Page 102 of Mistletoe All the Way

I don’t heed her command. Not yet. I fuck her slow and hot until she’s gasping, begging, sweaty and writhing beneath those ribbons.

I still don’t know if I deserve her.

But I know this—for the next few days, I’m going to show her I’m the man who is worthy of her time.

And her pleasure.

She gives me that pleasure when she comes undone beneath me, and I follow her there.

After, I collapse beside her and run a hand down the length of her bound body.

“Shame to unwrap such a beautiful present,” I murmur.

But I do it anyway.

31 EVERGREEN FALLS

Noah

The snow from a few nights ago hasn’t melted, but we’ve cleared it away from the barn. The ground is soft enough. As the sun rises in the morning sky, Chris and I are quiet, working together in comfortable silence—the silence that comes with a familiar activity, a routine we’ve done every year since we were sixteen.

I dig the last of the soil up, then set the shovel against the red barn wall. Rusty trots over and sniffs it, then returns to tossing a rope toy in the snow. Millie snags it from him and runs away with it across the field. He chases her.

Chris grabs his water bottle from next to the barn and pours some on the small Wichita Blue Juniper tree in its green plastic container, making sure the root ball is well hydrated.

When he’s done, he sets the water bottle down, blowing out a somber breath. “Ready?”

I give a crisp nod. “Ready.”

The small evergreen isn’t heavy, but we lift it together anyway. We set it in the hole we dug near the back of the barn. I adjust it, making sure it’s just so in its new home.

“Good?” I ask him.

He nods. “Good.”

He lifts his gaze toward Millie, who’s trotting with the toy like it’s a prize. “Millie,” he calls out. She stops, turning to his voice. He points toward the farmhouse. “Go get Gramps. Take your cousin.”

I whistle, catching Rusty’s attention and gesturing in the same direction. “Go, boy.”

Millie bolts, and Rusty follows her, cutting a path across the snow cover. As they race, Chris and I grab our shovels again and fill the hole with soil.

When Gramps and Grams arrive a few minutes later, bundled up in coats and scarves, Grams waggles a small green watering can, then pours it on the evergreen in its new home. “To settle the soil,” Grams says with fondness in her voice. It’s the same thing Mom said every time she planted a new tree, said the same way.

I grab a bag of mulch that’s resting against the barn wall, scatter some around the base of the evergreen, then wipe my hands and blow out a breath.

We step back, and I look at the new tree with its brilliant silver-blue foliage. It’s small—a few feet high at this point. But over time it’ll grow, thriving here in the foothills of Northern California, nestled among all the trees we’ve planted every year around this time—the Black Dragon Japanese cedars, the Dwarf Alberta spruces, the Baby Blue Sawara cypresses, and the other evergreens.

I want to tell Gramps I’ll keep this up. I’ll carry on this tradition. But when he shoots me a wistful look, his eyes shining, I know he knows. And really, I don’t want to pitch myself right now. Time and place and all.

He looks up at the sky, annoyingly, brightly blue, without a cloud in sight. “She’d go for a horseback ride too, if it were snowing. Her favorite thing,” he says.

Grams tucks her head in the crook of his neck, repeating, “It was her favorite thing.”

I wish it were snowing. But lately, I’ve been wishing for a lot of things that aren’t likely to happen.

We scatter, and I head to the barn to feed the horses before the sleigh rides begin. The first customer on the schedule should arrive in an hour. As I feed the horses, my mind drifts back to this morning, when I quietly slipped out of bed at Eloise’s so I could head over here. She had to work anyway—she told me last night she’d be at the rink most of the morning, then working on a team promo event in the afternoon, and we’d agreed to meet later to plan for the second-to-last event in the Mr. Holiday competition. As I grab more feed, I replay my morning. Leaving her place, then doing something I rarely do—checking social media. Hers, but also the town’s. To see if the competition is working for her. If her plan to make a celebrity of sorts out of me to drive interest in the competition is working. The answer, based on the views, and the likes, and the agony? It’s working, dammit. The agony is working.

As I fill the trough for Honey, an idea occurs to me—embarrassing, hopeful, and so ridiculous I need to shove it out of my head, stat. But it’s impossible to ignore, especially since Chris is here helping out too. Chris, the guy who’s good in front of the camera. Chris, the guy who knows how to charm a crowd. Chris, the biggest pain in the ass and my biggest supporter.