Christmas Box Set

by Nella Tyler

  “You were right,” I said, smiling at Carter. “I’m much warmer now.”

  He smiled, too, his straight teeth catching the bright moonlight. “Told you it would work.”

  I could still taste the sweetness of him on my tongue, but there was a heavy rock settling in my stomach at the same time. Not from what he’d said — he hadn’t really traveled much compared to me; I really thought if he just went on a few amazing trips, that would change his outlook irreversibly and he’d be just as hooked on going to new places as I was — but from stubborn reality, which kept rising to the surface to ruin my good time no matter how deeply I pushed it down.

  I just couldn’t turn my mind away from the fact that, very soon, I was going to have to make a terrible decision. I wasn’t so full of myself that I thought the British Museum would be floored by my limited experience and bachelor’s in Art History, but Willem had talked to his friend again and told me I had an extremely great shot at the job. My heart was sick with the possibility, and I didn’t understand how I could feel such intense pride and intense dread at the same time.

  But it was tearing me apart. It was only a matter of time before I’d be stuck making the choice between the man I loved and the job I’d dreamed of having since high school. This might be the last perfect night that I had with Carter. I was flying back to Manhattan a few days after New Year’s. Who knew what would happen once we were apart. I needed to enjoy this, because, as we both knew, we weren’t guaranteed the future, no matter how great the present seemed to be.

  “I have one more thing on my list of things I’ve never done,” I said, drawing Carter’s eyes away from the little tents out on the frozen lake. Despite the sick feeling simmering in my stomach, the night seemed magical, with all the fresh snow on the ground and the entire surface of the frozen lake seeming kissed by moonlight. It was truly a winter wonderland, and I wanted to enjoy it with Carter. I wanted to lose myself so completely that not even my thoughts could find me.

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  I nodded. “You can actually help me with this one. Right now.”

  He tilted his head against the top of the driver’s side seat as his eyebrows came together in the glowing moonlight that was flooding the car through the sunroof.

  “I’ve never had sex in the backseat of anyone’s car.”

  His head jerked up. If he’d been sitting in a regular chair, he’d have fallen onto the ground.

  I laughed at his visibly surprised reaction. “What do you say?” I asked. “Think we can do something about marking that item off of my list?”

  His shocked expression had melted into a dreamier one, and I wished there was enough light to see the change in his eyes, which darkened into a beautiful honey-tinged hazel right before we made love.

  “I think that’s entirely doable,” he said, his voice a deep rumble in his broad chest.

  “You’re entirely doable,” I said, and his lips rose into that sexy smile. Quite suddenly, the worries of only a few moments ago dissolved in the heat that sizzled to life inside of me at the sight of that smile. Carter still had no idea how attractive he was, but I sure as hell did. I couldn’t get enough of his warm mouth and eager fingers.

  “Ladies first,” he said, indicating the backseat.

  I unzipped my boots and kicked them off, leaving them on the floor before turning and climbing into the backseat. The back was actually pretty spacious, even after he followed me. There wasn’t enough room to lie down, but I had something different in mind anyway. I unzipped my jeans and slid them off my legs, shivering at the slight chill — I hadn’t been able to warm up since coming back to this damned state; I had no idea how people lived here every winter. It wasn’t like New York stayed warm in the winter, but damn, it was freezing here!

  I climbed into Carter’s lap and kissed him as he ran his hands up and down my legs. He was so warm, so tasty. I would never get tired of our tongues twisting around each other as we tried to explore every corner of each other’s mouths. I ran my hands through his soft hair and he snuck his hands under my sweater and jacket in search of more naked skin. I moved my hips over his lap, loving the feeling of him so aroused because of me. I didn’t want to wait any longer. My body knew what it wanted. It was aching for him.

  I pulled out of our passionate kissing, a little breathless. “Take off your pants.” I had to get off of him in order to let him do it, but I took the opportunity to slide my thong off and toss it onto the ground next to my jeans. I watched him unzip his jeans and slide them off his waist along with his boxer briefs. At the sight of his hard cock, I lost all control of myself. I couldn’t wait another moment. I wanted him right now.

  I jumped back onto his lap before he’d even gotten his pants past his calves. “That’s far enough,” I said, and shoved him back into the seat. I took hold of him, rubbing the head of his cock against my sex, just letting him see how wet I was for him, how ready.

  “You’re so wet already, Soph,” he said, gasping the words as he reached behind me to take hold of my ass.

  “I can’t be around you without wanting this,” I whispered and sat down all the way, swallowing him whole.

  He groaned, his hands shifting onto my hips so he could pull me over the shape of him. “God, you feel so good.”

  “You, too,” I moaned in reply. I moved my hips in a jerking motion, wanting him as deep as I could get him, the nerves tingling between my legs the faster and harder I went. Carter gasped again, and squeezed my hips more tightly. My body was on fire. I rode him harder, wanting him as deep as he would go, both of us breathing in spurts of hot air, fogging up the windows as we locked the cold air outside. In here, the air was boiling with the heat of our shared passion, the feelings building inside me, the pressure caused by the long, thick shape of his cock impaling me in the best way possible.

