Mr. Hot Grinch (Alphalicious Billionaires Boss 3)

This.

This was.

This was…wow! I’m not sure I’m ever going to be able to put words together into a complete and coherent sentence again.

Especially not when Luke swings me to the side and wraps his arms around me. His chest is wet and slick, but that’s okay. I think my back might be as well. He’s overly warm, but that’s also okay because I’m on fire too. His breath is all over the place, while my lungs refuse to cooperate with my brain’s signals.

Is this the right time to confess I’m not a cuddler? Yes, yes, of course it is because I can also acknowledge that right here and now, I’ve changed my mind about that.

I imagined myself picking up my clothes, slipping into them, and leaving Luke’s room just as silently after, but I never imagined doing this—our bodies pressed together like this. Heavy limbs, hot skin, rapid breaths, happiness, and pure contentment. Feelings are dangerous, but I can’t make myself get up and leave. I promised myself I’d be gone by what? Two in the morning? Three? I know I’m a liar because I’m going to push this to the very last minute possible, and not just because I want to do what we just did. Again, and again, and maybe again. Also, it’s not just because I want to start running through items on the mental list of all the ways I’d love to learn and experience Luke’s body and how I’d like his body to learn and experience mine. Yes, because of that, but also because of this.

As if he understands what I’m saying and feeling without a single word passing between us, Luke’s arms tighten around me just a little bit more.CHAPTER 20LukeThere’s an aching hole in me, and it’s like a bottomless pit—a black cavern. One of those scary, mystical holes that people are both fascinated by while instinctively shying away from, except it’s not fascinating. It’s just painful. It’s awful and terrible. I never imagined it would even start to close up, and I almost can’t remember a time when I didn’t know it was there.

But now?

Now there’s something starting—a change taking place.

I thought it would be big and gaping and empty forever.

But now, it’s like a little bit of goo, something mushy, or a sort of plug has started to form over a fraction of the hole, and it doesn’t seem so big and gaping and endlessly empty anymore.

Now, it doesn’t seem so bottomless.

That’s it—just that.CHAPTER 21FeeneyI don’t mean for it to happen every single night, but of course, it does. The nights become ours, where our bodies grow familiar with each other, and touch comes to me like second nature. Luke is patient, and he’s always gentle. I’m always silent, whispering his name at the very end, just for him, into the darkness of the room. I’d call them stolen hours, but they don’t feel stolen. They were a conscious decision. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything wrong or that all I live for are those hours either. I don’t let it become all of me. I’m still me, and Luke is still Luke. We’re still two separate people. Even if we are changing on the insides—our hearts softening, the sensation of comfort greater, and a new sense of ease and weightlessness in our steps—we’re virtually unchanged on the outside.

I don’t have many bad habits, so if this is one, then I guess I can afford it.

I’m not going to New Year’s Resolution my way out of it.

At midnight every night, I tiptoe into Luke’s room, close the door, lock it, climb into his bed, and let him hold me. He also lets me hold him, and for a few hours each night, we banish each other’s loneliness. Maybe we share more than that and like each other a little, even if we don’t talk about it. We had our big talk about feelings and where we stood before we started this, so we’re both carefully avoiding having another.

After, when the yearning, aching, searching, sweating, whispering, soaring, crashing, and coming down is over, and we’re both sated, I sleep, wrapped in Luke’s arms and entangled in sheets and heavy, warm limbs until four in the morning. I said three, but that was an ungodly hour, so four it is. His phone alarm vibrates on the nightstand next to my face, always silent, but it wakes me up immediately. Most of the time, Luke doesn’t even wake up. I always shut the alarm off, reset his for six, and slip out of bed. My room is waiting for me every time, dark and quiet. The sheets are usually cold when I slip in between them, and sometimes, I’m able to fall back asleep while other times, I just lay there with my thoughts, missing Luke until I hear him get up for the day.