In a Holidaze

I lean over and kiss his neck. “Let that dish dry in the rack, I’m going to put away the spices and stuff.”

I grab the jars of oregano, parsley, and some mix called Pasta Sprinkle and tuck a few unused cans of tomatoes under my arms, ducking into the walk-in pantry. Behind me, the water shuts off, and I turn just as Andrew comes in after me, wiping his hands on a dish towel.

“What are you doing?”

“Being sneaky.” When he closes the door behind him, his smile is swallowed by the shadows and still somehow the brightest thing in this small space.

“Do the Hollis men have some sort of closet fetish I should know about?”

“Isn’t this what the holidays are all about?” he asks. “Kisses under the mistletoe? Making out in a pantry?”

“Nosy relatives.”

His mouth is only inches away when he laughs and slides his lips over mine. Like a dry-erase board swept with a cloth, I am wiped free of any other thought. There’s just the feel of his kiss and his arms coming around my waist, my own hands sliding up his chest and around his neck.

I want to ask him, the words are at the tip of my tongue—Does this kiss feel like the best kiss ever?—because to me it does. And it isn’t just because it’s Andrew, it feels clearly like the perfect kind of melting together; his mouth just seems to fit against mine. We kiss the same.

He moves from my mouth to my jaw, and lower, pressing these perfect sucking kisses to the sensitive skin just over my pulse, moaning against me. The sound puts me in a rocket ship and launches me to Jupiter. In a flash, I imagine the sight of his head between my legs.

The idea of watching him do that makes me both shy and ravenous; my libido has turned into a fanged monster. Andrew doesn’t seem fazed in the slightest by how I pull him closer and kiss him deeper, by my sounds and the intensity of my grip. Here in the dark pantry, I can pretend we’re alone, that there aren’t eleven other people in this house. I send my hands up under his shirt, seeking the soft, warm skin there, skating over his ribs with my fingertips.

“You feeling me up?”

He’s teasing, but the way his words have gone all raspy tells me he approves. “Yes. You’re yummy under here.”

“My turn.” His fingers play with the hem of my T-shirt and then his hand is on my stomach, my ribs, and his kisses don’t slow or lessen. I want to eat this sensation, to swallow it down and gorge myself on it.

“Do you think everyone would freak out if they knew what was happening in here?” he asks.

“Not everyone,” I say, “but certainly some of the more influential ones . . .”

His thumb sweeps under my bra, back and forth. “I think they’d be happy for us.”

The thought of this existing out there for everyone to see makes it both wonderfully and terribly real. Keeping it a secret from our families feels like keeping it a secret in general, and I can pretend that the universe isn’t watching, either. Yes, I’m happy, and I find myself believing that is the goal here, but what I don’t know is why, or how to hold on to it. Nobody can be happy all the time. What happens when I’m not?

His thumb slides beneath the underwire, pushing the fabric up over the curve of my breast. “This okay?”

I don’t care how desperate I sound when I tell him yes. I want his entire body touching me right there, each electron of his energy focusing on my skin.

His palm comes over my breast beneath my shirt, and we both let out these ridiculous moans in unison into each other’s mouth, and then pull away, bending in silent laughter. We are the same kind of idiot.

With an unfocused glaze in his eyes, he feels the shape of me, teasing, gently pinching.

“You’re perfect,” he tells me. “You’re so soft.”

I send a thousand thank-yous to the sky because, pressed against me, Andrew feels anything but soft.

This is the best kiss, my brain screams again when he puts his mouth over mine again, sweetly distracted by his hand.

A harsh white light lances across my field of vision and instinct whips us both away so that we’re facing the shelves. Andrew’s front is pressed all along my back, and my heart launches itself into my windpipe.

Holy crap, we need to find another place to make out; closets are not working well for us.

“Uh, up there!” I shout to cover, praying Benny was the one who opened the pantry door.

“Why was the door closed? Why are you in here?”

Oh God. My brother.

I grapple to pull my bra back down. “I was grabbing, um—”