by M. Robinson
What he’s really asking is are you okay.
“I’m sure. I’m here with you.” The music stops, and Leo takes me off the dance floor. “Are we leaving?”
“Not yet.” He steps around a group of people, who pull back to make room for him. Victoria Lowell might be a sad, rude woman with no sense of self-preservation, but most of these people know better than to provoke him. Except Leo doesn’t look particularly provoked right now. He’s concentrating. A glance at the tree, and then he stops and pulls me in front of him. Strong arms wrap around me from behind. “I love you,” Leo says, his voice low in my ear.
“I love you,” I tell him back, but it’s not enough. “Everything about you.”
I can feel him smiling. “You wouldn’t have to be in this viper’s den if it weren’t for me.”
“I’d go anywhere with you. Even these horrible fancy parties, I guess.” I let out a sigh, and he laughs.
Leo’s parents come to stand in front of the tree. His dad is handsome, but there’s something cruel about his eyes. The way he keeps his hand on Leo’s mother’s arm isn’t warm. It’s possessive, as if he needs everyone to see that she belongs to him. As if there was any question of that. I wonder if she’s happy. I wonder if she’s ever been happy, the way I am.
Bryant invites someone else to stand with them. The bishop, from Bryant’s introduction. No one seems particularly fazed by this. It’s a party with alcohol and food and many, many rooms to sneak off to, but a silence falls over the room.
The bishop starts talking about the birth of Christ. Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. No room at the Inn. He manages to fit in a few compliments about how there’s room at the Morelli mansion for visitors.
The bishop bows his head and raises his voice. The tree has been decorated to within an inch of its life, even down at the lowest branches. I think of tinsel and ornaments and the copy of Jane Eyre waiting for me on the table by Leo’s bed at home, which is now my bed too. The words of the prayer float over me. I think of Christmas mornings at my father’s house, with only a few presents and a huge smile on his face. I think of French toast in the frying pan and soft pajamas.
I think of waking up one morning this week, so early the sky was still gray, and padding to the bathroom with my eyes half-open. I think of finding Leo in the bed when I returned. He’d rolled onto his back, one hand thrown out across the pillow like he was reaching for me. I’d never seen him sleeping that way before. I didn’t think he ever would.
I breathe Leo in and my heart lifts just as the bishop says, “Amen.”
“Amen,” answers Leo. People around us are saying three, two, one. “Darling, look at the lights.”
As Leo says lights the tree illuminates. Thousands of lights. Tens of thousands. The tree seems to burst into life, becoming gorgeous and glittering and larger somehow. A collective gasp goes up from the room, and people are clapping, and it’s so simple, this thing. It’s such an easy delight to watch the lights on a Christmas tree turn on. Anyone could enjoy it. Constantine. Morelli. Leo holds me tighter and I twist in his grasp to see his face.
Eva was wrong. He’s not trying to hide his smile. He’s grinning like a fool, his eyes reflecting the million starry pinpricks in the branches. I catch Daphne watching him from her spot a few yards off. She’s smiling, too. She notices me looking before I can figure out what the look in her eyes means. Daphne gives me a little wave over her champagne glass. Then her parents come by and she’s swept into their wake on the way to dinner.
People move all around us. Some of them come forward to see the tree in all its lit-up glory. Some of them seek out partners and friends on the way to their tables.
I take a deep breath and look back at the tree.
Leo has a small library in his bedroom. One wall is taken up with windows. They look over the curve of his driveway and the trees on either side of it. We were sitting in a chair by those windows when he told me how, when he was growing up, he would look forward to vacations, birthdays, and holidays. It broke my heart. When he said it, it sounded so much like a part of his past he’d given up. Like those things had been ruined for him forever. I thought they were too tangled up in all the sadness and fear and pain of those years for him to feel anything but resentment.
“How?” I ask.
“How what?”
“How do you love this so much? After everything.”
“It’s mine,” he says. “No one takes what’s mine. My father could ruin other things if he wanted to, but not holidays. You heard the people in this room when the lights turned on. In that moment, nothing could be wrong.”
