by Vivian Lux
But she didn’t say that. Instead she shivered again and said, “Sure.”
Maybe she was thinking the same thing I was?
I didn’t dare hope.
Instead, I turned around and opened the flue, deftly making a pyramid out of kindling. I balled up the pieces of old newspaper, ones with headlines about record breaking hot temperatures, and stacked them underneath the sticks.
“You still know your way around a wood stove,” Autumn observed. I hadn’t realized she was watching me.
I sat back on my heels, then leaned forward to blow gently on a piece of kindling. A tongue of flame licked upward and the newspaper sparked and burned into ash, the embers rising upward as the flames caught hold. “I’d better,” I said, closing the flue halfway. “I built a fire in this stove every night for eighteen years.”
Autumn knelt next to me and gave me a shove with her shoulder. “Except in summer,” she teased, extending her hands to the warmth.
I gave her a small shove back. “Okay if you want to be a stickler then, I built a fire in this stove every night for nine years. Happy?”
Her eyes glittered mischievously. “Very.”
I took a deep breath and stared into the flames rather than meet her eyes. “I haven’t changed that much, Autumn. I still remember where I came from.”
Chapter Ten
Autumn
As soon as he said that, he jumped up again, like he’d been scalded, but his words hung in the air for one heartbeat, then another, then another.
He reappeared with a wool blanket under his arm. “Hey, get up a sec?” he asked.
I moved out of the way and let him shake it out and lay it on the floor, right up at the edge of the wood stove platform. I knelt down and spread my hands in front of the fire.
“Are you warm enough?” he asked.
“No,” I shivered.
He grabbed another blanket from the trunk. It smelled like musty wool, a strangely comforting scent, and tossed it over his shoulders. Then he knelt down next to me and slung it over mine.
“How about now?”
Heat that had no business gathering in my core gathered anyway. “Better,” I said. It came out more like a sigh.
“How about now?” He folded his arms around me and pulled me closer.
“A little bit.”
“How about now?”
This time there was no question in my head as to why I was kissing him. I was just kissing him back as hard as he was kissing me, with all the pent up urgency of the eight long years I had missed kissing him. I kissed him to make up for lost time.
“Autumn, fuck,” he whispered against my lips. “Merry fucking Christmas. Fuck.”
I laughed against his chest. “Merry fucking Christmas to you too.”
“This is the best present I could have asked for.”
Some little devil inside of me, the same one that made me laugh when Cole pulled the cow prank, suddenly took over my tongue. “The best one you could have asked for? Wow, you’re more easily satisfied than I remember.”
His eyes darkened and he pulled back from me. “I didn’t know we were exchanging wish lists.”
“We can. It’s Christmas Eve.”
“Have you been naughty or nice?”
"Don't naughty girls get a lump of coal in their stocking?"
He waggled his eyebrows. "I can put that lump of Cole where ever you'd like. Have you been naughty?
“Actually, I was pretty nice up until you came back into the picture.”
He smirked a small expression of relief that there hadn’t been too many guys after him. Or at all. I looked down at my fingers and blushed. “How about you?”
“I’ve been so much nicer than you’d believe.”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t believe it.”
“Well, you should, Autumn. There’s no one like you. You’re it. I knew it, but I didn’t want to believe it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Now tell me what’s on top of your wish list. Good girls deserve presents.”
“Best things come in small packages they say.”
“Ain’t nothing small about this package,” he said with a cocky grin.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s on your list?” I asked him “Since you claim you haven’t been naughty.”
“No, I haven’t been naughty.” The way he looked at me had me unable to catch my breath. “But I’m about to be very naughty.” His voice was so low that I leaned in to hear him. His lip brushed against my ear lobe as he murmured, “At the top of my wish list? I want to see you spread on this blanket like a present under the tree. I want to see those tits of yours and kiss them until those pretty pink nipples get all hard under my tongue.” I bit my lip as his mouth moved lower, his breath warm against my neck. “I want to spread those creamy thighs of yours and lick you until you lose your mind. I want to watch you grab this blanket and hold on for dear life as I fuck you, because Autumn baby, that’s the number one wish on my list. I want to see if you feel as good as you do in my memories. I want to come home for Christmas.”
He covered my mouth with his before I could utter a single word. My mind skipped and dove like a retreating dolphin leaving no rational thought left in its wake. All I had left was sensation, desire and the desperate need to feel him again. I needed him, he was ingrained in me, a part of my DNA, as much as my red hair and freckles. He was a part of me, a part I had so desperately tried to cut out, and he was here again, real under my fingers, warm under my touch. It was so unbelievable as to be otherworldly and for one second I truly did believe in the magic of the season.
Merry fucking Christmas indeed.
Chapter Eleven
Cole
Eight years had changed the shape of her that I felt underneath my fingertips. She was a woman, fully a woman now, with generously curved hips, and high, rounded tits and that feeling of touching her, the same skin I remembered in a shape entirely new to me was so exciting and thrilling that I almost lost what little control I still had. "Every day, Autumn,” I exhaled, tracing the lines of her body over and over again. I couldn't get enough of how new and familiar she was at the same time. "Every damn day I thought about you."
