All I Want for Christmas Is You (Short Story) (2 page)

Denise took another step into the room and Maddy didn’t know if it was because she was scared to let go of the doorframe or because Maddy’s smile had turned into a stern “don’t come any closer” frown, but Denise stopped just inside the doorway, and leaned back sideways against Lindros.

“Merry Christmas, Maddy.”

“You too, Denise.”

“You look so nice.”

“Thanks. We’re … having dinner at my parents’ house.” She ran a hand down the side of her purple dress. It was a little bigger than it had been a month ago, when she bought it; she’d lost weight recently. Stress. Fingernails didn’t have a lot of calories in them.

“Right. To tell them about getting married. Billy told me.”

That surprised Maddy. Billy didn’t tell Denise much these days. She couldn’t keep her mouth shut to save her life. Would sell a person’s secrets for a beer or a joint.

She leaned in conspiratorially, but nearly fell over. Maddy lifted a hand to catch her, just as Denise braced herself, hand splayed across Lindros’s mouth. “Billy’s nervous,” Denise said.

“I know,” she smiled, even though she wanted to get back to work on that thumbnail.

“You’re going to be fine,” Denise said. “The two of you … you’re like meant to be. You always were.”

Maddy knew it was stupid to take Denise’s words as some kind of omen, and she wasn’t … really. But there weren’t all that many people in the world who thought she and Billy stood a chance in hell at making it. She shouldn’t feel grateful to his younger sister for believing in them, because Denise would try to leverage it in some way.

But God, they just had so few people on their side.

She saw the bathroom door open, steam billowing into the hallway, and there was Billy, like a male Venus ushered in on the waves.

“Oh my God, oh my God, it’s freezing!” Denise flattened herself against the wall so he could hop past her into the room. The floor was no doubt icy under his bare feet.

His body was chiseled by hockey, and his muscles were damp and gleaming in the low light from the hallway behind him. Right now he was steaming in the cold. He had a green towel around his waist and Maddy, despite everything sexual they’d done together, all the ways they knew each other’s bodies, blushed, unable to look at him with Denise in the room.

Billy never seemed to care about modesty; he’d walk around naked if he could. He was so comfortable in his own skin that she couldn’t help but get uncomfortable in hers. His perfection only made her more aware of her faults. Her imperfect hips and thighs, which were the parts of her body that he claimed to love the most.

His nudity felt like an act sometimes. As physical as a kiss, a hand against her breast. And she turned away from the intimacy, feeling young, painfully aware that she was two days shy of eighteen.

He grabbed the blanket from his bed and wrapped it around his shoulders before leaning in to kiss Maddy’s cheek.

“Hey, babe,” he said.

“Hey.” She breathed him in. Took deep bites of his soapy clean scent. She pressed her lips against his freshly-shaven cheek, right where his scar ended, just past the curl of raised, puckered scar tissue, where the skin felt like silk and velvet and everything soft and lovely.

“Did the heat get turned off?” she asked, rubbing her hands over his bare skin under the blanket.

“I called and paid the bill, but they can’t come and turn it back on until after Christmas.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I bought some space heaters. We should be fine.” He pointed to the corner of his room where the space heater sat; she could feel the heat against the back of her legs.

This was just how it went at the Wilkins’s house. No heat for the holidays. Merry Christmas.

“Well, my house is warm. Mom’s been cooking for days and we’re running late.”

“Right. Late.” He kissed her again. “Sorry, Denise, I need to get dressed,” he said, and crowded his sister out into the hallway.

“Oh, sorry,” Denise whispered, shuffling sideways out the door. “Hey, Billy … do you … do you have any money?”

“Yeah,” he whispered back. “Check my coat pocket downstairs.”

“Thanks.” Denise’s eyes lit up as much as they ever did anymore, and she hurried from the room, pulling the door shut behind her. When Billy turned back around he caught sight of Maddy’s scowl. “Babe, it’s twenty bucks.”

“Twenty bucks she’ll spend on drugs.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Not give her money.”