My lungs become breathless. Useless. Leo’s legendary temper might be mostly myth, but that doesn’t mean he’s not deadly. It doesn’t mean he won’t hurt me in all the ways I want him to. It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t make an enormous fucking scene to embarrass Victoria Lowell. He slides his arm up to my elbow and turns me toward the exit. Ever the gentleman to anyone watching, but I feel the impatience in his grip. The promise, too.
“I can’t have you squirming in your seat all through dinner,” he scolds, as if I’m the one who did this to myself.
“But everyone’s going there now. Won’t they notice if we’re late?” Leo takes us outside the ballroom and makes an immediate turn, then another.
“Of course they will.” The gold in his eyes flares with anticipation. “Let them.”
Chapter Five
Leo
I can’t wait to fuck my fiancée. Her need comes off her in waves on the way up the stairs. The SUV wasn’t enough for her, and that thought thrills me. It wasn’t enough.
She wants more. From me.
In every way, which is why I’m doing this now.
Haley doesn’t just want fucking, though she craves what I do to her. She wants secrets. She wants to understand everything about me, even the parts of my life I thought I’d never reveal to anyone.
There’s a wing of the mansion she’s never seen. It served as the backdrop to my existence for many years. It didn’t cross my mind that I would bring Haley here until I saw her face by the Christmas tree.
This will be two gifts in one.
The wide hallway is hushed, sound muted by thick carpet runners. We pass by a member of the staff, who’s there to turn away people who aren’t from the family. He nods to us.
Haley’s breathing is much louder than the whisper of the heating system. Up here, the lights have been turned very low. Any guests who manage to escape the notice of the staff member will understand it’s a private space and go back.
Partway down the hall, I point at a door. “Lizzy,” I say.
“Her bedroom?” Haley’s eyes light up, and she parts her lips. I can hear the protest before she makes it. Haley will say I don’t have to do this, because she never wants to hurt me. She is careful with her touch and with everything she does because it is her mission in life not to cause me any more pain.
My mission in life is to give her anything she wants. To give her everything she wants. Everything that’s in my power to give her.
Haley meets my eyes. “I love you, Leo.”
“I have never loved anything more than you,” I tell her. “And yes. This is Lizzy’s bedroom, when she’s not at school.” We’re coming up on another door. “Sophia. Daphne. Carter. Tiernan.” So many Morelli children. So many doors. We reach the last one on this stretch of hallway. “Eva.”
I guide her around the corner and gesture to the far end of the hall, down by itself. “Lucian. Eldest son, biggest room.”
Haley’s eyes follow where I’m pointing, and then she glances at the door directly to our right. “You?”
“Me.” This is the one I open and lead her through. Haley steps in tentatively, like there might be someone waiting for us. There’s no one. Nothing gives any sign I ever lived here. A queen-sized bed with a dark bedspread. A dresser. A door leading into what was my bathroom. There are no photos on the walls, and if Haley opened the closet door, she w
ould find it empty. The artifacts of growing up are either stored in my own home or long gone. I don’t bother with the lights. Turning them on won’t reveal anything, and there’s enough of a glow from the window to see.
Haley takes a deep breath and steps further in. She runs her fingertips over the edge of the bed. “It’s a pretty big room.” Her gown rustles with every step she takes. “But you didn’t like it here.” At the window, she pauses with her hands on the sill and looks out. “Oh,” she says, turning her head to look over her shoulder at me. “I’ve always thought it was weird.”
This is as long as I can stay away from her. I join her at the window and put my hands over hers, my body against hers, and lean down to kiss the side of her neck. “You thought what was weird?”
Haley shivers, and I double down on the kiss, turning it into the suggestion of a bite. Just the suggestion, because if I bite her as hard as I want to, it will become the topic of conversation at the dinner table. “That your bedroom is at the front of your house. I thought—I thought it would be in the back, hidden, because you keep everything a secret.”
