She kissed his throat again, introducing a hint of teeth to make him pant and want to burst out of his skin, and then a swipe of her tongue that turned his body into mush. She began to writhe in his lap again and he crooned as his cock burrowed in the space between her thighs, his grip insistent on her hips to press her down more firmly. Just when he was getting into a nice groove, she stood, leaving him cold and empty.
“The bed?” she asked, her tone shy but her gaze full of heat the winter weather outside couldn’t cool.
He could only nod, afraid that if he spoke, the only thing that would come out was an undignified whine.
She held out her hand to help him stand and he took it, not letting go once he was on his feet. Eyes locked with hers, he kissed her knuckles, then her palm, his heart fluttering as she softened right before his eyes. Even though both of his feet were on the ground, his heart swooped and dipped like it had the very first time he’d taken to the skies on his own.
Joseph now knew what he’d felt that night with her was no fluke. Mary Jefferson was the only woman who could make his soul fly.
Chapter 7
Mary undressed Joseph like he were a gift and she couldn’t bear to rip the paper. She peeled his shirt off with careful hands and eased his sweatpants and boxers down his legs as if the hairs on his legs would cause the fabric to tear if she rushed the process. He was still and patient as she disrobed him, making himself malleable like a doll even though the body revealed to her was very human and very alive.
Her lower lip found its way between her teeth when his cock appeared, thick and pulsating. If it were striped, it would be the thickest, most bitter candy cane in existence.
Her mouth watered for him.
“Come here first so I can kiss you properly,” he whispered.
She smiled, the ragged tone of his voice making her shiver, and pressed her fully clothed body against him. To her surprise, his mouth didn’t meet hers right away, falling to her forehead as soft as a snowflake. He continued his snowflake kisses down the bridge of her nose, to the point of her nose, to her philtrum, to finally—blessedly—her mouth.
She sighed into the kiss, a tension so familiar she’d all but forgotten it easing inside of her when her lips met his. He gathered her close, sliding his long, strong fingers underneath her top to the cool skin of her back. She cupped his face, sipped his taste from his mouth as if he were a cup of hot chocolate with cinnamon. He was making her warm all over and she moaned.
“Off,” he growled into her mouth, tugging down on the elastic of her leggings.
“Wait,” she insisted, gripping his wrists. He looked wrecked, his bottom lip trapped between his teeth, his chest rising and falling as if he’d just run a marathon. A thrill surged through her at being the cause of his sensual torture, but she didn’t like to see people suffer. She kissed him, letting her tongue greet his for a moment, before pulling back and dropping to her knees.
Joseph groaned, shaking his head. “You don’t have—”
“I studied. Practiced,” she interrupted, letting her hands frame his privates. The head of him pointed directly at her, a pearl of cum jeweling the crown of his cock. Licking her lips, Mary let it remain there as she buried her nose into his crotch, smelling his musk and sex. Her hum harmonized with his moans, his whispered fuck making her lust kindle and the hairs on her body turn aflame. Hours of porn, more cucumbers than she’d like to admit, and the memory of him fisting his dick before directing it to her pussy had fueled many a masturbatory session in her life.
Joseph was a trooper, letting her test out hypothesis after hypothesis with her mouth on his hardness: don’t suck with too much pressure; he likes it when you stroke and suck in a rhythm; a little teeth doesn’t hurt; humming is a yes; squeezing his balls too hard is a no; touching him there makes him do that gasp that makes you throb.
He was thick and salty and sour in her mouth. Mary loved it. She could suck him for hours.
Joseph did not have hours. He lifted her head from his length to kiss her much harder than the wispy snowflake kisses from earlier, and tangled his fingers with hers around his dick to keep stroking. He ended the kiss to pant against her lips, his forehead pressed against hers as he erupted between them. His release spurted like a geyser, hot ropes of cum hitting her chin and his chest, and dribbled down their interlocked fingers. Moaning, Joseph kissed her again, this time much more reminiscent of a gentle snowfall than the blizzards that had greeted her as he reached his peak.
