Page 65 of War on Christmas

“That was never you. Not really.”

She slides down the bed, sliding my pants and briefs with her and tossing them to the floor. I’m about to point out how unfair it is that she’s still fully clothed, but before I can open my mouth, she’s standing at the side of the bed. She shifts her stance, pointing the toes of one foot toward me to turn her waist to the best advantage as she moves to peel her sweater over her head. It’s a performance. An orchestrated “big reveal.” She lifts the edge of the black sweater, unveiling a smooth strip of pale skin, and her fingers slowly caress it, drawing my eyes exactly where she wants them.

I wet my lips. I would love a private performance from Scylla Wilde someday. But tonight…tonight I just want Freya. As tantalizing as a burlesque-show-for-one is, that performance is a wall. A barrier between us.

And we’ve had too many of those.

Silently, I slide to the floor before her, my bare knees landing on the hardwood, and I bury my face in her stomach. Her fingers release her sweater, then they’re in my hair, pulling me close, and my lips are on her skin, tasting and caressing and savoring. My heart pounds—More. Faster. Now.—but our movements are slow as we work together to undress her until she’s naked and kneeling on the floor with me, hands in my hair, her kisses deep and desperate. When she pushes against my chest, urging me back onto the bed, I fall back onto the pillows and drag her on top of me.

My hands roam over every curve of her body, drinking in the satin feel of her skin. Skin that plenty of people have seen and longed to touch. But I’m the one who gets to feel it, soft and sleek under my fingertips. Her eyes are on mine, her hands pressed into the muscles of my chest, and the head of my cock strains between her legs. She’s hot and soaking wet, and she’sFreya. The closest thing I can imagine to heaven. But she stays hovering above me, biting her lip.

“What?” I ask, skating my hands from the round globes of her ass to her waist. Everything in my body is screaming to be inside of her, to feel her surrounding me. My hips want to thrust off the mattress, chasing her heat, but that’s not what she wants. She wants my surrender. So, I stay still and let her lead.

“You were perfect,” she whispers, dropping her hips so the head of my cock slides inside her.Fuck.She’s slick and warm. Sheer bliss. But her eyes are wide and earnest. What she’s saying is important. So, I try. For her.

“Huh?” I grunt.

She lowers herself more, taking another inch of me, and when her eyes flutter closed—as if she’s enjoying the sensation of me filling her almost as much as I am—I have to think about baseball so fucking hard I’ll never be able to watch the sport again without blushing. Forget bases and bats and home runs. All baseball means to me now is the red-hot sensation of Freya letting her body go soft and supple around my cock until I’m buried deep inside her. My muscles give that subtle, undeniable jerk that only happens with her—just to let her know she owns me—and I grit my teeth, willing myself not to focus on the ache in my balls and how good it would feel to come inside her, right this fucking instant.

She must not want this to be over any more than I do, because she takes pity on me and stills, giving me a moment to absorb the feel of her. When I’ve regained control, I tip my hips into a soft thrust, and she answers with a subtle rock, a light, gentle rhythm that draws us closer together.

“You were perfect,” she repeats, her voice a little breathier now. “I loved your overgrown, shaggy hair. I loved your dorky hobbies and your dorky sense of humor and your dorkier glasses. I loved your secret drawings.”

Her eyes are on mine, unblinking as she moves above me, and I’m unraveling under the intensity of her gaze. Because I know her, and my cool, aloof Freya isn’t really cool or aloof at all. The distance? The stoicism? They’re just walls, defense mechanisms, and finally—finally—she’s letting them crumble around us.

My fingers dig into her hips, urging her on. Trying to give more of myself, all of myself, even though it feels like it should be physically impossible to be closer. She grinds her hips into mine, and a breath shudders out of me.

“You could have had me.” I thrust, trying to get deeper, closer,more. “I was always yours. Always.”

She shakes her head, her dark waves swinging. “It’s like I couldn’t recognize you anymore.” She rocks on top of me as she talks, and the friction between us has me tightening, on edge. It’s too much, but not enough. Her movements quicken, taking on new urgency as I fight to keep my orgasm at bay. “I could forgive them for what they did to me. The Freaky Freya thing. The prom hex rumors—”

“Did you—”

“Never gonna tell,” she breathes, and a smile plays at the edges of her lips. Then her eyes are on mine again, pinning me in place, and any hint of humor is gone. “But, Jeremy, I could never forgive them for trying to changeyou.”

I take her hands and slide them to my breastbone, where my heart is trying to beat out of my chest. For her. Always for her.

“We’re the same, Frey.” I keep one hand over both of hers, holding them in place, then rest the other over her chest, between her full, swaying breasts. Beneath my fingers, her heart pumps out a frantic rhythm, and maybe it’s my imagination or desperation or magical thinking, but I swear the cadence of it matches my own. I press into her pulse, my fingers spreading. “We’re the same. Always were. Always will be. No high school makeover was gonna change that.” I shake my head. “No amount of time was gonna change that.”

I worry for a second that I said too much. Got too close to the truth. But then her mouth is on mine and she’s moving, fluid and graceful, sweeping me under and away in a current so strong I have no chance of resisting.

So, I don’t.

In the past I felt sorry for the sailors who were lured to their deaths by siren songs. Sad, pathetic puppets who lost all control, all sense of self. Now, though, as Freya rides me closer and closer to completion, I get it. The sweet promise of oblivion, of giving up the fight. Of surrender. This war we’ve been waging—not just for the past two weeks, but for two decades—crumbles around us, laid to waste by the bright sheen of Freya’s eyes and the frenzied movements of her hips. She might be drawing me to my ruin, but I don’t even care.

Heat gathers. My balls draw tight. My cock swells. I want to hold back. To watch her tumble first. To let her pleasure send me over the edge. I press a hand to her back, pushing her forward until the hard pebble of her nipple is in my mouth, and I suck, hard. She gasps, her pussy clenching around me, but when she pushes my shoulders back down into the pillows, I follow. I obey.

“You,” she moans, her eyes glassy. “I want to feel you come.”

And I’m done. Finished. Hers. My body, my heart. My very soul. My hips pump once more. Twice. Then I’m lost, left gasping and groaning through my release. She drinks it in, hungry for my capitulation, the rolling grind of her body on mine relentless as she’s seized by her own orgasm. Her eyes squeeze shut, but I reach up and cup her face until she opens them through the wild euphoria. When it passes, she slumps into me, soft and spent, and surrender has never, ever felt so good.

***

She wakes me in the early morning, tugging my hand until I roll closer to her, then on top of her. The longest night of the year is still dark, but the tiny lamp we never turned off casts Freya’s perfect face in a soft glow of light and shadow. I sink into her with a groan, still half asleep, and she smiles up at me as she wraps her legs around my waist.

I blink. She must have snuck to the bathroom and washed up. Her face is clean, her lips the soft, natural pink I remember from childhood. Her gray eyes are fresh and unlined. I steady myself on my elbows so I can push her hair back and study her face.

“Hey.” My voice is all sleep and sandpaper, but she doesn’t seem to care.

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