The Stocking Was Hung

by Tara Sivec

  “A box of fifteen different cheeses, ten packets of hot chocolate mix and two mugs that say Eggnog Mugs. Yep, your dad is getting this special dairy collection,” he laughs.

  Cry, or give him another blow job? Cry, or give him another blow job?

  It’s really a toss-up right now which one feels like the right way to show how much I appreciate what he’s doing. He told me when we first walked away from my family at the entrance of the mall that he didn’t know the first thing about buying Christmas presents, and that’s when I told him he didn’t need to buy anyone anything. I wanted to wrap him in my arms and hold him tight, letting him know how sorry I am that he never had anything like this growing up, but I knew a guy like him would never want my pity. By the time we got to the second store, he had Christmas shopping down to a science.

  “Okay, I’m running out of room to hold all this shit, I should probably check out,” Sam declares as I follow him toward one of the registers.

  The soft strains of Christmas music has been following us from store-to-store all morning, and when we get to the counter and Sam drops his items on top of it, I hear Jingle Bells end and the opening notes to Dominic the Donkey. Right when I open my mouth to either apologize to him or laugh, I hear a sound come from him as he reaches in his back pocket for his wallet and realize he’s humming along to the song.

  Maybe he doesn’t really hate Christmas as much as he says he does. I mean, he’s made it through holiday shopping hell this close to the big day, not yet growling or cursing at any of the idiots who bumped into us without so much as an apology and now he’s humming along to the worst song in the world. There’s hope for him yet!

  “Merry Christmas!” the cashier tells Sam, handing him his receipt and the huge red bag with handles that holds his purchases.

  “Uh, yep,” he mumbles, taking the bag and quickly turning away from her.

  Okay, maybe there’s still a little more work to be done.

  I rush to catch up to him as he holds out his hand for me like it’s the most natural thing in the world and I take it like it’s no big deal. Like we’ve been going Christmas shopping together for years. Like we’re a real couple, enjoying the mall’s decorations hung from every doorway and are madly in love during the holiday season. How in the hell am I going to go back to my boring, stupid, jobless, homeless life in Seattle in a few days and leave him here?

  “So, how come you never wish anyone a Merry Christmas?” I ask, finally getting up the nerve to question something that’s been on my mind since the night I met him and he didn’t respond to the bartender when he paid our bill.

  Sam shrugs, slowing down his pace as we walk hand-in-hand, looking at the window displays at all the stores we pass.

  “It just seems so superficial to me. Like, people just blurt it out as a reply because it’s what is expected of them, not because they actually mean it,” he explains, stopping in front of a store to check out the North Pole display complete with cotton all over the floor for snow and an animated Santa and Mrs. Clause bending toward each other for a kiss every five seconds. “I don’t know, it just seems pointless to repeat it back to someone when I’m not that into Christmas and have never celebrated it. If I say it to someone, I want to mean it. I want to feel the Christmas spirit and be happy about the holiday, otherwise it’s just bullshit.”

  I stare at his profile, the prickling of tears in my eyes, quickly blinking them away when he turns to look at me.

  “I sound like a giant pussy, don’t I?” he says with an embarrassed chuckle.

  “No, you don’t. It makes sense now that you explained it. I thought you were just being an asshole.” I grin, trying to lighten the situation.

  With a laugh, he maneuvers our joined hands until they’re bent behind my back and tugs me toward him, pressing our chests together.

  “Well, I am kind of an asshole. Especially since I still haven’t given you a toe-curling orgasm yet after Santa gave me what I wanted for Christmas,” he muses, his heated gaze fixed on my mouth.

  The smell of his light, woodsy cologne surrounds me, the warmth of his body lights a fire inside of me, and his strong arm wrapped around me, holding my hand hostage at the small of my back makes me want to drop down on the floor in front of Bath and Body Works and fuck his brains out.

  Screw being a good girl who shouldn’t sleep with a guy she just met. I mean, I’ve already had his dick in my mouth, might as well let him put it elsewhere.

