But he never came back. Not on Christmas Eve. Not on Christmas, either. Not for New Year’s. And not for twenty years after that, and still counting.
Ma always thought he was in some kind of bad business with the meat industry. There were also rumors and speculation on the block that he was involved with the mob or selling drugs. Carly and I knew that he had been taken for a reason, though, probably one that we would never know and maybe one that even he hadn’t known about.
Ma never wept in front of us. She always had her head on straight. And she handled herself well enough day to day.
Every year, though, she would remind herself of the sweet little things. Like hanging the homemade stockings by the fire. Telling us a story from her early years while we slept cuddled around the fire. She made sure to keep special traditions and act as if everything was fine, long after it had all fallen apart.
Family values still flow through my veins. I never found my dad, despite looking a lot and talking to everyone I could. One reason I got into such a lucrative business was to try to pay people to find him or to talk, but that never worked.
So, I shifted my focus to philanthropy and trying to make other people happy. All the money in the world can’t make up for what I lost. But some of it can make someone smile a little brighter.
It was a little past midnight when it hit me: this was my first Christmas not spent with Ma or Carly, but instead spent with someone I actually wanted to introduce to them.
I ordered the clothes once she fell asleep, hoping I wasn’t too far off on her sizes that I guessed, and the drones were fast. In an hour they had everything noiselessly delivered at my doorstep. And so, I had taken the box up, knelt and placed it at her doorstep, when I heard her moaning my name.
I knew then that it was no mirage.
I was not dreaming.
It was happening.
Nellie wants me just as much as I want her, and she is going to be my Christmas gift.
Chapter Seven
Nellie
"Something smells really good in here."
Denue spins around, snaps his fingers and licks the dripping sauce off the wooden spoon. Then he smacks his tongue in delight, and waltzes towards me, swinging his hips and swaying his shoulders. He stops a few feet from me, grinning his cheeks off.
"You look stunning in that," he says breathlessly.
"Thank you. I was wondering how you got my exact measurements?"
There’s a twinkle in his eyes, but he rolls them. I’m following their upward motion when I notice something. That twig of mistletoe was not on the doorjamb last night. I could swear it.
"I took a guess," he says. "And I wasn’t wrong, huh?"
"Not in the slightest. Thank you."
“You’re welcome. I’m glad I did— that looks stunning on you. You look incredible wearing it. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” I say, wanting to add a joke about how anything would look better than the beige robe I’d been forced to wear last night, but deciding against it because I don’t want to ruin the moment.
"A lot of things have changed since last night," he adds, taking one step closer to me.
I can smell his aftershave. It’s woodsy and minty.
“Oh yeah?”
"A lot," he emphasizes.
"Whatever could you possibly mean?" I ask with a whisper, tingling at the tender touch of his fingers on the small of my back.
His lips answer me back quietly, sweetly. Lost, and falling into his arms, I feel a shudder of air escape up the robe's slit and browses my upper thigh. I breathe him in and out, loving the taste of his tongue as it’s wrapped around mine.
He knows how to touch a woman, that much is for sure. He knows when. In the present moment, his passion lingers all over his movements, which include the squeezing of my naked ass underneath the robe.
The hunger growls through his thick lips, and his fingers graze all over my back, tenderly traipsing along the curve of my inner thigh, and tracing its way back to my neck, where he holds me close, like a trophy finally in his possession.
For weeks, our slightly naughty conversation has led to this massive payoff right here under the mistletoe, in the softest robe I have ever worn, under the touch I have wanted the most out of any in my life.
Sweat perforates my forehead. I feel as if I could faint, but I don’t know if it’s because the room is hot, or because we are. I pull away. He holds me in place, visibly sad that the fire between us is momentarily quelled, but the real one is still burning.
"Nellie, I need you.”