by Gem Frost
I struggle to regroup my scattered thoughts—not easy, when my mind is full of Syd. The taste and feel and smell of him. The feel of his cock throbbing against mine—
Shit. Madison is still standing there, and the kids are probably right behind her. I need to get myself under control, right now. I shoot her an easy, insolent grin. “You know how it is,” I drawl. “People just can’t keep their hands off me.”
I feel Syd stiffen with anger, feel a righteous flash of amusement. Take that, you faithless bastard. Syd stabbed me right through the heart three years ago, and I’ve never had the chance to turn the tables. I’m a little surprised to realize I like the notion of revenge. I like it a lot.
“Yeah,” Syd says, his voice shaking with rage. “He’s just Santa’s gift to men and women everywhere.”
I turn that nasty grin on him. “Glad you realize that.”
Syd huffs and yanks away from me abruptly, pulling down his sweater and smoothing it. He’s obviously trying to look completely unaffected, but I can see his hard-on hasn’t abated one bit.
Of course, my own cock is standing at attention too, not unlike a missile ready to launch. I’m every bit as affected by Syd as he is by me.
Goddamnit.
“Um,” Madison says, looking back and forth between our faces. “Well. I just wanted to tell you two that the feast is ready to be served.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Sure seemed that way to me.”
Syd turns on me angrily, looking like he’s thinking of breaking my nose. “You—you—”
“Look,” Madison breaks in, “could the two of you possibly restrain your hostility and your horniness? At least for now? I have kids, you know. I don’t want them to see you killing each other, and I don’t particularly want them to see you checking each other’s dental hygiene, either. Do you think you could behave like an adult for once, Nick?”
I decide it’s finally safe to stand up. The missile is no longer at ready-to-launch status, thankfully. I rise to my feet and so does Syd.
I’ve almost forgotten how small he is. He barely comes up to my shoulder, and he has to look a long way up to meet my eyes. But he does, staring up at me with a light burning in the moss-green depths of his eyes. I can’t decide if it’s lust or fury.
Maybe it’s both.
“I always behave like an adult,” I say, with as much dignity as I can manage, considering my sister just caught me sucking face on the couch like a teenager.
“No, you behave like a frat boy on Viagra,” Madison answers tartly. “But it’d be nice if you’d try to keep your libido under control. For once.”
I see Syd wince, and it gives me another stab of grim pleasure. So, Syd doesn’t like hearing about my sex life. Well, my supposed sex life. Okay, my totally imaginary sex life. Still, the point here is that Syd isn’t over our relationship. That’s interesting. Why in the hell did he arrange this completely-coincidental-except-not-really meeting, anyway?
I wanted to know if we could still be good together.
That’s really the only reason Syd would have gone to this much trouble, and it sets off warring impulses inside me. Part of me is delighted to think that Syd wants me. Fuck, that’s awesome. I mean, if I’m gonna be honest with myself, I’ve never gotten over him, and I still want him as badly as I’ve ever wanted anything.
And he hasn’t changed, not a bit. He’s as beautiful, as sexy, as totally desirable as he’s ever been. I think most people would describe him as cute, but to me, he’s fucking gorgeous. His face is round and amiable—well, except when I piss him off—and his eyes are a striking shade of green I’ve never seen on anyone else. His nose tilts slightly upward at the tip, and his lips are lush and pink, just begging to be kissed.
And I really, really want to kiss him some more.
But there’s a lot of caution welling up inside me, too. After what happened between us, I’ve barely gotten my heart back into one piece, and it’s pretty much held together with duct tape. It wouldn’t take much for it to be broken in two all over again, and I’m not going to let that happen. I couldn’t handle going through that a second time.
So if Syd thinks I’m gonna fall head over heels again, after what the little bastard did to me three years ago, he’s entirely mistaken.
I weigh the potential costs of the situation and decide that I don’t have a problem with indulging in a wild evening of sex, just to see if it’s as good as I remember. After all, as many times as I’ve dreamed about it, I’d have to be fucking stupid to pass up the opportunity I’m being offered here. But wild sex is all I’m interested in. I’m more than happy to give Syd one night, if that’s really what he wants, but a single night is all he gets.