  Own the slut, embrace the slut, BE the slut. I want to do slutty, dirty things with this man, consequences be damned.

  “Name the time and place, and my orgasm is your orgasm,” I reply.

  Sam growls. He actually growls, all low and throaty like he wants to attack me right here, right now.

  Check please!

  “You’re killing me, you know that?” he whisper-hisses. “I’ve done nothing but think about being inside of you since I met you, and now you go and say something like that when we’re in a crowded mall filled with Christmas shoppers. And you’re family, who if memory serves me, will probably interrupt anything and everything we do.”

  I sigh and take a step back from him before I come right out and tell him to take me into the closest bathroom and make good on that whole being inside of me thing. Jesus, is anything hotter than a gorgeous man telling you in a low voice that he’s been thinking about being in your body? Nope, I think not. Want to know the hottest thing Logan ever said to me? “Babe, we gotta make it quick. I have to be at a meeting in twenty minutes.”

  Sam and I continue on our way and he pulls me into a large boutique store filled with dresses.

  “Didn’t you say you needed something to wear for Christmas Eve?” he asks, when I question his choice of stores.

  Shit, a Christmas Eve dress.

  My mother expects everyone to dress formally for Christmas Eve dinner, and aside from jeans, sweaters, and my After Sex Pants that I grabbed in my haste to get the fuck out of mine and Logan’s apartment before he came home from work, I forgot to pack anything formal. We walk through the dimly lit store, the loud, thumping base of rock Christmas music a complete contrast to the soft romantic lighting of all white lights hung from the ceiling and glittery snowflakes dangling from the beams.

  I glance at a couple of price tags as we walk from rack-to-rack, mentally calculating what’s in my savings and just how much I can afford to throw away on a dress I’ll probably only wear once. I could just tell my mother the truth, that I lost my job and she’s just going to have to deal with me wearing jeans and a sweater to dinner. You know, if I feel like spending Christmas Eve dinner listening to her cry, wail, and complain about me screwing up my life again and never growing up.

  Sam pulls a dark green, low-cut wraparound dress from one of the racks and hands it to me.

  “Try this one on. My treat,” he tells me.

  “You’re not buying me a dress,” I grumble, refusing to take it from his hand.

  “Fine, then consider it payment for all the food I’ve eaten the last few days,” he answers, checking the price tag hanging from the three-quarter-length sleeve. “I’ve definitely stuffed my face with at least $92.75 worth of food.”

  He shoves the dress in my direction again, giving me a stern look that warns me not to argue with him again. He doesn’t say anything about how I can’t afford it or remind me that I don’t have a job. Nothing that would make me feel like a loser. The fact that he doesn’t say anything and gives the excuse of him buying the dress to make up for the grocery bill makes me want to jump into his arms and beg him to never leave me.

  With a huff, I yank the hanger out of his hand instead of doing something stupid. “Ugggghh, fine! But if this thing looks like shit on me, don’t laugh.”

  He follows silently behind me to the very back of the mostly empty store and I head into the dressing room, slamming the door behind me a little too roughly.

  Why does he have to be so nice? If he would have just said something jerky like
how he’ll pay for the dress since he knows I can’t afford it, my heart wouldn’t be thumping out of my chest and I wouldn’t be doing everything I could to stop myself from blurting out that I might be falling for him.

  Kicking off my Uggs and yanking my sweater and jeans off, I throw them haphazardly onto the floor and slide the dress over my head, tying the matching green satin wrap-around ribbon that holds the dress together right above my hip. Glancing down at myself, I thank God I wore a low-cut red lace bra this morning and the thing isn’t sticking out of the deep opening of the dress. All you can see is cleavage. Lots and lots of cleavage thanks to my full C cup boobs smooshed together in this bra.

  Okay, so this dress is kind of nice. It falls right above my knees and it swishes when I twist my hips from side to side. Sam picked a good color to go with my long, dark red hair too. Turning the handle of the door, I step outside to see if Sam approves since he’s paying for the thing and find him standing a few feet away, shifting his shopping bag from one hand to another uncomfortably as store workers keep coming up to him, asking if he needs any help.

