Big Man For Christmas

“It’s nothing—”

“It’s very clearly not nothing, Carley. And it’s not the first time.” I hesitate. “You don’t have to share anything that you don’t want to…but you can trust me. I’m not like everybody else in this tone. Anything you tell me is going to stay between us.”

She grins in spite of herself. “I never thought you would do that, I just…”

I lean down and kiss her quickly. She’s so relaxed when I touch her, I hope the reminder of where we are and what we’re doing will help her remember that she’s safe with me.

Carley huffs out a breath. “Okay. It’s just…it reminded me of a time a few years ago. I wanted a change in our apartment, so while Tyler was at work, I went out and bought some paint. Not anything crazy, just a newer, fresh color. And I rearranged the room. Added some more decorations. But when he came home,” she shudders, “I’d never seen him so furious. He couldn’t believe that I’d done it without asking him. So I switched it all back. Stayed up late moving furniture and returned all my new little things the next morning.”

I’m not prepared for the feeling that roars to life inside me. Protective and fierce, a base instinct that’s so strong I have to lock my entire body to keep from moving. There is something that I need to know, and I dread the answer. “Did he get too mad at you for it?”

In listening to her, I’ve leaned over her further, close to being on top of her. I can’t help it. I need to feel her underneath me and know that she’s safe as much as I need her to know that I will protect her from this man and these feelings that he made her have.

She’s drawing little patterns on my chest with her fingers, drawing them across the lines of my muscles. And she’s focusing entirely on them because she doesn’t want to look at me. “Are you asking if he hit me?”

“Yes.” My voice is dark.

Casey shakes her head, and I can suddenly breathe again. “No. Not at all. At least not physically.”

Reaching out, I cradle her face and tip her gaze back up to mine. “What does that mean?”

“It means that I’m just now realizing how much I dismissed without realizing it. That somehow I was…lulled into thinking that everything was fine and normal when it wasn’t.” The beginnings of tears form, and she blinks them away quickly. “I feel really stupid.”

Again that strike of fierce protection. I want her to be okay. I keep myself gentle for her, knowing that if I ever meet this Tyler in person I will have a hard time keeping my words—and my fists—to myself. “Will you tell me?”

“You’ll think I’m stupid too,” she says, “for staying with someone who, looking back, clearly didn’t like me that much.”

“Never,” I tell her. “I will never think you are stupid.” When she doesn’t look at me, I cover her body more firmly with mine. “What made you hesitate when we were taking our clothes off? Because you have nothing to be shy about.”

Carley’s body is everything I had dreamed about and more. Lush curves that feel good against me. Responsive to every touch. Even now, having had her twice, having her underneath me is making me hard again. This woman will be my undoing in the best way.

“I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been naked in front of anyone,” she says quietly. “Sex was always…quick. After he came to bed. With whatever I was wearing. And what you did—” Her face flushes a shade of pink that I would devour if I could.

“You mean eating your pussy?” She flushes redder. “You can say it.”

Carley doesn’t. “That almost never happened.”

“That’s a shame,” I tell her. “You’re delicious. It was his loss.”

I love how embarrassed it makes her, but if she needs me to prove it again and again, I will. But there’s more that I want answers to.

“What happened to make you leave?”

She swallows. “You know I moved to Chicago just for him? Because he got the offer at the law firm after school. I wanted to support him, and I thought we were happy. He proposed and I said yes. And then three days before our flight here, I found out that he’d been cheating on me for our entire engagement.”

I freeze, anger so intense that I want to scream, but I don’t want to do anything that will make her stop speaking. “With the same woman that he always complained about at work. I was just there, making his life perfect because he worked so hard. It didn’t matter what I wanted or if I had ambition. It was just about him, and he doesn’t even think that what he did is wrong.”