Because there’s no way in hell I’ll risk falling for Archibald Sydney a second time.
Chapter 3
Nick
I watch Syd’s mouth open as he eats a bite of stuffing, sliding the silver fork between his lips just so, and the sight is enough to make my heart pound. Which is stupid. There’s nothing sexy about watching a guy chowing down on breadcrumbs.
Except, somehow, there is.
I guess it’s the memory of his lips against mine, soft and yielding, his velvet tongue sliding tentatively into my mouth...
Shit fuck damn. I’m in hell here, absolute hell. Or as close to hell as is possible on Christmas Eve.
Goddamnit, I think again. My landscape design business is going great, I live in a nice house, and until thirty minutes ago, I’d been perfectly happy…in a miserable, pathetic kind of way. Yeah, okay, I admit I’d mostly been planning on spending the remainder of the holiday sulking by myself at home, but that was okay. It was tolerable. But then the Ghost of Christmas Fucking Past walked in.
And now all I can think about is Syd.
Sure, I admit that he’s pretty much what I was thinking about before he walked in. But, you know, in a more abstract way. I didn’t have the vivid memory of those full lips pressed against mine, the subtle, lemony scent of his cologne filling my head, his cock right up against mine… all of it filling my mind to the exclusion of every other thought.
Now I do. And it’s driving me absolutely crazy.
“Don’t you think so, Uncle Nick?”
I blink and drag my gaze away from Syd’s mouth, realizing my nephew is watching me expectantly. “Huh?” I say, in my usual brilliant fashion.
“I said, dontcha think it’d be okay for me to stay up till midnight?”
“Uh… I guess that’d be up to your mother.”
“Mom’s no fun. She says I have to go to bed at nine.”
I see what’s going on here. Connor noticed I’m distracted (by what, he probably has no idea), and he’s trying to trick me into siding with him against his mom. But even distracted, I know better than to be drawn into a dispute between my sister and her kid. Madison would stuff me right up the chimney if I tried to contradict a rule she laid down.
“That’s what parents do,” I say, as neutrally as possible. I don’t need Madison any more pissed with me than she already is. “They’re responsible. And they make their kids be responsible, too.”
“Sounds like you could use a parent,” Syd remarks from across the table.
I don’t appreciate his condescending tone, at all. Who the hell is he to walk back into my life, after three fucking years, and criticize me in front of my family? These kids are important to me, and I don’t like him trying to make me look bad in front of them. It’s an asshole move.
I jerk my head around and glare, doing my level best to shoot daggers with my eyes—whatever the hell that old expression means. It sounds painful, but what the fuck ever. “I’m plenty responsible, Syd. Ask anyone I’ve ever been with—men and women.” I offer my nastiest leer. “I’m responsible every single time.”
“Thank God for that,” Syd says, gazing at me coolly from behind those round glasses. “We wouldn’t want you to reproduce.”
“What’s reproducing?” Char pipes up.
&n
bsp; “Never mind,” Madison says hastily. She frowns at me like I was the one to start the argument, which I think is blatantly unfair of her. Then again, I guess Syd is her boss as well as her friend, and she’d probably rather keep things civil with him. Syd’s putting us both in an awkward situation here, the little son-of-a-bitch. “Do you mind?”
“Well, yeah, as a matter of fact I do.” I wave a forkful of turkey in Syd’s direction, as belligerently as one can shake a chunk of meat. Syd’s not my boss, and he doesn’t have any call to be snide to me in front of my sister and her kids. “What makes you think I’m irresponsible?”
“You can’t settle down. You can’t decide on a single man or woman.”
“I decide on lots of single men and women.”
“Ugh.” Syd stabs his green beans a good deal more violently than necessary. “You know perfectly well what I mean.”
Yeah, I do. And I have to admit I haven’t done much this evening to change Syd’s apparent image of me as some sort of oversexed playboy. Still, the accusation is an unjust one, so totally unfair I’m tempted to lob cranberry sauce across the table, right into his smug, freckled face. But that would only prove his point by clearly marking me as irresponsible and childish.