  I clear my throat loudly and his head turns in my direction, prompting the helpful staff to finally walk away and stop pestering him. His face doesn’t show any emotion as he looks me up and down and I start to fidget with the skirt of the dress, wondering if I really do look like shit. Maybe green isn’t my color. Maybe my tits look like saggy bags of crap instead of high and perky.

  Fucking hell, why doesn’t he say something?

  “I knew it. I look like shit,” I huff, throwing my hands up in the air in irritation. With a quick turn, I stomp back into the dressing room and slam the door behind me, but never hear it click shut. When I start to turn around, I’m suddenly surrounded by man and I hear his foot kick the door closed.

  “Um, this is the women’s dressing room, what are you doing?” I reprimand, trying to sound indignant, but failing when I hear his shopping bag drop to the floor and feel his palms on the outside of my thighs, slowly sliding upward.

  “Holy shit, what are you doing?” I whisper brokenly when his hands move from the outside of my thighs to between my legs and continue moving upwards.

  “This dress,” he groans. “Fucking hell, this dress. Do you have any idea how damn gorgeous you are?”

  He removes one hand from the inside of my thighs and wraps it tightly around my waist, holding me securely against him.

  “Put your hands on the wall,” he orders me in a hushed tone, shuffling his feet and moving us forward until I’m forced to do as he says before slamming face-first into the back wall of the dressing room.

  “I need to touch you. Just for a minute, I promise. Please, let me touch you,” he begs in a low voice, his breath puffing against my ear as he takes the edge of my lobe in between his teeth and tugs on it.

  “Fuck, yes,” I hiss, his hand finishing its path up the inside of my thigh and his fingers ghosting over the front lace of my thong.

  “You’re so wet,” he mutters, placing a kiss in the crook of my neck.

  His fingers continue moving lazily over the thin fabric until I want to grab his hand and shove his fingers inside of me. I’ve been wet since I met him and who knew this caveman action of shoving me into a dressing room and pushing me against a wall from behind would be such a turn-on.

  “I knew this dress would look good on you, but God damn, Noel,” he murmurs, his fingers moving to the side of my thong and teasing their way under the edge of the lace.

  I spread my legs just enough to urge him on and give him easier access, my head falling back onto his shoulder while he nuzzles his face into the side of my neck, placing tender kisses on my skin in between his words.

  “I’ve never wanted anyone more than I want you. I’ve never been this fucking hard for anyone. Just you, Noel,” he confesses as his fingers finally dip inside the edge of my underwear and I feel him touching me for the first time.

  We groan in unison when two of his fingers slide through the wetness his words and his teasing touch have created. One of my hands against the wall flies down to his arm around my waist and I dig my fingernails into his wrist when he moves his fingers in slow, perfect circles around my clit. His thumb quickly replaces those fingers and before I can catch my breath, he’s pushing two long, thick fingers inside of me, sliding them all the way in to his knuckles.

  I’m panting like a dog in heat as he holds his fingers still inside of me but keeps moving his thumb back and forth over my aching clit. I’ve never felt anything this amazing before. I’ve never wanted to come within two seconds of a guy touching me. And I’ve certainly never gotten turned on with dirty talk. But sweet lord alive, dirty talk coming from Sam’s mouth should be sold on street corners for a hefty price. He’d make a killing.

  “Fuck, you’re so tight and perfect,” he whispers as he starts slowly pushing and pulling his fingers out of me and my hips begin moving with the rhythm of his hand between my legs. “God, I wish we were anywhere but here so I could be inside you. I want to feel your tight pussy wrapped around my cock.”

  “Yes, yes, fuck yes,” I groan, my hips jerking faster against his hand as he continues working his fingers in out of me at a quicker pace now, his thumb flicking quickly over my clit until I want to lose my mind with the need to come, until what he said suddenly hits me.

