by Liz Meldon
All in all, it had been a surprisingly awesome Christmas Day, and as day turned into night and the holiday party officially kicked off in the teachers’ lounge, I realized I’d been having so much fun, pleasantly tipsy since brunch, that I hadn’t once thought about my pack or all the old familiar things they would have been up to today, incommunicado on their pack vacation to Cancún.
I hadn’t needed to think. I’d had a family, a pack—right here, with these wonderful people.
To be fair, all the booze probably had something to do with my mood. I wasn’t usually this giggly, nor was I ever keen to play Foster’s stupid party games, but I’d been a good sport since eleven this morning and wasn’t about to stop now.
After a round of charades, Christmas Mad Libs, and Name that Carol, Foster stood up on a chair, swaying, his gaunt cheeks bright pink, and announced that it was time for Secret Santa gifts to be exchanged. My stomach did a little loop, and I set my mug of spiced eggnog aside, joining the others as all thirty-two of us swarmed the mountain of gifts stacked up on the coffee table.
At the start of the month, all the staff, not just teachers, had signed up for the gift exchange, confirming that they would be here for the holidays. Foster and his assistant drew names from a hat, then told us our person in private. From there, we had about three weeks to find a gift.
Three weeks for me to mull over what the hell to give my vampire fuck buddy. As I picked up the squishy package, I couldn’t help but second-guess everything. What if it was too simple? What if he didn’t like the color? What if he tore me to bits over my wrapping job?
I glanced down at the gift. Actually, that last one wasn’t a what-if. I’d wrapped his present yesterday, drunk, and it showed in my excessive use of tape. At least the wrapping paper was pretty: shiny silver patterned with candy canes and tree ornaments.
Well. Maybe not pretty.
Kitsch. Calder with his cashmere ties and tailored suits would probably think it was kitsch, just like my gift.
My stomach somersaulted again, and I swallowed hard, just standing there as everybody dispersed around the cramped room.
Go get it over with.
“Hey.”
My head snapped up, and there he was, right in front of me. A rush of his musky cologne hit me hard, and I pointedly ignored the exposed muscly forearms, his white dress shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
“Hey, so, I got you for Secret Santa,” I blurted, then thrust the gift at him so abruptly that it smacked into his navel, right at the tip of his deep green tie. Heat flooded my cheeks, stomach looping again, and when I finally looked up, I found him frowning. Calder opened and closed his mouth a few times, staring at my shoddily wrapped gift, and then cleared his throat.
“Oh.”
Oh? Oh? What the hell was that supposed to mean? My arm wavered between us, the booze making me paranoid. Was he disappointed that I was the gift giver? Did he expect it to be a prank or a joke or just absolute shit?
I retreated somewhat, bringing my gift back to me. Of course he’d think one, if not all those things.
Before I could force something clever and nonchalant out, however, Calder reached into the pocket of his dark grey slacks and pulled out—
“I got you as well,” he said, offering me a slim, beautifully wrapped rectangle. We both stared at our respective gifts for a moment, then looked up to each other. I let out a little chuckle, some of my weird, drunken paranoia dissipating.
“Oh. That’s a coincidence.”
“A bit,” Calder muttered. After a quick scan of the very full, somewhat stuffy and hot room, he motioned toward the corner nearest the door, one of the few spots that wasn’t overcrowded with people. I nodded, trailing after him as he strode over and faced me. Scratching at the back of his neck, he held out my gift. “Well. Happy Christmas and all that.”
“You too.”
We swapped presents somewhat hesitantly, and I resisted the urge to hold the rectangle up to my ear and jostle it around like an animal. Because this felt very… grown-up. Not only was it impeccably wrapped, with no mismatched, poky corners and the appropriate amount of tape, but the paper was gorgeous. A full, lush red with gold stripes.
And mine was candy canes and tree ornaments and dollar-store silver. Kitsch. My palms felt clammy as I carefully, gently, popped open one end, trying not to obnoxiously shred the wrapping to pieces like I usually did.
“So, did you use a whole roll of tape for this, or…?”
