by Sivec, Tara
“Like I might throw up, but I’m sure it will subside the longer I’m away from the sticky, soul-sucking demons downstairs.”
Bodhi chuckles, and when the soft, deep sound makes me feel all tingly, I know I’m still fucked in the head after my momentary loss of brain cells earlier downstairs, when he picked up that damn baby and I felt… mushy. My entire body turned to liquid, and everything got warm and gooey watching him stand there snuggling a baby to his chest, and some weird, gasping-choking sound came out of my mouth before I could stop it. Wren has a term for it—a babygasm. An involuntary loss of motor skills that results in a climax of emotional excitement when you witness the man you love holding a baby. I had a goddamn babygasm!
Gross! Snap out of it, Tess!
“How did you ever help Wren raise Owen when you can’t stand kids?” Bodhi smiles in amusement, tucking his shaggy blond hair behind one ear as he casually leans against the wall next to the door, shoving his hands in the front pockets of his shorts while I sit down on the end of the bed.
He’s the only man I know who looks hot in cargo shorts. Cargo shorts and a white fitted T-shirt with a green Christmas tree and the words Lit AF printed on it. Whether it’s sunny or snowing, Bodhi will only ever wear shorts and a T-shirt. He says he’s allergic to pants and long sleeves after spending his entire life wearing nothing but pretentious designer suits and clothing. And let’s just say I’m perfectly fine with his choice in wardrobe, especially the fitted shirts.
If you’ve never seen a surfer’s body, you should really google that shit. And I’m honestly truly and deeply sorry for anyone who has never gotten the privilege of being up close and personal and been able to reach out and touch one. It takes a lot of muscles to paddle out through the surf and catch a wave, and Bodhi has caught some of the biggest ones out there all over the world. He’s so ripped I almost want to lift my crying ban and weep every time he takes his shirt off.
I suddenly remember Bodhi asked me a question about Owen, and I should probably stop drooling over him and answer it.
“Honestly, I couldn’t stand Owen until he could walk and wipe his own ass.” I shrug, making Bodhi chuckle again as he grabs a red leather book from the side table next to the door that Allie told us has a list of all the amenities offered at The Redinger House, as well as what there is to do in Snowfall Mountain. “Go ahead. Tell me all the fun things there are to do around here.”
Bodhi is practically vibrating with excitement as he thumbs through the book, his eyes getting as wide as a little kid on Christmas morning when they first come downstairs and see what Santa brought. I can’t help but laugh at his exuberance, all the stress from downstairs slowly starting to slip away just listening to him adorably ramble.
“They’ve got a trolley ride around the mountain to look at lights, Christmas PJ game night in the basement, Christmas movies showing every night in the barn behind the house, a Christmas parade down the cobblestone main street, a gingerbread house decorating contest, a Christmas cookie decorating brunch, and oh my God!” Bodhi gushes, bouncing up and down on his feet. “Santa comes on Christmas Eve and gives every single person a present! So freaking cool! I mean, we won’t be here on Christmas Eve, but you know, it’s cool for everyone else.”
For another few seconds, once again, I feel bad that Bodhi’s fun is being taken away and we’re only going to be here for three days. As crazy as it was downstairs when we got here, I still like that it’s just me and Bodhi and we can do whatever we want without following someone else’s schedule or feeling guilty if we don’t want to attend something.
I’ve been spending the night on Christmas Eve at Laura Bennett’s cottage since the year I turned eighteen. Their Christmas Eves are the craziest things I’ve ever seen. Everyone including the Bennetts, me, Emily and her parents, Murphy, and a few extended family members and their kids from the mainland spend the night eating, drinking, and playing card and board games until we all eventually pass out all over the cottage on furniture or curled up on the floor with blankets and pillows. Then everyone wakes up at the ass-crack of dawn, and we all open presents. Together. Everyone ripping into everything at once and no one even paying attention to what’s being opened by others.