Billy shrugged, but she could see right through him, like she always did, like she always had, and the sad truth was that Billy was lost with his sisters

Their parents in the years since the accident had become non-issues. His father never stepped foot back in the house and Billy’s mother had lost any sort of usefulness years ago. She was a shell, full of booze and regrets, unable to look at Billy without bursting into tears. Which left Billy caught, with no idea how to help Janice and no idea how to say no to Denise. Not when he’d just been given the key to his NHL dream. His salary, even in the minors, was more money than he’d ever had. And it just wasn’t in Billy’s nature not to share.

And this really was not the time to get into it. Billy didn’t know how to be sad, or confused or even worried—it all got filtered down into anger. And she didn’t need an angry Billy on her hands tonight.

“It’s okay, babe.” She slipped her hand over his cheek, across the scar to the strong tendons of his neck. He kissed her hand, his eyes closed.

He’s nervous
, she thought, shifting closer to hug him. He lifted the blanket up over her shoulders, cocooning them both inside.

But the second they stood chest to chest, hip to hip, comfort was overtaken by something darker. Something delicious and familiar. The knot of his towel pressed against her belly, where everything started to curl and sizzle.

Oh, this. This. They had no time for this.

He kissed her lip, right at the corner. Another kiss landed just under her ear, her nose, all while backing her up until the top of her thighs hit his desk.

They were already late.

“I brought you a shirt.”

“A shirt?” His hands slipped from her waist to the top of her butt and then down until he was cupping her hips in his hands, squeezing her in his palms. Rough, he was rough, and that sizzle under her skin spread all over her body. Her hands and feet tingled, pleasure a ripple through her entire body.

The blanket fell off of them.

“Billy,” she sighed. “We really need to go.”

His fingers were just under the hem of her dress, cupping the backs of her thighs until she felt his fingertips against the lace edge of her underwear. Her body clenched inside: hot and ready.

“We do need to go,” he agreed, his finger teasing his way closer to her core, to where she ached for him. “You’re nervous, aren’t you?” he asked, while she tried not to bend her knees and shift her hips, bringing him in full contact. “Baby?”

“Yes.” She tilted her head back, letting him kiss her neck. “I’m nervous.”

“You know what’s good for when you’re nervous?”

She laughed and put her hand on the towel, sliding past the knot to the length of his erection. “Let me guess,” she said.

He arched into her, pressing her hand between them, and the laughter died in her throat. Her hand squeezed him and his fingers slipped under the edge of her underwear, carefully following the furrow between her legs.

“I need this.” His finger slid inside of her. She gasped, standing on her tiptoes, excited by the invasion. “I need you.”

She blinked open her eyes, meeting his chocolate brown gaze. It wasn’t just dirty talk, what he was saying. He was nervous and he needed her. He needed something
physical to take off the edge. And Billy with an edge was unpredictable and he knew that and wanted the night to go as well as she did.

Oh babe
, she thought, as in love with him as ever.

So she threw off her heavy coat and hitched herself up onto the battered top of the desk, her legs spread so he could see the black panties she wore under her purple dress.

“Take off the towel,” she murmured, leaning back, so her breasts stood out.

The green towel fell off his body onto a heap at his feet, revealing his erection.

“Lift your dress,” he whispered, and slowly, looking at him through lowered eyelashes, she hitched her dress higher up her thighs.

“Touch yourself.”

“Billy—”

“I want to watch you.”

She slid a finger over her underwear, across the dampening silk. And then back again to the top of her slit, where it felt the best.

“You, too,” she murmured, watching the length of his erection grow. “Touch yourself.” Immediately he palmed himself, his fist sliding slowly up and down. She timed the movement of her finger with the movement of his hand.

“I love you,” he said, his voice bursting out of him, rough and gravelly and hot, like the words were things he couldn’t control. “Whatever happens tonight.”

Her finger stopped and her heart caught up with her body. She launched herself off the desk and into his arms, feeling the strength and warmth of him right down to her soul.

His arms across her back were steel bands, holding her tight to him. She couldn’t imagine what would convince him to let her go. What could possibly turn his heart
against her. It would take a force of nature. Her parents not accepting their marriage wouldn’t even put a dent in what he felt for her.