I looked up, eyes wide, genuinely a bit embarrassed at my inability to wrap Christmas gifts like an adult—because if I’d done it sober, it would have only looked marginally better. For the first time in our entire history, Calder seemed not to notice my discomfort. In fact, he was focused on the gift and smiling one of those small, barely there smiles, the kind you hid from everyone but yourself.
My inner wolf yipped excitedly at the sight, the same noise she made when she wanted to get out and play, but I ignored her and went back to carefully unwrapping my present like I was defusing a bomb.
“Oh. Emma.” Calder let my horrible wrapping paper fall to the floor, holding my gift with both hands. “This is…”
I stilled, the booze paranoia surging again. Over the last two weeks, I had knit Calder a sweater for Christmas. I’d found the loveliest maroon wool at the hobby shop in October, coincidentally the day I had finally figured out the vampire’s angle in Solskinn, and for some reason I’d thought it would be a great color on him. Noting that he didn’t own a single piece of SIA paraphernalia, I had even sewn the school emblem onto the breast.
I’d been really proud of it. The stitch was complicated and intricate, and the final product was cozy and soft.
But now, it seemed so, so—trivial.
Calder looked up at me, expression unreadable. I stared back, mouth dry, throat like sandpaper when I gulped.
“I, uhm, like to knit.”
“I know,” he said, his voice rumbly and deep. A shiver shot down my spine.
“Uh, yeah. So, I kind of just guessed with the color and size and whatever.”
He hated it—he had to. Calder’s seemingly endless collection of perfectly fitted suits probably cost more than I earned in a year teaching back in Maine, and I had gone and knitted him a maroon sweater?
I’d thought he would wear something handmade?
He hated it. He hated it, and for the first time, he was about to be really fake and really nice about just how much he hated it. I’d fucked this right up.
And for some reason that mattered.
Just as I was about to word-vomit the long, rambling, embarrassing apology surging to the tip of my tongue, Calder brought my gift to his nose. His body lifted with the deep inhale, his eyes closed, thick obsidian lashes splayed across porcelain-white skin. I stilled, suddenly lost for words, and my lips parted when he finally glanced up.
“It smells like you,” the vampire noted.
It smelled like me?
What, exactly, did I smell like to him?
I resisted the urge to ask.
“That… was unintentional,” I said weakly, gripping his gift so tight in both hands that the paper crinkled noisily under my fingers. I loosened up and held it behind my back so he couldn’t see my fidgeting.
Calder’s mouth lifted into a strange sort of smile that made my stomach loop pleasantly. “It’s lovely, Emma. Thank you.”
“You—you don’t have to wear it,” I insisted, unable to accept the compliment as genuine. He might have sounded sincere, but he couldn’t actually like this gift—could he? I cleared my throat, still dry and scratchy, in need of a shot or six of whiskey. “I’m not very good at giving gifts, and we, uhm, you and I… You don’t have to…”
I pressed my lips together when he carefully pulled the sweater over his head, handling it as though it might come undone with the slightest movement.
Or maybe with reverence.
I couldn’t tell.
But he got it over his h
ead just fine. His muscular arms filled each sleeve but didn’t stretch the stitchwork, and it rolled nicely over his broad chest. The hem reached just beyond his belt, neither too long nor too short, and the academy’s emblem sat just where I’d hoped it would over what I knew was a rock-hard pectoral.
It worked on him, the color. Not every guy could make maroon look sexy. My fingers twitched, itching to reach out and skim my work—just to assess the feel, of course. I gripped them tighter around my gift, keeping them right where they were.
“It fits well,” he mused, tugging the sleeves up so the scrunched bit of white dress shirt poked out around his elbow.
“Uh, yeah. Pretty good for not taking any actual measurements.” May as well compliment my handiwork rather than his body. Calder, however, smirked down at me as if I’d done so anyway.
“I’m not surprised, really,” he said, running a hand over his chest, admiring the school crest, “given all the time you’ve spent ogling me—”
He chuckled when I gave his arm a none-too-gentle smack. Shaking my head, I went back to opening my gift, tearing into the wrapping paper with vigor now. Inside, I found a blue velvet box. My brows furrowed. Did he buy me a pen? It wouldn’t surprise me, given the thousands of ancient knick-knacks cluttering his office. Still, all those hours spent knitting, and this guy went and bought me—
I popped the lid open.