Laura had the wall knocked out between her garage and the family room ten years ago to make it one ginormous family room just for Christmas Eve. I am not even kidding. She added on an addition to her cottage for one twenty-four-hour period of the year. And on top of all those people, this year we’ll have the addition of Palmer, Shepherd, and Bodhi. And as great as it is being with everyone every year, the idea of having a nice, quiet Christmas with just me and Bodhi where we can exchange presents in private, and screw under the mistletoe after mimosas if we want, then hang out with everyone later is sounding more and more appealing.
But telling Laura, Birdie, and Wren that I’m not spending the night on Christmas Eve would go over just about as well as me telling Bodhi all the weed in the world suddenly disappeared overnight.
“You want to do every single one of those things, don’t you?” I ask him, even though I already know the answer, since he’s still bouncing up and down and quickly flipping the pages while his eyes get bigger and brighter with each new item he reads.
It all shuts off in the blink of an eye, and Bodhi quickly snaps the book closed and puts it back on the side table next to a motion-activated hippo that starts dancing and singing that god-awful song again.
“Nah, it’s cool.” He shrugs easily as he smacks around at the hippo until he finally finds the button that will shut it off. “This trip is all about you and getting you to relax and stop blaming Tiny Tim for everything.”
“So you’re saying I shouldn’t blame him when the cops find your body dumped in a field?” I mutter just to be annoying, because he doesn’t know my brain tumor struggles, man, and I’m still feeling weird and melty.
Bodhi walks across the room to me, pausing when his knees bump into mine and I’m looking up at him from the end of the bed with my arms still crossed. Reaching forward with both of his hands, he presses them against either side of my face and then bends forward to kiss the top of my head, holding his lips there while he speaks.
“I know you’re not a fan of all this Christmas craziness. We’re here for you to get some much-needed peace and quiet, not for me to drag you around doing a bunch of stupid shit you don’t want to do. That’s why we left Summersweet for a few days.”
Pulling back, he looks down at me with his hands still holding my face as I finally uncross my arms and hook my thumbs in a belt loop on either side of his hips.
“We’ll just relax and catch up on some napping and Netflix,” he reassures me, making me think for the millionth time since he walked into SIG and made me giggle like an idiot with his adorableness just how lucky I am that he decided to stay in one place for the last six months.
“Are you relaxed yet?” he asks softly, his thumbs moving gently back and forth against my cheeks as he studies my face.
“Not even a little.”
Dropping his hands from my cheeks and crossing his arms in front of him, Bodhi gives me a stern look. “You are officially on vacation and need to stop thinking so much. Take off your pants. The sweater needs to go too.”
My eyes narrow as I look up at him when he orders me around, and he just chuckles and shakes his head at me.
“Don’t act like that didn’t just get you wet.” He smirks.
God. Dammit.
He knows the only time he’s ever allowed to tell me what to do without me raising holy hell is when we’re having sex. It’s the one and only time I just need a break from being in control and making all the decisions. He probably also knows I’ve been wet since he kissed the shit out of me downstairs, the smug bastard.
I’m still cursing him in my head even as I quickly shed my black skinny jeans. And since I’ve never been one to play coy and pretend like I don’t know what’s about to happen here, my cotton boy shorts are flung ac
ross the room with my jeans to save time, as well as my chunky black sweater, until I’m leaning back on the bed on my hands, wearing nothing but a black lace bra with my legs dangling off the end. I’d take the bra off too, but that’s where I keep my extra lighter, and I like to have it close by at all times… just in case.
“You’re so fucking hot,” Bodhi mutters, his eyes slowly moving over my body like he’s in a daze, intensifying the pulsing ache between my legs the longer he stares without touching any part of me.
He suddenly drops down on one knee on the carpet right in front of my dangling legs, and I forget how to breathe as my wide, freaked-out eyes watch him reach into the front pocket of his shorts. My head is already shaking back and forth before he even says anything, and now I’m trying to remember what I ate last, because it’s definitely going to come back up all over Bodhi’s face.