“But?”
“But you like to be able to see the driveway. To see if anyone’s—” I run a hand down the front of her dress and press it between her legs. Haley gasps. “To see if anyone’s coming.”
“You’re the only one coming right now.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She’s squirming now, exactly as I thought she would. “I meant—you’re always trying to keep everyone safe. All those people downstairs think you’re so terrible, and—”
“Keep your hands on the windowsill.”
Haley actually whimpers when I step back, but she keeps her hands where I told her. “You’re not terrible,” she whispers.
“Am I not?” I find the zipper, hidden in the back of her dress, and tug it down. There is no more exquisite gift than Haley Constantine, soon to belong to me in every way there is on earth.
I’ve never unwrapped a better present. The red gown hates to leave her but I peel it off and make her step out of it. Her bra comes off next, and the matching panties, and she’s still got her hands on my windowsill. I leave her new necklace on. Trace every jewel in the settings while she looks down at the yard, her breaths coming shallower by the second. Haley Constantine is perhaps the first person in the world who can’t get enough of me. This, despite that I’ve given her nothing.
I remain fully clothed, leaving her to find what she can for her naked body without turning around. Her skin is so fucking soft underneath my fingertips. Her abs tense at my touch but the rest of her seems ready to fall.
“No,” she answers. “You’re not.”
“I promised you’d pay for your disobedience in the car.”
She sucks in a breath. “Now?”
I listen. An old habit. It doesn’t matter that I haven’t lived here for some time—I’m a frequent enough visitor that I still know the sounds of the house. The individual floorboards outside. Music filters dully through the floor. I was going to wait. I was going to wait, and now, with all this adrenaline, with all this love—
I can’t. She’s done it. Splintered my self control.
I kick her legs apart and cover her mouth with one hand.
With the other, I reach between her legs.
She’s still wet from when I fucked her before, and wet with new desire. I would strap her if we had the time. It would be too loud. I can’t wait that long.
“Five,” I murmur in her ear. Haley’s eyes flutter closed. She knows better than to beg. The first slap between her legs makes her thighs shake. “That’s for going against my wishes on the ride over.” Another one. A cry against my palm. “For coming twice when I told you to come once.” Another one. “For looking so fucking beautiful in your gown that it hurts.” Two in a row, harder than all the others, and I catch Haley’s scream in my hand. “For being perfect.” Her chest heaves from the effort of suppressing her sobs. She’s not letting her tears fall, even now, because I told her not to. My cock strains against my pants. I stroke my fingers over her punished folds while she comes down. “You’re perfect, darling. You’re everything I need. You were so fucking brave in the ballroom. And brave now. I know it hurts.”
She nods, eyes on mine. A single tear falls to her cheek. She’s dripping onto my fingers.
“You need to be fucked again.”
Color floods into her cheeks. A silent, obedient nod.
I take my hand from her lips and put it around her throat, settling it onto the necklace. Walk her across the room. Bend her over the bed. Put her hands on the bedspread, the way I want them. “Keep yourself up. I won’t have you ruining that stylist’s hard work.”
The sound she makes is soft. Desperate. It touches every part of me and pulls them all toward her. It’s obscenely beautiful, the way she’s bent over the bed. Haley’s arms quake with the effort of holding herself up so she doesn’t ruin her hair. “You’re so good for me.” I run my thumb down the divot of her spine, lower and lower and lower until I can reach between her legs. “Mmm. You’re fucking soaked. Is it the Christmas decorations, darling? Don’t lie to me. If tinsel gets you this wet, I’m leaving it up all year.”
I push three fingers inside of her. Haley catches herself in time to save her hair and her makeup. She struggles for breath, and everything about her has me painfully hard. The slick heat of her around my fingers, the delicate lines of her body, the panting. Jesus. It hurts to be this hard. To want her this much. But it’s a good pain. I didn’t think that would be possible. Not for many, many years. This is the kind of pain that begs to be released and can be released by fucking Haley.
“It’s rude to deny me an answer,” I murmur.
