Wreck the Halls

A muffled sound reached her through the wall. It was brief and could have been a plane passing in the distance, perhaps lowering its equipment to land at JFK or LaGuardia. She knew that sound well. So why was her pulse galloping in the wake of it?

She’d almost convinced herself that she’d imagined Beat having what felt like an erection when she stumbled coming out of the SUV. That hard ridge against her thigh was his phone, right? But in general, people didn’t carry their phone front and center. Nor were phones so large. There was also the matter of him hissing a breath when she pressed against it . . . and maybe she hadn’t imagined his arousal?

What if it hadn’t been for her, though?

It was totally possible that Beat’s erection was basic anticipation of blowing off the day’s natural steam? Did men get hard thinking about masturbating? Was he masturbating right now?

Melody shuddered through an exhale and squeezed her legs together. Exhilaration trickled down to her toes, her head falling back. Heat bloomed between her thighs and an invisible feather tickled the inside of her belly. She tried to separate the sensations from Beat and just enjoy them for what they were, but without his image, the memory of his touch, his lingering energy, the need began to subside.

“No,” she breathed, the need starting to rekindle when a gruff sound slid beneath the door. It would be a violation of privacy to go inspect that sound, but she found herself balanced on the balls of her feet nonetheless, her ears hunting the air for another one of those deep burrs of sound. When another one finally came, her skin grew so sensitive that the mere act of breathing was nearly unbearable.

She would just go out into the hallway. Maybe she could hear him better there and when would she get this chance again? To be near this human being who attracted her so intensely? To memorize his scent and sound?

Sucking in a deep breath and holding it, Melody eased open the guest room door and stepped out into the dark hallway. The apartment was silent, dead silent, for long moments. Then she heard an unsteady gasp from the other side of Beat’s bedroom door and her knees almost buckled. She pressed the flat of her palm to the wall for support and took one tiny step closer. Thirty seconds. She would give herself thirty seconds.

The creak of a bedspring tightened something in her core so brutally, her toes curled into the carpet runner, her free hand lifting to twist in the front of her nightshirt—

Beat’s bedroom door opened.

He stood there shirtless in the lamplight, his chest rising and falling in great heaves, sweat dotting his brow and upper lip. A thick curve shaped the front of his sweatpants, pulling the material away from his body in a way that was . . . sexual and private and not for her eyes. But she couldn’t stop looking at him to save the world, because he was the most beautiful person on the planet, his eyes cloaked in shadows, hair finger fumbled, body carved with muscle.

“You made a sound,” he rasped.

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“Maybe it was a plane getting ready to land . . .”

Her words trailed off into hard breathing, because he emerged from the room, coming toward her in a prowling, purposeful way and she was so overcome by being his destination that she started to shake. She was shaking, head to toe, when he flattened her between his strapping body and the wall. “Mel.”

“Hold on,” was all she could think to say. “I just . . . y-you have to stop touching me.”

Immediately, he pressed his palms to the wall beside her head and shifted so they were no longer touching. But his nearness set off eruptions in her nerve endings anyway. Not a phone. That was definitely not a phone. There weren’t even pockets in those sweatpants. “Because you want me to stop?”

“No, because I’m going to embarrass myself,” she said on an exhale.

“No. I love the way you’re fucked-up over me.” He crowded in tighter again and dropped his mouth to her ear, his lips grazing her lobe in a way that made her see stars. “Mel, I like things a little fucked-up.”

This was it.

They were on the precipice of sharing his secret. It was so much at once. Having every line of his body corresponding to hers, that rough, intimate press, and his trust within reach. Melody’s heart hammered wildly, not sure if she could stand any more without collapsing under the weight of having so many pieces of him at the same time. Still . . . “Tell me.”

“I’d rather talk about what you like.” She felt, rather than saw, his brows knit together. “It sort of feels like I’m the only one who should know.”

A single word gusted out of her. “Oh.”

“Give me back permission to touch you, Peach,” he begged into her neck.

“Touch me,” she whispered.

“Good girl.” Very slowly, he suctioned the skin below her ear. Hard. Harder. Making her gasp, body liquefying between him and the wall. “I’m waiting to hear what you like.”

This. This all day. But he was looking for more. “I don’t think I know what I like yet,” she said in a rush. “I’m always too afraid to let my guard down. It just . . . maybe I’m imagining it, but I’m always worried they’re just taking notes so they can tell their friends.”

Beat lifted his head, studying her closely. There was total and complete understanding in his eyes. So powerful that a sense of belonging, a feeling of security crowded into her throat. “I get that, Mel. That’s why I . . .” He paused, gave a quick shake of his head. “God, I want to kiss you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my fucking life.”

“Then maybe you should,” she sobbed.

A grating sound rumbled in his throat.

He kissed her, then. Fully.

Beat kissed Melody.

Joy roared through her at the speed of light. Oxygen rushed in her bloodstream and her lungs became gluttonous for air. Beat’s lips slanting over the top of hers, his tongue begging hers to dance, was like having her life force doubled. Tripled. For once . . . she was comfortable in her own body. There were pulses in amazing places and her limbs felt the opposite of stiff. They were energized and languorous at the same time. Glorying in the hard angles of him where they moved and swelled against her curves with urgency.

“Jesus Christ, Mel. Your mouth.” He growled against it. “Of all the privileges I never feel like I’ve earned, you’re going to be the ultimate one, aren’t you?”

“You deserve everything,” she whispered.

“No.” He fisted the hem of her shirt, dragging it up to her throat, lust bracketing his mouth at the sight of her bare breasts, her panties. “But I’m going to rub and suck that gingerbread smell off you, anyway, aren’t I? Until you soak that tight thong they made you wear.”

Oh my God. The fact that he had a whole secondary vocabulary for these private moments was such delicious knowledge. “Yes,” she whispered. “Please.”