Can you say the same?

She let his faith wash away everything she was scared about—her doubts about their youth, about how she would get lost in the tidal wave of his career taking off. She let it all go. And then it was just them.

Their kiss was endless. Perfect. He walked her back to the bed, laying her down gently, his hands pushing her hair from her face, as if he couldn’t see enough of her. She touched his back, his arms, and the muscles under his skin that flexed and danced, because she couldn’t touch enough of him.

Her hips arched against his, her pubic bone pressing against his erection, and he groaned, breaking the kiss, burying his face in her neck. She felt his lips there, his teeth and tongue, and pulled away.

“Don’t you dare give me a hickey.”

He braced himself against the bed, leaning back to look at her. “You think I’m crazy?”

“I think you love giving me hickeys.”

His half smile, diabolical with that scar, was so sweet in her eyes. So exciting and comforting and all things Billy. “I do, don’t I?”

Her fingers traced his features, his eyebrows and cheekbones. The delicate flutter of his thick eyelashes, the only thing delicate about him. His lips and chin, the smooth skin of his cheek.

“I love you,” she said.

He slipped his hands under her dress, pulling down her silk panties, and then he was there between her legs, hard and heavy, his hand gripping his erection, directing it
into the heat and wet of her. Slowly, he eased in, making her gasp, her eyes sting. He was big, and she was ready, but sometimes it didn’t matter. Sometimes the beauty of his body in hers made her want to cry for them. Cry because they got to have this.

“You okay?” he asked, his thumbs gathering the moisture in the corner of her eyes.

“So good, Billy,” she sighed and pressed against him, taking more of him, taking all of him.

Their eyes locked as he slowly pushed into her and slowly retreated. Time stopped. The dinner, the heavy weight of their expectations about this night, it all vanished.

She braced her heels against the mattress, getting as much leverage as she could against his much bigger body. He curled his hands around the railings of his old headboard as he pushed into her.

It was hard, biting back the sounds, the screams that wanted to tear out of her throat, but she managed to tip her head back silently, breathing through the pleasure as he slowly thrust into her and then away. Slow but hard.

“More,” she gasped.

He dropped his forehead against hers, and picked up the pace. The speed and intensity. All things exciting. The delicious slow curl was abandoned for something harder and she wrapped her hands around Billy’s neck and held on, while he drove them back across the bed.

“Come on,” he breathed and she knew he was close, and she was in danger of being left behind, so she reached down, slipping a hand between their bodies and eased one finger to the bundle of nerves between her legs. He leaned back, watching her.

“Feel good?”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes and gave herself over to the building pleasure. Let it spin and coil in her and through her until she shook with it. Until she was lifted right out of herself, into the night. Across the universe.

Two more hard thrusts and he was with her, his teeth against her neck, groaning her name. His skin was damp under her fingertips. He hung over her for a moment, gathering himself, and she let her hands skate over his body. Petting him and comforting herself.

“Do I need another shower?” he asked, pushing himself away from her. He grabbed his towel from the floor and helped clean her up. She was on the pill and both of them loved not using condoms, but it was messy.

“No,” she said, wiping between her legs. “We don’t have time, Billy.”

“I’m glad we took the time for that.” He kissed her forehead, his whole body loose, his smile quick.

“Me, too,” she said, pulling him down for a quick hard kiss on the mouth. the scar a hard knot against her lips. “But get dressed.” She swatted his butt and he jumped away from her.

“We should have some kind of game plan, don’t you think?” she asked, broaching the subject for about the tenth time.

He sighed and stepped into his underwear. “Why?” he asked. “It’s not like we need them to do something. We’re just telling them what we’re doing.”

“I need them to be okay with us getting married, Billy.”

“Yeah, I know. But a game plan isn’t going to make that happen, babe. They’ll either be okay with it, or they won’t.”

“I want you to talk to my dad,” she said, finally putting it out there.

“What do you mean talk to him?” He pulled on a pair of khaki pants and turned to her while fastening them.