Page 99 of Christmas in Coconut Creek

I tore the paper, unveiling a white box with a bow around it. The top popped off as I tugged the fabric away and that airless, tight-chested, speech-disabling thing I’d found happening around Frankie more and more often came on with force.

My lips parted, the singular expression of vitality.

“It’s a Blue Morpho,” he explained as I lifted the gorgeous, crystal-like butterfly by its necklace chain out of the box. Teal wings spilled into black, angular tips. “Like the one that you wanted to take off with at the museum.” He chuckled quietly. “I figured it liked you for a reason.”

“Frankie…” I didn’t know what to say. My fingers quaked nervously, handling the piece as if it were glass. “What the fuck?”

He paled. “I know, I know—what the fuck was I thinking.” He moved to take it from me and I yanked the necklace closer to my chest.

“No—what the fuck? I got youpajamas,” I scoffed. The last thing anyone had ever one-upped me on wasgift giving. “Plaid pajama bottoms to replace your holier-than-thou ones.”

Color returned to Frankie’s face, slipping down his neck, resuscitating the near-dead moment. “My heart just stopped,” he huffed. “Don’t fuck with me like that, O.”

“I’m not fucking with you. We need to go to the mall tomorrow.”

“The mall is most definitely closed on Christmas Day,” he reminded me.

“The day after.”

“The twenty-sixth is the biggest return day of the year.”

“I need to fix this.”

“Or…” He reached for the hand still pressed to my chest and peeled it away delicately, loosening my fingers from their tight grip around the chain. “You can stop being a crazy person, turn around, and let me put this on you.”

My heartbeat began a steady climb, thrumming in time with my movements. First hesitant, pinning Frankie with a wary glare, and then more deliberately as my body twisted away from him and I felt the first touch of warm fingertips across my nape. He brushed my hair off my shoulders in sweet, useless strokes.

“Hold on.” I gathered my curls in a ponytail, lifting it to expose the long lines of my throat and every nerve ending across my neck ignited in anticipation. I had always loved being touched there. My skin was sensitive to the attention in a cruel way; it disabled me, loosened my muscles, waking up every last untouched part of my body until it was nothing but craving.

There was silence behind me before two hands passed in front of my face and I got a perfect glimpse of the blue butterfly as it lowered to settle in the dip between my collarbones. The charm was colder than I’d expected and I pulled a quaint breath through my teeth. I was on the edge of a cliff in my mind. Dangling, I wanted to fall—I wanted to fall.

Frankie’s knuckles brushed against my pulse and my eyes drooped closed. He must have felt the adrenaline coursing through my veins, and I would own the fact that I didn’t give a damn anymore. The clasp snapped together at the top of my spine but his hands remained and the quiet lingered, so deafening I could hear the candle whispering across the room.

Neither of us moved a muscle. My stomach hollowed out like a cavern.

Then I felt hislipsclaiming the curve where my neck met my shoulder. I sighed out a sound that could only be described as a whimper as my hair fell back through my fingertips. Somehow one of the most innocent things he’d done to me felt the most sultry.

“I know,” Frankie exhaled against my neck.

His forearm came across my middle, pulling me to his chest. His legs opened around my hips and he buried his face in the swell of my throat, warm, wet lips tasting every open inch. My breasts tightened, and as if he could decipher my need like a map key, his hands traveled exactly where I wanted them, squeezing me through the fabric of my dress.

“I’ve been thinking about this,” he said. “Two fucking days this is all I could think about, Ophelia.”

I hummed agreeably, using the small window he’d opened to dig my hand into the hair at the side of his head and pull his mouth over mine. Our tongues connected instantly, nothing timid or explorative to be had—it was pure pent-up lust cracking like a sheet of ice. One of his hands palmed my throat, toying with pressure, and the decision to let the night take us somewhere slowly was shot to hell.

I kissed him like he was mine to consume. We battled back and forth, lips crashing, teeth nipping through short gasps. He tasted warm and sweet. A purr rumbled in the back of his throat as my grip tightened in his hair and the heat radiating off his naked chest against my spine increased.

Frankie’s fingers pinched my cheeks, popping me off his lips but holding me there with dominant command. “Do you want me to fuck you?”

“Yes,” I answered without hesitation.

Then I was on my back, the decorative skirt beneath the Christmas tree in my peripheral, starlight radiating from the branches over my head, nothing but the sound of crackling fire and our terse breathing dancing in the space around us.

“God, you made me wait though, didn’t you, sweetheart?” He settled between my legs where I could clearly see him straining against the zipper of his pants. I traced the thick outline with my eyes, my core throbbing more every second for his touch.

Gentle hands grazed up both sides of my thighs, dipping beneath the velvet skirt of my dress and curling around the tight band of my stockings. He was stoking an already raging fire. In any other instance I might have wanted the delicate foreplay, but I was so ready for him that if I didn’t feel a trace of satisfaction any sooner I would implode.

“Don’t treat me like a flower,” I coached. His hands stopped, a sinful smirk playing over his features. “I’ll tell you if it’s too much.”

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