The Stocking Was Hung (10 page)

I want to curse at Sam as he stands a few feet away, browsing through a stack of sweaters on a display table at Macy’s, but it’s not his fault I feel like I should be at a Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting. After the stellar blow job—if I do say so myself—I gave him in Santa’s Workshop, we argued up in my bedroom for twenty minutes about him sleeping on the floor again. He wanted to return the orgasm favor and I didn’t want him to feel obligated to do so. I didn’t suck his dick to pay him back for saying all those nice things to me. Okay, so maybe that was why I dragged him out there to begin with, but once I unzipped his pants and saw that glorious package inside, I really,
really
wanted to put my mouth on it. Forget the nickname Sox, he shall now be referred to as Hung, forevermore. I felt like it would just be safer all around if he slept on the floor again instead of being a hot-and-sexy-tempting-body-of-gorgeous man spooning me in my twin bed. I’d never be able to resist having sex with him if he was in next to me in bed.

I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. One minute I’m sad about the thought of him leaving after Christmas, the next I only want him for sex and then in the blink of an eye, I’m back to wanting to keep him forever. For the sex.

Okay fine, for him too. He’s just so…perfect. My brain is fried from getting so worked up every time I look at him without a release to cool my jets. Once again though, all my fault. He was more than willing to diddle the doodlebug last night and I turned him down. Told him I was fine and it was just for him, that I expected nothing in return, blah, blah, blah, I suck.

“What do you think about this one? Does your Aunt Bobbie like blue?” Sam asks, holding up a light blue sweater with little sparkling crystals adorning the plunging neckline.

“Sam, I told you already, you don’t have to buy my family any gifts,” I insist for the tenth time since we got to the mall.

Today is family shopping day. We always come out to Great Northern Mall two days before Christmas to do our last minute shopping, spreading out from one end of the mall to the other, and then meeting back together for lunch in the food court. Thank God I already bought most of my presents before I lost my job and brought them with me. The meager savings account I have needs to last me long enough to find another job and get my first paycheck. And it needs to go toward first and last month’s rent on a new place when I get back to Seattle.

Dammit, even the thought of going back to Seattle depresses me. I love Seattle, I love the friends I’ve made in Seattle, and there is no justified reason why the thought of going back there should make me said.

“They let me into their home and keep me fed. Of course I’m going to buy them presents,” Sam informs me, tucking the blue sweater under his arm and moving to the next table that, coincidentally, has a display of
A Christmas Story
-themed items.

Yep, there it is. The number one reason why going back to Seattle makes me feel like an emo teenager.

Sam picks up a stocking cap with Ralphie’s face on it and the words “You’ll shoot your eye out!” Sam laughs, tucking that under his arm with the sweater.

“Yep, Nicholas is getting this. Wow, they also have matching socks! Oh, my God, look at this! A real Red Ryder BB gun!” he exclaims excitedly.

Watching him go from item to item, shoving more and more things under his arms for my family, makes me want to sit down on the floor in the middle of the store and bawl like a baby. When Logan found out I was bringing him home to meet my family for Christmas, he asked me how much was appropriate to spend on Visa gift cards for each of them. I just smiled and told him whatever he wanted would be good enough, when what I really should have done was tell him that gift cards are total bullshit gifts. Get to know someone, learn about what they like and what their interests are, and then tailor a gift that will be special to them. Sam has never had a family, never had anyone in his life he cared about enough to celebrate Christmas, and he already knows the proper way to shop for the holidays – with thoughtful, meaningful gifts, not a small piece of plastic that says “I don’t really know you or give a shit to know you. Here’s some cash, have fun with that.”

Sam hustles over to yet another display, this one filled with gift boxes of different Christmas sausages, jams, crackers and cheeses, immediately picking up a box with a red bow on it and turning it to face me, laughing so hard he chokes.

“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?