Page 47 of The Grump Who Stole Christmas
I smiled. I liked that. I liked that he understood me and that we would be in the same place together. I got off his lap and felt his arms fall away from me.
Reluctantly? Maybe.
I didn’t say anything as I left.Good nightseemed too dull. Anything else might give away too much.
I reached for the door handle, but suddenly I felt a rush of movement and then he was there, his body pressed up against my back, his thighs pressing into the back of mine. I could feel his erection through the boxer briefs he was wearing and I wanted to push back and rub up against him so bad.
“Hey, just so you know. I really like your bony ass.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, Kay. I really do. Anyone ever calls you something you don’t like, you tell me and I’ll…”
“Beat them up? Take them out? Crush them with your mighty ax?”
“That’s a little violent of you,” he said, and there it was. That hint of teasing back in his voice. He was trying to end this on a light note, not a somber one. “I was thinking I would just reach out to you and make sure your feelings weren’t too hurt.”
“Hmm. That doesn’t feel like boyfriend material. Guess you’re right. I’m going to have to find someone who wants to wear the pants in this family.”
“You can do that, but he won’t come with my pasta recipes.”
He snickered and so did I. Then I felt him putting distance between us as he moved back toward the bed.
Reluctantly? Maybe.
I was about to leave when something occurred to me and I whirled around to confront him.
“Wait. Recipes? You can cook more than one pasta dish?”
Suddenly my stomach was growling with hunger.
He laughed again. “Go to bed, Kay-Kay.”
I did as he said and made my way back to my room. Just like I told him I wouldn’t, I didn’t touch myself.
Instead I crawled into bed, aching, hungry…and smiling.
TWELVE
Paul
I was fucked. I had a full day ahead of me at the farm, I had a list of things I wanted to get done at the cabin. Except I hadn’t slept at all for the remainder of the night.
Why the fuck had I agreed to not get myself off?
Sleeping in the ache sounded like a lyric from a Lady Gaga love song. I’d been rock hard all night. Without the relief of getting off, it was all I’d been able to think about. How she felt snuggled up in my lap. How she tasted. The soft sounds she made in the back of her throat. The way her head arched to the side when I was sucking on her neck.
She liked to have her neck sucked. Would she let me mark her with a love bite?
Hickey was a word my teenage self used. Love bite sounded significantly more mature.
I thought about all of that and I ached. I ached hard.
So much, that by the time I told myself I had to get out of bed and start the day, I knew I was both grumpy and fucked.
Fucked because I was not done wanting Kay-Kay Kringle. Which meant that whole aching thing was only going to get worse and worse. Especially, since I knew she’d been as reluctant to leave my bedroom as I’d been to let her go.
How much longer would she stay? Certainly until all this publicity stuff played out. Until she was sure she could turn the inn back over to her father. Although I didn’t see how that didn’t eventually get them back to the same trouble they were in now. I hadn’t misrepresented the situation when I said it was too much for Pops.