His fingers smoothed along her nape. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“Come?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry.”
“Why? I wanted you to come.”
He laughed, self-deprecation rife in the resonant sound. “It’s going to take me a while to be ready for you.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “No need to rush.”
She had last time, trying to outrun her cynicism and hesitancy. He’d kept up with her, his touches frantic and needy enough to leave bruises she’d treasured. Without them, she would’ve convinced herself everything had been a particularly vivid dream. That the beauty she’d felt from him had been part of her voracious imagination regarding how she would respond if someone loved her.
Not, love-love. She still couldn’t conceive that quite yet.
But Joseph was giving her some tools to work with: the softness in his gaze and caress, the care in his words and hands as he undressed her, the reverence with each kiss he gave upon newly revealed skin. Her nipples had missed his mouth so much. Her cunt wept with joy as his tongue reintroduced itself. While his mouth loved her there, he threaded their fingers together and squeezed in time with her thrusts. He forced her to hold her thighs apart for him, forced her to stroke her own clit and sopping folds, forced her to open herself up so his tongue could slip inside. She hadn’t realized she’d like being a puppet for him—but only in this. Letting go of control, letting someone else take care of her, was a beautiful vacation from being everything for herself and nothing to everyone else.
Joseph made her feel like a star, a singular ball of pleasure that could supernova and consume everything in her wake. He wanted to be part of her conflagration.
He kissed up her body as she came down, slid his tongue inside her mouth when his dick entered her cunt. They stroked in rhythm, taxiing down a blessedly long runway before taking off into ecstasy again. Joseph was such a capable flier, giving her long arcing banks of delight and never flipping to autopilot. Every knob he turned, every switch he flipped, made them rise higher and higher. They cracked stratospheres, flying over the dark, heavy clouds of her doubt and dismay toward the blue skies of his genuine regard for her.
The glide of his taut belly along her plush one made her shudder. Her skin tingled with each burst of his heavy, warm breath in her ear. She held him close, finally understanding why he liked the weight of her so much. She felt grounded with him on top of her even as they both continued to fly.
Come, come, come, come, come.
Stay, stay, stay, stay, stay.
The thirty seconds it took for Joseph to dispose of his full condom was entirely too long. She remained high, raw and sore and more alive than she’d felt in years. The bed dipped with his returning weight. Her belly cradled the arm he wrapped around her waist. Her neck became the perfect crook for his nose and lips and jaw. She liked the feel of him nude against her, a warm, living blanket of affection.
“I should get up and get my head scarf so my hair doesn’t dry out,” she mumbled.
“Give me a second and I’ll get it.”
Mary smiled when he kissed her collarbone. “You don’t know where it is.”
“I’ll find it.”
“You just want to keep me in bed, huh?”
“Would it be awful of me to say it was a Christmas wish of mine?”
She giggled this time, loving the feel of his smile against her skin. His hands stroked along her belly to her breasts and back, less to arouse and more to af
firm she was in his arms, she supposed, since the passes were light and even.
“No,” she replied, her tone as quiet as his, not wanting to disturb the cocoon and glow around them any more than he did. “It’s nice to know I can be someone somebody wishes for.”
Joseph cupped her face so she would look into his eyes. “You are. For me.”
Closing her eyes, Mary shifted her head to kiss the heel of his palm. She couldn’t say anything in response, her throat too tight with tears. Lucky for her, Joseph didn’t mind, content to hold her as she returned to earth upon realizing they only had a day, maybe two at most, to make the most of his Christmas wish.
A wish, she realized, that had been her most buried and secret hope.
Chapter 8
Mary and Joseph had a day and a half in their lake cabin retreat and the power didn’t go out, nor did the Great Snowpocalypse hit Charlotte the way it had Houston, leaving them free to continue their journey and arrive at Deon’s house on Christmas Eve. Mary, precious Mary, placed a notebook-paper Christmas bow on the heater and propane tank they’d gotten as a thank you for letting them stay there. Joseph was utterly charmed by it. He hadn’t realized she was something of a crafter, and Mary explained her mother had taught her to make those when the choice of funds was between the presents and the accouterments in which to wrap them.