  I curled my upper body over him, arms around his head as I bucked my hips to drive him even further inside me. He made a sharp, erotic sound, and my orgasm came at that moment, a gush of warm feeling that filled me up and flushed my cheeks with blood and heat, the sweat breaking out at my hairline and rolling down my back. I wanted to strip all of our clothes off. I wanted nothing in the way of our naked skin. Our hot breath mingled as my hips moved, guided by his hands rocking me over his lap, the heat of our skin burning up the inside of the car.

  Carter muttered something into the front of my jacket, and I held onto him tighter. I wanted his mouth on my nipples, sucking hard, but there were too many layers of clothing between his mouth and my skin. I rode him harder, groaning behind gritted teeth as a second orgasm build itself on top of the shuddering aftereffect of the first one.

  “Coming,” he gasped, holding onto my hips even tighter, his own hips lifting to push himself further into me, though my crotch was flat against his lap and rubbing over the soft hair at the base of his cock. My orgasm exploded, and he released a loud groan, pulling me down over him, his body straining into mine for one intense second before he melted onto the backseat, his muscles liquid and eyes closed as he sank out of my arms.

  I collapsed onto him, heart racing as I caught my breath, the ecstasy running through me both debilitating and exhausting. I wanted to give into it, just letting that feeling decide the rest of my future. If Carter could make me feel this good, I should keep coming back, I should arrange my whole life around this feeling.

  But I knew I couldn’t. I had to make smart decisions about the rest of my life, no matter how good we felt together.

  “That was amazing,” I whispered, and he made a breathy, agreeable sound. “No matter what the future brings, I’ll never forget how hot we burn for each other. I’ve never felt this with anyone else.”

  Carter kissed my cheek with such tenderness, it brought tears to my eyes. I pressed my face into his jacket so he wouldn’t see when I started to cry.

  Carter

  New Year’s Eve

  Sophia and I spent the night snuggled in front of the television, watching
as the last few hours of the old year disappeared.

  “It’s weird to be sitting here, in Madison, Wisconsin, watching the celebration in New York City, where I actually live,” she said and tittered a little. “It’s kind of surreal.”

  “Would you have gone to the festivities if you hadn’t come home for the wedding and the holidays?” I asked.

  She shook her head against my arm. “No. I can’t even imagine how bad the crowds are. I probably would’ve just watched from my own apartment. Or Willem’s. He and his wife host a party every year that’s supposed to be pretty amazing.”

  We watched the show for a few seconds in silence. I couldn’t get enough of the shape of her resting against me. This time last year, I’d never have imagined that I’d have everything I ever wanted at the birth of the next year. It still floored me to think about it, though I was in a perpetual state of terror that I was going to do something to fuck all of this up.

  It was a relief to know that all the time I’d spent pining for Sophia she was pining for me, too, but the years of uncertainty had done irreversible damage to my self-esteem, leaving me questioning every word I said and every move I made. Something seemed to be bothering her, but I didn’t want to pry too much for fear that it would just send her running away from me again.

  “What do you want to see happen in the upcoming year?” I asked, not looking away from the singer performing on my dad’s big screen television. I had no idea who it was. I didn’t even have a TV in California.

  “I’d like all my dreams to come true,” she said in a thoughtful tone. She sounded like she was fading. We’d both had coffee in the middle of the afternoon so we could make it through until midnight.

  We’d had several late nights in a row. I couldn’t get enough of her. I wanted to spend every waking minute exploring her body with my tongue, kissing parts of her no one had ever touched before and wiping away any lingering memories of anyone else who might have touched her in the same places.

  I turned to kiss the top of her head. “My dreams have already come true.”

  She smiled, but seemed distracted. I chalked it up to the whirlwind we’d both been through over the last week and a half, with our parents marrying and then our relationship rekindling, jumping right over our childhood friendship to land us directly into the realm of adult lovers.

  As the New Year drew nearer, I poured two glasses of champagne and left them on the coffee table for us to toast each other and the renewal of our relationship. Two minutes before the start of the next year, we put on our jackets, hats, and scarves and went outside, leaving the door cracked so we could hear when the countdown began.

  I put my arm around Sophia and drew her in closer. “I’m so glad we’re here together. Next year is going to hold so many great things for us. I can just feel it. Can’t you?”

  She looked up at me, a smile on her face that seemed wistful. But I didn’t get the chance to question her mood — which had started out buoyant as usual at the beginning of the day, only to sink a little more as the hours and minutes passed, not all the way, but enough to be noticeable — because the countdown began. From where we were standing, we had an unobstructed view of the fireworks display from downtown Madison. We used to watch them every year when we were growing up. We counted down together, getting louder the closer we got to one. There were other people standing out on their front porches, doing the same thing we were.

  “Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!”

  I took Sophia in my arms and kissed her deeply, the heat created by that deep, passionate kissing, casting out some of the iciness from standing outside for the last a couple of minutes. We pulled away from each other, me smiling in that way that I hadn’t been able to stop doing since our relationship jumped into high gear, and her looking very pensive and withdrawn all of a sudden.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. It was freezing out here. Now that we’d made it to midnight, I was ready to go back inside and go upstairs for some fun before falling asleep. The mess in the living room and kitchen could wait until the morning…or early afternoon, depending on how much fun we had in the next hour or so.