Besides, Madison will kill me if I do something like that in front of the kids, who copy everything they see. There will probably be food fights for the next year, and good old Uncle Nick will be to blame. I’d be lucky if I ever get invited back.
Still, Syd’s arrogant belief that he knows anything at all about me, after he just walked out on our relationship three years ago, and never so much as bothered to text to see how I was doing, is really starting to grate on my nerves.
“Settling down and getting married doesn’t have anything to do with responsibility,” I say. “Some of us just aren’t interested in marriage.”
“Yeah,” Syd retorts. “It’s called Peter Pan Syndrome.”
Out of the corner of my eye I see Madison’s teeth flash in a sudden grin, and I whip my head around to spear her with my glare, too. “You agree with this?”
“Well…” Madison pretends to think about it, but I can tell she’s already made up her mind. “Yes. Definitely. You’re the classic Peter Pan, Nick. You’ve never grown up, and I don’t think you ever will.”
“Cool,” Connor says. “Uncle Nick is Peter Pan.”
“He doesn’t look like Peter Pan,” Char says, wrinkling her forehead.
“I don’t know,” Syd says. “I think he’d look terrific in green tights, don’t you?”
I squeeze the handle of my fork so hard I’m amazed it doesn’t crumple. “Look,” I say through my teeth, “I run an entire landscape design company. I have a dozen employees. I am the fu—” I catch Madison’s glare and amend my words before I earn myself an ass-kicking. “Freaking epitome of responsibility. I just don’t want to get married, that’s all.”
And it’s the truth. Sort of. I mean, yeah, there was a time when I really wanted to get married, but subsequent events showed me the error of my ways. I know better now. I know that commitment is for suckers. For fools. I’m neither, damn it.
“So, you’re just going to spend your whole life sleeping around?” Madison says.
“Where does Uncle Nick sleep besides home?” Connor asks.
“Never mind,” I say hastily. I’m feeling ganged up on here, and I don’t like it. The awful truth is that I haven’t slept anywhere other than my own bed in way too many years, and it’s been empty ever since Syd left. But no one needs to know that except me. “Look, Madison, did you bring me over here just so you could lecture me on my single state?”
Madison smiles, a little self-consciously. “Well, now that Mom’s living in Florida and can’t pester you about getting married every single holiday, I figure someone ought to.”
“And you were hoping to set me up with him, weren’t you?” I jab my fork angrily in Syd’s direction. Good thing he’s across the table from me, or I might have stabbed him with the tines. Accidentally, of course.
“Sorry.” Madison shrugs, not looking especially apologetic. “I didn’t realize you two had a history.”
“We do not have a history,” I growl through bared teeth. “I don’t have the slightest interest in him. Never did. He never meant anything more to me than anyone else I’ve dated.”
“None of which mean as much to you as your inflatable doll,” Syd remarks coolly.
Madison shoots him a quelling glare, and Char looks up quizzically. “Uncle Nick doesn’t play with dolls,” she volunteers. “But he likes my Barbies.”
“Uh-huh,” Syd mutters. “I just bet.”
“When I showed him the Barbie I got for my birfday, he said it had big boobies.”
“Figures,” Syd says. “That sounds like what he wants out of life, all right. Plastic women.”
“Or plastic men,” I agree cheerfully. “Though I have to admit I’m not that into Ken. He’s missing certain attributes that I like to see in my guys. But I do like plastic women with really big…” I glance at Madison and see she’s throwing those metaphorical daggers my way, and I’m a little worried she might start throwing real ones. “Uh, hair.”
Syd’s green eyes narrow dangerously. I know my bisexuality was a sensitive point with him when we were together. He always seemed to be a little worried that maybe, just maybe, I’d rather be with a woman. Which was stupid. Because there was no one in the world I’d rather have been with. I thought Syd was absolutely perfect.
Right up until the night he dumped my ass.
Madison has had enough, or she senses that the conversation has run into some extremely dangerous waters because she stands up hastily. “How about some pumpkin pie?”