"Then why didn't you call?" She punctuated that demand with a low shriek as I moved my hand down into the soft space in between her legs.
Instead of answering, I concentrated on moving my fingers in slow, rhythmic circles, watching the way her hips arched and fell with each stroke. I was glad she was distracted because I didn't have an answer. Why hadn't I called? What stupid pride had kept me away from my home town, away from this? This girl of my dreams turned woman of my fantasies.
Stupid pride, a shallow headstrong desire to prove that I was better than this town, that I was too special to be just another hometown boy who fell in love with a girl and never tried for anything more. I was a cocky asshole hell bent on leaving my town and the wonderful, familiar people in it, behind. I wanted to believe I didn't need them, when in reality they were what was missing in my life for eight long years.
Angry at myself, I yanked harder than I meant to and her jeans made a popping noise as the seam split. Her eyes flew open, but I moved my hand, swirling my thumb up and over the tight little pearl of her clit, and she moaned and closed her eyes again. I loved the way she still sounded exactly the same. Her moans were low and breathy, like she was trying very hard to keep under control. Like she was trying to keep her voice down so her parents wouldn't catch us. But we were alone now, finally alone, maybe for the first time. I couldn't even remember because my brain was so wrapped up in the sounds she was making now, louder and louder, she was losing control now and it was the best damn thing to hear her stop moaning and start to scream.
My pulse thudded in my temples, my blood rushed to my cock and when she came, I swear to God I nearly lost it right along with her, completely and utterly shattered over the way she called my name. It seemed like we were crossing some divide, some years-long ch
asm between us was closing. Because I knew this woman, I knew her. She was Autumn and there had never been a girl like her.
In the second it took for her cries to subside, I dove between her legs, burying my face in the scent of her and tasting the pleasure that already pooled there. She moaned again, arching herself into my tongue and I let her take over, grinding out her frenzied need against my mouth, letting her lose control again. All at once I was an addict and I needed to hear those shattering cries, louder this time, the sounds she made when I knew she was completely and truly losing control.
"Jesus Christ!” Her voice was shuddering and heavy. "You've picked up a trick or two in the past eight years!"
I grinned up at her, and I'm not going to lie, it did my ego good to see how completely wrecked she was looking. Damp strands of hair were pressed flat against her flushed cheek, her spectacular tits were flushed rosily, and her freckles stood out from her milky skin like a constellation of inverted stars. I leaned down and kissed each one of them that I could before I moved to cover her mouth with mine. She arched up in to the kiss, her skin warm from the fire and with her red hair she looked like fire itself, gorgeously aflame. "I'm a fucking idiot," I sighed.
She opened her eyes, regarding me with no judgment in her eyes, but with no confusion in them either. She knew exactly what I was thinking, even as I was realizing it myself. "When I left, when you told me I should go, I thought... I thought you were telling me it was over."
"It's never been over," she whispered with a heavy sigh that told me exactly what it was costing her to admit that. "I wanted so badly for it to be over, but it never ever ended for me, Cole.”
"Me either."
"So what do we do now?"
"Right now?" I leaned upward and threw my shirt up over my head. "Right now, we make up for lost time."
Chapter Twelve
Autumn
Lost time. Fuck, the lost time. So many years wasted, but right now... right now I had him. Each second stretched out into infinity as he kissed down, lower and lower. He seemed to want to cover every inch of my skin, claim it as his, even though it never wasn't. It had always been his, I had always been his, his, his....
When he drove into me, in one smooth, silky stroke, we both gasped. I saw his eyes — alive in the dark, dancing in the flame — open wide in wonder as he looked down to where we were joined. I raised my head and looked too, but I could only hold my head up for so long before the intense, overwhelming sensation sent me falling backward onto the blanket.
"Yes," he hissed. "That's it, you feel... You feel the same. Do you feel that? Do you feel the way we fit together, Autumn? Doesn't it feel the same to you?"
"It feels... Better... Oh!" I gasped.
He rumbled a deep laugh. "That's right, that's what this is, it's better. It's going to be so much better. We're where we should be right? Tell me this is right? Tell me this is something and not just a pity fuck. Tell me we can do this over again, that we can do this right. Because I, I promise, I swear to fucking Christ, I'm ready to start over again."
I closed my eyes as his words washed over me, an avalanche of emotion crashing through me and washing up against the overwhelming sensations that were flooding my veins. This was real, there was no way I was feeling so much and it wasn't real, but there was such a sense of fantasy too. All of my secret, unasked for hopes over the past eight years finally coming true? How? How could this be happening? And on Christmas Eve, too. This wasn't the movies. This was my real life, this was true, he was here, he was...
"Oh my God!” The orgasm took me by surprise, tearing through me like wildfire, burning through me until I was nothing but ash and flame, the whole blaze burning down around me as I cried out, vision blurring so that I could only see him, could only see Cole, and watch him watch me as we both fell apart together.
I pulled him to me, melting into the sweetness of his kiss. He pulled back and looked at me, searchingly. “Well?”