Oh no. Taco Bell was the last thing we ate about a half hour before we arrived here, because I got hangry and told Bodhi if he didn’t pull off at the next exit and get me a Nachos Bell Grande and two Beef Meximelts, I would continue burning his rolling papers one-by-one in the cup holder. And then I found out Taco Bell took the Meximelts off the menu, and Bodhi had to ask the drive-thru worker for a very large cup of complimentary water so he could put out the cup holder fire that got a little out of control.
We’re definitely going to have to pay extra for that rental.
When Bodhi sets his big, warm hands on the tops of my bare thighs, and I realize he didn’t pull anything out of his pocket—he just needed to adjust himself—and his other knee joins the first one down on the carpet, I let out the breath I was holding and my stomach immediately stops feeling queasy.
Shit. Now I want more Taco Bell.
“Close your eyes and let Bodhi make everything better.”
Several minutes later, I’ve completely forgotten about all of my troubles when Bodhi is still on both of his knees on the carpet at the end of the bed, and his perfect mouth is between my legs. He licks, and he sucks, and he nips all my worries away, until I’m flat on my back, my hands are fisted into the stupid hippo bedspread, and I’m chanting his name.
My legs shake and my back arches as Bodhi presses his palms harder against the inside of my thighs. He flattens them open against the mattress, spreading me wide so he can feast on me, dragging his tongue through my core before going to town on my clit with short, quick flicks.
“Oh, God, don’t stop,” I tell him, writhing myself against his mouth when he doesn’t even come close to stopping.
He just spreads me wider and licks faster, knowing as soon as he starts doing that there is no stopping my orgasm. I love that he’s not wasting time dragging this out, as fun as that usually is, and he knows I just need some fast relief and relaxation that only his expert mouth and tongue can provide.
I open my eyes and look down my body, Bodhi’s blue eyes locking onto mine as I watch his lips wrap around my clit and feel him suck, and that’s all it takes for this release to explode out of me in record time. When he’s licked every last bit of pleasure out of me, Bodhi moves at the speed of light and stands up from the floor to strip, quickly tossing all his clothes across the room with mine, his T-shirt landing on one of the branches of the Christmas tree. I have just enough time to quickly appreciate Bodhi’s spectacular abs and mouth-watering biceps before he’s moving again.
A squeak flies out of me as he grabs my hips and flips me over to my stomach, scooting me up the bed at the same time. One of the pillows is pulled from the mountainous pile and Bodhi shoves it under my hips. The rest of my body melts into the mattress when he kneels between my legs and then leans over me with his hands resting on either side of my head as he whispers in my ear.
“I’m gonna fuck the hell out of you.”
My pussy clenches just like it always does when Bodhi gets all serious and hot in the bedroom, and I lift my hips and grind my ass against his cock until he groans loudly.
“Merry Christmas to me” is all I have time to mutter in reply.
Bodhi grabs both of my hands and yanks them up the bed until my arms are out in front of me against the mattress, and he does indeed fuck the hell out of me. My breath leaves me with a whoosh as his groin smacks into my ass when he thrusts into me hard and deep.
“I want a hippo—”
Bodhi immediately pulls his hips back, and the stupid song I must have imagined cuts off. After ten solid minutes of him opening and closing our bedroom door, I will probably be hearing that song in my head forever.
Holding himself still with just the tip of his cock inside me and driving me crazy, Bodhi starts peppering kisses along the back of my neck and shoulder. Gripping my hands harder in his against the mattress, he thrusts back into me, and I let out a loud moan.
“I want a hippopotamus—”
The song cuts off again when Bodhi pulls his hips back, sliding almost all the way out of me again before I realize what the hell is happening.
“That damn pillow you put under me plays music,” I growl, turning my head back to glare at him over my shoulder.
Bodhi just smirks and starts moving in and out of me faster and harder. The singing hippo pillow belts out her muffled, on and off, partial tune as she’s repeatedly smushed between my hips and the bed thanks to Bodhi’s powerful body driving into me from behind, until we’re both laughing at the absurdity of it. Bodhi’s chest rumbles against my back as he perseveres like a trooper.
