Page 49 of The Grump Who Stole Christmas
There was only one place left I imagined he might be. I was right.
He was on a ladder, with a mallet in his hand, hammering in the hinges that connected the front door to his house. No easy feat. He would have had to lift the door on his own, which from the bottom of the porch seemed massive, gotten it to line up with the top and bottom connecting hinges, and then secured it enough so that now he could fully connect it.
“That’s not a job for two people?” I asked. Although it obviously wasn’t, because it was almost done.
“I understand you have cause to question my physical strength, but as you can see, I was able to handle it myself.”
“Why? I mean, why are you hanging the door today? I thought you were going to wait for the crew to come back after New Year’s.”
He came down from the ladder and stood on the porch, his arms crossed over his chest. He wore a down vest and a wool cap, but his arms were only covered in the soft flannel shirt he wore.
I had this urge to rub that flannel between my fingers. I climbed the front steps, getting closer to him. So close I could reach out and touch him. Only I had this sense that if I tried to, he would pull away.
“I got the impression your brother Matt is not happy with me being in the house. Probably best if I move out to the cabin. It’s livable with a few amenities. I just needed to get the front door on so I could heat the place.”
“So this is about my brother and not about last night?”
Why did I have to go there? Why did I have to bring it up like it was a thing, when it was just a few kisses? No big deal. Two adults with some mild messing around.
But the ache, the ache had been so bad. Not just between my legs, but everywhere. Like my entire body and soul hurt being separated from him.
“It’s a little bit about last night,” he admitted. “Look, Kay…”
I had this sense he was going to launch into all the reasons why the two of us made no sense again. How he wanted something, someone, entirely different for his future rather than me. All reason and logic, and none of it I wanted to hear.
“I got off last night!” I confessed. “I know I said I wouldn’t, but I just couldn’t not do it. So I, you know, used my fingers…and I came. Just felt like I had to confess that.”
His face darkened then. “You came?”
I nodded. “Twice actually, which I’ve never really been able to pull off before. So good on you for giving me some proper motivation.”
“Motivation? What the…you came? What about sleeping in the ache?” he shouted.
Okay, maybe this wasn’t the smartest confession I’d ever made.
“I couldn’t get to sleep,” I said.
“No? Neither could I! I was up all freaking night long with a hard dick. But did I touch myself? Oh no, because I was sleeping in the ache.”
I had the good sense to look contrite. I shrugged my shoulders. “Sorry?”
His face turned an even darker shade of red. “Apology not accepted. You owe me an orgasm. Two orgasms!”
“How do you figure that?”
“Because you had two, and I had none, so you owe me. That’s exactly how I figured that.”
“Fine. Sure,” I said, stomping past him into the cabin. “We’re alone here. I’ll give you an orgasm!”
“Two orgasms,” he shouted behind me, even as he shut the now-functioning front door behind him.
I turned to face him and raised one eyebrow. “You’re getting up there close to forty, aren’t you? Can you do two orgasms without some medical intervention?”
That was definitely the wrong thing to say. He pushed into my personal space and bent down so that our noses were practically touching.
“Try me,” he grumbled.
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