  “I wish we were anywhere but here…”

  Oh my fucking God, I have a guy’s fingers in my twat in a public dressing room. At the mall. AT THE FUCKING MALL!

  I know I said I wanted to embrace the slut and BE the slut, but this is slutty even for me. I can’t even tell him to stop because if he takes those perfectly long, thick fingers out of me right now I will cry and quite possibly punch my hand through the wall in front of me.

  What a fucking conundrum.

  Like he immediately knows what I’m thinking, the arm Sam hold securely around my waist moves up until his hand is gently covering my mouth while his fingers continue their glorious assault between my legs, twisting and sliding through all the wetness he’s pulled from me just by being him.

  “It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he soothes me. “No one can hear us with the loud music, just let go, Noel. I need to feel you come on my fingers.”

  Sweet Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the Wise Men, that’s it, I’m done. Another smooth flick of his thumb over my clit and I’m tumbling into oblivion, moaning and shouting muffled curses against his hand as I do what he says and come on his fingers. My hips jerk forward and I hold them suspended while Sam pushes those beautiful fingers even deeper inside of me and holds them still, letting me ride out my orgasm against his hand, his palm bumping against my clit until I feel like I might die from coming.

  Holy longest orgasm in the world, Batman!

  The explosion and thumping pleasure between my thighs slowly fades away until I’m back to panting and trying to catch my breath against Sam’s hand, which he finally drops from my mouth. My head thumps forward against the wall of the dressing room and my hand that was busy clutching his arm joins the first one to hold myself up. Sam’s head drops into the crook of my neck while we both take a minute to slow our breathing and I groan through another wave of pleasure when he slowly pulls his fingers out of me and tugs my dress back down.

  “Are you okay?” he asks softly when I continue holding my face against the cold wall to cool off my flushed cheeks and try to form words.

  “Dead. Legs no work. Me sleepy,” I mumble.

  I feel the rumble of laughter in his chest that is still pressed against my back and he grabs my hips, slowly turning me around to face him. I move like a limp noodle, my back collapsing against the wall when he gets me turned and my arms falling uselessly at my sides.

  “I’m definitely buying this dress,” he remarks with a smirk, brushing a few errant strands of hair out of my eyes.

  “I’m definitely letting you buy this dress. It has magical powers,” I inform him as he scoops up his previously dropped bag of presents whil
e I quickly pull the magical dress off of my body and slip back into my jeans and sweater. Fuck modesty at this point. The guy had his hand up to his knuckles in my doodlebug, he can look at me in my red thong and matching bra as much as he wants.

  And going by the dazed look in his eyes, he wants. As I pull my sweater down over my lace covered breasts, he groans in disappointment and shifts that lovely package in his pants to a more comfortable spot.

  When I get my boots pulled back on and the dress returned to its hanger, Sam grabs my hand and tugs my barely working legs out of the dressing room.

  “So, do I just toss this bag under the tree and let everyone grab their shit?” Sam asks as he pays for my dress at the front counter.

  “Uh, no. You wrap them, you know, since they’re Christmas presents and all.” I laugh as the cashier hands me the tissue wrapped dress, now safely tucked away in a red holiday bag where it can’t tempt Sam and I do run back into the dressing room for a little more fun with fingers.

  “Like, with tape and scissors and paper with snowmen on it and shit?” he asks with a grimace, grabbing my hand again as we walk out into the main part of the mall and head to the food court.

  “Yes, with tape and scissors and paper with snowmen and maybe if you’re lucky, we’ll even find some with cute little kittens with tiny red bows around their necks,” I tease him.

  “How about I just let you be in charge of wrapping, preferably in the nude, and I’ll watch,” he winks.

  “I think that can be arranged,” I reply with a wink of my own as we join my family in the middle of the food court, arguing about whether Sbarro Pizza is a better choice than Taco Bell for lunch.

  “You’re going to be the death of me, Noel Holiday,” Sam whispers before giving me a peck on the cheek and then pulling my chair out for me.

  You’re already killing my heart, Sam Stocking.