“I want a—”
“I want a—”
“I want a—”
“I want a—”
“Oh my God, just keep your dick in me long enough so we can finally hear the whole song!”
“That’s the Christmas spirit!” He laughs through his moans against my ear as I swivel and move my hips back to meet each of his quick, pounding thrusts.
After five more I want a’s and another small orgasm that shocks the hell out of me, considering what’s happening right now, Bodhi follows quickly behind, throwing his head back as he comes and punctuating each of his final, orgasmic thrusts with a shout.
“Fucking! Hippo… potamus! For Christmaaasss!”
It’s so ridiculously Bodhi that I laugh all the way through the last few shallow thrusts of his release until he collapses next to me in bed. When our eyes meet, me on my stomach with my arms still stretched out in front of me, and Bodhi flopped onto his back, we both start cracking up all over again as I reach underneath myself, yank the damn pillow out, and toss it down on the floor.
“You definitely have to let me burn that. Not only because it’s annoying, but because you helped me humped myself to an orgasm on the face of that hippo. She’ll never be the same again. It’s best to just put her out of her misery.”
“Man, I love the shit outta you. Will you pretty please marry me?” Bodhi suddenly asks, holding his hands under his chin and batting his eyes at me.
That tingly, melty feeling is back in full force, and butterflies flap excitedly in my stomach, realizing that blowjob proposal two months ago wasn’t just some freak, one-off, accidental slip of the tongue he didn’t mean. You don’t ask someone the same question twice if you aren’t serious the first time. You pretend it never happened and you never speak of it again, which is exactly what I thought we were doing!
The excited butterflies in my stomach are lit on fire by my black soul, and my heart moves right on from skipping to racing a mile a minute when I start thinking about the ten thousand wedding binders Birdie has. And the hundreds of hideous, sparkly, poufy white dresses I’ve had to watch her try on, and all the episodes of Bridezillas she’s made me watch with her, and the engagement party SIG threw for her, and the engagement party her family threw for her, and the engagement party her friends threw for her, and we still have multiple bridal showers yet to come before we even get to the wedding.
And then all eyes are on you, judging your choice of food, judging your choice of cake, judging your choice of music, and stemware, and flowers
. And 90% of them don’t even give a shit about you. They just came for the free food and alcohol, and to see if Uncle Greg will get so drunk again he tries to make out with one of his cousins. Followed by a lifetime of doing the same things with the same person, arguing about kids, arguing about money, arguing about work, arguing about what’s for dinner, until you’re sitting on opposite ends of the couch from each other every night, annoyed by the sound of their breathing, wondering if it would be less of a hassle to get a divorce or murder them in their sleep.
“Fuck off,” I finally growl before pushing myself up from the bed as Bodhi chuckles at me while I disappear into the bathroom, slam the door closed, and lift the lid of the toilet.
“I want a hippopotamus for Christmas!”
“God. Dammit,” I mutter, slamming the lid closed, and seriously consider peeing in the sink.
CHAPTER 5
Tess
“You snow the drill.”
“I am totes loving the hoodie and the space buns in your hair,” Millie greets me with a smile on the other side of the check-in desk as the motion-activated Santa drops his drawers and starts shaking his ass. I sigh and look down at my black Nirvana hoodie I paired with black leggings and the thickest pair of fuzzy black socks I own. Still not warm enough.
I woke up feeling extra chilly this morning. It has everything to do with this old, drafty house and the snow still blowing around outside that my warm-climate body isn’t used to, and absolutely nothing to do with waking up surrounded by creepy hippo eyes… alone. I should feel fabulous that I got the best sleep I’ve had in the last two months, and after I closed my eyes last night, I didn’t open them or even move again until 10:00 a.m. As a bartender, I usually work late into the night and sleep until noon. Except for the last stupid few months, in which my sleep has been a shitshow on account of me dying and all.