Page 16 of Not Home Alone

“You’re very welcome!”

“Happy holidays to you and yours!”

Silence.

He’s gone. Hah! I win.

I polish off my beer and smack my lips together. Eyeing the Santa vibe that’s connected to my laptop on top of the dresser, I wonder if it’s fully charged yet. I’m still a little worked up from being so infuriated. Being infuriated causes a lot of pressure to build in my clitoris. I’m supposed to be prioritizing self-care while I’m here, so I should really relieve myself of this pressure…

But no.

If Grant hears me, he’ll get the wrong idea.

I’ll just go to sleep so I can win tomorrow and make him disappear.

SIX

GRANT

I wake up groaning.

For a split second, I assume it’s because I have a hangover. But it doesn’t take long to remember that I only had three fingers of scotch and one bottle of beer last night. There’s no dull throbbing in my temples; I’m feeling it in a much more pronounced part of me. Apparently, quietly taking care of myself in the shower last night did nothing to cure me of the agonizing ache that is Merrily Tucker. Tragically, it seems that pushing her away, followed by ten years of avoidance, has done absolutely nothing to dampen my body’s response to her. Her uniquely bewitching blend of sweet sunshine, wholesome beauty, relentless Yuletide enthusiasm, quippy comebacks, and unbridled disdain for me is still the cocktail that launched a thousand erections.

The scent of coffee and something horrible wafts through the crack under the bedroom door. God dammit. Did she bring her own holiday blend, or did I forget to check the kitchen cabinets for Christmas-flavored items? I refuse to ingest warm, festive, bakery-inspired caffeinated drinks. It smells like she poured whatever she used in her bath last night into the coffee grounds. Now I’m going to have to leave for my meeting early so I can grab coffee on the way to my dad’s office. Real coffee. Not coffee-flavored liquid Bing Crosby songs. The kind that gives you a jolt and an ulcer and waking nightmares.

Everything about that woman is an assault to my senses and my sanity.

I need to focus and remember what’s important: She hates me. It’s clear from last night that she still hates me. She might still find me attractive—I mean, who doesn’t—but she doesn’t trust me. And that works for me. My entire identity has been built around the Grant Moody that humiliated Merrily Tucker all those years ago. The only way I can stay in New York, and keep my sovereignty, is if I’m the irresponsible son who never has girlfriends, and drinks too much. That makes me useless to my father, who wants me to take over as CEO. But it wouldn’t make sense for me to be CEO if I’m a pariah in this town…

Holding my breath, I cross from the bed to the master bathroom. I will be taking an extra long shower, and it’s only because I want to use up all the hot water. It’s not because I’m going to think about the week Merrily and I spent together ten years ago, leading up to the night of December 23.

I’m not going to think about the night I walked her home, after hours spent rehearsing together, just the two of us, on stage in the high school auditorium. I was a rebel without a cause, and she was so sunny she melted the snow as it fell around us. As I turn on the faucet, I am definitely not thinking about how we held hands. Stepping into the tub, I do not think about how she was so easy to talk to that she somehow managed to carefully open up a part of me that I thought had died eight years earlier.

But fuck. Yes. This hot shower is exactly what I needed and I can’t stop thinking about the way Merrily Tucker smiled knowingly at me when I stopped at that dark corner of the sidewalk near her house. The sigh that escaped her full lips when I tucked my index finger under her chin and tilted it up. The way her brown eyes burned bright under hooded lids with a heat that surprised me in a way that I haven’t been surprised by anyone since. Not until I found her downstairs last night.

It is still too easy to remember how she gripped the collar of my leather jacket with both hands, pulling me closer. Her lips tasted like candy cane, so I knew she’d applied something before we left the auditorium. And that is why the taste and scent of peppermint still makes me horny to this day and probably will for the rest of my life. Her lips parted for my tongue in a way they hadn’t when we’d kissed earlier that night.

While we kissed, my confident eighteen-year-old fingers unzipped her puffer jacket so slowly she didn’t seem to notice. When I reached inside her coat, and my cold fingertips traced the exposed skin between her jeans and the bottom of her sweater, she shivered so hard she bit my lower lip. I pulled my hands away and she gasped, whispering that she was sorry. And then she took my right hand and locked eyes with me as she guided it under her sweater. Up toward her breast.

Sweet, sweet Merrily Tucker. The beloved innocent good girl who loved Christmas. We couldn’t have been more different, but at that moment we wanted the exact same thing. She let go of my hand and grabbed my face, kissing me again, soft and slow, but with intention. She was pacing herself; I could tell. Holding back. And that was so fucking exciting. Because I knew that what she was holding back would absolutely ruin me for anyone else. And the way she whimpered when my fingertips grazed her nipple over that cotton bra already had. It ruined me.

I brace myself against the tiled wall in front of me with one hand, letting the hot water pelt my skin as I finish myself off and rewrite the ending of that memory. Suddenly, she’s twenty-seven years old, in the living room downstairs, in that snowman sweater and jeans. No, wait, she’s wearing that tank top with the naughty elf and those little sleep shorts. I push her back, pin her against the wall, drop to my knees, and take her shorts down with me. Her fingers frantically comb through my hair; she bends her knee, lifting her leg to rest it over my shoulder. And she screams witty insults, arching her back, writhing around as I pleasure her with my tongue until she’s bucking against me. Begging for my cock.

Done.

That’s that.

By the time I’ve toweled off I’m back to not thinking about her again.

By the time I’m dressed all I want from Merrily Tucker is her absence.

“No.”

I say it even though I don’t see her anywhere.

No.

I have opened the bedroom door to come face-to-face with a life-size nutcracker doll. His expressionless painted eyes mock me. My instinct is to kick it, but it’s made of wood and possibly one of a kind, so I move it out of the way. “No.”