  Her face changed again, going from pensive to somber. “I think we should break up.”

  I felt like I’d been blindsided, each of her words like a punch to the stomach. Add that to the ice in the air, and it took much too long to respond to her. I kept trying to find a way to take what she’d said as a New Year’s joke, but that wasn’t a thing.

  “What?”

  “We’re right back in the same place we were when we went off to different colleges. We live on the opposite side of the country. Our lives are moving not just in different directions, but at different speeds.” She shook her head when I reached for her again, so I put my arms down, still stunned by what she was saying. “I don’t have a right to try to hold onto you or ask you to drastically change your plans to fit what I have planned for my own life. That’s not fair to you, Carter.”

  “You aren’t even asking me what I want,” I argued.

  “You don’t even understand what I’d be asking you to do.” Frustration flashed across her face as she took a deep breath. “At the encouragement of my boss, I applied for a coveted position with the British Museum. If everything goes as planned, I’ll be moving to England in the spring.

  “I love you, Carter, but I have no right to force you to wait for me for some undecided amount of time, and you have no right to ask me to give up this opportunity. I’ve really struggled with this, but I can’t sabotage my dreams. I just can’t.”

  My head was struggling to make sense of what she was saying while my heart was thudding crazily as it sank deeper into the pit of my stomach.

  “I don’t understand what’s changed,” I said. My bones felt frozen, as did my head. My thoughts just weren’t moving as quickly as I needed them to. “We’ve been talking about how we’ll schedule times to visit each other. We can talk on the phone, email, video chat. This isn’t insurmountable, Sophia.”

  But she was shaking her head again. “No, Carter. This is exactly what I was worried about before. This will hold us both back, and that’s not right. I don’t know how long I’ll be in England if I get this job. I can’t ask you to wait when I can’t guarantee what will happen. It’s not right.”

  “Sophia-” But she cut me off, stepping away when I tried to take her into my arms again.

  “I love you enough to want to see you happy. It hurts right now, but setting you free is the only thing I can think of that would be fair to you. Please understand that I never wanted to hurt you.”

  She was crying now, the tears streaming down her face. Before I could say anything at all, she darted into the house. I was relieved as I puzzled over the arguments I could use to bring her back around to how we’d been talking over the last week, but then she ran back outside again with her purse and moved quickly past me to her car. I watched her pull out of the driveway and drive off down the street in the direction of her mother’s house.

  I stood on my porch, frozen solid in the bitterly cold wind as fireworks continued to go off in the night sky in front of me, in the direction of the center of town. I had no idea what had just happened. I only knew that I’d lost her again, the girl I cared most about in this world.

  Sophia

  The Morning of New Year’s Day

  I pulled clothes out of the drawers of my old dresser, stuffing them into the suitcases lying open on my bed. I hadn’t been able to sleep between my racing thoughts, the frantic reworking of my immediate plan, and the constant calls and texts from Carter. I’d taken care of the last part by just turning off my damned phone. I needed peace and quiet.

  Suddenly, about two hours before the sun came up as I was pacing my bedroom, I realized that I could rebook my ticket for an earlier date and just get the hell out of Madison several days sooner than I was supposed to. I didn’t even weight the pros and cons before I turned my phone on, calle
d the airline, and found a flight leaving later today at five. I turned the phone off, ignoring the missed texts and voicemails.

  I would have to tell Lacey some bullshit story about needing to get back to work immediately. I felt bad that I wouldn’t be here when Mom returned from her honeymoon, but I had to get the hell out of Wisconsin. The longer I stayed, the harder it would become to avoid Carter.

  I finished arranging my clothes in the suitcases and zipped them shut. That just left my toiletries from the bathroom and all the little odds and ends I’d packed in my carryon. Then I could talk to Lacey. I didn’t question my choice. I knew this was the right thing to do. I’d been sick over it for days — especially after completing the application for the position at the British Museum — but now I was certain this was really my only option.

  I loved Carter desperately, and that was why I needed to do this. It wasn’t fair to hold him back, and it wasn’t fair to keep myself from what I’d dreamed of doing since high school. We’d just waited too damned long to tell each other how we felt, and this was the cost. Our lives were separate. Neither of us should have to give up on everything we’d worked for over the last several years.

  Lacey knocked on the door and came in before I got the chance to give her permission. I’d wanted to talk to her about leaving before she saw my packed bags, but it was too late for that now.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  I turned to face her. “I’m going home tonight. I need a ride to the airport.”

  Her eyebrows scrunched together as she stared hard at me. “Does this have anything to do with why Carter’s downstairs?”

  My pulse raced at the sound of that, my stomach clenching almost painfully at the thought of facing him again after what happened just after midnight.

  “Tell him I’m busy.”

  “No,” she said. “What the hell is going on? You weren’t supposed to leave until after Mom came back from her honeymoon. Now, you suddenly need to go today?”