The drive back to the airport and the flight to Houston was far less fraught than the previous iteration, but Joseph felt Mary retreating into her shell again the closer they were to Deon’s house. By the time they pulled up in the drive in yet another rental car, Mary was as silent as the purported night of Jesus’s birth.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Mary said, but the tension shined as brightly as the lights on the various houses in Deon’s neighborhood.
He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Do you want us to lay low?”
“Us?”
His heart pricked at her confusion but then he reined himself in. The past thirty-six hours featured much sex and little else, let alone talk about the future. Then again, part of Joseph believed Mary had engineered it that way. All conversation had remained bounded by the walls of the cabin, their own personal Las Vegas, but he didn’t want what they shared to stay there. Without consulting her, he’d packed up his feelings along with his luggage and they were still with him, in the front zip pocket for easy access. He could put his heart on his sleeve with the best of them.
“Mary—”
“I mean, yeah. Let’s not make this more than what it is, right?” Mary said, flashing him a smile so brief that he blinked and she was already out of their new rental car, going to the backseat to grab her carryon luggage.
He wanted to tell her to leave everything, that he would get it, but of course she’d packed so she could handle it all herself. She clearly had much practice doing so and had never once asked him to pick up any slack. He felt useless, or that his utility was specific and finite, and he shambled to the front door behind a Mary who’d plastered on a wide smile for her sister-in-law when the big-bellied woman opened the door.
She kept her distance from him for the rest of the night, finding sanctuary with her small niece who seemed to adore her aunt Mary. Mary did have the perfect lap for cuddles, hands that were capable and steady as they threaded popcorn garland or tied more ribbons and bows over still-to-be-wrapped gifts or carefully folded the discarded wrapping paper of the one present little Gwen was allowed to open. She’d gifted her brother and sister-in-law with a reprieve from their energetic three-year-old, and he was the uncle Joseph who could lift Gwen high over his head so she could string the already trimmed tree from top to bottom.
At the end of the night, both Joseph and Mary tucked little Gwen into bed. He wondered if he imagined the wistfulness on Mary’s face as he looked at the slumbering child, and he didn’t examine the fact he’d volunteer as tribute if she ever wanted to bring another little girl into this world with someone.
“It’s amazing Deon created such a cute kid,” Joseph said, wanting to make Mary smile.
She did, rolling her eyes at him. “Deon was a cute kid. He’s a handsome man. Problem is, he so vain about it.”
Joseph nodded. “You’re not vain.”
Mary started to respond, but then closed her mouth and nodded instead. “True. Layla’s not vain, either. I’m still thrown by how Deon pulled that off!”
“Beautiful, intelligent, clever women will always make a man step up if he’s serious about her,” Joseph said with a shrug. “I was there when they met. Deon was poleaxed.”
Mary shook her head. “Is that how it happens? It’s not gradual?”
“Sometimes,” Joseph said. “But most of the time it’s both, I think.”
“Hmm.”
Mary left the bedroom, Joseph following behind. The sounds of an R&B Christmas album filtered up from the hidden speakers downstairs, as did Deon’s off-key warbling and Layla’s laughing pleas for him to stop for all that was good and holy.
“SILENT NIGHT!” Layla insisted between giggles, which only made Deon crow even louder. Mary was shaking her head as she reached her bedroom door and Joseph smiled at her.
“They are a mess,” Mary declared.
“They know how to clean each other up.”
Mary nodded again, leaning against her door. They stared at each other for a moment. Joseph wanted to know what the protocol was, if it were more polite to muss up one bed instead of two. Mary bit her lip and looked down at her socked feet. These were dark blue with large white snowflakes. They’d been a gift from Gwen last year courtesy of Layla. He only knew this because Mary had made a big production of it for Gwen’s benefit, who was completely delighted her aunt still treasured her gift.