“Sounds great,” Syd says, standing up with his shoulders squared. “I’ll help you slice it.”
His tone makes it sound like he’s wishing he could slice something else. I think about offering to help, but I figure I should probably let the two of them cool off. They stalk from the room, leaving me alone with the kids. Connor looks at me with sympathy.
“Mom’s mad at you, Uncle Nick.”
“Yeah, kid, I got that.” And it’s my own fault for deliberately tormenting Syd and making rude cracks that I really shouldn’t be making in front of my niece and nephew. I deserve to be on Madison’s shit list.
“I don’t think Mr. Sydney likes you much either,” Char informs me helpfully.
“No,” I admit. “I don’t think he does.”
Connor’s forehead wrinkles. “I thought everyone liked you, Uncle Nick.”
“Most people do.”
All but the person who matters most, I think mournfully.
✽✽✽
Syd
“What on earth did he do to you, Syd?”
Madison doesn’t even make it to the refrigerator before she turns to me, looking worried. I immediately feel guilty. I’ve been airing my personal issues in public, in a way I never, ever do, and even worse, I’ve been airing them in front of someone who works for me. And two wide-eyed little kids besides.
But I can’t go into the details, because she doesn’t need me putting her in the middle here. I might be her boss, but Nick is her brother.
“Just an ugly breakup,” I say, as lightly as I can manage. “You know how it goes sometimes.”
“Yeah, I can relate,” she says, and I remember she and her wife finalized their divorce this year. A pang of sympathy goes through me. She’s having a crappy enough Christmas, without me and Nick making it worse by squabbling.
I stretch out a hand to her. “I’m really sorry, Maddie. Things got a little out of control out there, and it’s my fault. I should have a better rein on my temper.”
“No, I understand.” She takes my hand and squeezes it gently. “Listen, it’s been most of a year since my divorce, but if you put me and Lydia in the same room together, even now, there would be actual bloodshed. You and Nick are doing better than I could.”
“But it’
s been three years.” Three years, but it feels like yesterday. I refrain from blurting out that uncomfortable truth, but I think she has some glimmer of the real history anyway, because her dark eyes, so like Nick’s, soften in sympathy.
“Some breakups are just really, really hard to get past. I know that from experience. And I love Nick, but I’ll be the first to admit he can be a total asshat.”
That’s a huge understatement. There’s no can be about it. Nick is definitely and totally an asshat, at all times and in all ways. And yet…and yet…
I remember the way my heart pounded in my chest, the moment I saw his face again after three years, and I know that even if he is an asshat, I’m not over him.
I wonder if I ever will be.
✽✽✽
Nick
An hour later, the gigantic pile of presents I brought the kids has been reduced to a pile of ripped wrappings, trampled bows, and a haphazard stack of boxes. The kids are thrilled with everything I brought, which makes me happy. It doesn’t impress Syd, though; he sits on the couch, far away from me, making the occasional snide comment about how I’m clearly still a child, since I understand so well what kids like.
The snarky remarks sting like poison-tipped arrows, but I do my best to let them bounce off my armor. I’ve already done enough to fuck up Madison’s Christmas. And Madison has enough problems, considering her ex-wife decided to stay in California with her new girlfriend instead of spending Christmas with the kids. (Maybe wisely; I don’t think my sister’s over Lydia, any more than I’m over Syd, and putting them together, even for a few hours, might just cause a nuclear explosion.) Point is, Madison doesn’t need me acting like an obnoxious jerk and making the holiday more complicated than it already is.
I like spending time with Madison and the kids. They’re really all the family I have left. Dad died most of a decade ago, and since he’d kicked me out of the house at eighteen for the crime of kissing a boy, I didn’t even attend his goddamn funeral. Can’t say I regret it, either. Mom’s living in Florida now, and the two of us have a distant, polite relationship that mostly consists of five-minute phone calls, once a month or so. But Madison—well, we were always close, and we’ve become more so lately, ever since she came back to town in the wake of her messy divorce. I’m thrilled to be such a big part of her life, and the absolute last thing I want to do is get on her shit list.