“I’d love nothing better than to come inside with you.”
She must have misheard him because she swore that he said to come inside her, but she shook her head to rid herself of those thoughts even though they sounded right up her alley.
As they walked up toward her porch neither spoke or noticed that the lights in her house and on her porch had been turned on. Deckard halted her immediately as they made their way up to the top step, begging her to give him the key to her house. She floundered as she tried to open her purse.
Somehow, Deckard effortlessly grabbed the key from her bag and unlocked the door, opening her to a kitchen and living room filled in all its Christmas glory. It was beautiful and classic and January could barely contain herself.
“Wow,” she murmured as she looked around. String lights lined her kitchen and living room, and the porch was covered in garland and more string lights.
“January.”
“When did you do this?”
“I didn’t. I was with you, remember?” A soft touch cupped her chin in hopes to pull her attention away from the decorations. Deckard added, “If people truly love something or someone, they never forget. It stays with them for their entire life. Maybe the reason your parents were so easy to accept the idea of Christmas is that they still felt their love for the holiday somewhere deep inside.
They did this while we were gone with Samantha’s help.”
Tears completely blanketed her eyes, threatening to spill over the corners. She hadn’t ever considered how much people loved the holiday, she only knew about the hate she had felt. Hate that seemed so silly in retrospect. Sharing all the things she remembered about Christmas, things that she had done with her family, made her realize that her hate had always been misplaced. It wasn’t hate that she felt toward Christmas, it was just timing and bad luck that seemed to follow her. And, well, her name. January knew there wasn’t much she could do about that without breaking her parents’ hearts.
Taking a deep breath, January let the smell of wintergreen and pine fill her lungs. A hint of cinnamon also lingered in the air and she knew that this was a smell she would always remember. Not just of the wintery cold season, but of Christmas. With her head tilted back and eyes closed, she took another inhale. Deckard’s hand had moved from her cheek to her neck and she loved the way his thumb drew lazy circles along her pulse point.
Slowly opening her eyes, she straightened herself and peered over Deckard’s shoulder, then giggled at what she found behind him. Not a sprig, but a bushel of mistletoe hung in the hallway about a foot away from where they were standing.
“I think my mom is trying to send us a message.”
Pointing toward the greenery, Deckard followed the extension of her arm and chuckled as he turned back toward her.
“Luckily, the reasoning to hang mistletoe hasn’t changed. Or I’m assuming it hasn’t.”
In the dim lights of the house, Deckard walked backward, pulling January with him, until they were situated just beneath the mistletoe. She waited for the kiss, thinking he would immediately pounce and kiss her senseless, but she should know by now that Deckard wasn’t like everyone else.
The knit hat she had been wearing was delicately lifted from her head and tossed aimlessly into the livi
ng room. Next, her scarf and coat followed the same path. The way Deckard carefully removed each item felt more intimate than any time she had laid with a lover. A sensual moan drifted between her lips when Deckard’s fingers dove into her hair and started combing through the waves pointing in all different directions from the static.
January was enjoying the sporadic massage so much that she closed her eyes and let herself focus on the feel of his hands. But then his hands stilled and her eyes opened automatically wondering what had stopped him. What she saw made her heart race.
He looked at her with complete awe and devotion. January didn’t know how to describe it, but he looked at her like she looked at her favorite pair of shoes. His eyes were soft and crinkled slightly around the edges and the corners of his mouth were just subtly tilted upward. Then January realized something, that was precisely how she was looking at Deckard. Maybe that was how she recognized his feelings; she felt the same.
Words weren’t spoken as he searched her eyes. One step forward brought their bodies against each other. January’s hands reached out on instinct and slipped inside his unzipped coat to rest on Deckard’s hips. She wanted to feel his lips aligned with hers more than she wanted her next breath.
Cotton wrinkled under her fingers as she clenched her hands at the moment his full lips brushed against her mouth. Deckard’s kiss was one of the most addictive things January had ever experienced. She couldn’t fight against the impulse to sink into him and to take everything he was willing to give. He used his hands to manipulate the direction of her head, tilting her in the way he desired, and she was happy to be his puppet.
Prying her hands free from the material of his shirt, January snaked her hands up his chest until they landed on his shoulders. Expertly she slid his coat from his body, regretting that he had to remove his hands from her hair to finish the removal.
The coat fell onto the floor with a plop and Deckard broke away from the kiss as if the spell had been broken. January wanted to pull him back to her; she yearned to feel his body pressed against her again.
Her lips tingled like tiny firecrackers popped on the skin, she instinctively pressed her fingers to them. She watched in rapt attention Deckard’s retreating back stalk toward her front door, flip the lock, and turn back around to stare at her.
Something shifted. The air changed and crackled between them as if a slow-burning fire was building in the space. But there was no fire, no wooden logs, no flickering flame – their chemistry is what had ignited.
A gleam in Deckard’s eyes sparkled as he took her in. One foot moved in front of the other and she felt her skin pebble under his gaze. He stalked toward her, his focus never moving away from her; Deckard was a hunter tracking his prey. For every stride he made forward, January took one back. His speed started to increase, as did hers, until they were both running through her house – the hunter giving her chase.
She darted down her hallway and thought she was safe as she crossed the threshold for her bedroom, but a strong arm gripped her around the waist and held her back. Before January could catch her breath, she found herself lifted in the air and then flying across the room landing with a plop on her bed.
The bed swallowed her as her body settled, but there wasn’t much time to crawl away because a heavy weight landed on top of her body.
Laughter exploded from deep in January’s chest and she noticed Deckard was enjoying himself just as much. But as quickly as their hunt had started their snickers died down. January stared up at the man that had captured her heart, his strong body towered over hers, his hips pressed against hers. January wanted nothing more than to keep their bodies aligned.