Haley swallows. “You’re dressed.”
“You don’t like the clothes?” Why not finger-fuck her slowly, tortuously, while I wait? Haley moans at the first movement.
She has to be red in the face now, though I can’t see it in this light. I don’t need to see it. Her whole body heats up with it. “I love you naked,” she manages.
I’m a patient man, but I’m out of patience. She wriggles when I take my fingers away, frantic, and I undo my zipper. Pull out my aching cock. Shove myself inside of her so hard she gasps. Her hands curl tight on the bedspread. Haley spreads her thighs wider to make room for me and Jesus fuck, she’s tight. “But when you’re still—dressed—it reminds me—of how you were—”
“When we first met?”
“Yes.” Sweet relief in her voice. Too difficult to talk when I’m fucking her like this. Savage strokes. They rock her against the bed and she has to move her hips in order to take it. She works so hard to take it. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it—sweet Haley Constantine, struggling to take every inch of my cock and loving it so much she can’t stop making little noises. They’re almost begging. Every one could be a shining ornament, hung on a green bough. My favorite fucking thing. “You wore all your clothes when you punished me. I wanted you then too.”
I take her hips in my hands. It’s too strong a grip for her soft skin. It’s guaranteed to leave fingerprints, maybe bruises, but the only way to survive this feeling is to pin her, crush her. Every part of her belongs to me. The pussy gripping my cock at this moment. Her hands, decorated with the engagement ring I gave her. Haley’s sweet mouth. If it wouldn’t ruin her makeup I’d take her throat now, too.
The next sound she makes is different. I only recognize it because I’ve fucked her so many times, under so many circumstances, and I know her as well as I know the Christmas songs at Midnight Mass.
I put my fingers to her clit and Haley moans, no hesitation. “You’re going to come on my cock.”
“Yes. Please. Let me.”
“Do it well, darling, or I’ll make you pay all the way home.”
That tips her over into an orgasm. Her muscles flutter around me, she pushes her hips back, and I keep fucking her. Deep. Hard. Pleasure coils. It’ll be so good to let go, but I w
on’t do it. Not yet, not yet. Waiting makes it better.
“Again.”
“Sensitive,” she manages. “It’s—”
“I don’t care if it hurts.” Three more circles around her clit, and Haley comes again. She loves it when I’m mean. “Again.”
“No.”
I put my free hand around her throat. “What was that, darling?”
She’s a shuddering mess. Wordless now. Only sounds. I’m still playing with her clit. Still forcing her pleasure. Giving myself more of it. “I will,” Haley chants. “I will, I will…”
“That’s right.”
It’s more difficult this time. It takes longer. Haley’s crying without tears by the time it happens, by the time it rips through her like a bomb, making her so tight and pulsing I can’t delay my own orgasm anymore. I pin her to the bed and fuck her through my own release. She keeps her head held high. Keeps her makeup intact. Keeps her hair flawless.
I’m breaking my own rules when I’m finished. Out of breath. My control is gone. I want more of her. I want nights with her. Years with her. Forever with her.
Not here, of course.
Haley is so wrung out from all her orgasms that I have to help her off the bed. I sit her on the edge and run my hands over her legs until they stop shaking. She grins down at me. “That was horrible.”
I slick my fingers between her spread thighs. “Your pussy loved it.”
She raises her hands to pat at her hair and lets out a breath. I let her compose herself for a moment while I wash up in the bathroom. Rearrange my clothes. When I return, a warm washcloth in hand, Haley stands and spreads her legs for me. Never mind that I punished her. Never mind that I made her pay in more orgasms than she was ready for. She’s willing to let me do it again.
But for now, she leans her head against me while I wash her. In order to do it properly I have to kneel down, and she settles her hands on my shoulders.
“Leo.”
“Yes?” I pause with one hand on her thigh and the other between her legs. It’s possible she’s never been in a more vulnerable state. Naked, apart from her engagement ring and her new necklace. My hand on her softest part.