“I’m a mess,” she said, her voice soft where Deon was still incredibly loud, but Joseph’s heart heard her. Nevertheless, he stepped closer, leaning his head down so she could whisper in his hear if she wanted, brush her lips against his like he desired.
“I am too,” he said, placing his hand on her hip. He felt her tremble, heard her sigh, and he exhaled carefully.
“I have things everywhere in my apartment,” she said, rolling her eyes again. “I was on my best behavior at the cabin.” He grinned, the smug expression making Mary huff but smother her own giggle. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” he said, stepping closer so their fronts pressed together. She lifted her chin to keep her eyes locked with his. “Then again, I’m thinking of how naughty we can be without getting into too much trouble.”
Her eyes widened. “Seriously!”
Joseph shrugged. “After all those nights I had to bear Deon and Layla’s fuckin’? Would serve them right.”
“Aren’t you confident.”
“No. Hopeful.”
A smile stretched her lips. “Still?”
He let his cheek touch hers. “After this, I don’t know when I’ll next be able to hold you through the night. So, yeah, like I said. That’s the only Christmas wish I have, to be honest.”
Her hands came up to frame his face and he closed her eyes as her thumbs stroked his cheeks. “I think I can still grant that.”
His bedroom remained empty through the night, but Mary’s body wasn’t and neither was his heart. He was full of her, fit to bursting; and even though it was Christmas, it felt like New Year’s fireworks were going off inside him as their bodies moved as one.
When Joseph awoke the next morning, Mary was not there to greet him. His heart plummeting to his feet, he jumped out of bed and shoved his legs through his pajama bottoms as he made his way to the door. Though his mind suspected there was a reasonable explanation for her absence, his heart could only remember the devastation he’d felt at her first abandonment.
He wasn’t going to let her leave him again, not without a fight.
Deon awaited Joseph on the other side of the door, his bare arms crossed over the black A-line tank he wore, his expression
more fit for the gridiron against a rival team than his house on Christmas morning with his best friend.
“Man, what the fuck are you doing to my sister?”
Chapter 9
At Deon’s bellow, the pancake Mary had been flipping dropped to the skillet in a graceless splat. Both Layla and Gwen looked at her wide-eyed.
“Mommy, Daddy said a bad word.”
After a period of silence, Deon said several more, with Joseph adding his own color commentary in between. Mary gave a worried glance at her sister-in-law, but it wasn’t until she heard the fleshy thwack of a fist against skin that Mary abandoned her post at the stove with a worried glance to her sister-in-law.
As Layla explained the concept of a swear jar to her daughter, Mary rushed up the stairs where she heard a thud and more yelled cursing on the landing. When she reached the top of the stairs, Mary saw a red-faced and flailing Joseph pinned at the neck underneath the beefy arm of her incensed younger brother.
“Deon! Let him go!”
“Naw, I like him right where he’s at!”
Huffing with exasperation, Mary went to her brother and started to tug on his arm. It would’ve been easier to row a cruise ship with a single oar. “Deon!”
He snapped irritated eyes to her. “How you let him play you like that again, Mary? And this time in my own bed!”
Mary gaped at him. “What!”
“He’s taking advantage of you!”
“He’s only taking what I’m giving—quite willingly, at that!”
Deon’s eyes widened. “Mary!”
Mary sucked her teeth and glared. “Oh, whatever, Deon! Last time this happened, you were teasing him about it. No need to pretend like you care now!”
Deon’s shock at her words was the distraction Joseph needed to loosen Deon’s grip. A well-aimed knee to the stomach had Deon crumpling in on himself, freeing Joseph’s passageway for fresh oxygen to enter his lungs. Once he gathered his breath, Joseph crab-crawled from underneath Deon and scrambled to his feet. In a blink, Mary was there, investigating Joseph’s red neck and soothing it with her fingers and hands.
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