Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 57067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
“You could’ve gotten hurt.”
“I would’ve died if it meant getting you out of there. I’m just glad we got to you before they could…” He clenches his fists, breathing raggedly through tight clenched teeth. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if they’d touched you.”
I remember what he called me when he killed that man.
His woman.
“Getting into the Christmas spirit yet?” I ask, trying to make my tone jokey. It comes out dark instead.
He grunts out a laugh. “I’m this close to singing a carol.” He gestures with his fingers.
I smile somehow. It’s a miracle. He seems to me to be smiling, and his lips twitch too.
I stand, go to him, and slip into his lap. He lets out a sigh and wraps his arms around me, but his eyes never leave the window, the street. He smooths his hand over my leg, but somehow, it’s not sexual.
I can feel his hardness, but he doesn’t take it there. It’s like he simply can’t help what his body does when I’m around.
“I thought I was going to grow your heart, you know, Grinch-style, when this started. But I think I’ve just made Christmas even worse for you.”
“You’re wrong,” he whispers huskily, his breath shivering over my neck and sneaking into the robe, dancing temptingly over my body. “You’ve shown me something else, something damn miraculous, Celine.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“You’ve shown me that even when things get dark and evil, there’s hope. There’s light. You’ve shown me we can make an effort even when it seems futile. You’ve shown me that maybe I don’t have to accept…”
“Accept what?” I whisper, taking his face in my hands.
He looks up at me with something devastating in his expression. I know he’s thinking we should stop. We shouldn’t touch like this, not with Julian sleeping upstairs, when there’s still so much that could go wrong.
Not just for those poor trapped women and girls… but for us, our story within the story. Julian could still turn on us. He could still hate us both when all this is over.
“It doesn’t matter,” he whispers huskily.
“It does–to me.”
He grits his teeth.
“Say it,” I whisper, a daring note in my voice. “Just… just say it, Damian.”
“I never thought I could have a future.”
A gasp punches out of me.
“But you do now?”
“I’ve been off the dating market for too long. I thought I was going to die alone. And I’d made my peace with that. But with you, my head does funny things.”
I know what he’s talking about. We’ve been through so much, with tension running high, we’re bound to say things that would seem ridiculous if we were just two regular people dating.
“What’s this future, huh?” I say.
He hesitates.
I put my hand on his chest and feel his heart thundering against my palm. “Hypothetically, then…”
“Hypothetically,” he murmurs, “I can imagine having children, a family. I never thought I’d want that, never thought I deserved it. I can imagine Christmases and cocoa and decorations, and even if it makes me think of my parents, I’d put my family’s happiness before my own…”
“Grumpiness?” I offer.
He smiles sadly. “Yeah, exactly that. When I’m with you, being grumpy doesn’t feel as effortless as it did once upon a time.”
I shift in his lap, feeling his firmness, feeling how badly he wants to let go. But he doesn’t give in to the desire.
Inappropriate wetness gathers between my legs, my body aching the more time we spend close together, his hand squeezing my leg and the other braced on my back. I squeeze my legs together in an attempt to control myself.
I shouldn’t want this–not now, not after what I’ve lived through, not with Julian sleeping upstairs.
But I also know that being with him would mean I can forget about what happened for a while. We could disappear into each other and pretend none of that evil exists.
“What was Christmas like?” I ask. “Before the crash?”
His smile changes shape. “It was… it was wonderful. What?”
“What?” I echo.
“You’re looking at me like I’ve grown another head.”
“I just never thought I’d hear Mr. Grumpy use the word wonderful to describe Christmas.”
His hand trails over my back, tracing my scar. “My personal Christmas elf has strange effects on me…”
“So?” I prompt, the tingles intensifying.
Neither of us addresses the fact that he’s rock-solid as he pushes against me. It’s like a background hum of aching desire that we’re afraid to acknowledge… because then we’ll have to do something about it.
“It was magic,” he says. “Mom would gather us in the living room, and we’d argue over what decorations went where on the tree. Then they’d drink eggnog, and we’d sing Christmas music on the karaoke machine.”
“You sang?”
He chuckles. “Seems like a different lifetime. Hell, it is a different lifetime.”
“And if you ever had a family, you’d do the same for them. You’d make Christmas just as special.”