Not a pen. A necklace. Calder had bought me a gold necklace for Christmas. The slim chain looped twice, suggesting more length than the box allowed, and in the middle of it all, a delicate moon-shaped pendant made up of thin branches of swirling, knotted golden ivy.
“You got me jewelry?”
“It’s, well, you know…” Calder cleared his throat, cheeks splotched a dull pink as he fidgeted with the sweater’s sleeves, pulling them down to his wrists, then jerking them back up to his elbows like he just couldn’t decide. “I know you don’t really wear anything because of the nature of your, er, profession, but everyone could use a few good pieces—according to the internet, anyway.”
Now it was finally my turn to smirk. “Right.”
“Look, don’t read too much into it,” he muttered, scanning the room with more interest than a staff Secret Santa exchange warranted. “It was the simplest available. Some had diamonds and gems and the like. Naturally I avoided silver, but you know, the moon and wolves and, uh… It’s nothing, really.”
I swallowed a snort. And I thought I’d been awkward about my gift. “Still jewelry though, Mr. Holloway. Lots of implications there.”
“About as many as gifting a man with a handmade garment positively dripping in your scent, eh? Bit territorial of you, wolf.”
“Now who’s reading too much into things?”
“Still you, I think.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh my god. Here.”
After carefully removing the necklace from its confinement, I shoved the box into Calder’s hand. While long enough that I could slip the chain over my head if I wanted, I instinctively went for the clasp, undoing it before reaching both ends around my neck and attempting to reconnect them under my thick, messy braid. My fingers fumbled over the dainty fastener, but I managed to get it after a few tries, lower lip caught between my teeth. The moon pendant hung over the swell of my breasts, making my white knit sweater and frayed jeans combo almost look classy.
Swallowing hard, I lifted the pendant for a closer inspection. Delicate, about an inch in size, each point of the ivy leaves sharp enough to sting my curious fingertip. Not only was it beautiful, but holding it made me feel something—something I couldn’t explain, and maybe didn’t want to. But my inner wolf howled, the kind of full, pure cry we bayed into the night sky, the kind that connected us both to our pack, be it in wolf or human form. The sound rattled around my brain. It made my heart pump faster, surer, made my throat tight—made my eyes water.
I blinked back the sudden rush of wetness with a sniffle, then mustered up as genuine a smile as I could without coming across like a huge cheeseball. “Thank you. Really. It’s very nice.”
Calder nodded when our eyes met, his hands in his pockets, suddenly looming a step closer than he had been a minute ago. “Do you… Do you want to get out of here?”
Heat flashed in my belly, and my heart skipped a beat at the gravelly timbre behind his words, the dark look in his eyes.
“Yes,” I breathed.
Wordlessly, the vampire grabbed my wrist and led me out the door.
16
Calder
We made it down the corridor, up the stairs, and halfway to my office before Emma pounced. I had every intention of locking us away in there for the rest of the night, to make good use of my desk, my chair, hell, maybe even the bay window overlooking a black, starless night.
The wolf shifter had other plans, however, stopping me by yanking at my arm and throwing herself into a kiss that had every drop of blood in my body shooting straight to my cock. Groaning, I marched her back against the wall, crushing her there with my lips, my hips, hands cupping her face, fingers on her neck.
She tasted like eggnog and nostalgia. Kissing her, plundering her mouth with my tongue and sullying her braid with my fingers, had me feeling… sentimental. Wrapped in Emma’s gift, something homespun and personal, smelling so sweetly of her, harkened my mind back to holidays as a human: snow-covered London, all the family gathered around a fully dressed tree, an enormous roast to be shared between my flat and the next. Snapping crackers, harmonizing carollers, Christmas cards arriving by Penny Post. So many flickering candles that it was a wonder we hadn’t burned the whole lot to the ground, another slum in flames.
