about?”

She releases my finger with a chuckle, rolling her eyes. “Lots of ‘Draw me like one of your French girls fantasies,” she admits, performing a flawless impression of Kate Winslet fromTitanic. Then she nods at the sketchbook lying next to us on the bed, open to the final picture. “Thatdefinitely would have done it for me. All those years you wouldn’t let me see what you were drawing? One peek and I would have spontaneously dropped my panties like a bad habit.”

I scoff. “Freya Nilsen spontaneously drops her panties for no one. Especially not for an Abercrombie & Fitch zombie.”

I’d meant it as a joke, a little punch of self-deprecating humor, but her forehead pinches and she shakes her head.

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