He shut the door behind us quietly when we got inside. The apartment was mostly dark, with one small light on in the living room, its glow filtering in toward the hallway where we stood.
I could feel my heart beating in my ears, the hinges of my jaw, my sternum. For some reason, I was hard as hell ever since we’d walked into the house, but my mind was so preoccupied with not knowing what the hell to do to pay attention to my cock right now.
Brody turned to look at me, pausing for a beat like he didn’t know what he was doing, either. He pulled off the big, silly multicolored poncho, tossing it onto the small table by the front door.
“Just us, now,” he said, his voice deep and low.
“Just us,” I repeated, my voice coming out a whisper even though I hadn’t planned it to.
He reached out to grab my hand, gently pulling me toward him. And then in an instant, he gripped the sides of my body, pressing up against me and kissing me hard. He dragged me down the hall, using his back to push open the door of his room. He didn’t even bother turning on the lights as he dragged me onto the bed, sitting back as I tumbled on top of him.
He let out something between a hum and a possessive growl as we collapsed onto his bed, still gripping me so tight.
I pulled away, taking a deep breath, trying to ground myself in some sort of reality even though I was swimming in desire, floating somewhere halfway between reality and dreams.
Fuck.
It had been magical outside in the snow with him, but it sure as hell wasn’t diminished now that we were in his room together. This time, I knew we had privacy. And it was clear he knew it, too. Nobody was going to walk by. Nothing was around to stop us. His room was a little chilly, his two paned windows were lightly fogged, but near the top, I could just make out the glistening snowflakes falling under the glow of the street lamps outside.
He ran his palm over the small of my back over and over again, a steady, comforting rhythm.
“Why do I like you so much?” Brody asked in a raspy whisper.
The ache behind my sternum deepened. I looked down into his eyes. I was still straddling him, lost somewhere in space.
The usual loop of thoughts was going wild deep in my brain, but I tried so hard to ignore them.
Sometimes people just say things.
It doesn’t have to mean the whole world.
He’s just being nice.
But even if he was just being nice, he was being really, really fucking nice. In a way that he definitely didn’t need to be.
“I have no clue,” I said, puffing out a small, nervous laugh. I let myself reach down, smoothing his hair with my palm. It was so thick and soft, and I let my fingers trail through it, the repetitive motion comforting as my brain and my heart and my dick were all yearning for him so deeply I didn’t even know what to do with myself.
“You make me break all of my rules,” Brody said, pulling me lower to press his lips to mine again, this time with chaste, sweet kisses.
“I’m not usually such a bad influence, I promise,” I said between his kisses, sighing as he moved lower. In another moment he turned my body over, pushing me onto the bed beside him as he leaned over the top of me.
He pulled in a long breath, watching me like he couldn’t quite figure me out.
“Here,” he said, standing up and grabbing onto one of my shoes, pulling it off and dropping it onto the floor with a little thud. He pulled off the other and then kicked off his own shoes. He went for my pants next, undoing the button and slowly sliding them off, then giving me another dozen little kisses, all over my thighs. It was a gesture that was at once so sexual and so comforting. I’d never felt so cared for and so turned on at the same time.
“That feels nice,” I said, pulling in a shudder of a breath.
“I want you to be comfy,” he said softly. “Oh! Look at this.”
He went off to the corner of the room, pulling something out of a box. I watched as he put a tiny, fake Christmas tree on his desk, reaching down to plug it in. Tiny little lights started to glow, and he turned back to me, beaming.
“Brody, that is fucking adorable,” I said, propping myself up on my elbows.
“I got it yesterday. I wanted to be in the holiday spirit.”
“It’s not even Thanksgiving ‘til next week,” I said.
He shook his head. “I don’t even care. I love the holidays, and I want to celebrate them as long as I can.”