I hadn’t thought of those times in years. But today, surrounded by so much good cheer, my colleagues pleasantly drunk from morning till now, seeing Emma smiling after so many dour days—well, it had been very pleasant.
And what better way to top off the holiday than this, fucking her until her smiles turned sinful?
I very much liked my gift. It had been unexpected, but most of Emma Kingsley veered into unexpected territory. In my old circles, money talked, and I’d fallen back on familiar habits when I sought her present for this Secret Santa gift exchange. After I had torn open her shoddily wrapped package, I’d realized my mistake.
My gift had been all wrong for her. Sure, another woman may have squealed over such a fancy gold trinket, but Emma would have appreciated something more thoughtful, surely. She was a purveyor of handmade gifts that felt so lush, so luxurious, that she could sew a designer label into it and no one would know the difference. This sweater could have cost thousands it was so soft, so perfectly molded to my figure, yet all I wanted to do was smell it—sit in my office, in the dark, surrounded by the comfort of my things, and breathe her in.
Sentiment. Emma’s maroon sweater, complete with a Solskinn International Academy crest, dripped with it. Oozed it. Sentiment wrought the downfall of many a man, yet tonight, I loved it. I never wanted to take it off, even as I bent her over my desk and ravished her.
And from the way Emma kissed me, so deeply, so openly, her hands tangling my hair, tugging, then falling to my tie and attacking the knot, it appeared Emma enjoyed her gift too. That momentary blip of fear, the one that made my chest tight and my throat dry, had been unfounded.
My hands slipped lower, abandoning the svelte line of her jaw for the delicate column of her throat. Her pulse thundered beneath my fingers, but it was the gold chain I sought instead. For a split second, during the ordering process, I had considered buying the necklace in silver. The metal burned shifters, and I’d thought, maybe for a laugh…
But now, as I stroked her skin, tracked the blood pounding through her veins, my thumb traced the line of gold and I felt something. Something possessive and dark and desperate, something I could never dare admit to. Even though I knew, logically, that tonight might very well be the only night she wore my gift, I suddenly yearned to see her in it every day. I longed to have her wearing that and only
that, the full moon settling in the valley of her breasts, rosy pink nipples standing tall on either side like sentries.
We had marked each other tonight.
The thought had me growling, shifting into this primal, physical beast on par with the animal inside her. Catching her lower lip between my teeth, I hoisted her up, settling between her thighs as her ankles crossed behind me. My pine-green tie, flecked with barely visible silver stars, cascaded to the ground in a flutter of cashmere, and Emma’s greedy fingers ripped open the top button of my dress shirt before skirting up my neck and back into my hair. I bit at her lips again, hard enough to make the sumptuous bottom bleed, and she bucked with a gasp as sweet, sweet fire dribbled between us, grinding her hips against my shaft, and drew me closer with her insistent heels on the small of my back.
I’d just raked my fangs across her neck, ready to plunge in as I spirited her away to my office, when I heard it—a very faint, very nasally little voice: “Oh, uh, hi, guys.”
Emma stiffened, her fingers twisting in my hair so hard it actually hurt, and I closed my eyes with a sharp sigh.
Please.
For all that was good in this world.
Tell me we hadn’t just been discovered by James fucking Foster.
“Get off,” Emma hissed, shoving at me. “Let go, let go, get off.”
Fuck. How the hell hadn’t I heard him coming? As we untangled, I couldn’t help but marvel at the impossibility of a human sneaking up on either of us, but maybe the alcohol had dulled Emma’s senses—and she had dulled mine.
Because there was James fucking Foster, our boss, standing just around the curve of the hallway with four stacks of giant red cups in hands, their color matching the hue of his sunken cheeks.
“We, uh, decided to play beer pong,” he said weakly, looking between us as I tried my best to subtly right myself, tucking my cock up and out of the way so I wasn’t tenting my trousers. Emma, meanwhile, appeared beautifully disheveled, her whole face as red as Foster’s, her hands pressed to her cheeks like that might hide it. The academy’s principal and resident micromanaging gnat held up the cups as evidence, voice extra tight as he said, “The guys suggested it. I’ve… I’ve never played, but we… the art room had… these.”