“Well?"
"I asked you a question."
I grinned and rubbed my hands over my face. "What was the question?"
He grinned, his white teeth gleaming in the firelight. "I'm sorry, I guess you were a little distracted?"
"A little."
He pulled away and rolled to the side, then reached over to brush his hand over my breasts. ”We’ve gotten a little better at that, Red."
"A little?"
"Well, I mean you must've had some practice."
"If we’re telling the truth, most of the practice was with my own fingers.”
He laughed, falling back onto his back. "Same,” he said, wiping tears of laughter form his eyes. “Thinking about you, though. I was at least pretending it was your hand."
"My hand?"
"We were in high school, Autumn."
I nodded, blushing with understanding...and memories. "You felt my hand more than anything else, really."
He sat back up again. "But I wanted more. I wanted everything you had to give me. Anything that you were ready to offer, I was ready to take. I was ready to give.” He cleared his throat and took my hand in his, entwining his fingers with mine. “I was ready to stay.”
I shook my head slightly. "I didn't want you to stay."
I saw his Adam's apple bob in the shadow as he swallowed and nodded. “I know you didn't. And I love you for that."
"You love me..." I repeated, making sure he was using the correct tense.
He nodded. "Always have."
“And... you’re here now."
"I'm here now."
”Why are you here?”
He shook his head. "Actually, I'm here on business."
I pressed my lips together. I didn’t want him to see how my hopes had just fallen. "Business?" I repeated
He nodded, but some of the gleeful joy had gone out of his eyes. "Your grandfather's land, actually."
I sat up. "You're the real estate developer guy?”
He sat up all the way and I couldn’t help but notice how he dropped my hand. “Is that a problem?”
My heart was racing fast enough to catch up with my confusion. ”No, I mean yes, I mean why didn't you tell me?"
"It didn't exactly seem relevant. What with all the...” he moved his hands between us, “reconnecting we were busy doing."
"Cole,” I said slowly. “You’re here to make an offer for my grandfather's land.” I felt like I had to speak slowly as if to a child.
"Yes, I believe I may have just mentioned that."
"You're not meeting with my grandfather, though.“
"No. Family representative, though. Is it your uncle?"
I felt like everything was crashing down over my head. "No, Cole,” I said, suddenly tired. "It's me.”
Chapter Thirteen
Cole
"Mornin’,” my brother mumbled as he walked past me without looking, scratching his belly on his way to the coffee pot.
I snorted. "Merry Christmas, Wreck."
My brother didn’t turn when he heard his nickname, but I did see his shoulders shake, just a little. Derek had earned that nickname quite legitimately after he totaled his third car in three months back when we were teenagers. Even our uncle, the head mechanic at the hoity-toity foreign car dealership that catered exclusively to the vacationer market had no idea how he did it. "Boy, I will pay you money to stay outside of a mile radius of my garage," he opined that Christmas a decade ago. "You are like Armageddon for cars."
“Car-mageddon?" I had asked, thinking myself pretty clever, but only earning withering stares from both my uncle and my brother.
Derek finished pouring his coffee and turned around to see me sitting there at the kitchen table with my empty coffee cup. He startled a little. “Well,” he said, as casually as could be. "You look like crap."
I leaned back and dragged my hands down my face. "I feel like crap," I said.
"Too much partying last night?" My brother swore he had no judgment for those who still partook, but there was a
lways just a little smidgen of judgment in his voice when he asked me these sorts of questions.
"I was up too late,” I corrected him. "Only had two beers."
"I thought I heard you come stumbling around three in the morning."
"Sorry about that."
"No worries, you had some reconnecting to do. Been too long since you came back here, little bro."
I winced. Every single person in Reckless Falls seemed to be conspiring against me to remind me of that fact. "Yeah,” I sighed. “I had some reconnecting to do."
I could still feel Autumn's skin against mine, the slide of her silky smoothness again my own skin seemed to be burned into my core. I was afraid to shower, because it would be erasing the sensation that still lingered there.
But maybe I needed to do exactly that. When I had left last night, she wasn't talking to me, sitting in stony silence in the driver’s seat, her beautifully plump lips pursed tightly like she had tasted something sour.
I hadn’t understood why she was so pissed at me and I kept trying, trying as hard as I could, to knock down the wall she’d thrown up between us. After all, it was good that my firm had business in town. It would mean I was coming back. A lot. And if we worked together to get her grandpa the best price, well then, what could possibly be wrong with that?
“Cole,” she’d finally said as we pulled into my brother’s darkened drive. "Stop."
"Stop what?" I’d demanded. I felt my voice rising, I had this desire to fight something and I didn't know what it was. I had just found her again, just found her after missing her for so long. I had just realized, just then — with the revelation still fresh in my brain — that she was the one. The one for me.
And now she was telling me that something was standing in our way?
I never took well to being told I couldn't have what I wanted.
I realized with a start that my brother was waiting for me to finish talking and that I had sort of trailed off in mid-sentence. I took a deep breath. Fuck it. “I was with Autumn,” I finally blurted.